[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8938-H8940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 QUESTIONS FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McCotter). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today in my e-mail I got five separate 
copies of an article that was put in the Atlanta Journal Constitution 
by a man named Max Cleland. Max Cleland is a Vietnam vet who lost his 
legs and one arm. He is a triple amputee, was a United States Senator, 
and in the last campaign they attacked him for being unpatriotic. Max 
is a hero in my book. The fact that he would raise questions about what 
the President of the United States is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan did 
not make him unpatriotic.
  We are going to have a bill out here in a few days for $87 billion, 
and the same White House is going to attack all of us if we raise any 
questions. Max's article starts with an erie kind of quote: ``The 
public has been led into a trap from which it will be hard to escape 
with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by steady 
withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, 
insincere, incomplete.'' These ``things have been far worse than we 
have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the 
public knows. We are today not far from a disaster.'' That is a quote 
from a guy named T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, the Sunday Times of 
London, August 22, 1920.
  The British know what they are into and they know where they have 
been; and if we take that quote and then ask ourselves what have we 
been told, we

[[Page H8939]]

have been told that the mission has been accomplished. The President 
went out and said it is all over. There have been 304 people killed in 
Iraq, 167 of them, more than half, since the mission was accomplished. 
It was this President on October 14, 2002, who said, ``This is a man,'' 
meaning Saddam, ``that we know has had connections with al Qaeda. This 
is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward 
army.'' Mr. Rumsfeld followed him right up and said, ``Yes, there is a 
linkage between al Qaeda and Iraq.'' And Condoleezza Rice, not to be 
outdone, said, ``There have been contacts between senior Iraqi 
officials and members of al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long 
time.''
  And then their story started to unravel. On September 16 of this 
year, almost 11 months later, the President comes out and says, ``I 
have not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could 
say that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks.'' 
Condoleezza Rice jumped up again: ``And we never claimed that Saddam 
Hussein had either . . . direction or control of 9-11. What we've said 
is that this was someone who supported terrorists, helped them train.'' 
And Mr. Bush the next day said, ``There is no question that Saddam 
Hussein had al Qaeda ties. We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was 
involved with the September 11 attacks.''
  The American people have been fed a PR campaign of misinformation 
from the very start. And while that has been going on, and I will have 
entered into the Record both the speech by Max Cleland and an article 
from the New York Newsday by Jimmy Breslin dated 23 September, while 
this has all been going on, our people have been dying.
  Some of you have been out to the Vietnam Memorial, and those panels 
get carved with those names in there. One can go up to Walter Reed 
Hospital up on Georgia Avenue and see people without arms and legs, 
just like Senator Cleland. While we keep getting misinformation out of 
the White House, Ryan Carlock, specialist, 416th Transportation 
Company, died on September 10; Joe Robsky from Fort Irwin, California, 
died on September 10; Henry Ybarra from Austin, Texas, died. And they 
keep dying and they keep dying.
  If we ask questions about this $87 billion, it does not make us 
unpatriotic. It makes us care about these men and women.

              [From the New York Newsday, Sept. 23, 2003]

                    They Lied and Many Soldiers Died

                           (By Jimmy Breslin)

       George Bush won't mention the names below in today's 
     speech, nor will your gullible news and television people--
     the Pekinese of the Press.
       Therefore we print promptly and thus prominently the names 
     of American soldiers killed in Iraq and reported from Sept. 9 
     to Sept. 19:
       Spc. Ryan G. Carlock, 25, 416th Transportation Co., 260 
     Quartermaster Battalion (Petroleum Support), Hunter Army 
     Airfield, Ga. Died in attack on truck Sept. 10. Home: Macomb, 
     Ill.
       Staff Sgt. Joe Robsky, 31, 759 Ordnance Co., Fort Irwin, 
     Calif. Home is a mobile home park trailer in Elizaville, N.W. 
     Died in Baghdad while trying to defuse a homemade bomb on 
     Sept. 10. He volunteered for this duty because he didn't want 
     children killed by land mines.
       Sgt. Henry Ybarra III, 32, D Troop, 6th Squadron, 6th 
     Calvary. Home: Austin, Texas. Died when truck tire exploded, 
     Sept. 11.
       Marine Sgt. Kevin N. Morehead, 33 3rd Battalion, 5th 
     Special Forces Group. Home: Little Rock, Ark. Died of wounds 
     received when raiding enemy forces.
       Sgt. 1st Class William M. Bennett, 35, 3rd Battalion, 5th 
     Special Forces Group. Home: Little Rock, Ark. Died of wounds 
     received when raiding enemy forces.
       Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg, 22, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute 
     Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, N.C. Home: 
     Canton, Mich. Died in attack on his vehicle in Baghdad on 
     Sept. 14.
       Staff Sgt. Kevin C. Kimberly, 31, 4th Battalion, 27th Field 
     Artillery Regiment, North Creek, N.Y. Killed when his vehicle 
     was hit by rocket-propelled grenade while on patrol in 
     Baghdad Sept. 15.
       Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson, 27, 311 Military Intelligence 
     Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky. Home: 
     Flagstaff, Ariz. Died of wounds on Sept. 15 at Tel Afar.
       Spc. James C. Wright, 27 Fourth Infantry Division, Fort 
     Hood, Texas. Home: Delhi Township, Ohio. Died when vehicle 
     hit by rocket-propelled grenade during ambush near Tikrit on 
     Sept. 18.
       George Bush told lies and they died.
       First, your government lied to ensure Bush's re-election. 
     Who votes against a president in time of war? And even 
     better, you get oil with the winning election.
       So Bush lied to you. Not misstatements. Lies. He and his 
     people threw away their honor and consciences to lie to the 
     people. they had sworn to protect.
       The lies of Washington put young men from Seymour, Tenn., 
     and Maspeth, Queens and Palos Hills, Ill., into boxes. And 
     that, dear reader, is quite a lie.
       At the start, Bush claimed that Iraq had poison gas and was 
     making nuclear weapons. Soon, they will poison us all and 
     blow us up. His proof was documents forged by elementary-
     school pupils. Still, Bush used it in his State of the Union 
     speech. Condoleezza Rice said it was only 23 words in a 
     speech. What are you so concerned about?
       The 23 words were only about nuclear bombs.
       Look now at the lie that George Bush carries into the 
     United Nations today:
       We went into Iraq because they were part of the World Trade 
     Center attack.
       That's what they told you, and Americans, who honor their 
     government, believed what their government told them. And so 
     did all those young people as they were about to put up their 
     lives in the desert.
       On Oct. 14, 2002, Bush said, ``This is a man [Saddam] that 
     we know has had connections with al-Qaida. This is a man who, 
     in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward 
     army.''
       Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, on Sept. 26, 2002, 
     ``Yes, there is a linkage between al-Qaida and Iraq.''
       Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said on 
     Sept. 25, 2002, ``There have been contacts between senior 
     Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaida gong back for 
     actually quite a long time.''
       They knew exactly what they were saying and what it would 
     do. It was using a Big Lie in an age of screens and faxes. 
     What did you think it was, a government telling you the 
     truth? Why should they do that?
       At summer's end, suspicions rose. It was time to change the 
     lie before it became a liability. How do you do that? By 
     using the ultimate con: telling the truth.
       Here in the world of professional lying is how you use the 
     truth to defuse a lie when it becomes dangerous to keep: 
     Suddenly, Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 16 announced, ``I've not 
     seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I 
     could say that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 
     attacks.''
       That same day, Condoleezza Rice jumped up and chirped, 
     ``And we have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either . 
     . . direction or control of 9/11. What we've said is that 
     this was someone who supported terrorists, helped train 
     them.''
       And then the next day, George Bush said, ``There's no 
     question that Saddam Hussein has al-Qaida ties. We have no 
     evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11 
     attacks.''
       So the three now say that they never said that Hussein was 
     involved in the World Trade Center attack. Look up what we 
     said. We never said it.
       Of course they did. Anybody who thinks they didn't is a 
     poor fool. Take a half-word out of a sentence, replace it 
     with a smug smile or chin motion and the meaning is there. 
     Saddam was in on the Trade Center with bin Laden. Of course 
     Bush and his people said it. Then go to the whip, go to the 
     truth.
       Only the strong memory is an opponent, and there are few of 
     them. Otherwise, the only thing that can remind people and 
     maybe even inflame them are these dead bodies coming back 
     from Iraq to Heber, Calif. They arrive here in silence. We 
     have no idea of how many wounded are in government hospitals 
     with no arms or legs. You never hear Bush talking about them. 
     He often acts as if subjects like this have nothing to do 
     with him.
                                  ____


        [From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sept. 15, 2003]

                         Disaster in the Desert

               (By former Senator Max Cleland, D-Georgia)

       ``The public had been led into a trap from which it will be 
     hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked 
     into it by a steady withholding of information,'' he said. 
     ``The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. 
     Things have been far worse than we have been told, our 
     administration more bloody and inefficient than the public 
     knows.'' He added: ``We are today not far from a disaster''--
     T.E. Lawrence, The Sunday Times of London, August 22, 1920.
       Let me see if I can get this straight.
       The President of the United States decides to go to war 
     against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one 
     party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The 
     President decides this is a threat to the United States. In 
     his campaign for President he gives no indication of wanting 
     to go to war. In fact, he decries the over extension of 
     American military might and says other nations must do more. 
     However, unbenounced to the American public, the President's 
     own Pentagon advisors have already cooked up a plan to go to 
     war. All they are looking for is an excuse.
       An element of the U.S. military is under attack. The 
     President, his Secretary of Defense and his advisors sell the 
     idea to Congress and the American people that it is time to 
     go to war. Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked 
     information is fed to Congress and the American people. The 
     President goes on national television to explain the case for

[[Page H8940]]

     war, using as part of the rationale for the war an incident 
     that never happened. The Congress buys the bait hook, line 
     and sinker and passes a resolution giving the President the 
     authority to use ``all necessary means'' to prosecute the 
     war.
       The war is started with an air and ground attack. Initially 
     there is optimism. The President says we are winning. The 
     cocky, self-assured Secretary of Defense says we are winning. 
     As a matter of fact, the Secretary of Defense promises the 
     troops will be home soon.
       However, the truth on the ground that the soldiers face in 
     the war is different than the political policy that sent them 
     there. They face increased opposition from a determined 
     enemy. They are surprised by terrorist attacks, suicide 
     bombers, village assassinations, increasing casualties and 
     growing anti-American sentiment. They find themselves bogged 
     down in a guerrilla land war, unable to move forward and 
     unable to disengage because there are no allies in the war to 
     turn the war over to. There is no plan B. There is no exit 
     strategy. Military morale declines. The President's 
     popularity sinks and the American people are increasingly 
     frustrated by the cost of blood and treasure poured into a 
     never-ending war.
       Sound familiar? It does to me!
       The President was Lyndon Johnson.
       Got Ya!
       The cocky, self-assured Secretary of Defense was Robert 
     McNamara.
       Got ya again!
       The Congressional resolution was the Gulf of Tonkin 
     resolution.
       You are catching on!
       The war was the war that I, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, John 
     McCain and three and-a-half million other Americans of our 
     generation were caught up in. It was the scene of America's 
     longest war. It was also the locale of the most frustrating 
     outcome of any war this Nation has ever fought.
       Unfortunately, the people who drove the engine to get into 
     the war in Iraq never served in Vietnam.
       Not the President.
       Not the Vice-President.
       Not the Secretary of Defense.
       Not the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
       Too bad. They could have learned some lessons.
       First, they could have learned not to underestimate the 
     enemy. The enemy always has one option you cannot control. He 
     always has the option to die. This is especially true if you 
     are dealing with true believers and guerrillas fighting for 
     their version of reality--whether political or religious. 
     They are what Tom Friedman of the New York Times calls the 
     ``non-deterables.'' If those non-deterables are already home 
     in their country, they will be able to wait you out until you 
     go home.
       Second, if the enemy adopts a ``hit and run'' strategy 
     designed to inflict maximum casualties on you, you may win 
     every battle but the battles you fight (as Walter Lippman 
     once said about the Vietnam War), can't win the war.
       Third, if you adopt a strategy of not just pre-emptive 
     strike but also pre-emptive war you own the aftermath. You 
     better plan for it. You better have an exit strategy because 
     you cannot stay there indefinitely unless you make it the 
     51st state. If you do stay an extended period of time, you 
     then become an occupier, not a liberator. That feeds the 
     enemy against you.
       Fourth, if you adopt the strategy of pre-emptive war, your 
     intelligence must be not just ``darn good,'' as the President 
     has said it must be ``bullet proof,'' as Secretary Rumsfeld 
     claimed the administration had against Suddan Hussein. 
     Anything short of that saps credibility.
       Fifth, if you want to know what is really going on in the 
     war, ask the troops on the ground not the policy makers in 
     Washington. The ``ground truth'' as the soldiers call it, is 
     always more accurate than the truth expounded through the 
     mouths of those who plan the war and have a political, 
     personal and emotional investment in their policy. They will 
     bend any fact, even intelligence, to their own ends. If the 
     ground truth and the policy truth begin to diverge, ``Shock 
     and Awe'' will turn into what one officer in Iraq has 
     described as, ``Shock and Awe S---!''
       Sixth, in a democracy instead of truth being the first 
     casualty in war, it should be the first cause of war. It is 
     the only way the Congress and the American people can cope 
     with getting through it. As credibility is strained, support 
     for the war and support for the troops goes down hill. 
     Continued loss of credibility drains troop morale, the media 
     becomes more suspicious, the public becomes more incredulous 
     and the Congress is reduced to hearings and investigations.
       Instead of learning the lessons of Vietnam, where all of 
     the above happened, the President, the Vice-President, the 
     Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, 
     have gotten this country into a disaster in the desert. They 
     attacked a country that had not attacked us. They did so on 
     intelligence that was faulty, misrepresented and highly 
     questionable. A key piece of that intelligence was an out-
     right lie which the White House put into the President's 
     State of the Union speech. These officials have over-extended 
     the American military, including the Guard and the Reserve 
     and expanded the United States Army to the breaking point. A 
     quarter of a million troops are committed to the Iraq war 
     theater, most bogged down in Baghdad. Morale is declining and 
     casualties continue to increase. In addition to the human 
     cost, the funding of the war costs a billion dollars a week 
     adding to the additional burden of an already depressed 
     economy. The President has declared ``major combat over'' and 
     sent a message to every terrorist, ``Bring them on.'' As a 
     result, he has lost more people in his war than his father 
     did in his and there is no end in sight. Military commanders 
     are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and 
     women, told long ago they were going home, and keeping 
     American forces on the ground where they have become sitting 
     ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist group in the 
     Middle East.
       Welcome to Vietnam Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when 
     you had the chance.

                          ____________________