[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 12, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S5367]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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   (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

                           WHY WE'RE IN IRAQ

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I recently wrote a guest column on ``Why 
We're in Iraq'' for The State in Columbia, SC. I want to share it with 
my colleagues, and ask that the May 7 article be printed in the Record.
  The article follows.

                         ``Why We're in Iraq''

                         (By Ernest F. Hollings)

        With 760 dead in Iraq and more than 3,000 maimed for life, 
     folks continue to argue over why we are in Iraq--and how to 
     get out.
       Now everyone knows what was not the cause of this war. Even 
     President Bush acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing 
     to do with 9/11. Listing the 45 countries where al Qaeda was 
     operating on Sept. 11 (70 cells in the United States), the 
     State Department did not list Iraq.
       Richard Clarke, in ``Against All Enemies,'' tells how the 
     United States had not received any threat of terrorism for 10 
     years from Saddam at the time of our invasion. On page 231, 
     John McLaughlin of the CIA verifies this to Paul Wolfowitz. 
     In 1993 President Clinton responded to Saddam's attempt on 
     the life of President George Herbert Walker Bush by putting a 
     missile down Saddam's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. 
     Not a big kill, but Saddam got the message: Monkey around 
     with the United States and a missile lands on his head.
       Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction. 
     Israel's intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in Iraq. 
     It is the best. It has to know; Israel's survival depends on 
     knowing. Israel long since would have taken us to the weapons 
     of mass destruction if there were any, or if they had been 
     removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? 
     The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel.
       Led by Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Charles 
     Krauthammer, for years there has been a domino school of 
     thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to 
     spread democracy in the area. Wolfowitz wrote: ``The United 
     States may not be able to lead countries through the door of 
     democracy, but where that door is locked shut by a 
     totalitarian deadbolt, American power may be the only way to 
     open it up.'' And on another occasion: Iraq as ``the first 
     Arab democracy . . . would cast a very large shadow, starting 
     with Syria and Iran but across the whole Arab world.''
       Three weeks before invasion President Bush stated: ``A new 
     regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring 
     example for freedom for other nations in the region.''
       Every president since 1947 has made a futile attempt to 
     help Israel negotiate peace. But no leadership has surfaced 
     among the Palestinians that can make a binding agreement. 
     President Bush realized his chances at negotiation were no 
     better. He came to office imbued with one thought--re-
     election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together 
     and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would 
     take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.
       You don't come to town and announce your Israel policy is 
     to invade Iraq. But George W. Bush, as stated by former 
     Secretary Paul O'Neill and others, started laying the 
     groundwork to invade Iraq days after inauguration. And, 
     without any Iraq connection to 9/11, within weeks he had the 
     Pentagon outlining a plan to invade Iraq. He was determined.
       President Bush thought taking Iraq would be easy. Wolfowitz 
     said it would take only seven days. Cheney believed we would 
     be greeted as liberators. But Cheney's man, Ahmed Chalabi, 
     made a mess of the de-Baathification of Iraq by dismissing 
     Republican Guard leadership and Sunni leaders, who soon 
     joined with the insurgents.
       Worst of all, we tried to secure Iraq with too few troops. 
     In 1966 in South Vietnam with a population of 16.5 million, 
     Gen. William C. Westmoreland with 535,000 U.S. troops was 
     still asking for more. In Iraq with a population of 24.6 
     million, Gen. John Abizaid with only 135,000 troops can 
     barely secure the troops, much less the country. If the 
     troops are there to fight, they are too few. If there to die, 
     they are too many.
        To secure Iraq we need more troops at least 100,000 more. 
     The only way to get the United Nations back in Iraq is to 
     make the country secure. Once back, the French, Germans and 
     others will join with the United Nations to take over.
        With President Bush's domino policy in the Mideast gone 
     awry, he keeps shouting ``War on Terror.'' Terrorism is a 
     method, not a war. We don't call the Crimean War, with the 
     Charge of the Light Brigade, the Cavalry War. Or World War II 
     the Blitzkrieg War. There is terrorism in Ireland against the 
     Brits. There is terrorism in India and in Pakistan. In the 
     Mideast, terrorism is a separate problem to be defeated by 
     diplomacy and negotiation, not militarily.
        Here, might does not make right--right makes might. Acting 
     militarily, we have created more terrorism than we have 
     eliminated.

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