[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 89 (Thursday, June 24, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7422-S7424]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE DECISION TO GO TO WAR

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, last month Americans across this Nation 
celebrated Memorial Day. It was a day that had special significance for 
millions of World War II veterans, tens of thousands of whom came to 
Washington to see the long awaited memorial on the Mall to honor them 
and the more than 10 million American veterans of that war who are no 
longer living.
  This Memorial Day was also an opportunity to reflect for those of us 
too young to remember that war, but old enough to have parents or 
friends who fought, died, or in so many other ways sacrificed and 
labored together to defeat enemies that threatened the survival of the 
free world.
  For me, it was a day of mixed emotions. It was uplifting for Marcelle 
and me to be on the Mall and to see so many World War Two veterans and 
their families together, many of them reuniting with members of their 
divisions or regiments for the first time in over half a century. It 
was extraordinarily moving to hear their stories of the war, told as if 
it were yesterday--stories of bone chilling fear, incredible suffering, 
and awe inspiring bravery.
  It was also a somber occasion. I think each of us was reminded of how 
much we, and so many millions of people in countries around the world, 
owe to that generation of Americans.
  There was much talk of D-Day, and the thousands of Americans who died 
on the beaches that first day of the invasion of Normandy. Having 
returned from Normandy for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, I can say 
that the feeling is similar to what one experiences when visiting 
Gettysburg or any of the great battlefields of the Civil War. It is 
difficult to fathom that so many men so young could face death with 
such undaunted courage.
  It was my second visit to Normandy. I was last there for the 50th 
anniversary, and the sight of those rows, and rows, and rows of white 
crosses was every bit as moving this time as it was the last.
  Three weeks ago I also attended the funeral of one of two young 
Vermonters who were killed in action in Iraq on May 25. Sgt. Kevin 
Sheehan and Spec. Alan Bean died when their base on the outskirts of 
Baghdad was attacked. Six other Vermonters were injured, three 
seriously. Sgt. Sheehan and Spec. Bean were the ninth and tenth 
Vermonters to die in Iraq.
  Then on June 7, another Vermonter, Sgt. Jamie Gray, was killed and 
two members of his Battalion were injured when their vehicle was hit by 
an improvised explosive device. He was the eleventh Vermonter to die in 
Iraq. At his funeral, I thought how the past few weeks have been very 
sad ones in my State; but, of course, the same could be said for many 
other states.
  As of today, 844 Americans have died in Iraq since the start of the 
war, and there are thousands more who we rarely hear of who have been 
wounded. They have lost legs, arms, their eyesight, or suffered other 
grievous injuries that will plague them for the rest of their lives.
  And there are the tens of thousands of Iraqis, including many 
thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire, who have been killed or 
injured. Their numbers are not even reported.
  When I am in Vermont, and I am there most weekends, there is one 
question that I am asked over and over. ``What are you doing to bring 
our troops home?'' It is a question that I found myself asking this 
Memorial Day weekend, and in Vermont during those funerals, and then 
again at Normandy. It arises from a fundamental disagreement with 
President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, and his rationale for 
continuing to keep tens of thousands of our troops there in harm's way 
indefinitely.
  The attacks of 9/11 were unlike anything our Nation had experienced 
since that infamous day at Pearl Harbor over a half century ago. I 
supported the President's decision to use military force against al-
Qaida and the Taliban who had shielded them in Afghanistan. It was the 
right response and the whole world was behind us.
  But as so many people warned, the decision to launch a unilateral, 
preemptive war against Iraq, even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to 
do with 9/11 and had no plan or ability to attack us, was a fateful 
diversion from the real terrorist threat.

[[Page S7423]]

  The President's most recent justification for the war--previous 
justifications having been proven false--is that the Iraqi people are 
better off without Saddam Hussein. They are. But that is not the 
measure of a policy that led us into a war based on a false premise, 
faulty, distorted intelligence, and an astounding lack of understanding 
or concern for the huge costs and liabilities.
  Those of us who have to vote to spend the billions of dollars that 
are necessary to keep our forces there should ask whether the 
President's decision to ``stay the course,'' apparently indefinitely, 
justifies the continued deaths of Americans--soldiers and civilians--at 
the dawn of their lives, often by the very people they were sent to 
liberate or to help recover.
  No one questions that we were unforgivably vulnerable on 9/11. Our 
borders were porous. Several of the highjackers were living openly, and 
illegally, in this country. Simply securing the doors on airplane 
cockpits might have prevented those attacks. Our law enforcement and 
intelligence agencies were barely speaking to each other. Communication 
between the White House, the Strategic Air Command, the FAA and the 
Pentagon was hopelessly confused. Countless warnings were ignored.
  No one questions that we need to do far more to protect ourselves 
from terrorists. Every American is a potential target, as we saw, 
again, last week with the sickening execution style murder of Paul 
Johnson in Saudi Arabia.
  The question is how best to protect ourselves at home, and how best 
to build the alliances we need to combat terrorism around the world.
  Imagine if instead of spending $150 billion, soon to be more than 
$200 billion, to invade and occupy Iraq, we had used that money 
differently.
  Imagine if we had used it to increase fiftyfold the number of police 
officers in this country.
  Imagine if we had used it to put two air marshals on every airplane 
in or entering American airspace.
  Imagine if we had used it to tighten our border controls, so rather 
than inspecting 10 percent of the shipping containers and trucks 
entering this country, we inspected 100 percent.
  Imagine if we had used it to increase fiftyfold the number of 
immigration officers at our ports of entry, and to increase fiftyfold 
the number of investigators to track down people who are here 
illegally.
  Imagine if we had used it to increase fiftyfold our surveillance 
capabilities along the Canadian and Mexican borders.
  Imagine if we had used it to increase tenfold the amount we spend to 
protect nuclear materials, reactors, and weapons sites from sabotage or 
theft by terrorists.
  Imagine if we had used it to teach Arabic to 10,000 new intelligence 
officers, and stationed them around the world. Think of the schools we 
could build, the hospitals, the medical breakthroughs funded, and on 
and on.
  Imagine how much safer we would be if we had done these things. 
Instead, we are spending that money in Iraq, and we will spend another 
$50 billion in Iraq next year. Yet even the Secretary of Defense 
testified that, after spending $150 billion, he does not know if we are 
winning the war against terrorism. I think it is safe to say that if he 
believed we were, he would be the first to say so.
  When President Bush announced his decision to invade Iraq he said all 
the things he was expected to say. He said he made his decision only as 
a last resort, after exhausting every other option. He said it was the 
hardest decision of his presidency.
  In fact, other options were far from exhausted, and the intelligence 
he relied on was manipulated, misinterpreted, and wrong.
  In fact, we now know that it was a decision the President made after 
minimal debate and with little difficulty. He consulted only his 
closest political advisors who for years, despite never experiencing 
combat themselves, had called for the use of force to overthrow Saddam 
Hussein. Those outside the President's inner circle who had 
reservations were ignored. Those who understand the history and the 
culture and religious and ethnic rivalries of that part of the world, 
whom he might have listened to, were ignored.
  Over 200,000 young Americans were sent to Iraq, and over 135,000 
remain there. They were sent into war despite the absence of any 
tangible threat to the United States. They were sent to invade a 
country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
  Many were sent without body armor, without adequate water, and 
without the proper armor on their vehicles. They were sent in 
insufficient numbers to prevent the chaos that has caused twice the 
casualties since the collapse of the Iraqi Government, when the 
President declared ``Mission Accomplished.'' Many of our most severely 
wounded have come home to inadequate medical care, or foreclosures on 
their homes.
  The Pentagon's leaders always insist that the safety and welfare of 
our troops is their highest priority, but history is replete with 
examples to the contrary and today we are seeing history repeating 
itself.
  Even worse, as hundreds of Americans die and thousands suffer 
terrible wounds, the rest of the country goes about its daily business, 
packing for their summer vacations, as if the war is someone else's 
problem.
  Our soldiers do not have the luxury of refusing to fight if they 
disagree with the President. That is why a decision by the nation's 
leaders to send America's sons and daughters into harm's way, and to 
keep them where they are being killed and wounded every day, should be 
made only if the security of the United States depends on it.
  Aside from the usual patriotic cliches, the President has not 
explained why the security of the United States depends on keeping tens 
of thousands of Americans deployed in Iraq's cities where they are 
being blown up by roadside bombs and shot by snipers. What are they 
doing there that is worth the loss of lives?
  There are encouraging steps as a new Iraqi government takes shape. 
But they do nothing--nothing--to obscure the grim reality that 
virtually every day more young American lives are lost. How long will 
this continue? The President says our troops will be there until they 
``finish the job.'' What job? It is more than a year since the fall of 
Baghdad, yet we still do not know what the mission is.
  Is it to make Iraq a democracy? Is it, as our troops are told, to 
kill and capture ``bad guys?'' Is it to protect the oil wells and 
refineries and Halliburton's other investments there? Is it to remake 
the Middle East?
  Even the President concedes that other countries are not going to 
donate significant numbers of their own troops.
  The hard truth, which no one in this administration is willing to 
admit, is that regardless of almost anything else that happens in Iraq 
in the coming year, hundreds perhaps thousands more of America's sons 
and daughters are likely to be killed or wounded.
  There are times when war is unavoidable, as it was when Germany 
invaded Europe, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and when al-Qaida 
attacked New York and Washington. And when that happens, when the 
security of the country depends on it, the country unites and great 
sacrifices of life and limb are willingly made.
  It is those sacrifices that we honor on Memorial Day, and which those 
of us who were just in Normandy were reminded of so vividly.
  But the war against terrorism is a different kind of war.
  It will not be won by invading and occupying countries.
  It will not be won by alienating our friends and allies, nor by 
inciting the anger of Muslims around the world who now believe the 
United States is at war with Islam itself.
  It will not be won by arresting people, calling them terrorists, 
torturing and humiliating them, and releasing them only after it 
becomes a public relations disaster. Why, if they were innocent, were 
they detained so long in the first place? It makes a mockery of the 
very idea of justice.
  The war against terrorism will not be won by publicly claiming to 
respect the law when you are secretly declaring the law obsolete, 
breaking the law, and then refusing to disclose what was done.
  It will not be won when half the American people do not believe the 
war in Iraq is making them safer.

[[Page S7424]]

  It will not be won with self-serving rhetoric that distorts history 
and bears little resemblance to reality.
  The war against terrorism will be best fought by using our military 
selectively, as we are by tracking down al- Qaida in Afghanistan.
  It will be best fought by building alliances, by working closely and 
cooperatively with the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of 
other countries to infiltrate terrorist networks, capture their 
leaders, and seize their assets.
  It will be best fought by doing far more to help create economic 
opportunities for the hundreds of millions of impoverished people, 
particularly in Muslim countries, who have little more than their faith 
and their anger, and who are the terrorist recruiters' greatest hope.
  And it will be best fought by giving far higher priority to 
strengthening our defenses here at home.

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