[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 62 (Thursday, May 6, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4980-S4982]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     DEMOLISHING ABU GHRAIB PRISON

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, today the Senator from Nebraska and I are 
introducing a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. I will read it because I 
think it is appropriate at this time, when all of us are tremendously 
frustrated about what has gone on in a certain Iraqi prison.
  Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Abu Ghraib prison must be 
demolished to underscore the United States' abhorrence of the 
mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq.
  Whereas the Abu Ghraib prison was used by Saddam Hussein to execute 
and torture thousands of men, women and children;
  Whereas Saddam Hussein and his Special Security Organization oversaw 
the execution of thousands of prisoners;
  Whereas Abu Ghraib prison is notoriously known as a death chamber by 
the Iraqi people;
  Whereas the Abu Ghraib prison is arguably the largest and most feared 
prison in the Arab world;
  Whereas it is widely known that one of Saddam's sons, in one day, 
ordered the execution of 3,000 prisoners at the prison;
  Whereas the recent reports of the atrocities and abhorrent 
mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison are un-
American, do not represent our values, and have sent the wrong message 
about the United States intentions in Iraq;
  Whereas the American people will not tolerate the mistreatment of 
Iraqi prisoners;
  Whereas the American people view this prison as a symbol of evil, and 
where past cruel torture and mistreatment occurred;
  Whereas the American people would like to rid the world of this evil 
place where past and, unfortunately currently reported mistreatment has 
occurred;

  Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate 
that the Abu Ghraib prison, also known as the Baghdad Central Detention 
Center, be completely demolished as an expression and symbolic gesture 
that the American people will not tolerate the past and the current 
mistreatment of prisoners.
  We are offering this sense-of-the-Senate resolution today because we 
believe it is a profound and clear expression of the American people's 
concern and it is a sense of this Senate that we do not accept the 
treatment that has gone on there of Iraqi detainees.
  I yield the floor now to my colleague from Nebraska for a similar 
expression, and I send this resolution, as proposed, to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The resolution will be received and 
appropriately referred.
  The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. I thank my colleague from Idaho for this 
opportunity to express our outrage at the behavior of Saddam's henchmen 
and for the disgust we have for what some misguided soldiers apparently 
did in conjunction with the trust they had imposed on them in 
conjunction with prisoners.
  We cannot erase what has been done. We can apologize for it. We can 
express our outrage. We can say to the American people and to the 
people of the world, this is not our way and we do not condone it, but 
we cannot change it and we cannot erase it. I think what we can do is 
make the broadest statement we possibly can symbolically by leveling 
this prison.
  It seems as though the demons of the Saddam regime carried on in the 
disguise of Americans who under ordinary circumstances would not have 
been conducting themselves in this way.
  I do not believe in those ghosts, but I do believe the message that 
can be sent is a very strong one: We do not condone this kind of 
behavior. The very behavior we went to eradicate needs to be eradicated 
once again. Those who are criminally responsible must be held to the 
letter of the law, and those who are responsible in the chain of 
command must also be held to the highest standards of our military.
  I think we can say to the Iraqi people more than we are sorry, which 
we are, more than we wish it had not occurred, that we stand with them 
to eradicate this kind of behavior once and for all, at least in that 
prison. Perhaps symbolically it will help all recognize this kind of 
behavior is unacceptable anyplace in the world.
  I have traveled with my colleagues to various parts of the world, to 
South Korea, the Baltics, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and those photos do 
not represent those men and women who serve our Nation honorably or 
share the values we Americans hold dear.
  This prison was the tool of a violent, repressive regime. It is as 
much a symbol of Saddam's regime as the statues honoring him throughout 
Iraq. It is even more so in many respects because it represents the 
truth of what his rule was. Just as those statues were torn down, so 
should this prison be torn down. This place has become a symbol of 
abuses and atrocities first under the regime and now sadly with the new 
acts committed by our troops. We need to make a clean start. What 
happened in that prison is not American. It does not represent our 
values, and we need to let the rest of the world know in the most 
visible way possible that these acts which were committed in that 
prison are not the American way and not the way America conducts 
itself.

  We need to make a break from the past. We need to level this prison. 
The symbol of atrocities, this home of abuses, should stand no longer. 
Let that be our stand, to tear down the prison, to hold those 
accountable who have engaged in such activities as we have held Saddam 
accountable, and let us move on so we can say to the people of the 
world, this is a new start, a break from the past. Let us join with the 
Iraqi people in building a new Iraq, one that is founded not on the 
abuses

[[Page S4981]]

of Abu Ghraib but on the hope for tomorrow. We can share the values 
together to eliminate abuse, to eliminate these atrocities and to set 
the record straight for the rest of the world.
  I yield back any time to my colleague from Idaho.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. I thank the Senator from Nebraska for his support of this 
effort.
  Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Is the time 
controlled? How is the time yielded?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho has 3 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. BREAUX. I would like to ask a question.
  Mr. CRAIG. I yield to the Senator for a question.
  Mr. BREAUX. I probably should not be getting into this because I have 
not looked at it, but it seems that the sense of the resolution is the 
prison should be destroyed. I do not think it was so much a problem 
with the prison as it was with people who ran the prison. It is not the 
physical plant that caused the problem. It is the people who were 
running the prison.
  If we do demolish a prison, are we not going to have to build another 
one? It seems to me what we ought to be advocating is not the 
demolishing of the prison but the replacement of the people who were 
running the prison with professional people who understand how to treat 
prisoners.
  The problem is not the physical plant. The problem is the people 
running it. I am sort of concerned if we demolish the prison we are 
going to have to end up building another one because we are going to 
have prisoners who are going to have to be dealt with over there.
  Mr. CRAIG. The Senator from Louisiana makes an excellent point. There 
will be a need for a prison to detain people. This is a very large 
complex. It is also phenomenally symbolic of the evil of Saddam Hussein 
where within those walls literally thousands of Iraqis were killed. It 
was known as the death center. Symbolically what we do is very 
important. Tragically, what we have done or allowed to happen is very 
important. I think what the Senator from Nebraska and I are saying is, 
let us look at the death chambers themselves and tell the Iraqi people 
those chambers will no longer stand. I believe that is an important 
expression. Words are one thing; actions are clearly another. I believe 
symbolically what we say today, or what the Senate of the United States 
could say and should say, is important.

  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, my response to my friend from 
Louisiana is if this had been a prison, I would say let us continue it 
as a prison and change simply the administration, the prison guards. 
But it was never a prison. It was a place of abuse and atrocity, a 
death chamber for thousands and thousands of Iraqi citizens. So it is 
not a prison, and it never was converted into a prison, apparently not 
even during the time that we have been able to administer it.
  Mr. BREAUX. With the explanation I think that clears up a great deal 
of my concern, and I intend to support it. I thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. REID. How much time is left under the control of the Senator from 
Idaho?
  Mr. CRAIG. I yield the remainder of our time.
  Mr. REID. I yield our 10 minutes to the Senator from Illinois, Mr. 
Durbin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I listened carefully to this debate by my 
colleagues. We can join in the debate as to whether the destruction of 
the building is an appropriate symbol of our shame and outrage at what 
happened to the Iraqi prisoners. The fact is, after the invasion, this 
Saddam Hussein torture chamber or prison was extensively remodeled by 
the U.S. taxpayers. Tearing it down will, as the Senator from Louisiana 
suggests, result in the need to build another at the expense of the 
U.S. taxpayers.
  If this symbol, though, can move us any closer to expressing our 
sense of outrage and shame to the people of Iraq and to the Arab and 
Muslim nations around the world, then that expense, as far as I am 
concerned, is money well spent. I am open to that suggestion.
  I would like to reflect for a moment on the larger issue that has 
been raised, not just in this Chamber today but around the world over 
the last several days. As a member of the Senate Intelligence 
Committee, yesterday I spent several hours in a hearing with 
representatives of our military and civilian agencies involved in Iraq, 
where we poured over every gruesome, grisly, sickening detail of this 
abuse of Iraqi prisoners. I cannot disclose what was said in that room. 
What I am about to say is based exclusively on those public 
pronouncements and things that have been available in the press. I want 
to make that clear at the outset.
  I will tell you about yesterday. I can't remember a sadder day in my 
service in Congress than the time I spent in that intelligence room. To 
think any human being would do that to another person is unthinkable. 
To think that an American would be involved in that is something I 
never would have believed. And to imagine that someone wearing the 
uniform of our country would have been in some way associated with that 
activity is something I would never, ever have accepted. Yet it is a 
reality, and the reality is it was not one isolated incident. It was a 
series of incidents involving the killing of prisoners, the sadistic, 
wanton, and blatant mistreatment of prisoners, and it is something 
which, sadly, this United States of America must face up to.

  I am glad the President of the United States went on Arab television 
yesterday to express his personal feelings about how terrible these 
events were, and to make it clear that America does not accept this 
conduct. I wish the President had extended an apology to the Iraqi 
people and all who were offended by this shameful episode. It would 
have been an easy thing for him to do. It would have expressed a sense 
of humanity and a sense of justice, which we expect of an American 
President. He did not. I wish he had.
  But now we have to ask ourselves how should we, as a people, react to 
this? I am going to suggest one way we should not react to this. I have 
in my hand a transcript from a syndicated radio program of May 4, by 
Rush Limbaugh. Oh, he is well known around Washington, around the 
world. I want to read what Mr. Limbaugh said in reaction to this 
scandalous episode involving the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
  His caller, on May 4, asked as follows:

       It was like a college fraternity prank that stack up naked 
     men.

  And Mr. Limbaugh replied as follows:

       Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what 
     happens at skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin 
     people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military 
     effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because 
     they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired 
     at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, 
     these people, you ever heard of emotional release?

  Rush Limbaugh said in describing the sadistic torture of Iraqi 
prisoners. And then Mr. Limbaugh, in his infinite wisdom, went on to 
say:

       You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

  Rush Limbaugh. I am embarrassed that this man, who supposedly speaks 
for so many people in America and is listened to faithfully by so many 
people in America, would be so callous, so insensitive as to make those 
statements. Trust me, they will be repeated, not just on the floor of 
the Senate, but around the world by our enemies as an indication that 
we are not taking this seriously.
  President Bush struck the right note yesterday. We are taking this 
extremely seriously, and we should. The reason is obvious. What 
happened in those prison cells was a complete breakdown of leadership, 
a complete breakdown of discipline. It is clear that some are being 
held accountable for it already, and the investigation continues. Some 
of my colleagues have come to the floor and said this investigation 
should go all the way to the top. I will keep an open mind on that 
issue. I want the Secretary of Defense to have his day in court, his 
moment to explain when he learned of this and what he did about it; 
frankly, what action he took to avoid this from occurring.
  But there are several things I think we should keep in mind. No. 1, 
the men

[[Page S4982]]

and women of this reserve unit who were called on to run this prison 
represented a military police unit without training in detention and 
corrections.

  There is never an excuse for this inhumane and barbaric conduct but 
the fact is, time and again since we invaded Iraq, we have given 
assignments to our men and women in uniform, assignments that they were 
never trained to do. We have asked them to establish civil order in 
Iraq when they were trained to invade and defeat an enemy. We asked 
them to be traffic cops and university security. We have asked them to 
guard museums. We have asked them to do things that were beyond their 
skill and beyond their training, and this is another example.
  Second, let me tell you this. We cannot ignore the reality that the 
people we are still holding in detention, because of the war on 
terrorism, are the next questions to be asked by the world. If this 
happened in Iraq at the Abu Ghraib prison, what is happening at 
Guantanamo Bay? We have to be prepared to answer those questions. We 
have to be transparent and open in our treatment of these prisoners, 
and we have to accept the obvious. We have held and detained hundreds 
of people without charge, without benefit of counsel, and without 
communication, in some cases for more than 2 years. There reaches a 
point where the United States needs to either charge these people with 
wrongdoing or release them.
  We are going to be asked by the world: If Abu Ghraib was a scandal, 
how are you treating the other detainees and the other prisoners who 
are involved as well?
  We should accept the reality, too, that what happened in this prison, 
sadly, is going to make our mission in Iraq that much more difficult 
and that much more dangerous for the brave men and women in uniform who 
still serve our country so well as I speak. It has become a recruiting 
poster, the photos of this abuse and torture, a recruiting poster for 
those who hate us around the world. Some would say we need to condemn 
it by resolution; we need to tear down the prison. All of these are 
important words and important symbols. But we need to do more. We need 
to try to establish bridges of communication and bridges of 
understanding with Arab States and Muslim states and the people who 
live there who, in these images of torture, will believe they see the 
real United States. That is not who we are. We are a caring people, and 
we need to demonstrate that.

  Beyond tearing down buildings, can we talk about building things up? 
Can we talk about investing our resources and talents in the United 
States, to reach out, as the President has asked, in the global AIDS 
fight, to Muslim nations that are struggling, to reach out to 
struggling countries, Muslim and otherwise, to provide school feeding 
programs for children, to once again demonstrate to the world who we 
really are? Blowing up a building is one thing, but building a life and 
building a school and building a health clinic is another. It is clear 
evidence of who we are as an American people.
  I look at the situation in Iraq today. It is much more troublesome 
than it was even a week ago. In April, the bloodiest month in this war 
for America since our invasion, we lost more troops, we suffered more 
injuries than in any single period. I make it my responsibility to 
try--and sometimes I cannot--to call every Illinoisan who has lost a 
soldier. God bless them, every single one of them, so proud of their 
son or daughter, husband, wife, killed in this conflict. And they 
should be proud. They have served our country. They should be proud of 
the contribution a member of their family has made to this country.
  However, this situation is getting perilously complicated and so far 
from the resolution we hoped for when we made the invasion of this 
country. Our war on terrorism is going to be complicated as well. We 
need to develop a sound strategy for the Iraqi situation and for our 
war on terrorism. We need to concede that many of the things that 
seemed so obvious and so easy have failed us so far.
  We heard predictions early on that the Iraqis would greet us with 
open arms, move toward democracy, and we would start turning over 
control of the nation to them. It sounded like a great goal. Clearly, 
we were wrong. It has not happened. It is not likely to happen soon.
  The administration will ask for more money--$25 billion--to support 
our troops. Although I voted against this war, I will continue to vote 
for every dollar this administration asks for to keep our troops safe 
and to bring them home safely. We must continue to ask the hard 
questions: What is the strategy? What is the plan? Where is the 
leadership? How can we bring our troops home from Iraq with a mission 
truly accomplished?
  Sadly, today we are further from that goal than we were just a few 
short days ago. I hope that during the course of the debate on this 
important resolution on the scandalous activity at the prison we can 
find Senators of both political parties coming forward, trying to find 
common ground to reach our goal in the Middle East.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I take it we will be voting on a 
resolution with respect to the Saddam prison.
  It strikes me, what I have just heard in the last few minutes, as a 
typical copout from responsibility. We hide the deficit. We do not pay 
the costs of the war. We hide behind all these other things. Now all we 
have to do is remove the building, and if they cannot be aware of it, 
they will not care.
  This thing happened in January. What we have on foot is the exact 
``torture-gate,'' I guess you would call it. From January to May, we 
have not heard anything about it. This Senator has not heard anything 
about it. Now we have all of these ``whereas'' clauses, and this is 
what Saddam did, and it did not bother us. We did not put in a 
resolution about it. In fact, we went there and spent good money to 
clean it up and we put a prison there.
  Maybe after we take some responsibility, then maybe this kind of 
resolution would be in order. The first act and the first reaction 
officially of the Senate is going to be, let's tear down the building. 
The building is not at fault. It is the people in the building who are 
at fault.
  I will not be able to vote for this nonsense. I have never seen a 
crowd that absolutely will not accept responsibility for the war, for 
the costs of the war, the cost of government, and now the 
responsibility here. Their first reaction is a lot of ``whereas'' 
clauses about Saddam and nothing about us, other than that is not our 
way of life, and everything else of that kind. Let's find out that is 
not our way of life by fixing some responsibility in this Government. 
Once that is done, bring on the ``whereas'' clauses about Saddam's 
prison.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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