Congressional Record, Volume 150 Issue 68 (Friday, May 14, 2004)

[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 68 (Friday, May 14, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5490-S5495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

PRISONER ABUSE IN IRAQ

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to talk about the prisoner abuse in
Iraq and how it ties into the conduct of our war there to ensure that
we can prevail

[[Page S5491]]

in this struggle in which we have engaged. I want to begin by talking
about a New York Times newspaper article this morning which I think
puts into better perspective the nature of the offense that has been
committed in that prison and then move to a discussion of how our
troops are trained to conduct investigations at a military installation
in Arizona, my State, and conclude with remarks that were offered this
morning in an op-ed piece by Charles Krauthammer that I think puts all
of this into a perspective that we would do well to pay some attention
to.
Let's begin with the last 10 or 12 days of discussion about what
occurred in the prison in Iraq and how that has affected public opinion
about the morality of our effort there. There has been a lot of
speculation. I have urged colleagues and others to avoid speculating
until the reports are in, until the facts are before us, because
speculation cannot only lead to wrong conclusions, it can actually
damage our position around the world.
Some seem all too anxious to prove that what happened there had to be
the result of orders from higher-ups, that it just couldn't possibly
have been the actions of a few soldiers acting in a very wrong way; it
had to come from higher-ups.
It is possible there were some orders from higher-ups that had an
effect, but sometimes there seems to be almost a desire, a hope that we
will find it was the orders from somebody higher up, and the political
implications of that are obvious.
I have seen speculation that because families and friends of some of
these soldiers, understandably, were in disbelief that their friend or
child could have done this without being ordered to do so, that,
therefore, is proof the order had to come from above.
It is not proof. The defense is understandable. It may or may not be
true. But what is becoming a little bit more clear is that, despite the
number of photographs, these incidents appear to have been isolated, to
have occurred on few occasions in one place by a very few people
without having been ordered from above.
This is the point of a New York Times article of today, ``U.S.
Soldier Paints Scene of Eager Mayhem'' at Iraqi prison. It is the story
of the statement given to investigators by SPC Jeremy C. Sivits who is
under court-martial. The statement was released by a lawyer for another
soldier. That is how the New York Times acquired it.
The sense of the story is that Specialist Sivits described a scene of
misconduct by a few of his colleagues:

. . . not authorized by anyone in the chain of command and
with no connection to any interrogations.

Of course, we have seen a lot of speculation that it must have been
ordered, it must have been in connection with softening up the
prisoners. The first clear word of what happened by someone who was
willing to talk to investigators and admit his own culpability in the
process suggests that is not true. Let me continue to quote:

The soldiers knew that what they had done was wrong,
Specialist Sivits told investigators, at least enough to
instruct him not to tell anyone what he had seen. Specialist
Sivits was asked if the abuse would have happened if someone
in the chain of command was present. ``Hell no,'' he replied,
adding: ``Because our command would have slammed us. They
believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going
on, there would be hell to pay.

The story goes on to note that this activity occurred at least in his
presence apparently only on two occasions, most of it on one particular
evening, and that at one point a sergeant heard the commotion and
looked down to see what was going on and yelled at them in anger to
knock it off. The story obviously concludes that this is, according to
this specialist, a case of bad behavior by a few people who obviously
had inadequate supervision but who were not doing this to soften up
prisoners or doing it at the command of anyone. And, indeed, they knew
if their commanders found out there would be ``hell to pay.''

This is important because if it is true, what it demonstrates is that
what we have been saying all along is right. America does not conduct
its interrogations this way. It does not contain and handle prisoners
this way. This conduct was an aberration. It will not be tolerated. The
guilty will be forced to pay, and we will try to understand what is
necessary to implement to see that it doesn't happen again.
Secondly, if in fact this is correct, as the New York Times has
reported, it is not just these people who will pay but their immediate
superiors who allowed them to conduct this activity. Because even
though those superiors may not have known about it or certainly
participated in it, they created the circumstance under which this
could occur. They bear some responsibility as well.
What about the interrogation techniques? There has been a lot of
speculation about that. First, the official U.S. Government policy, the
official Defense Department policy, is that the laws of the Geneva
Conventions will apply in Iraq, period. There is no exception for
really bad guys. There is no exception in order to extract information.
Some confusion exists because of the fact that the Geneva Conventions
don't apply to a group such as al-Qaida. That is a fact. It is not
something subjective.
The reason is because by the very terms of the Geneva Conventions,
they apply in cases where countries have signed the conventions, and
they apply to situations in which you have an army, a military force
that wears uniforms, that does not conduct activities against
civilians. In the case of the al-Qaida, none of those conditions
applies. Technically the laws of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to
al-Qaida. That is a true statement. Because people have made that
point, there has been then a leap to the conclusion that, therefore,
the U.S. Government is mistreating al-Qaida. But that is not true.
Our policy is that notwithstanding the fact the Geneva Conventions
don't apply to al-Qaida detainees, the humane treatment called for in
the Geneva Conventions will still be the rule, the law, the order of
the day for our handling of those prisoners so that the same kind of
treatment that is required by the Geneva Conventions will even be
applied to people who are not technically entitled to the protection.
That is our official U.S. policy.
It is trained at Fort Huachuca, an Army base in southern Arizona,
which has a mission, among other things, to train interrogation and
collection of intelligence.
Let me read a couple of items from an article from the Tucson Citizen
of May 13.
I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a May 14 article from
the New York Times, a May 13 article from the Tucson Citizen, and an
article to which I will refer, an op-ed piece by Charles Krauthammer,
dated May 14, from the Washington Post.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From The New York Times, May 14, 2004]

U.S. Soldier Paints a Scene of Eager Mayhem at Iraqi Prison

(By Kate Zernike)

When a fresh crop of detainees arrived at Abu Ghraib prison
one night in late October, their jailers set upon them.
The soldiers pulled seven Iraqi detainees from their cells,
``tossed them in the middle of the floor'' and then one
soldier ran across the room and lunged into the pile of
detainees, according to sworn statements given to
investigators by one of the soldiers now charged with abuse.
He did it again, jumping into the group like it was a pile of
autumn leaves, and another soldier called for others to join
in. The detainees were ordered to strip and masturbate, their
heads covered with plastic sandbags. One soldier stomped on
their fingers and toes.
``Graner put the detainee's head into a cradle position
with Graner's arm, and Graner punched the detainee with a lot
of force, in the temple,'' Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits said
in his statements to investigators, referring to another
soldier charged, Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. ``Graner
punched the detainee with a closed fist so hard in the temple
that it knocked the detainee unconscious.''
``He was joking, laughing,'' Specialist Sivits said. ``Like
he was enjoying it.''
``He went over to the pile of detainees that were still
clothed and he put his knees on them and had his picture
taken,'' Specialist Sivits said. ``I took this photo.''
Specialist Sivits's two statements, given to investigators
in January and released by a lawyer for another soldier on
Thursday, recount the evening's activities in graphic but
unemotional language, portraying a night of gratuitous and
random violence. Lawyers for the soldiers have explained the
abuse captured in hundreds of photographs now at the center
of the Abu Ghraib scandal by saying

[[Page S5492]]

the soldiers were operating on the orders of military
intelligence in an effort to get detainees to talk.
Last night, lawyers for the other charged soldiers repeated
that. They said that in a bid for leniency, Specialist
Sivits, 24, the first to be court-martialed, is expected to
plead guilty on Wednesday and testify against the others.
But Specialist Sivits described a scene of twisted
joviality not authorized by anyone in the chain of command
and with no connection to any interrogations.
``She was laughing at the different stuff they were having
the detainees do,'' Specialist Sivits said, describing Pfc.
Lynndie R. England, another soldier charged.
The soldiers knew that what they had done was wrong,
Specialist Sivits told investigators, at least enough to
instruct him not to tell anyone what he had seen. Specialist
Sivits was asked if the abuse would have happened if someone
in the chain of command was present. ``Hell no,'' he replied,
adding: ``Because our command would have slammed us. They
believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going
on, there would be hell to pay.''
The evening began with Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II
casually telling Specialist Sivits to join him where the
detainees were held. They escorted the detainees from their
holding cells and piled them up. ``Graner told Specialist
Wisdom to come in and `get him some.' Meaning to come in and
be part of whatever was going to happen,''
Specialist Sivits told investigators, referring to
Specialist Matthew Wisdom.
``A couple of the detainees kind of made an ahh sound as if
this hurt them or caused them some type of pain when Davis
would land on them,'' he said. Sergeant Javal C. Davis
responded by stepping on their fingers or toes, Specialist
Sivits said, and the detainees screamed.
The platoon sergeant standing on a tier above the room
heard the screams and yelled down at Sergeant Davis to stop,
surprising the other soldiers with the anger in his command,
Specialist Sivits said. But within two minutes, the platoon
sergeant left, and the soldiers resumed the abuse.
``Next Graner and Frederick had the detainees strip,''
Specialist Sivits said. ``Graner was the one who told them to
strip in Arabic language.'' The detainees hesitated.
Specialist Graner and Sergeant Frederick took them aside and
instructed them again. Specialist Graner told them to sit.
``I do not know what provoked Graner,'' Specialist Sivits
said, ``but Graner knelt down to one of the detainees that
was nude and had the sandbag over his head'' and punched the
detainee unconscious.
``I walked over to see if the detainee was still alive,''
Specialist Sivits said. ``I could tell the detainee was
unconscious, because his eyes were closed and he was not
moving, but I could see his chest rise and fall, so I knew he
was still alive.''
Specialist Graner said little. He had wounded his hand.
``Damn, that hurt,'' Specialist Sivits quoted him as saying.
After about two minutes, Specialist Sivits said, the detainee
moved, ``like he was coming to.'' Specialist Graner walked
over to pose with the pile of detainees.
Sergeant Frederick was standing in front of another
detainee. ``For no reason, Frederick punched the detainee in
the chest,'' Specialist Sivits said. ``The detainee took a
real deep breath and kind of squatted down. The detainee said
he could not breathe. They called for a medic to come down,
to try and get the detainee to breathe right. Frederick said
he thought he put the detainee in cardiac arrest.''
Specialist Graner, meanwhile, was having the other
detainees make a tower, all of them in a kneeling position
like a formation of cheerleaders.
``Frederick and Graner then tried to get several of the
inmates to masturbate themselves,'' Specialist Sivits
recounted.
``Staff Sergeant Frederick would take the hand of the
detainee and put it on the detainee's penis, and make the
detainee's hand go back and forth, as if masturbating. He did
this to about three of the detainees before one of them did
it right.''
After five minutes, they told him to stop. Specialist
Graner then had them pose against the wall, and made one
kneel in front of the other, Specialist Sivits said, ``So
that from behind the detainee that was kneeling, it would
look like the detainee kneeling had the penis of the detainee
standing in his mouth, but he did not,''
Specialist Sabrina Harman and Private England ``would stand
in front of the detainees and England and Harman would put
their thumbs up and have the pictures taken.''
Asked why the event took place, Specialist Sivits replied:
``I do not know. I do not know if someone had a bad day or
not. It was a normal day for me, aside from the stuff I told
you about.''
Asked to describe Sergeant Frederick's attitude, he
replied, ``Same as ever, mellow.'' Specialist Harman, he
said, looked somewhat disgusted, but laughed, too, and so did
Specialist Sivits, in his own account.
``What part did you think then was funny?'' investigators
asked. He replied, ``the tower thing.''
The evening was not an isolated case of violence,
Specialist Sivits said. He described another night when a dog
was set upon a detainee, and another when a detainee was
handcuffed to a bed.
``Graner was in the room with him,'' he said. ``This
detainee had wounds on his legs from where he had been shot
with the buckshot.'' Specialist Graner, he said, would
``strike the detainee with a half baseball swing, and hit the
wounds of the detainee. There is no doubt that this hurt the
detainee because he would scream he got hit. The detainee
would beg Graner to stop by saying `Mister, Mister, please
stop,' or words to that effect.''
``I think at one time Graner said in a baby type voice,
`Ah, does that hurt?' '' Specialist Sivits added.
Guy L. Womack, a lawyer for Specialist Graner, said he had
not seen the statement from Specialist Sivits but doubted
that his client would have hit a detainee.
``I don't think he was that kind of guy,'' Mr. Womack said.
``He would have done it if he was ordered to do it.'' He said
that military intelligence soldiers were in one of the
graphic photographs, indicating that they were aware of what
was going on.
``Sivits, as you know, has entered a plea agreement with
the government, getting lenient treatment for testifying
against other people,'' Mr. Womack said, ``and by definition
if he doesn't say something negative about other people he
would not get his deal.''
Similarly, a lawyer for Sergeant Frederick dismissed the
statement. ``Sivits is a rollover guilty plea, and that may
provide comfort to some,'' said the lawyer, Gary Myers. ``But
it has no impact upon the defense of any other case because
it has nothing whatsoever to do with the guilt or innocence
of my client.''
Specialist Sivits's lawyer has not responded to requests
for comments.
As for Specialist Sivits, investigators asked him in his
statements whether he thought any of the incidents were
wrong. ``All of them were,'' he replied.
Why did he not report the incidents? He replied: ``I was
asked not to, and I try to be friends with everyone. I see
now where trying to be friends with everyone can cost you.''
``I was in the wrong when the above incidents happened,''
he said. ``I should have said something.''
____

[From the Tucson Citizen, Thursday, May 13, 2004]

Abuse Disgusts Fort's Interrogators

trainees taught right way to make subjects talk; students learn how to
play on fears without violence

(By C.T. Revere)

The abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison violated
all training standards for Army interrogators and has
commanders and students at Fort Huachuca angry and fearful of
potential repercussions.
``It's anathema. It's not what we train. It's not our
values,'' said Maj. Gen. James Marks, commanding general of
the U.S. Army Intelligence Center. ``I can't fathom who would
do that . . . I'm disgusted by it. Those aren't interrogation
techniques. That's a bunch of rogue soldiers conducting evil
acts.''
Many at Fort Huachuca, home of the 111th Military
Intelligence Brigade, which includes the training programs
for interrogators and counterintelligence agents, say the
actions of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib have cast a pall on
the Army's intelligence-gathering community.
``Here we are, training hard and preparing ourselves, when
something like that happens,'' said Pfc. Ryan Johnson, 30,
who will complete Human Intelligence Collector training in
less than two weeks. ``It's a few individuals who have taken
it upon themselves to act outside of what they've been
trained to do. It reflects on the rest of us that are
training to do the right thing. I was disgusted with the way
they conducted themselves.''
In response to the abuse, officials at Fort Huachuca opened
their classrooms and training grounds to news media yesterday
to show how the ever-growing population of interrogators is
trained.
``We do not authorize any form of hands-on in terms of our
use of interrogation techniques,'' Marks said. ``We try to
play on their existing fears, but it is not allowed to put
hands on during an interrogation. The only time you put hands
on is when you are physically moving them from one place to
another.''
Methods such as sleep deprivation, forcing detainees to
stand in one position for prolonged periods and physical
assaults of any kind are not part of the curriculum at Fort
Huachuca, Marks said.
``We train soldiers to do what's right. Our Army is values-
based,'' he said.
Soldiers training to become interrogators complete an
intensive course that runs for 16 weeks and four days and
teaches 14 methods for interrogating ``in accordance with the
Geneva Conventions,'' said Joel Krasnosky, a retired Army
interrogator who is the chief of the Human Intelligence
Collector Course.
The first approach is to ask direct questions intended to
glean the information being sought, he said.
If that fails, interrogators can offer incentives for
information, appeal to emotions such as love of country or
hate for groups or ideas, intensifying or reducing fear,
appealing to pride or ego or convincing the person under
interrogation that there is simply no point to resisting.
Another approach calls for giving the impression that the
interrogators knows more than he or she does, sometimes by
using a ``prop'' dossier or file. Another tactic is to insist
the source has been identified as someone else they'd rather
not be.

[[Page S5493]]

Repeating the same question over and over can break down a
source, as can constantly interrupting the person or simply
sitting silently and waiting them out.
Once any of the approaches gets a source talking,
interrogators go back to direct questioning to get the
information they want, said Master Sgt. Steven Bohn, senior
enlisted instructor and a veteran interrogator.
``Ninety-nine percent of the time that is the most
effective approach,'' Bohn said. ``You've got to get that
information. You beat around the bush all day long. That's
what we do. But then you've always got to go back to the
direct approach.''
All interrogations take place with a security guard
present, typically a member of the military police, Marks
said. Oftentimes, a contract interpreter is also present, but
he or she never participates in the questioning, he said.
``They are a device through which an interrogator can get
to the person he is interrogating. We're not necessarily as
good as the guy we're trying to interrogate. We admit that,''
he said.
Adherence to the military doctrine known as ``The Law of
War'' prevents soldiers from crossing the line even in trying
circumstances, Marks said.
``The training has got to step in so that the soldier
doesn't even put his finger on the line,'' he said. ``It's
not just physical courage. It's moral courage.''
Better examples of military training are the two
noncommissioned officers, both trained at Fort Huachuca, who
developed the intelligence that led to the capture of Saddam
Hussein, Marks said.
While physical abuse and deprivation are not part of the
training for interrogators, they must take measures to obtain
information that is intended to save lives, he said.
``I want them to be tired. I want them to be afraid of
me,'' he said. ``When they breathe, I want them to think the
interrogator gave them the right to expand their lungs. When
the interrogator enters that room, I want him to think, `Oh,
my God. What's going to happen next?' And I haven't touched
him.''
____

[From the Washington Post, May 14, 2004]

The Abu Ghraib Panic

(By Charles Krauthammer)

Democrats calling for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation invoke
the principle of ministerial responsibility: a Cabinet
secretary must take ultimate responsibility for what happens
on his watch. Interesting idea. Where was it in 1993 when the
attorney general of the United States ordered the attack on
the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, which ended in the
deaths of 76 people?
Janet Reno went to Capitol Hill and said, ``It was my
decision, and I take responsibility.'' This was met with
approving swoons and applause. Was she made to resign? No.
And remember: This was over an action that did not just
happen on her watch but that she orderd--an action that
resulted in the deaths of, among others, more than 20
children.
Given the fact that when they were in power Democrats had
little use for the notion of ministerial responsibility,
their sudden discovery of it over Abu Ghraib suggests that
this has little to do with principle.
This is, of course, about politics. And for the
administration, the politics are simple: Cabinet members are
there to serve the president, and if they become a political
liability, they should fall on their sword for the greater
good of the administration.
If that were the case here, I am sure that Rumsfeld, who
does not need this or any job, would resign. He should not.
Throwing Rumsfeld to the baying hounds would only increase
their appetite.
Remember that when the scandal broke, there was lots of
murmuring among the chattering classes about the inadequacy
of the president's initial response because, for all his
remorseful groveling on al-Hurra and al-Arabiya, he had not
invoked the magic phrase: I'm sorry. So what happened when,
shortly after, in the presence of King Abdullah of Jordan, he
explicitly apologized? ``They've Apologized. Now What?''
(headline, New York Times, the very next Sunday.)
In the Rumsfeld case, the ``Now What?'' is obvious.
Democrats will pocket the resignation, call it an admission
of not just ministerial responsibility but material
responsibility at the highest levels of the administration,
and use that to further attack the president.
In any case, the whole Rumsfeld debate is a sideshow. For
partisans it is a convenient way to get at the president. And
for those who have no partisan agenda but are shocked by the
Abu Ghraib pictures, it is a way to try to do something,
anything, to deal with the moral panic that has set in about
the whole Iraq enterprise.
This panic is everywhere and now includes many who have
been longtime supporters of the war. The panic is unseemly.
The pictures are shocking and the practices appalling. But
how do the actions of a few depraved soldier among 135,000
negate the moral purpose of the entire enterprise--which has
not only liberated 25 million people from 25 years of
genocidal dictatorship but has included a nationwide
reconstruction punctuated by hundreds, thousands, of
individual acts of beneficence and kindness by American
soldiers?
We are obsessing about the wrong question. It is not: Is
our purpose in Iraq morally sound? Of course it is.
The question today, as from the beginning, remains: Is
that purpose achievable?
Doability does not hinge on the pictures from Abu Ghraib.
It hinges on what happens on the ground with the
insurgencies. The greater general uprising that last month's
panic-mongers had predicted has not occurred. The Sadr
insurgency appears to be waning. Senior Shiite clerics, local
leaders and demonstrators in the streets of Najaf have told
Moqtada Sadr to get out of town. Meanwhile, his militia is
being systematically taken down by the U.S. military.
As for Fallujah, we have decided that trying to fully
eradicate Sunni resistance is too costly in U.S. lives.
Moreover, this ultimately is not our job but one for the 85
percent of Iraqis who are not Sunni Arabs--the Shiites and
Kurds who will inherit the new Iraq. We have thus chosen an
interim arrangement of local self-rule in the Sunni hotbeds.
And if that gets us through the transition of power to
moderate Iraqis, fine.
This seems entirely lost on the many politicians and
commentators who have simply lost their bearings in the Abu
Ghraib panic. The prize in Iraq is not praise for America
from the Arab street nor goodwill from al-Jazeera. We did not
have these before Abu Ghraib. We will not have these after
Abu Ghraib. The prize is a decent, representative,
democratizing Iraq that abandons the pan-Arab fantasies and
cruelties of Saddam Hussein's regime.
That remains doable. What will make it undoable is the
panic at home.

Mr. KYL. The Tucson Citizen's article in part reads as follows:

Just a couple other sentences from the article:

Many at Fort Huachuca, home of the 111th Military
Intelligence Brigade which includes the training programs for
interrogators and counterintelligence agents, say the actions
of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib have cast a pall on the
Army's intelligence-gathering community.

It goes on to note that ``it reflects on the rest of us that are
training to do the right thing.'' And just one other quotation from
General Marks:

We do not authorize any form of hands-on in terms of use of
our interrogation techniques.

The article goes on to talk about precisely what kind of
interrogation is permitted, what the techniques are to get information.
But it makes it very clear none of the things that have been depicted
in these photographs are even remotely authorized.
So it actually ties in with the article from the New York Times that
this could not have been done by military intelligence to gather
information from these prisoners. That is an important point because
some have begun to question the morality of our involvement in Iraq and
the mission which so many of our young soldiers have put their lives on
the line to achieve, and now several hundred have died to achieve.
One of our colleagues made the point this prison had done horrible
things under the regime of Saddam Hussein, and now it was open under
new management, namely the U.S. Government.
I find that statement to be deplorable because it suggests a moral
equivalency between what the U.S. stands for and has done and what
Saddam Hussein has done in that same prison. We have heard about and
seen some evidence, and I believe there will be additional evidence
coming out that reveals what Saddam Hussein did to people in that
prison--the torture, the rape, the murder--absolutely despicable
actions that have absolutely no comparative value to what occurred--if
on more than a couple of occasions--by a handful of American soldiers
who did wrong and who will be punished for doing wrong.
The difference between our morality and the morality of Saddam
Hussein is it was his intention to inflict this kind of despicable
horror, and the magnitude of it was horrific, whereas in the United
States, we stand for exactly the opposite. We will punish those who
conducted this kind of activity and we will make it clear that is not
our standard. Again, the moral equivalency is so utterly lacking it is
amazing to me anybody would even try to make that connection. This is
especially sad in the week in which Nick Berg's death was brought home
to us in such a

[[Page S5494]]

graphic way by the same kind of terrorists who held sway in Iraq under
Saddam Hussein.
This is the kind of enemy we are fighting. It requires us to take
stock about what we need to do as policymakers in discussing this
publicly, because the message we send to the world, to terrorists, and
to the Iraqis in particular, is going to play a large role in how
people view our effort and, therefore, whether it can succeed in the
long run.
If our leaders are criticizing our effort as an immoral effort, as
nothing more than a continuation of what Saddam Hussein was doing, then
it is doubtful our effort can succeed. Americans must stand up for what
is right in this country and what they know our country to be, and we
must make it crystal clear to the rest of the world we have a moral
purpose, that we do have a commitment to the rule of law, and anything
that goes outside of that rule of law will be dealt with appropriately.
That is the difference between our society and the society we replaced
in Iraq.
That is very critical for us to discuss and to not have our leaders
undercutting us and, therefore, calling into question the legitimacy
not only of the mission but of the activities of our soldiers and
others fighting this war.
The third article I would like to discuss is an op-ed, actually,
entitled ``The Abu Ghraib Panic,'' May 14, Washington Post, by Charles
Krauthammer. As usual, it takes a person such as Charles Krauthammer to
put this into perspective. He always comes to the rescue when
policymakers and pundits and others begin to fly off on tangents that
miss the point, that begin to take us down the wrong path in terms of a
logical analysis of what is going on. He tends to bring us back to the
central point we need to consider and discuss and the policy that needs
to be carried out.
His op-ed today brings us back to the central point by beginning with
the discussion of those who have called for the resignation of the
Secretary of Defense. He points out this exercise is what he calls
``ministerial responsibility''--the notion that, in some parliamentary
governments, if something goes wrong down below, the leader of that
particular department resigns, or offers his resignation, in order to
demonstrate the responsibility of the government. He points out that is
not a doctrine that has held in the United States, where there is no
responsibility of the individual involved.
Indeed, he points out even when there is responsibility for the
individual--the higher up individual--and that individual takes
responsibility, it has not been the case in this country to call for
the resignation of the individual.
The example he gives is the one of former Attorney General of the
United States Janet Reno, who not only was on duty when the Branch
Davidian compound in Waco was attacked by American forces in 1993 but
ended in the deaths of 76 people. She not only was on duty, but she
ordered the attack, which resulted in, among other things, the death of
20 children. That was an awful event. She took responsibility for it.
She said, ``It was my decision and I take responsibility.'' There was
much applause for her willingness to do that. But she didn't resign.
She was not asked to resign. She was not fired by the President,
notwithstanding her direct responsibility for what had occurred.
Compare that to the case today with Secretary Rumsfeld, who, by all
accounts, has done a tremendous job at the Department of Defense. He
has successfully executed two wars. He is trying to transform our
military. He is now involved in an effort to ensure the security of
Iraq so power can be turned over on June 30; and a handful of soldiers,
at a very low level, in a prison in Iraq commit crimes against
prisoners somehow becomes his direct responsibility, such that he has
to actually resign from his position in order, somehow, to demonstrate
the morality of our position there.
He doesn't have to do that because it was not his responsibility. He
was responsible for saying the laws of the Geneva Conventions apply. He
was trying to make sure everybody under his command was doing their
duty. In no way will it ever come to pass that responsibility, in terms
of culpability for this action, went very far up the chain. As a
result, it is more a frustration that some people don't know anything
else to do that they call for his resignation. Of course, there is a
political component, too. The President's enemies use this as a way to
get at him. One can expect that in a political environment. But it has
severe consequences when people around the rest of the world begin to
think this is the opinion not only of key policymakers in America but
represents a policy that should be carried out by our Government and,
if it is not, somehow our Government is very wrong. So there are
consequences of the people who discuss this in that light.
As Charles Krauthammer points out, that has never been the standard
in the U.S. If you look to the case of Janet Reno, where there really
was culpability, and yet she wasn't fired, or she did not resign, you
can see this could be, in the case of many people, a political exercise
rather than an exercise in responsible criticism.
The point Krauthammer tried to make here is this whole business about
Secretary Rumsfeld is a sideshow, in any event, and that what is
happening is some Americans who are not adequately grounded in what
this country is all about, what the war is about, are beginning to
panic. Let me quote something and then wonder aloud. He says:

The panic is unseemly. The pictures are shocking and the
practices appalling. But how do the actions of a few depraved
soldiers among 135,000 negate the moral purpose of the entire
enterprise--which has not only liberated 25 million people
from 25 years of genocidal dictatorship, but has included a
nationwide reconstruction punctuated by hundreds, thousands,
of individual acts of beneficence and kindness by American
soldiers?

Indeed, this panic, I believe, is due, among other things, to the
fact that America has enjoyed such success and has had to sacrifice so
little in recent time that Americans unfamiliar with the sacrifices and
the moral purposes of previous engagements, such as World War I and
World War II in particular, and Korea and Vietnam, unfamiliar with the
horror of war and the requirement of a citizenry to back their fighters
with steadfastness and courage and support, rather than panic at the
first sign that something is going wrong.
This panic is due to a citizenry today that may not have been
adequately educated to the fundamental purposes of why we are there--
and to the extent that is the policymakers' fault, I will take
responsibility for that as well--and perhaps are insufficiently
grounded in the kind of conflicts we have fought in the past and why it
was so important for the citizens in doing their part to support the
effort and not panic at the first sign that something was going wrong.
I think of D-Day, the anniversary of which is coming up soon, and the
terrible decision General Eisenhower had to make with the weather
forecast suggesting a very difficult crossing of the channel, the
predictions of German fortifications having been weakened being wrong
so that when our troops hit the beaches, they were cut down by
withering fire, the great number of casualties at Omaha Beach and all
the rest where we thought it was going to go better than it did, and
second-guessing of our generals all the way up to General Eisenhower
would certainly have been warranted. But the American people did not do
that, and the British people did not do that.
Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and other leaders rallied the
American people and the British people, the allies, to support the
cause, notwithstanding the number of casualties that were occurring,
notwithstanding the fact that efforts were going wrong.
This is what President Bush has tried repeatedly to do, to say: Look,
we knew when we went into this it would be difficult, it would be
costly, it would take a long time. I remember his State of the Union
Address in which he said that, and it has been repeated many times
since.
I think one thing we all appreciate about President Bush is that he
does have a resoluteness, a willingness to make tough decisions and
then the courage to stand by them. But we Americans have to back him in
that. You cannot panic when the going gets tough. And in war, sometimes
the going does get tough.
This is a case where it was due to our own fault. Some of our own
soldiers did

[[Page S5495]]

something very wrong, and we have to deal with that. But that is not a
reason to panic and believe that the effort in which the other 135,000
are engaged is wrong or is falling apart and cannot be achieved.
It is rather a time for us to go back to our moorings, what Americans
believe in and what we understand was the purpose of this effort, and
do what we can do in this effort, which is to support the effort, to
support the decisionmakers, to support the Commander in Chief and, most
of all, to support the troops.
I think of Pat Tillman, who played football in my home State, who
decided to forego a lucrative football contract with the Arizona
Cardinals because he wanted to do his part in this effort. He went to
Iraq and then went to Afghanistan and was killed there. He did his
part. The challenge to us is, what can we do? We cannot go over there
and fight, but we can sure do something to support those who are doing
the fighting. I do not mean we cannot question. That is our job. We do
not just meekly go along with what everybody says about this, but we
can certainly not do anything to undercut the effort of those putting
their lives on the line. That is what we can do. That is our part. And
it starts with not panicking, as Charles Krauthammer said.

Things go wrong in war. They went wrong in every war we fought. We
practically got pushed off the Korean peninsula in the Korean war. Then
General MacArthur, in a brilliant move in Inchon, landed behind enemy
lines, drove the enemy back, and did what Americans always do in the
end: We succeed when we do not panic.
I suggest to those who are wringing their hands today about what is
going on in Iraq to just take a deep breath, stiffen your spine, and
remember what this country has gone through in its great history. We
have sacrificed a lot and it has been for good, moral purpose, and such
is the case in Iraq.
Let me quote again from the Krauthammer op-ed:

We are obsessing about the wrong question. It is not: Is
our purpose in Iraq morally sound? Of course it is. The
question today, as from the beginning, remains: Is that
purpose achievable?

Then he goes on to say this:

Doability does not hinge on the pictures from Abu Ghraib.
It hinges on what happens on the ground with the
insurgencies. The greater general uprising that last month's
panic-mongers had predicted has not occurred. The Sadr
insurgency appears to be waning. Senior Shiite clerics, local
leaders and demonstrators in the streets of Najaf have told
Moqtada Sadr to get out of town. Meanwhile, his militia is
being systematically taken down by the U.S. military.
As for Fallujah, we have decided that trying to fully
eradicate Sunni resistance is too costly in U.S. lives.
Moreover, this ultimately is not our job but one for the 85
percent of Iraqis who are not Sunni Arabs--the Shiites and
Kurds who will inherit the new Iraq. We have thus chosen an
interim arrangement of local self-rule in the Sunni hotbeds.
And if that gets us through the transition of power to
moderate Iraqis, fine.
This seems entirely lost on the many politicians and
commentators who have simply loss their bearings in the Abu
Ghraib panic. The prize in Iraq is not praise for America
from the Arab street nor goodwill from al-Jazeera. We did not
have these before Abu Ghraib. We will not have these after
Abu Ghraib. The prize is a decent, representative,
democratizing Iraq that abandoned the pan-Arab fantasies and
cruelties of Saddam Hussein's regime.
That remains doable. What will make it undoable is the
panic at home.

As I said, as usual, he is right on target.
So what does that teach us? Getting back to the beginning of the
discussion of the Secretary of Defense and his responsibility, let's be
careful of the message we send to the rest of the world. Some of my
colleagues have said the Secretary must resign because we need to send
a message to the Arab world. What message is it? That we are sorry? We
have sent that message. That we take responsibility? We have already
taken responsibility.
I think it sends a message of weakness. Remember what the mantra of
Osama bin Laden is--that there are weak horses and strong horses, and
the world will respect the strong horse. He believes he is the strong
horse, that we are the weak horse. He cites over and over Lebanon,
Somalia, Vietnam, and he believes that Iraq falls into the same
category; that if his al-Qaida and their allies in Iraq can continue to
inflict casualties on us, if we continue to have self-doubt, disunity,
undercut our leadership, panic over what a few of our soldiers did in
the prison, in the long run he will prevail because he is the strong
horse and we are the weak horse. That is his entire philosophy, and it
motivates a lot of people in that part of the world who hate us.
The way to defeat that philosophy is to be the strong horse because
of our morality as well as our military power, because of what we stand
for in terms of returning freedom to people who did not have it, and
because we do not mean to gain anything personally from it except an
additional degree of security from terrorists.
Mr. President, what we say matters. We need to conduct the debate
and, indeed, a debate is entirely appropriate, but we need to conduct
the debate in a way that will not undercut the effort of those who are
putting their lives on the line. Sometimes even words in this Chamber
go over the top. Sometimes words of my colleagues go over the top.
Certainly, there are many outside of this Chamber who reveal a panic
of the kind that Charles Krauthammer has written about, which will
undercut our ability to carry out our mission, and that, at the end of
the day, is the important point.
So I urge my colleagues and all others who are discussing this issue
to try to conduct the debate and discussion in a serious, responsible
way that does not undercut the efforts of our leaders and our troops on
the ground. If we do that, then we will have done our part in achieving
victory. We will have been responsible. We will not have undercut the
effort, and I think we will have distinguished ourselves in the one way
that we can act to achieve victory.
Teddy Roosevelt made a comment that kind of wrapped up what he did in
life with all of the actions in which he engaged. Somebody asked him a
question about his life and he said: I just have appreciated the
opportunity that I have had to work on work worth doing.
What we are doing today is work worth doing. We need to remember
that, be supportive of it, and be supportive of those we have asked to
do the work.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DAYTON. 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. DAYTON. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

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