[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 57 (Thursday, April 29, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4627-S4628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

   Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a year ago this Saturday, President Bush 
dressed up in a flight suit, flew out to the aircraft carrier Abraham 
Lincoln, and declared ``Mission Accomplished'' in Iraq.
   Our mission was far from accomplished then, and it is far from 
accomplished now.
   At his press conference in the White House earlier this month, the 
President was asked if he knew of any mistakes he had made, and he said 
he couldn't think of any. It is too much to expect that he would have 
mentioned Iraq, but he might at least have mentioned the trip to the 
carrier. The trip was nothing more than a photo op tailored for the 
2004 election.

[[Page S4628]]

   Then, as now, the President had no plan and no strategy about how 
America can stabilize Iraq, bring our soldiers home with dignity and 
honor, and accomplish the mission. Then, as now, we are muddling 
through day by day, hoping for the best, fearing the worst.
   Iraq was the big mistake. There was no urgent need to go to war in 
Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. But he did not pose the 
kind of immediate threat to our national security that could justify a 
unilateral, preventive war without the broad support of the 
international community.
   It is clear that the Bush administration manipulated, 
misrepresented, and distorted the available intelligence in order to 
justify the war in Iraq. They put a spin on the intelligence and a spin 
on the truth. They said Saddam was acquiring nuclear weapons. He 
wasn't. They said he had close ties to al-Qaida. He didn't. Congress 
would never have voted to authorize the war if we had known the truth.
   Our military had a brilliant plan to win the war. Our soldiers 
performed brilliantly during the 3-week initial military operation. But 
the President had no plan to win the peace. He said we would be treated 
as liberators, and in the first day or two after the statue of Saddam 
fell, we were. But then the massive looting began. Resentment by the 
Iraqi people began, and the liberation quickly turned into an 
occupation.
   Iraq has become a quagmire. It may well go down as the worst blunder 
in the entire history of American foreign policy.
  Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam. By going to war in Iraq, President 
Bush squandered the immense good will of the world community we had won 
in the wake of 9/11, and we are paying a high price in the lives of our 
troops and the respect of other nations.
  By going to war in Iraq, President Bush has made the real war on 
terrorism harder to win. We left the war in Afghanistan unfinished. We 
should never have given al-Qaida precious time to recover and regroup 
and expand their reach. By doing so, we made future terrorist attacks 
on the United State more likely.
  Before the war, Pentagon officials assured Congress that firm plans 
were in place to secure Iraq and rebuild it. The reality is that the 
administration had a plan on paper, but not a real plan--and precious 
little paper at that.
  The administration's post-war planning was based on a quicksand of 
false assumptions. It has been hamstrung by blunder, after blunder, 
after blunder. The continuing arrogance of the administration has 
blinded it to the cold, hard facts about the immense challenge of post-
war reconstruction in Iraq.
  Based on our experience in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in East Timor, and in 
Afghanistan, we knew security could be a profound problem, with major 
challenges from a restless population. Yet we had no broad security 
plan, as the early looting quickly showed, and a dangerous security 
situation still exists today.
  The administration assumed that we would be able to draw on thousands 
of Saddam's police force to protect security--but in the critical early 
weeks that followed the war, they were nowhere to be found, and too 
many of their officers turned out to be thugs and torturers.
  The administration assumed that Iraqi exile leaders could return to 
Iraq to rally the population and lead the new government, but they 
were--and still are--strongly resented by the Iraqi people.
  Today, with the transfer of sovereignty scheduled for the end of 
June, the administration still has no idea about who should run the 
country. They assumed that after a few hundred of Saddam's top advisers 
were removed from power, large numbers of local officials would remain 
to run the government--but the government crumbled. Today, it remains 
in shambles.
  Wrongly, we continue to rely primarily on a military solution for 
politically inspired violence. Look at Fallujah. Let us hope we don't 
have to hear Secretary Rumsfeld say, ``We had to destroy Fallujah in 
order to save it.''
  It is painfully clear that the President and those who advocated the 
war have lost all credibility on Iraq. They did not understand the 
situation going into the war. They do not understand the situation now. 
And they have no plan to extricate us from the quagmire they created. 
The result has been chaos for the Iraqi people, and continuing mortal 
danger for our troops.
  We cannot cut and run. Our soldiers deserve a genuine strategy to 
deal with the continuing crisis.
  All of us who have concerns about the administration's past policy 
welcome the reinvolvement of the United Nations in Iraq and the 
administration's openness to a new U.N. resolution. The question is 
whether the administration's efforts will provide any significant 
relief for our troops.
  There is no sign of that yet. The Bush administration has poked its 
finger in the eye of almost every other nation in the world, and they 
have little incentive or interest in coming to our rescue.
  Our military has been bearing a disproportionate share of the burden. 
We have 80 percent of the troops on the ground, and we have suffered 80 
percent of the casualties. That burden is increasing, with Spain, 
Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador pulling troops out of the country, 
and others threatening to do the same.
  Very little will change after the transfer of sovereignty and under 
the administration's plan to work with the international community. It 
is not even a genuine transfer of sovereignty. We'll still be running 
the show in Iraq. A U.S. occupation by another name is still a U.S. 
occupation.
  We need a real change in our foreign policy, not a cosmetic change. 
Only a new administration that has the trust and confidence of the rest 
of the world will be able to bring in the international community to 
provide international troops, provide international police, provide 
international financial resources, achieve a workable political 
solution, and, relieve the burden on our military and bring them home 
with dignity and honor.
  Mr. President, our mission in Iraq is far from accomplished. Our men 
and women in uniform know it. The Iraqi people know it. And the 
American people know it too.
  I withhold the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts.

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