[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 48 (Wednesday, April 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3875-S3877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today with many mixed 
emotions and with a firm conviction. Foremost among these emotions is a 
deep sympathy for the families who have lost loved ones during the 
recent surge of violence in Iraq. I believe there were 32 deaths of our 
servicemen in the last 96 hours. We lost one brave marine over the 
weekend who is from Minnesota. My thoughts and prayers are with his 
family and with others.
  America will forever be in the debt of the brave men and women who 
volunteered. Every man and woman in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan is 
a volunteer. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice. It is with a heavy 
heart I reflect on that. But my prayers are with them and my thoughts 
are with them. My admiration is with them, and the thanks of every 
Minnesotan and every American is with them for their sacrifice and 
their courage.
  I am of the Jewish faith. We just celebrated the Passover tradition, 
celebration and commemoration of Israel's deliverance from Egypt and 
from slavery almost 6,000 years ago. One of the things about that 
holiday is in that service we have a dinner which is a ritual dinner, 
and we celebrate. We thank God for deliverance. But in that service we 
also talk about not only ourselves; it is not enough that God delivered 
us from slavery, but we need to exert ourselves in the deliverance of 
others. I think that is more than a Jewish tradition. It is more than 
an American President. Our President reminded us it is a universal 
principle; that freedom is not America's gift to the world, but it is 
God's gift.
  This is also a solemn time to remember the genocide in Rwanda 10 
years ago when we as a Nation stood by and over 1 million people were 
slaughtered.
  This is the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad for which the whole 
civilized world should rejoice. It has been a year without new mass 
graves being filled. A half million Iraqis were slaughtered by Saddam 
Hussein, by the brutal tyrant. It has been a year in which the torture 
chambers and the rape rooms are now silent. It has been a year when the 
wealth of Iraq, a nation with millions of poor people, has not been 
plundered to sustain the obscene decadence

[[Page S3876]]

of a sadistic dictator and his maniacal sons. It has been a year that 
kids returned to school and teachers actually got paid, hospitals 
reopened, and food and water restored. It has been a year in which 
clear intent to threaten the region and the world has been stopped.

  The violence in the last several days has been grievous, but it only 
stands to confirm the truth of what America has been committed to for 
the last 3 years: the choice of this state for the uprising in terms 
that we were battling the remnants of a regime we went there to 
destroy.
  The attacks in Spain a short time ago confirm our conviction that 
Iraq is a battle in the global war on terror. Why else would terrorists 
target Spain, except to undermine our coalition?
  Let us never forget that terrorism at its heart, at its evil heart, 
is a psychological war. It endeavors to break the spirit and the 
resolve of those it attacks by creating a lose-lose situation. It uses 
deadly force. By using deadly force it creates a dilemma for its enemy. 
To not respond validates those attacks. To respond in kind, they 
believe, will create further unrest and cause for the next round of 
attacks. Our resolve is what they are attacking. We must show them no 
hint of resignation.
  I must say, I felt a great sense of remorse over comments made 
yesterday by Members of this body who raised the specter of Vietnam. I 
will be direct: To raise the specter of Vietnam as 10 families learn of 
the deaths of young sons is regrettable. To attribute a political 
motive to the President's June 30 deadline to return control of Iraq is 
extreme. I know the target audience of these comments, but its 
unintended witnesses are those we fight against today in the global war 
on terror.
  Am I the only person struck by the absurd irony of the last week's 
national debate? On the one hand, the President is being roundly 
criticized by those claiming he failed to act aggressively prior to 
September 11 and used only diplomatic efforts to combat terrorism. And, 
in almost the same breath, he is criticized for being far too 
aggressive after September 11 and not relying upon diplomacy enough. So 
he was supposed to be tougher on terror before the attack and easier 
afterwards? It is hypocrisy.
  We have an all-sports radio station in the Twin Cities that pokes fun 
at itself by saying it is ``the home of the best second-guessing.'' I 
don't think it can match this town of late. It is intellectually 
dishonest to look backwards with all the facts and judge the decisions 
that were made with almost none of the facts, or the facts that existed 
hidden in the normal cloud of endless speculation of what might happen. 
To compare perfect hindsight with imperfect foresight is unfair. The 
American people understand that.
  I have heard the story about a woman who wrote many letters of advice 
to President Lincoln during the Civil War, giving him direction she 
received in a prayer of who to attack and who to defend, which general 
to keep and which to fire. Lincoln replied something to the effect: 
Don't you find it curious that the Almighty gave you all the 
answers and gave me the job?

  It is easy to second-guess. It is easy to criticize, particularly in 
a political season. But to lead is something altogether different. The 
leader must live in the real world of the price that might be paid for 
the goal that has been set. Our young men and women are on the line 
today defending freedom, fighting terror. We are having discussion and 
debate about an April 30 deadline. One can raise questions about the 
plan. We should discuss that. But to call it arbitrary and unilateral, 
knowing there is an expectation of the Iraqis that we need to turn over 
political power--not leave, not cut and run. We are still in Germany 50 
years later, in Kosovo, in South Korea, not to cut and run--hand over, 
get rid of the specter of occupation, which is what the international 
community wants. Yet there are those today who will criticize that 
second-guessing because you need something to second-guess. It should 
not work that way.
  America awakened on September 11 to a harsh reality. After a decade 
of talking tough, diplomatic efforts, occasionally sending a cruise 
missile to blow up a factory, or camp in the desert and hoping 
terrorism would go away, we were brutally attacked. Our good will, our 
love of peace, and our broad oceans did not protect us. As much as some 
may want to return to the illusory sense of security we had before 
September 11, we cannot. Giving people false hope is the antithesis of 
leadership.
  The prior judgment of those who attacked us was that America was 
weak, that we were corrupt, that we were divisible. The destruction of 
the Taliban in Afghanistan was lesson No. 1. They were wrong. The 
invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad was lesson No. 2. The attempt 
to secure peace in Iraq is lesson No. 3.
  The terrorists are making up their minds what we are made of. They 
tested the Spanish. They tested the British. They will test the 
Russians, the Poles, the Italians and every other nation that has been 
participating in the coalition and the multilateral effort to put Iraq 
back on its feet. No doubt they will test us. We will meet that test. 
We will show resolve. We will not cut and run. Terrorism will be 
defeated. Freedom will prevail.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I salute my colleague from Minnesota 
for his strong leadership on this issue and his great insight into what 
is happening today in a very complex world.
  As I listened to the news yesterday and today and read the newspapers 
this morning, we are reminded again of several things. First, we are 
reminded of what a difficult and complex world it is in which we live. 
It is a world where we who want to be a peaceful nation and see peace 
throughout the world once again realize the type of peace we hope for 
and pray for may be a long and difficult road ahead.
  We understand, also, from the standpoint of sacrifice, nothing comes 
easy. We are reminded once again that the freedom this Nation enjoys 
came at great sacrifice. We are seeing sacrifices around the world 
today, particularly of our brave men and women who are fighting for the 
freedom of the Iraqi people.
  As I think about that and I think about what is going on in Iraq 
today and what is happening to an overwhelming majority of the Iraqi 
people who want to see peace and who want stability in that country and 
they are having to deal with a small number of insurgents who want to 
carry the day by using guns and violence, it disturbs me when I hear 
statements made by politicians in America, politicians who aspire to 
higher office, as well as politicians who have been in the realm of 
politics in our country for many years, statements that tend to incite 
the opposition and to put our men and women in greater harm's way.
  When I was coming along as a young man, I played a lot of athletics. 
I have had the privilege of coaching Little League basketball and 
baseball for 25 years. When you play athletics or when you coach 
athletics, you want to be inspired as an athlete and as a coach. You 
want to inspire the opposition. Frankly, the statements I have seen in 
the last 24 hours relative to the comparison of Iraq to Vietnam are the 
type of statements a coach would take and plaster on the locker room 
wall when he wants to charge up his team and he tells the opponents, 
Look what is happening on the other side. Morale is decaying. We are 
winning.
  That is simply the type of statement that is foolish and should never 
be made by anyone in the political realm in our country in a time of 
great crisis and great confrontation over the issue of freedom and 
democracy.
  America has long been the leader of the free world. But we did not 
get there in an easy way. Likewise, Iraq is not going to get there in 
an easy way. No one ever said it would be easy making a democracy out 
of a country the size of California, that has no democratic traditions, 
is divided sometimes by religious and ethnic disputes, and has a 
history of internal repression.
  When I think about our great country and the fact that a little over 
225 years ago we declared our independence, what happened in our 
country when the citizens of America became free, it was not easy. We 
had great loss of life in order to ensure that America became free and 
independent. When we look at what has happened in America over the 
course of that 225-plus years, we have suffered great loss of life of 
brave men and women who fought for a cause, a cause of freedom and a 
cause

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of democracy, the simple cause of freedom that is being fought for in 
Iraq today.

  America is providing the kind of leadership the world respects and 
the world has come to understand; that it is what America stands for. 
When Americans provide that kind of leadership, it is incumbent on all 
Americans to rally around the leadership of this country in times of 
great crisis in the world, when we are the leader of the free world, 
and not to try to incite the other side, not try to create a more 
difficult position for our brave men and women in the military, who 
today continue to be in harm's way and continue to suffer loss of life.
  Speaking of that, I concur with my friend from Minnesota, our hearts 
go out to the families of those brave men and women--all 600-plus--who 
have suffered loss of life in Iraq as a result of their fight for the 
cause of freedom. In addition to that, we have a number of men and 
women who have been injured; and, again, it is for the right reason.
  I had a great privilege about 2 weeks ago of visiting a number of 
military bases in my State. One of the bases I visited was Fort Gordon, 
GA. At Fort Gordon, right outside of Augusta, we had a tour of the 
base, the usual things that we do to see what is going on with respect 
to the missions at Fort Gordon. At the end of the day, I had the 
opportunity to participate in a very unique ceremony. It was a 
reenlistment ceremony, where 17 men and women were reenlisting in the 
U.S. Army.
  Some of these men and women had been longtime members of the Armed 
Forces; some had only been in for a couple of years, but they were re-
upping. Some of them had been to Iraq. Some of them had seen their 
fellow soldiers fallen to the ground injured or killed. Yet here they 
were raising their right hand and reenlisting in the U.S. Army.
  I had the opportunity to visit with every single one of them, and for 
the most part, I asked the same question to each of them; and that is, 
Why are you doing this? Why are you reenlisting in the Army in these 
difficult times? I felt so great, No. 1, just to be in the presence of 
those true American heroes; but secondly, the response I got, in 
unison, from those individuals was that: I like my job. I enjoy what I 
am doing, and it is my opportunity to do something positive for 
America.
  The ones who had been in Iraq had a very high morale about what is 
going on over there because they are the ones who were on the ground 
every day in Iraq. They know the feeling of the majority--the 
overwhelming majority--of the Iraqi people. They support the freedom 
and democracy that America is making the sacrifices for.
  Some say this administration underestimated just how difficult and 
complex the job in Iraq would be. I will be honest, I have come to 
share that view. I think the administration would agree with that. But 
I believe, therefore, we need to learn from our tactical mistakes, and 
to ensure that our posture in Iraq is flexible and can adapt to fluid 
and developing circumstances. If this means finding new ways to ensure 
Shiite grievances are heard, so be it, as the cooperation of the Shiite 
majority in the transition ahead is essential to that transition 
success. But the CPA must also respond aggressively to aggression of 
any kind that is directed against our troops.
  In talking about what we anticipated or what the administration 
expected in Iraq, let's talk also about some of the things we did not 
expect. We did not expect for clerics in that part of the world to come 
forward, and instead of preaching religion that you would expect them 
to be preaching, to be preaching and advocating hatred and violence 
towards Americans--Americans, who had given them the opportunity to 
stand in that mosque and express the words they were expressing, 
because without the Americans taking down Saddam Hussein, they would 
not have that freedom, they would not have the ability to carry out 
their disruptions and the violence that is ongoing over there today.

  But removed from that, and behind the cloud of those robes of 
religion, clerics are hiding, and they are also hiding behind innocent 
women and children and shielding themselves by use of innocent people 
from the Americans who seek to arrest and prosecute them for the crimes 
they have carried out. Those are the types of things that no 
administration could anticipate and no administration should have 
expected when we freed the people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam 
Hussein.
  There is one other aspect of the situation in Iraq that is just as 
personally, if not more personally, troubling to me; and that is the 
issue relative to our lack of intelligence gathering, the lack of the 
ability to use human assets on the ground inside of Iraq, to make sure 
we find out what is going on among these radical clerics who are 
advocating violence; what is going on with respect to the terrorist 
community and the terrorists themselves relative to attacks against 
Americans; what is going on with respect to the long-term plans of 
these terrorists as it applies to the American service people, as well 
as civilians who are on the ground in Iraq.
  We are not doing the job of gathering intelligence that we need to be 
doing. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I assure you, we are 
doing our oversight. We are going to be critical where we need to be 
critical because this is a phase of this war that must improve. We are 
going to do our job and make it improve so the people of Iraq will 
ultimately be free, the world will be safer, and America will be a 
safer country.
  I yield back, Mr. President.

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