[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 138 (Thursday, October 2, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9193-H9195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE SITUATION IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). The balance of the 
majority leader's hour is reallocated to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Leach).
  Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the troubling 
situation in Iraq and the difficult legitimacy challenges posed by the 
U.S.-led coalition victory. In particular, I am convinced that the best 
way to develop international support for reconstruction efforts and 
reduce violence in the country is for the U.S. to maintain preeminent 
military leadership but grant the United Nations explicit authority for 
managing Iraq's political transition.
  As my colleagues are aware, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, head of 
the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, testified before several 
House committees last week regarding the administration's supplemental 
appropriations request for Iraq. In explaining administration policy, 
he outlined a number of constructive measures aimed at creating a 
sovereign, democratic, constitutional and prosperous Iraq. These 
included bolstering the security situation in the country and advancing 
bold economic reforms designed to refashion the Soviet-style command 
economy bequeathed by Saddam into a vibrant free enterprise model for 
the region.
  Ambassador Bremer also laid out a seven-step political transformation 
process. According to the Ambassador, three of the steps leading to 
sovereignty have been completed: In July, an Iraqi Governing Council 
was appointed; in August, the Governing Council named a Preparatory 
Committee to recommend a mechanism for writing Iraq's new, permanent 
constitution; and in September, the Governing Council appointed 
ministers to run the day-to-day affairs of state.
  Additional steps include developing a process by which the Iraqis 
write their own constitution, and here Secretary Powell has expressed 
the hope that this could be completed in the next 6 months, although 
others have expressed doubts about the time frame; ratifying the 
constitution by popular vote of the entire adult population; holding 
elections for a new Iraqi government; and, finally, following 
elections, formally transferring sovereignty from the Coalition 
Provisional Authority to the new government in Baghdad.

[[Page H9194]]

  These are reasonable and responsible steps, but to address unresolved 
questions about the legitimacy of America's role in Iraq, I believe 
that there should be a further interim step, call it step 3(a), added 
to Ambassador Bremer's list: a reduction of Washington's virtually 
exclusive political authority, as exercised through the CPA, and an 
enhancement of the role of the United Nations in the governance 
process.
  In an American historical and philosophical context, legitimacy is 
derived from the consent of the governed through democratic elections. 
In many societies, governments attempt to derive legitimacy by other 
means, through history and tradition, through precepts like the divine 
right of kings, through theocratic assertions as well as, to paraphrase 
Mao, the barrel of a gun.
  In Iraq, the problem is both obvious and profound. The removal of 
Saddam Hussein and the process of de-Baathification have left a vacuum 
of power. This vacuum has been filled, in part, by U.S. and other 
coalition authorities, civil and military, and in part through a de 
facto devolution of power to informal groupings based on local 
ethnicities, tribes, religion, and even organized crime. As we all 
understand, supporters of the old regime within Iraq, aided by 
jihadists from abroad, remain engaged in acts of violence and sabotage 
aimed at destabilizing the new order. In addition, the occupation's 
U.S. face has heightened suspicion and anger in Iraq and much of the 
Muslim world where many people view intervention as part of a 
Washington agenda to control the region and its principal resource, 
oil.
  The U.S.-led military authority, following extensive consultation 
with the country's major political factions, appointed an Iraqi 
Governing Council. The U.N. Secretary General and the late Sergio de 
Mello, the former U.N. special envoy to Iraq, supported the 
representative nature of the Council. But for Iraqis the Council still 
lacks legitimacy because it was selected by an outside power which 
maintains a veto over decisions.
  In this context, it is impressive to reflect upon the fact that at 
every turn in the last century the world has underestimated the power 
of nationalism. In Iraq, all of us are learning anew how close we are 
to the Hobbesian jungle where life is nasty, brutish and short and how 
impressive, for good or ill, is the power of nationalism, the desire of 
people to carve their own destiny, to make their own mistakes.
  What appears clear at this juncture is that the return of Saddam 
Hussein will not be countenanced either in Iraq or in the region; what 
is unclear is whether the current nation-state boundaries will hold, 
whether chaos will be unleashed, whether democratic aspirations will 
produce lasting democratic institutions, whether economic and social 
change will be fast or fair enough to satisfy the enormous expectations 
of the Iraqi people.
  At the end of the Second World War, the U.S. was part of a coalition 
of victors in the greatest struggle of the 20th century. Postwar 
circumstances afforded the U.S., as the preeminent global superpower, 
the luxury of being able to control sovereignty in Japan until 1952 
and, to a lesser degree, in West Germany until 1959. Today, by 
contrast, the world is more impatient. The nature of the Middle East, 
the Muslim world and modern communications is such that the 
circumstances that prevailed in the late 1940s allowing for an 
extended, uncontested American occupation no longer exists.
  The most propitious position for the U.S. today is not to rule Iraq 
as a victorious occupying military force but instead to share 
accountability with the international community in such a way that it 
becomes clear that Saddam Hussein was not principally a threat to 
America but to his own people and civilized values in general. The war 
should be considered won on behalf of, not against, the Iraqi people.
  American civilians who have been asked to serve in Iraq are some of 
the finest civil servants in the world. I have the highest respect for 
Ambassador Bremer and his principal deputy, Walter Slocum, as well as 
people like Peter McPherson, the president of Michigan State 
University, and Charles Greenleaf, also of Michigan State, who have 
come in to help lead reconstruction efforts and civil affairs.

  But in order to establish consensus and legitimacy from parties 
outside as well as inside Iraq for efforts to rebuild the country, the 
U.S. would be wise to accept an international civil authority as a 
prelude to transferring power to the Iraqi people through a 
constitutional process.
  We also might consider lending more legitimacy to the Governing 
Council by a symbolic transfer of sovereignty and the seeking of 
support for it to occupy Iraq's U.N. seat during the transitional 
period.
  From a military perspective, the United States Armed Forces could not 
have performed more professionally and valiantly than in the initial 
engagement. But in no small measure because the civilian governance is 
considered illegitimately Americanized by much of the Muslim world, 
U.S. subjects have become targets for anarchistic attacks by groups and 
individuals who claim the mantle of nationalism and religious 
authority. Baathists from within and anti-American cohorts from without 
need to understand that Saddam Hussein's kind of rule is anathema to 
all civilized values.
  The issue of relegitimizing the Iraqi government is one of timing as 
well as intent. Timing that is tardy can jeopardize the safety of 
American soldiers in Iraq and also serve as a spark for a potential 
surge of terrorism around the world. What is new in international 
relations is that the religious and national instincts of an 
embarrassed people can become a rallying cry for sympathizers to lash 
out in other societies. And what is different from the U.S. experience 
as an occupying power after World War II is that Iraq, like the Balkans 
and Afghanistan, has significant religious and ethnic subgroups at odds 
with one another. Iraqi society is neither homogenous as Germany and 
Japan were, nor a social melting pot like America is. Iraqi nationalism 
is thus complicated by sub-national identifications and supra-national 
religious and regional communities of value.
  As a military challenge, Iraq is not like Vietnam. It is much more 
containable. But as a challenge to the international social order, it 
is far more difficult than Vietnam. After all, weapons of mass 
destruction were not at issue in Vietnam. Nor was a clash of 
civilizations in play except in the sense of the contrast of democratic 
forces lined up against the secular ideology, communism.
  Unless we recognize that while there is certain Iraqi appreciation 
for the coalition's overthrow of Saddam, any support for our post-war 
leadership is tenuous and respect for our intervention is virtually 
nonexistent in the rest of the Muslim world. Cultural differences, 
particularly religious, coupled with the aftershock of military defeat, 
the continuance of terrorist attacks and the lack of immediate prospect 
for self-determination form a political stew that easily boils over.
  Our traditional European allies have by intent or happenstance 
triangulated the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Britain into a singular 
standoff with the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden began his terrorist 
initiatives speaking of a Muslim clash with the West. Now radical 
Muslim rhetoric is aimed almost exclusively against America. Our goal 
should be to make clear, in voice and policy, that we do not stand 
alone. Because of dissent between Europe and America, it might be wise 
to look to new leadership for the Iraqi transition in other parts of 
the world. An individual from a noncoalition country may or may not be 
as competent as Ambassador Bremer and his staff, but a change of faces 
has the potential of changing the face of the circumstance Iraqi people 
and the Muslim world see every day.
  As one who dissented from the decision to go to war but respects the 
integrity of the individuals who made the decision, I am convinced that 
we must all now work together to get out of the predicament we are in. 
Nothing could be worse for world order than long-term American 
entanglement in Iraq. Respect for American leadership and American 
values has seldom been more on the line. We have to come together with 
the rest of the international community in a collective effort to make 
Iraq a better country than the society we attacked. The consequences of 
failure would be catastrophic.

[[Page H9195]]

  I recently returned from a trip to the Far East where I urged our 
friends in the region to help. An isolated America, I warned, is likely 
to become an isolationist America. The ramifications for international 
trade as well as politics are potentially explosive.
  At the height of the Vietnam War, Senator George D. Aiken of Vermont 
became famous for a policy suggestion in the form of a quip. He argued 
that the U.S. should simply declare victory and get out.
  Iraq is not a circumstance in which the U.S. should be trumpeting 
military victory despite its decisiveness. But little could be more 
appropriate than to announce a change in policy based on the fact that 
our principal mission has been accomplished, ridding Iraq of a despotic 
dictator and eliminating the near-term prospect that Iraq could become 
a center for the development and distribution of weapons of mass 
destruction, whether or not Saddam had a significant WMD capability 
prior to U.S. intervention.
  Having intervened, the U.S. cannot end its responsibility until Iraqi 
society is back on its feet in a credible, progressive and legitimized 
governance basis. The question is whether that basis is more likely to 
be achieved with Americanization or internationalization of 
responsibility.
  My sense is that the establishing of a more progressive government in 
Iraq will be achieved earlier and with substantially less bloodshed if 
it becomes clear that Iraq is being put back together under the mantle 
of an international mandate rather than by an intervening military 
power.

                              {time}  1815

  The goal should be to emphasize the idealism of the challenge before 
us rather than dwell on realpolitik posturing which can too easily 
trigger increased anarchy and even a clash of civilizations. Strength, 
to be sustainable, must come from a balance of judgment that brings 
respect rather than resentment from the rest of the world. Otherwise, 
an intervention designed exclusively to diminish terrorism could serve 
as a rationale to expand terrorism around the world, including on our 
own shores.
  Four decades ago, the British author Lawrence Durrell wrote a series 
of novels called the ``Alexandria Quarter'' in which he describes a set 
of events in Alexandria, Egypt, before World War II. A seminal literary 
experiment in the relativity of human perception that was named one of 
the top 100 novels of the last century, each of the books viewed the 
same events through the eyes of four different participants. The full 
story cannot be comprehended without synthesizing how each of the 
protagonists viewed events from his or her own individual perspective.
  Today, in Middle East, we have an analogous circumstance. For the 
full story of Iraq to be understood, we need to understand how events 
are perceived through very different sets of eyes and very different 
sets of reasoning. American policy makers, for instance, generally 
reason in a pragmatic, future-oriented manner. Much of the rest of the 
world, on the other hand, reasons more generally, by historical 
analogy. Events centuries back play a definitively greater role in 
judgments made about policies today.
  Symbolically,the nature of the radically different way Americans and 
Middle Easterners look at the world is reflected in the startling 
statistic that four out of five Al Jazeera viewers believe a French 
author who claims that the plane which blasted into the Pentagon on 9/
11 was actually a U.S. military aircraft ordered by the U.S. military 
to hit itself in an effort to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and 
Iraq. This kind of conspiracy theory is instantaneously understood as 
ludicrous in America, but not elsewhere. In fact, even in the heart of 
the democratic Europe, conspiracy theories about the events of 9/11 
have topped best-seller lists. Intriguingly, from a Muslim perspective, 
the fact that nearly 70 percent of the American public believe that 
Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks of September 11 
appears equally uncompelling. Muslims note that no Iraqi citizen was 
involved in the attack and believe that alleged evidence of Iraqi 
complicity is peripheral and tangential at best.
  On the other hand, virtually the entirety of the Muslim world 
recognizes Saddam to have been a sadistic dictator. There is no public 
support for him, but extraordinary consternation that a Western power 
would intervene in the Middle East in the way it did.
  It is possible to suggest, from an American perspective, that since 
we received inadequate support for the UN, it makes little sense to 
cede authority to outsiders now. On the other hand, if one does not 
rebalance transitional governance in Iraq, it is hard for America to 
suggest to the international community that all countries have an 
obligation not only to support the governing authority but provide 
reconstruction assistance.
  The question is whether America would be better off with a new 
Security Council mandate that gives responsibility for coordinating the 
political transition process to the UN, assisted by American experts 
already in the field, while maintaining the U.S. role in military and 
internal security concerns, or whether we want to continue to bear near 
exclusive responsibility for a country with a government lacking 
legitimacy.
  I am convinced that the fact that the U.S. did not get solid support 
from the UN, prior to the invasion, underscores the importance of 
seeking greater international legitimacy in the transition to a 
democratic Iraqi Government.
  Simply put, legitimacy delayed is security denied.

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