[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 11, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H2782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chocola). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman who spoke 
earlier in the well about casting aspersions on Donald Rumsfeld and 
others in the Bush administration, I will not cast aspersions. I called 
for his resignation earlier; and if I have time at the end, I will go 
into those again.
  But I am going to read from the Army Times, not exactly a bastion of 
Democrats or liberalism.
  ``Editorial: A Failure of Leadership At the Highest Levels.
  ``Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has 
emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the 
Abu Ghraib prison scandal: The six morons who lost the war.
  ``Indeed, damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole 
by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees 
at the notorious prison is incalculable.
  ``But the folks at the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons.
  ``There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the 
now infamous pictures, and an even more damning report by Major General 
Antonio Taguba. Every soldier involved should be ashamed.
  ``But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing 
criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command, to 
the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian 
leadership.
  ``The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. 
From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and 
isolated. The message to the troops: anything goes.
  ``In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and 
demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 
Army has ruled at least two of these homicides. This is not the way a 
free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a 
suspicious world.
  ``How tragically ironic that the American military, which was 
welcomed to Baghdad by the euphoric Iraqi people a year ago as a 
liberating force and ended 30 years of tyranny, would today stand 
guilty of dehumanizing torture in the same Abu Ghraib prison used by 
Saddam Hussein's henchmen.
  ``One can only wonder why the prison wasn't razed in the wake of the 
invasion as a symbolic stake through the heart of the Baathist regime.
  ``Army commanders in Iraq bear responsibilities for running a prison 
where there was no legal advisor to the commander, no ultimate 
responsibility taken for the care and treatment of the prisoners.
  ``General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also shares in 
the shame. Myers asked `60 Minutes II' to hold off reporting news of 
the scandal because it could put U.S. troops at risk. But when the 
report was aired, a week later, Myers still hadn't read Taguba's 
report, which had been completed in March; Defense Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld also failed to read the report until after the scandal broke 
in the media.
  ``But then, of course, it was too late.
  ``Myers, Rumsfeld and their staffs failed to recognize the impact the 
scandal would have, not only in the United States, but around the 
world.
  ``If their staffs failed to alert Myers and Rumsfeld, shame on them. 
But shame, too, on the chairman and Secretary, who failed to inform 
even President Bush.
  ``He was left to learn of the explosive scandal from media reports 
instead of from his own military leaders.
  ``On the battlefield, Myers and Rumsfeld's errors would be called 
lack of situational awareness, a failure that amounts to professional 
negligence.
  ``To date, the Army has moved to court-martial the six soldiers 
suspected of abusing Iraqi detainees and has reprimanded six others.
  ``Brigadier General Karpinski, who commanded the MP brigade that ran 
Abu Ghraib, has received a letter of admonishment and also faces 
possible disciplinary action.
  ``That is good, but not enough.
  ``This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command 
level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability 
here is essential, even if that means relieving top leaders from duty 
in a time of war.''
  That is from the Army Times, the May 17, 2004, issue.
  I called earlier for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation, as had others, 
because of the jiggered intelligence about the weapons of mass 
destruction and the so-called links that did not exist with terrorist 
groups with this regime, the fact that they ignored intelligence 
reports and plans drawn up by the State Department, and concerns about 
post-war occupation of Iraq, about the number of troops necessary to 
prevent looting, the downward spiral that could begin with looting, the 
fact that the troops did not have body armor, armored Humvees.
  That is all because they were not ordered, not because there was not 
enough money. They were not ordered. Rumsfeld did not think they would 
need them, in his arrogance.
  And today he talks about troops as fungible, and he reigns over a 
Defense Department that has wasted billions, while the troops are 
lacking basics. And he is the guy at whose desk the buck stops when 
prisoners are abused, as says the Army Times, not just a progressive 
Democrat from Oregon.

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