[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 76 (Thursday, June 3, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3755-H3756]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE INCOMPETENCE MUST STOP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, sadly I am here to talk
about what we cannot ignore: the sad, sad chronicle of incompetence and
blunder which marks this administration's conduct of national security
policy.
I do not think in the history of the United States there has been a
major national security effort handled so badly. I voted against the
war in Iraq. I voted for the war in Afghanistan, and I am glad I did. I
voted against the war in Iraq because I did not think it was justified,
and I feel vindicated in that judgment; but even for those who thought
it was justified, I do not understand how they can fail to join in the
criticism of the shambles this administration has made of the policy.
I will insert in the Record here, Mr. Speaker, an article by
Elisabeth Bumiller from the May 29 New York Times, and the headline is
``Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case to the White House.''
[From the New York Times, May 29, 2004]
Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case to the White House
(By Elisabeth Bumiller)
WASHINGTON, May 28--Influential outside advisers to the
Bush administration who support the Iraqi exile leader Ahmad
Chalabi are pressing the White House to stop what one has
called a ``smear campaign,'' against Mr. Chalabi, whose
Baghdad home and offices were ransacked last week in an
American-supported raid.
Last Saturday, several of these Chalabi supporters said, a
small delegation of them marched into the West Wing office of
Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to complain
about the administration's abrupt change of heart about Mr.
Chalabi and to register their concerns about the course of
the war in Iraq. The group included Richard N. Perle, the
former chairman of a Pentagon advisory group, and R. James
Woolsey, director of central intelligence under President
Bill Clinton.
Members of the group, who had requested the meeting, told
Ms. Rice that they were incensed at what they view as the
vilification of Mr. Chalabi, a favorite of conservatives who
is now central to an F.B.I. investigation into who in the
American government might have given him highly classified
information that he is suspected of turning over to Iran.
Mr. Chalabi has denied that he provided Iran with any
classified information.
The session with Ms. Rice was one sign of the turmoil that
Mr. Chalabi's travails have produced within an influential
corner of Washington, where Mr. Chalabi is still seen as a
potential leader of Iraq.
``There is a smear campaign under way, and it is being
perpetrated by the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. and a gaggle of
former intelligence officers who have succeeded in planting
these stories, which are accepted with hardly any scrutiny,''
Mr. Perle, a leading conservative, said in an interview.
Mr. Perle, referring to both the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the campaign
against Mr. Chalabi was ``an outrageous abuse of power'' by
United States government officials in Washington and Baghdad.
``I'm talking about Jerry Bremer, for one,'' Mr. Perle
said, referring to L. Paul Bremer III, the top American
administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in
charge of the occupation of Iraq. ``I don't know who gave
these orders, but there is no question that the C.P.A. was
involved.''
In Baghdad, coalition authorities vigorously denied Mr.
Perle's assertion. ``Jerry Bremer didn't initiate the
investigation,'' Dan Senor, the spokesman for the Coalition
Provisional Authority, said in a telephone interview.
Similarly, Mark Mansfield, a C.I.A. spokesman, called Mr.
Perle's accusation that the agency was smearing Mr. Chalabi
``absurd.'' A Defense Department official who asked not to be
named said that Mr. Perle's accusations against the D.I.A.
had no foundation.
Mr. Chalabi has been a divisive figure for years in
Washington, where top Pentagon officials favored him as a
future leader of Iraq and top State Department officials
distrusted him as unreliable. Either way, Mr. Chalabi and his
exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, fed intelligence to
the Bush administration about Iraq's unconventional weapons
that helped drive the administration toward war.
Intelligence officials now argue that some of the
intelligence was fabricated, and that Mr. Chalabi's motives
were to push the United States into toppling Saddam Hussein
and pave the way for his installation as Iraqi's new leader.
Although Mr. Chalabi's supporters outside the
administration have been caustic in their comments about his
treatment, there has been relative silence so far from Mr.
Chalabi's supporters within the administration. Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who favored going to war
in Iraq and was a patron of Mr. Chalabi, did not respond to
numerous requests this week for an interview.
Mr. Wolfowitz's spokesman, Charley Cooper, said in an e-
mail message that Mr. Wolfowitz believed that Mr. Chalabi and
the Iraqi National Congress ``have provided valuable
operational intelligence to our military forces in Iraq,
which has helped save American lives.'' Mr. Cooper added
in the message that ``Secretary Wolfowitz hopes that the
events of the last few weeks haven't undermined that.''
The current views of Vice President Dick Cheney and his
chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby,
[[Page H3756]]
are not known. Both strongly supported Mr. Chalabi before and
during the war in Iraq.
Last Saturday, participants in the meeting with Ms. Rice
and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, said Ms. Rice told them she
appreciated that they had made their views known. But she
gave no hint of her own opinion, participants said, and made
no concessions to their point of view.
Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of
Representatives, also attended the meeting. A larger meeting
later that day, with Mr. Hadley alone, included Danielle
Pletka, a vice president of the American Enterprise
Institute, a research institution in Washington.
In an interview, Ms. Pletka said that Mr. Chalabi had been
``shoddily'' treated and that C.I.A. and State Department
people had been fighting ``a rear guard'' action against him.
``They've been out to get him for a long time,'' Ms. Pletka
said. ``And to be fair, he has done things and the people
around him have done things that have made it easier for
them. He is a prickly, difficult person and he drives them
crazy. He never takes no for an answer, even when he
should.''
Ms. Pletka added: ``There are questionable people around
him--I don't know how close--who have been involved in
questionable activities in Iraq. He is close to the Iranian
government. And so all of these things have lent credence to
the accusations against him.''
Mr. Perle said the action against Mr. Chalabi would burnish
his anti-American credentials in Iraq and possibly help him
to be elected to political office. ``In that regard, this
clumsy and outrageous assault on him will only improve his
prospects,'' Mr. Perle said.
Mr. Perle said that he had no business dealings with Mr.
Chalabi, but that he believed the C.I.A. and D.I.A. were
spreading false information that he did. He also said that
Mr. Chalabi was not alone in supplying intelligence to the
United States government that turned out to be false.
``I know of no inaccurate information that was supplied
uniquely by anyone brought to us by the Iraqi National
Congress,'' Mr. Perle said.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chalabi, if I am pronouncing it right, people will
remember, is the man who we had thought was someone the President
approved of, whom the President now tells us he cannot quite remember.
I do think, Mr. Speaker, as an aside, that probably we should be
investigating Chamber security here because apparently at the last
State of the Union address a man largely unknown to the President
managed to seat himself next to the First Lady. Mr. Chalabi was seated
next to Laura Bush. Now the President has no idea or only a vague idea
who this man is; and when a stranger, apparently a stranger of some
disrepute, if we listen to the White House, is allowed to seat himself
next to Laura Bush, then I begin to feel nervous. In general, I think
the people who run security do a very good job, I do not know, and this
point probably was not their fault. They may have been misled by
somebody in the Defense Department, but we better look into it.
We now go back to the spectacle of this administration's internal
warfare. We read recently that the Secretary of State was very angry at
the CIA because he now acknowledges that they gave him misinformation.
I do not know if that is one of the reasons that the director of the
CIA resigned. He is the man who, of course, told the President that it
was a slam dunk that there were weapons of mass destruction.
Apparently, he slammed when he should have dunked, and he is no longer
with us, but the chaos continues.
Here we have in this story the conservative allies, according to Mr.
Richard Perle, who is a close adviser to the Defense Department, and
according to this article last Saturday, several of these Chalabi
supporters said a small delegation of them marched into the West Wing
of Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to complain about
the administration. For some of these people, who have been consistent
advocates of war, marching into Condoleezza Rice, it was the only
marching they ever did because certainly they have not been in uniform
to march in any wartime conditions, but we have them denouncing the
Bush administration, Bush advisers denouncing Bush advisers.
Mr. Powell was quoted in the New York Times last Sunday, well, big
surprise, ``we disagree with each other.'' That is not the problem. It
is not a problem that the President's advisers disagree with each
other. The problem is that the President appears to agree with each of
them who disagree with each other. The President does not solve these
problems. We have had this ongoing dispute. It is extraordinary to have
someone being paid $40 million or more by the American Government,
supported by the Defense Department, Mr. Chalabi, then overthrown by
the State Department or the CIA.
Here is Mr. Perle, again, a close ally of the Defense Department,
remember the Defense Advisory Board, saying there is a smear campaign
under way being perpetrated by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence
Agency. This is Mr. Perle, and then he denounces Mr. Bremer. We are
told you, Democrats, do not be critical of the people in Iraq who are
running our policy, you will undermine them.
I am nicer than Mr. Perle to these people. Mr. Perle is being much
more vitriolic, and he has even managed, Mr. Perle, because he is the
epitome of niceness, to find a way to defend Mr. Chalabi who we are now
told by this government may have leaked important information to the
Iranians.
Here is Mr. Perle's defense of Mr. Chalabi, and Mr. Perle is a man
who chooses his words carefully. I wish he chose his friends as
carefully as he chose his words, but he does choose his words
carefully; and here is what he said about Mr. Chalabi's organization,
the Iraqi National Congress, from the New York Times of last Saturday:
`` `I know of no inaccurate information that was supplied uniquely by
anyone brought to us by the Iraqi National Congress,' Mr. Perle said.''
In other words, he does not deny that Mr. Chalabi lied to us. He does
not deny that Mr. Chalabi in effect boasted he gave us misinformation
and does not mind that it could help us go to war. His point is that
Mr. Chalabi was not the only one who lied to us. I do not think it is
much of a defense of Mr. Chalabi to say he is the only one who lied to
us, nor does it say much for this administration that they listened to
so many liars. The incompetence must stop.
____________________