[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 72 (Thursday, May 20, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5895-S5896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    COMMITMENT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, we just heard a wonderful talk by 
the President of the United States. He talked about our commitment and 
reminded us once again that our commitment to winning in Iraq is 
everything. There is no alternative. The President talked about the 
commitment of winning the war on terrorism.
  That means we must stabilize Iraq. We must begin to show the people 
in the Middle East what freedom, free enterprise, economy and jobs can 
do, and an educational system that includes boys and girls, giving them 
hope for the future.
  He reminded us of the commitment we must make to see the war on 
terrorism through. This is not going to be a war that goes exactly the 
way it was planned. Name for me a war that did. Name for me a war that 
we said, Here is what is going to happen, and it happens just that way. 
This is war. We have been attacked. Thousands of Americans have been 
killed by fanatics. Nick Berg was assassinated on videotape in a brutal 
manner by terrorism. This will continue to happen if we lose our 
resolve. There is only one way that we can lose; that is, for America 
not to see this through.
  It means winning the immediate war. It means stabilizing Iraq and 
Afghanistan. It means sowing the seeds of freedom and representative 
government in those countries to show how it can be done where people 
have not lived in freedom for years. We must see it through. But it 
means more than just the next year in which we have the big important 
war on terrorism that we see evolve before our eyes. It means we are 
going to have to stick with it for 25 or 30 years because it is going 
to take that long to show education can give children hope for the 
future, so you will not be able to brainwash a child to think life is 
not worth living, that the best thing one could do with their life is 
to give it up by killing other people in a suicide bomb.

  The only way to warp children to believe a suicide bomb is their best 
hope in life is by failing to give them an education. An education 
gives them hope for a future, for a job, for a family, for a quality of 
life that is worth living.
  The President of the United States is laser-beam focused. He is 
focused on winning the war on terrorism for the security of the 
American people and for the ability for freedom to live throughout the 
world. If America does not carry the beacon and the flag for freedom in 
the world, who will? Who has the capacity and the will to do it? If 
freedom dies in America, it will not flourish for very long anywhere 
else on Earth. That is why the President is so focused on the security 
of our country by finding and winning the war on terrorism.
  We see people wringing their hands, asking, What can we do. We see 
the assassination of Nick Berg on videotape and we ask, What can we do 
to get out of this. We can make sure the violent death of Nicholas Berg 
is not in vain, that the hundreds of Americans who have died in this 
cause do not die in vain, that they are dealing with an America that 
has the leadership to stand up for our country and our security and our 
freedom and see it through. That is what the President of the United 
States is doing for our country today. We must not lose focus.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article by 
David Brooks from the New York Times.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, May 18, 2004.]

                   In Iraq, America's Shakeout Moment

                           (By David Brooks)

       There's something about our venture into Iraq that is 
     inspiringly, painfully, embarrassingly and quintessentially 
     American.
       No other nation would have been hopeful enough to try to 
     evangelize for democracy across the Middle East. No other 
     nation would have been naive enough to do it this badly. No 
     other nation would be adaptable enough to recover from its 
     own innocence and muddle its way to success, as I suspect we 
     are about to do.
       American history sometimes seems to be the same story 
     repeated over and over again. Some group of big-dreaming but 
     foolhardy adventurers head out to eradicate some evil and to 
     realize some golden future. They get halfway along their 
     journey and find they are unprepared for the harsh reality 
     they suddenly face. It's too late to turn back, so they 
     reinvent their mission. They toss out illusions and adopt an 
     almost desperate pragmatism. They never do realize the utopia 
     they initially dreamed about, but they do build something 
     better than what came before.
       This basic pattern has marked our national style from the 
     moment British colonists landed on North American shores. 
     Overly optimistic about the conditions they would find, the 
     colonists were woefully undercapitalized, underequipped and 
     underskilled. At Jamestown, there were three gentlemen and 
     gentlemen's servants for every skilled laborer. They didn't 
     bother to plant enough grain to see them through the winter.
       But they learned and adapted. Settlement companies were 
     compelled to send more workers, along with axes, chisels, 
     scythes, millstones and seeds. Eventually the colonies 
     thrived.
       Centuries later, it was much the same. The guides who aided 
     and fleeced the pioneers who moved West were struck by how 
     clueless many of them were about the wilderness they were 
     entering. Their diaries show that many thought they could 
     establish genteel New England-style villages in short order. 
     They leapt before they looked, faced the shock of reality, 
     adapted and cobbled together something unexpected.
       And it is that way today. We are tricked by hope into 
     starting companies, beginning books, immigrating to this 
     country and investing in telecom networks. The challenges 
     turn out to be tougher than we imagined. Our excessive 
     optimism is exposed. New skills are demanded. But nothing 
     important was ever begun in a prudential frame of mind.
       Hope begets disappointment, and we are now in a moment of 
     disappointment when it comes to Iraq. During these shakeout 
     moments, the nay-sayers get to gloat while the rest of us 
     despair, lacerate ourselves, second-guess those in charge and 
     look at things anew. But this very process of self-criticism

[[Page S5896]]

     is the precondition for the second wind, the grubbier, less 
     illusioned effort that often enough leads to some acceptable 
     outcome.
       Today in Iraq local commanders seem to be allowed to try 
     anything. We are allowing former Baathists to man a Falluja 
     Brigade to police their own city. We are pounding Moktada al-
     Sadr while negotiating with him. There is talk of moving up 
     elections so when an Iraqi official is assassinated, he is 
     not seen as a person working with the U.S., but as a duly 
     elected representative of the Iraqi people.
       Some of these policies seem incoherent, but they may work. 
     And back home a new mood has taken over part of the political 
     class. The emerging responsible faction has no time now for 
     the witless applause lines the jeering jackdaws on left and 
     right repeat to themselves to their own perpetual self-
     admiration and delight. Even in a political year, most 
     politicians do not want this country to fail.
       There are, for example, members of Congress from both 
     parties who feel estranged from this administration. They 
     feel it does not listen to their ideas. But in this troubled 
     hour, they are desperate to help. If but a call were made, 
     they would burst forth with intelligent suggestions: about 
     Iraq, about political tactics, about getting additional 
     appropriations.
       Remember, the most untrue truism in human history is that 
     there are no second acts in American life. In reality, there 
     is nothing but second acts. There are shakeout moments and 
     redundantly, new beginnings. The weeks until June 30 are 
     bound to be awful, but we may be at the start of a new 
     beginning now.

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from 
New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. How much time do I have?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 12 minutes remaining.

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