[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 101 (Thursday, July 10, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9231-S9234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ
Mr. DAYTON. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from Alaska
for making possible my opportunity to speak tonight on a trip to Iraq I
took last week with several of our colleagues as members of the Senate
Armed Services Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee, led by the
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, who is an
extraordinary leader of the committee. I do not know if his age is
classified or not, but at his age, the kind of
[[Page S9232]]
energy, the kind of determination, the kind of enthusiasm and
leadership he showed was just extraordinary. It was a privilege to be
on this adventure with him and Carl Levin, our ranking member, who
celebrated a birthday as we were traveling over there. The two of them
set a sterling example for the rest of us to follow.
Then we met with the real superstars who are in Iraq: the men and
women of our Armed Forces. I cannot say enough about the respect and
admiration I have for those mostly young men and women from all over
this country. They have performed superbly well. They have redefined
the words ``patriotism'' and ``courage'' for this Senator. I am truly
in awe of their skill and their performance under the greatest of
danger, and their resolve, which continues to this day.
They are proud of what they have accomplished, as they should be.
They achieved a tremendous military victory in 3 weeks' time, and now
they are doing their utmost to preserve that victory while these other
factors get resolved, and that is what I wish to address my remarks to
this evening.
Stalwart as they are, those men and women pretty much asked all of us
one question: ``When are we coming home?'' I did not have the answer.
The military command with whom we met in Iraq did not have the answer.
The Secretary of Defense yesterday did not have that answer. And that
uncertainty, as well as the demands that are placed upon them--the
risks, the dangers, and the pressures in this god-awful environment
with temperatures 115 degrees in the afternoon, sweltering heat, and
soldiers dressed in flack jackets, heavy helmets, patrolling, doing
what they must do, knowing they are now increasingly targets of Iraqi
resistance. It is a gruesome situation they are enduring on behalf of
our country and on behalf of the commitments they have undertaken. As I
say, they are performing them incredibly well.
When we met in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador Bremer and with the
commanding general of the U.S. forces, General Sanchez, we asked what
they thought was the course that had to be followed, and they both said
independently the same thing: The United States had to stay the course
in Iraq and keep its presence there until success was achieved.
We asked, What constitutes success? They each said three things.
First, that Saddam Hussein and his sons must be found and removed
permanently from Iraq.
Second, that law and order must be restored to that country.
And third, that a successor government, an Iraqi government,
hopefully a democratically reelected Iraqi government, will be able to
replace the U.S. civilian command and begin to run that country
successfully.
The first objective, the elimination of Saddam Hussein and his two
sons, should have been accomplished already. It must be accomplished
very soon, and I believe it will be accomplished very soon. It is
impossible to overstate the terror he strikes in the souls of the
people of Iraq. People literally quiver when his name is even
mentioned. They refuse to say anything about him. They do not even want
to mention his name or respond to questions about him.
The new local leaders we met with in Kirkuk talked softly, and when
his name came up, they talked so softly they were barely audible. It is
as if they wanted to recede into the woodwork and become invisible,
rather than be subjected to this man's cruelty and tyranny.
We heard stories about unspeakable cruelty orchestrated by him or his
two sons, such as the soccer games played in their Olympic stadium
where the members of the losing team would be taken below and tortured
and then executed for losing a soccer game. Or even if someone scored
the winning goal and it cost one of the son's his bet, that player
could be taken down below and tortured and executed. To think of living
one's life under those kinds of horrific circumstances at the whim of
this insane, cruel, and demonic man and his sons.
We visited a mass grave site where a couple thousand bodies have been
exhumed, the ones not identified and taken away by their Iraqi brothers
and sisters. There are thousands of those grave sites, we are told, all
over the country.
There is reason to believe that when those three men are permanently
gone, unmistakably gone, identified clearly by the Iraqi people as
bodies that are never again to rule Iraq, that more and more of the
citizenry will come forward and will be willing to take that crucial
first step toward allegiance with the United States but, more
importantly, allegiance with their own future, with their own
autonomous Iraq that they can create and run themselves.
After that first goal has been achieved, the other two, bringing law
and order to this country and installing a successor government that is
going to be viable over the months that will follow, is going to be
even more challenging. Right now, U.S. forces are seeking out and
training, putting into place some 60,000 to 70,000 police officers all
over Iraq.
This is a monumental undertaking of its own, to screen out the wrong
elements, those who were involved before in the Baath Party or secret
police, and put them now in charge of law and order all over that
country, law and order that is desperately needed because right now it
is the U.S. troops who are required to patrol to reconstruct the peace,
guarding public property which, we are told, if something has any value
at all and is not being guarded, it will be quickly stolen, looted.
While our troops are standing guard or patrolling, they are exposed
targets. Increasingly, they are the targets of murderers who are
seeking vengeance and trying to drive out our forces.
In fact, the day after we left Baghdad, a Minnesota soldier was
killed, PFC Edward Herrgott from Shakopee, MN. He was 20 years old. He
was killed, murdered really, by a sniper as he stood guarding the
Baghdad Museum. Some of that hostility is being orchestrated by forces,
some rumored to be by Saddam Hussein himself trying to retaliate
against the United States military for the victories that were
achieved, but some of it is also said to be caused by the lack of
improvements that have failed to be made in the basic services upon
which Iraqi citizens depend.
There is an article in yesterday's New York Times and I ask unanimous
consent that it be printed in the Record at the completion of my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. DAYTON. Let me read a couple of excerpts because this is really
the crux of where I think we have fallen behind in our effort and
where, until we do make up that effort and start showing some visible
success, our troops are going to have an increasingly difficult time
and increasingly become targets of hostility and reaction and where
they are going to be bound to that country longer than they would need
to be.
It describes the city of Abu Ghraib which is just west of Baghdad. It
says:
The constituents' woes came down to the essentials. They
had no power, and thus no clean water. Their local elected
leader was besieged with all of these requests for basic
necessities of life.
Mr. Dari could do nothing for the man who, lacking
electricity, stayed up all night fanning a sick child,
nothing for the 5-year-old child who was left legless by
unexploded ordnance that detonated, a sight that caused him
to weep. He could do nothing for the multitudes complaining
of cars, weapons or relatives taken by American forces, other
than give their names to the Americans. He could do nothing
for those lacking drinking water or waiting for food rations.
``What do you tell the people--have more patience?'' he
asked rhetorically. ``Till when?''
This local Iraqi leader went on to say:
``Conditions have never been worse,'' he said bluntly.
``We've never been through such a long bad period.''
The city has had only 1 to 3 hours of power a day in recent weeks.
Drinking water cannot be pumped without electricity so people have to
take their water from dirty canals. As I said before, when we were
there, the temperatures in the afternoon were 115 degrees. I was told a
couple of days before we arrived it had reached 130 degrees. If there
is no electricity for air conditioning and other cooling, there are
serious problems.
Crime, rare under the old government, is rampant. The leader said
that
[[Page S9233]]
when he first met with the Americans he told them that they did not
have much time to meet the expectations of the citizenry, and that he
believes time is almost up. Yet, as of the other day, neither he nor
the American colonel in charge of the troops there had ever had contact
with the American-led civilian administration ostensibly governing
Iraq, even though this man, Mr. Dari, oversees an area that is home to
900,000 people.
It is an impossible situation for our service men and women to be
trying to uphold civil order in a foreign country with virtually no
interpreters available to communicate with citizens, when they are in
that state of frustration and agitation.
We met yesterday with the Secretary of Defense in the Armed Services
Committee, who pointed to progress that has been made in this respect.
I am sure that there has been progress in certain areas, but there is
not enough progress being made in these nonmilitary efforts. They are
not occurring in enough places in the country to take hold among the
citizenry. And where they are occurring, at least from what we saw on
our trip, it is the U.S. and British troops who are performing these
nonmilitary services.
For example, in Kirkuk, which is north of Baghdad, U.S. forces
conduct raids at night against what are believed to be enemy cells of
resistance, and then by day they are hauling away thousands of tons of
accumulated garbage, old garbage, and repairing rundown schools. The
British troops with whom we met in Basra, in southern Iraq, are
rebuilding a hospital. They are doing wonderful work, but that is not
what they are there to do.
To ask them to be engaged in military activities, policing the
streets of these cities, doing repair work or hauling away old
accumulated garbage in their spare time, which they have done, is just
really senseless. It is overburdening them. It is unfair to them, and
it means that not enough of these nonmilitary projects, economic
rehabilitation, social rehabilitation programs, are underway or visible
anywhere in Iraq for the citizens of that country to see that they have
hope for a better future.
They expect the United States of America, which they view as
omnipotent because we came in and swept their military aside and
occupied those cities and the country, to deliver services as basic as
electricity or running water, and when we cannot do so and when the
conditions are markedly worse than they were under Saddam Hussein, we
have a very serious problem with the reception there. Our troops, our
young men and women, are literally going to pay for these failures with
their lives.
I was recently told about a story of a company in Ohio that makes
hospital surgical beds. They were willing to send as many of these
surgical tables over to Iraq as could be used--such as for the 5-year-
old legless boy who needed surgery--to save lives and be recognized as
having come over from the United States of America to help dress the
wounds, literally and figuratively, that exist there. The company is
still waiting to hear back from the Deputy Secretary of Defense's
office regarding that offer to donate and transport, at their expense,
these hospital facilities.
If the United States can bring in, as we have because we must, tent
cities with electric generators, with sewage disposal systems, with
portable toilets, why can't electric generators be brought in that will
produce some of the electricity that these cities need so that they can
again appreciate the benefits of what we have brought to them, not only
the liberation of spirit and soul and body, but also the ability to
function as they must and move forward as they must?
I urge the administration that the same efforts be made, with the
same intensity of effort, the same--not quite the same funding but
considerable effort be made--to bring about this renovation.
Ultimately, that reconstruction is going to take decades. It is the
responsibility of the Iraqi people to undertake it and to pay for it,
but in the short run, in the immediate sense, those projects are not
going to occur unless the United States is the initiator, provides the
leadership, and provides the initial financial resources. If we do not
see a plethora of those kinds of improvements overall, if we do not see
children who are outside playing with soccer balls donated by American
children who sent them over there, we do not establish that basic
connection, then we are going to be there far longer than we should be
and longer than anybody over there now wants us to be. We are going to
suffer casualties far greater than we should.
So I implore the President and the administration to undertake this
effort with the same magnitude of skill and American know-how that
succeeded so wonderfully militarily so we can bring our folks home.
I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
[From the New York Times, July 9, 2003]
For a Town Council in Iraq, Many Queries, Few Answers
(By Amy Waldman)
Abu Ghraib, Iraq, July 5.--On a recent morning, the Abu
Ghraib town council was hearing the usual litany of
complaints, offering its usual mix of help and, mostly,
impotence in return. Overhead, a fan turned, but the air did
not.
The constituents' woes came down to the essentials. They
had no power, and thus no clean water--could they get
generators? They had no security--could they get weapons
permits?
If anyone could help them, it should have been the man at
the center of the scene, Dari Hamas al-Dari. In April, he was
selected by the local tribes to lead Iraq's first freely
formed town council after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Since
then, he has sat at a desk in a white robe and headdress, in
a room lined with men in tribal robes and Western dress all
looking to him for answers. He has not had many.
Mr. Dari could do nothing for the man who, lacking
electricity, stayed up all night fanning a sick child,
nothing for the 5-year-old child who was left legless by
unexploded ordnance that detonated, a sight that caused him
to weep. He could do nothing for the multitudes complaining
of cars, weapons or relatives taken by American forces, other
than give their names to the Americans. He could do nothing
for those lacking drinking water or waiting for food rations.
``What do you tell the people--have more patience?'' he
asked rhetorically. ``Till when?''
If America has natural allies in Iraq, they are men like
Mr. Dari. He attended the American Jesuit school in Baghdad,
then university in Frankfurt. He has lived in Europe and
speaks excellent English. He maintained his independence
throughout Mr. Hussein's rule, shunning the material
blandishments with which Mr. Hussein bought the loyalty of
many tribal sheiks.
A part-time farmer and businessman, he is a member of the
sizable Zobaa tribe, which his brother leads. He welcomed the
Americans and has worked closely with their military
commanders in his area.
So the impatience creeping into his voice and the
frustration lining his handsome face bode poorly for the fate
of the American-led occupation here--even if American
officials succeed in drawing Iraqis into a new national
leadership. There is no indication that Mr. Dari, who is 64,
would turn on the Americans. He is simply losing faith in
them.
``Conditions have never been worse,'' he said bluntly.
``We've never been through such a long bad period.''
Abu Ghraib--a largely agricultural area just west of
Baghdad that is also home to Iraq's most notorious prison--
has had only one to three hours of power a day in recent
weeks. Drinking water cannot be pumped without electricity,
so people take water from dirty canals.
The food ration system that functioned smoothly under
Saddam Hussein is breaking down, out here at least. Trucks
leave Baghdad laden with food, but it mysteriously gets
offloaded at markets along the way.
Crime, rare under the old government, is rampant. Mr.
Dari's car was taken from him at gunpoint in Baghdad
recently. Four of his council members have been the victims
of carjacking attempts. And while the criminals are well-
armed, the Americans are disarming the victims, taking
weapons while the weapons licenses they insist on are in
short supply.
``People here feel naked without their pistols,'' Mr. Dari
said, putting his own in a holster.
In a time of rising discontent, Mr. Dari is the buffer
between occupier and occupied. It is a role that,
historically, has earned little appreciation. Recent attacks
on Iraqis cooperating with the Americans suggest that this
chapter will be no different.
``We are stuck between the Americans and our people,'' Mr.
Dari said of the council, which sits, for no salary, from 8
a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. ``And there were so many promises from
one side.''
Some people are calling the council members ``America
lovers'' and traitors, he said, because they are working with
the Americans.
``He's caught in the middle,'' one of his American
partners, Lt. Col. Jeff Ingram of the First Armored Division,
acknowledged. ``He defends us a lot.''
These days, Mr. Dari is warning the American more than he
is defending them. When he first met with them, he said, he
told them
[[Page S9234]]
that they did not have much time to meet people's
expectations. That time is almost up, he believes.
``I'm not threatening your with another Vietnam--God
forbid,'' he said. ``I'm just trying to get help for the
people before something happens.''
Something is already happening, of course. Out here, as
across much of Iraq, the attacks on Americans are stepping
up. Colonel Ingram said his company is being attacked at
least once a day, fortunately by men who are not very good
shots.
Colonel Ingram blames the Iraqis for most of the area's
problems, saying it is they who have torn down the power
lines he fixed, they who are robbing one another. ``The U.S.
is not the problem, it's the solution,'' he said.
But he too wonders about the slow pace of rebuilding. ``I
would have expected the U.S., the biggest country in the
world, to say here's the water purification system, here's
the big generator,'' he said.
As of the other day, neither Mr. Dari nor Colonel Ingram
had ever had any contact with the American-led civilian
administration ostensibly governing Iraq, although Mr. Dari
oversees an area that is home to 900,000 people.
So they soldier on alone, often seeking progress in vain.
The council tried to distribute generators found at a
Republican Guard camp to villages, but found that many of the
village ``representatives'' were driving out of the camp and
selling the generators. Others were being set upon by angry
mobs wanting the generators for themselves.
American soldiers were deployed to keep order, but in the
heat and chaos their tempers frayed. They broke windshields
and cursed at Iraqis, further shrinking the reservoir of good
will.
Mr. Dari said he received 10 to 12 complaints a day about
weapons, cars or relatives taken by the Americas. One man
came to report that American soldiers had taken away his deaf
relative a month ago for having a picture of Saddam Hussein
in his house, and that he had not been seen since. Officials
from an Islamic charity said the Americans had confiscated
their car and raided their office--the left both unsecured,
giving looters free rein.
Then there are the small problems. The woman who is
illegally squatting in a government building (American
soldier told Mr. Dari they could not evict her unless she
threatened someone; property rights were not their
``purview.'') The two council members whom the council
dismissed for corruption. The effort to find the American
commander with the authority to sign a contract for garbage
collection.
Mr. Dari is just old enough to remember when the British
had an air base just west of here. They told Iraqis they had
come to liberate them from the Ottomans, he recalled, and
they stayed 40 years.
``I hope history isn't repeating itself,'' he said, and
pressed his temples as if hoping to make the impatient men at
both elbows disappear.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
____________________