[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 31, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3392-S3393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE COURSE OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN IRAQ

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to discuss my concerns about the 
course of our military operations in Iraq.
  I returned about 10 days ago from a trip to Iraq with my colleagues. 
After a brilliant offensive campaign to destroy the Iraqi military 
forces, we have settled into a very dismal and dangerous occupation. In 
the last few hours, five more American military personnel were killed 
by an improvised explosion device. There were four more civilians who 
were killed. Iraqi security forces have died in much higher numbers.
  The administration has not responded appropriately to the military 
demand within Iraq today. One of the leading points that illustrates 
this, I think, irresponsible approach to Iraq is the failure to budget 
properly to fund this effort. The operation in Iraq costs approximately 
$4 billion a month. Yet in the 2005 budget that was submitted by the 
administration, there is no money for operations in Afghanistan or 
Iraq. They are still working off the supplemental that was passed last 
year. But the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Staff of the Air 
Force, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps testified they are 
seriously concerned that on October 1 they will begin to run out of 
money. They are already being forced to reprogram funds, to rob Peter 
to pay Paul in order to continue this operation.
  Having committed ourselves to Iraq, we must prevail, and to prevail, 
we must fund all of the requirements for our military. We must do it 
adequately and promptly, and the administration is doing neither. We 
have a requirement for many pieces of equipment. But probably 
emblematic of the difficulties of this operation, the two most pressing 
items of equipment are body armor and armored vehicles, principally 
uparmored Humvees. When we went into this operation, we did not 
understand the consequences of the occupation, the threats to our 
troops, the political rivalries in Iraq, the ethnic and sectarian 
divisions of the country.
  As a result, we found ourselves with troops in the field without 
proper equipment. Many lacked body armor, the kind of sophisticated 
armor with ceramic insert plates that provide a margin of safety for 
our troops. The Army and Department of Defense claimed they fixed it. 
But as late as March 26, reports in the San Diego Union, Boston Globe, 
and USA Today stated soldiers in Iraq are calling home and asking their 
families to buy them body armor and send it to them, or they are buying 
it before they deploy. That is unacceptable. That is one example.
  With respect to uparmored Humvees, last July I got off of the 
aircraft in Baghdad and approached the military policemen from the 
118th Military Police Battalion from Rhode Island. The first request I 
had was: Get us uparmored Humvees. We are driving through these 
dangerous cities and we need that protection.
  We have not reached the number of uparmored Humvees we need for 
critical troops in Iraq. This might be accomplished by November of this 
year, but it is a long time from the need of over a year ago and 
finally filling the requirement.
  We also have to armor other Humvees, and armor kits have been 
provided to do this armoring. Again, the administration's budget is not 
sufficient. The Secretary of the Army said: We are going to get all 
this equipment done. We are going to run the production line at top 
speed.
  Yet the money is not there in the budget. We have to do more.
  Last September, Senator Hagel and I offered an amendment to the 
supplemental to increase the size of the Army by 10,000 troops. This 
was vehemently objected to by the Secretary of Defense, but I think 
they eventually got the message. A few months ago, the Department of 
the Army announced they were going to increase the size by 30,000 
troops. But they are not going to ask for the money in the budgetary 
process. They are once again going back to the supplemental--to take 
money from the supplemental, which already is strapped to pay for 
operations. As a result, we will have, I hope, additional forces in the 
military,

[[Page S3393]]

but we will not have the ordinary budget authority they need to 
continue to be funding when we run out of this supplemental.
  Those are examples of some of the failures on our part, but they are 
failures multiplied with the situation with respect to Iraqi security 
forces. Our plan is to transfer, we hope one day, security operations 
to the Iraqis. Yet we have not provided sufficient equipment for these 
forces.
  Senior commanders in Iraq have commented persistently about the lack 
of adequate equipment for the security forces, and a March 22 New York 
Times article stated:

       Senior American commanders in Iraq are publicly complaining 
     that delays in delivering radios, body armor and other 
     equipment have hobbled their ability to build an effective 
     Iraqi security force that can ultimately replace United 
     States troops here.

  MG Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, has 
returned from Iraq and his frustrations on this point are extremely 
significant. He said, in retrospect, if he knew the equipment was not 
coming, he would have used his own resources to buy body armor, radios, 
and vehicles for these Iraqi security forces. We are not doing enough 
to provide replacement for our own forces, and we are not adequately 
funding our present forces in the field.
  Those points are examples, I believe, of the failings in terms of 
occupation planning and military occupation of Iraq. But there are also 
political failures. We are less than 100 days away from transferring 
authority to an interim government, and yet no one can tell us what 
that interim government will look like. Will it be an increased 
governing council with 20, 30, 40 more people? Is it going to be a 
three-person presidency with a prime minister? We are 100 days or less 
away from that transfer of authority. We have yet to have a nominee to 
be the new ambassador to Iraq. Mr. Bremer leaves on June 30, but we 
have yet to have a name submitted to us for consideration and 
confirmation for someone who will have extraordinary challenges, 
extraordinary responsibilities. And yet we are 100 days or less away 
from the new ambassador of the United States to Iraq taking his or her 
post.
  Probably most emblematic, most symbolic of the political difficulties 
is the de-Baathiciation program. One of the key problems of this 
program is it is being run by Chalabi. Chalabi is an individual in the 
Iraqi National Congress who provided most of the misinformation to the 
administration as they made their judgments about the imminence of a 
threat in Iraq. He has been on our payroll to the tune of about 
$300,000 a month funneled through the Iraqi National Congress for many 
years. He is still on the payroll. He has seized all the security files 
of the former Iraqi security agency which perhaps are a treasure trove 
of names of people who collaborated both inside Iraq and outside Iraq 
with the Saddam Hussein regime. But most importantly for the moment, he 
is in charge of vetting former Baathists to take positions in this new 
government.
  He is sitting at the crossroads of billions of dollars of contracts 
from his position on the Iraqi Governing Council. He is also an 
individual who has the right to deny people their civil rights, if you 
will, in Iraq, and he is someone whose record does not, I think, 
suggest he is capable of discharging those responsibilities in the 
interest of Iraq or in the interest of the United States. The key to 
Mr. Chalabi is self-interest and always has been.
  As a result, we are giving this individual inordinate power. This is 
not just a theoretical political argument. When I was in Iraq last 
November, I spoke to the division commander, and he complained to me he 
had 1,000 schoolteachers who could not teach because they had been 
nominal members of the Baath Party. Back in the days of Saddam Hussein, 
in order to have a job in Iraq of any consequence, you had to have a 
Baath affiliation. These people cannot work. Schools cannot open. 
And so this new Iraq we are desperately trying to build based upon not 
just security, but also economic development and education, has not yet 
taken off.

  This is just one example of the political miscalculation I believe in 
which the provisional authority, Ambassador Bremer, has engaged in 
Iraq.
  All of this is very important. We are, again, weeks away from 
transferring authority to some form of government of which we know not 
the exact details. We are also in a situation where each day we see the 
cost in terms of American lives.
  Let me make one final point. When I was in Iraq talking with American 
soldiers about 10 days ago, the palpable concern they had with these 
explosive devices was obvious. We have soldiers who are paying Iraqis 
to put some type of armor on their doors because canvas doors do not 
stop a lot of small arms rounds or anything else.
  We owe much more to those troops. We owe a budget that is real and 
timely, and we owe leadership here that will respond to their needs.
  I yield the floor.

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