[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11298-S11299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          U.S. POLICY IN IRAQ

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, this evening on the campus of Michigan 
State University in Lansing I will be speaking on U.S. policy in Iraq.
  My conclusion is that just as it took a new administration to extract 
the United States from Vietnam, it will take a new administration to 
extract us from Iraq in a way which leaves that country stable and 
democratic. We cannot leave Iraq as we did Vietnam.
  Nor can we just continue a western occupation of a Muslim nation that 
is the target and magnet for violence and terror, and that has become 
more destabilizing than stabilizing. We must change course in Iraq--or 
else Iraq's future is not likely to be stability and democracy, and the 
legacy to the world of the Iraq war is likely to be greater turmoil and 
terror.
  I ask unanimous consent that the remarks I will be making this 
evening be included in full at this point in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          ``Iraq: What Next?''

       Good evening. I am delighted to be here with you to discuss 
     where we are and where I think we need to go in Iraq.
       This is going to be a pretty sober discussion, because I 
     agree with what Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said recently: 
     ``We're in deep trouble in Iraq.'' Although President Bush 
     continues to say that things are going well in Iraq, even 
     Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged recently that 
     the situation is ``getting worse.''
       And it is. American soldiers and Marines face an ever 
     strengthening insurgency that puts our troops, the Iraqi 
     people and a stable Iraq at increasing risk. Our troops 
     continue to die and suffer wounds at increasing rates. 
     American and other contractors are being taken hostage and 
     brutally murdered.
       The lack of security is having a profound effect on 
     reconstruction and on the effort to establish a stable Iraqi 
     government. We are paying the price for a failed strategy 
     that included rosy pre-war assumptions and a rush to war 
     without first allowing United Nations weapons inspectors to 
     complete their work and without first building a credible and 
     effective international coalition, including Muslim 
     countries, as President Bush's father did in the first Gulf 
     War. This was compounded by the failure to plan for the post-
     war period and the major mistake of abolishing the Iraqi army 
     rather than using it to help provide security after the 
     cessation of major combat operations.
       President Bush said recently that ``It's hard to help a 
     country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are 
     a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop 
     the process...'' Only a handful of people willing to kill? 
     That's not facing reality--that's ignoring reality.
       Late last month, the Washington Post, quoting figures 
     released by Iraq's Health Ministry and the Pentagon, reported 
     that attacks over the previous two weeks had killed more than 
     250 Iraqis and 29 U.S. military personnel. Further, a 
     sampling of daily reports produced for the U.S. Agency for 
     International Development shows that such attacks now 
     typically number about 70 each day, in contrast to the 40 
     to 50 a day during the weeks prior to the transfer of 
     sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to 
     the Iraqi Interim Government. Those reports also indicate 
     that the attacks are wide-spread, with a majority 
     occurring outside the three provinces that have been the 
     principal locations for insurgent violence.
       The security situation has deteriorated to the point that 
     there are cities and towns in Iraq where the U.S. and 
     Coalition forces do not go. In the absence of a presence on 
     the ground in places like Fallujah, which has been taken over 
     by insurgents, the U.S. military has resorted to air power to 
     strike safe houses and other places where intelligence 
     indicates the insurgents are located. These attacks have 
     caused death and injuries to innocent Iraqi civilians, and an 
     even greater lack of support for the U.S. presence in Iraq 
     and for the Interim Iraqi Government which supports and 
     relies upon our presence. Assassinations, kidnapings, and 
     beheadings are becoming more frequent. The result is that 
     Iraqis who would like to cooperate with us are deterred from 
     doing so, and we are denied the intelligence that we need to 
     fight the insurgency.
       The President may say things are going well in Iraq, but 
     the U.S. Intelligence Community has a different view. The 
     July 2004 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq reportedly 
     sets out three possible scenarios for Iraq. The worst case 
     was developments that could lead to civil war, and the best 
     case was that the security environment would remain tenuous. 
     This pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate bears out the 
     analysis of former president George Bush in his 1998 book A 
     World Transformed concerning the question of whether to march 
     to Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War. He wrote that ``To 
     occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning 
     the whole Arab world against us. . . It would have taken us 
     way beyond the imprimatur of international law bestowed by 
     the resolution of the Security Council. . .'' He wrote 
     further that doing so would also commit our soldiers to an 
     ``urban guerilla war'' and ``plunge that part of the world 
     into even greater instability and destroy the credibility we 
     were working so hard to reestablish.''
       Sound familiar?
       The President recently dismissed that pessimistic July 2004 
     analysis of the Intelligence Community, saying ``they were 
     just guessing as to what the conditions might be like.'' 
     Conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote that ``for 
     President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just 
     guessing is without precedent.'' Publicly stating so might be 
     unprecedented, but it appears that this is not the first time 
     the President has actually dismissed CIA warnings. According 
     to the New York Times recently, ``two classified reports 
     prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National 
     Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the 
     director of central intelligence . . . predicted that an 
     American-led invasion of Iraq . . . would result in a deeply 
     divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.''
       The Administration disregarded that warning, insisting that 
     an American invasion would be welcomed by the Iraqis with 
     open arms. The violent bottom line is that when we attacked 
     Iraq, we blew the lid off the boiling Iraqi pot without a 
     plan to keep the contents from boiling over.
       General Franks, the former Commander in Chief of U.S. 
     Central Command, told Senator John Warner and me that he had 
     been told to focus on the combat phase of the war plan and to 
     leave the planning for the stability phase, the aftermath, to 
     the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Then that leadership 
     failed to ensure an adequate number of troops were committed 
     to provide for security, prevent looting, and nip the 
     resulting insurgency in the bud. Back in April of 2003 at the 
     height of the looting in Iraq, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld 
     dismissed newspaper reports of chaos, violence and unrest in 
     Iraq by saying ``it was just Henny Penny--the sky is 
     falling.'' Eighteen months later, it is still falling.
       These failures to adequately plan for the post-combat 
     stability phase and to ensure that adequate numbers of troops 
     were on-hand were compounded by the Administration's 
     disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi Army, thereby 
     forcing the U.S. military to begin from scratch to build a 
     new Iraqi security force, and throwing thousands of trained 
     Iraqi military men into the ranks of the unemployed and many 
     into the arms of the insurgency's recruiters.
       It is difficult to discern a strategy that is being 
     followed for Iraq today. Marine Lieutenant General Jim 
     Conway, then Marine Corps commander in Iraq, publically 
     criticized the conflicting orders he received with respect to 
     Fallujah--first the initial order to go in and remove the 
     insurgents, which went against the Marine Corps' strategy 
     of engagement with the civilian population; and then the 
     subsequent order to withdraw, after the Marines had only 
     partly secured the city and after the loss of Marines. 
     Once the orders were reversed, the Marines were withdrawn 
     and control of the city was turned over to a local 
     security force which quickly lost control to the 
     insurgents.
       The chaos in Iraq puts the Iraqi elections scheduled for 
     next January at great risk. The UN Special Representative for 
     Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, reported to the Security Council on 
     September 14 that the ``vicious cycle of violence'' and the 
     lack of security was undermining the world body's efforts to 
     assist in elections set for January. UN Secretary

[[Page S11299]]

     General Kofi Annan told me last week that the United Nations 
     had supervised many elections in the past, but never one in a 
     war zone like Iraq. He is concerned that the lack of security 
     and the tight time-table will be major impediments to a 
     successful election.
       This is compounded by the fact that the Administration has 
     so far been unable to convince any country to provide troops 
     needed to protect the UN presence in Iraq. According to 
     Secretary General Annan, they will be unlikely to do so and 
     the UN will have to depend on the United States and British 
     forces now in Iraq to provide that security. That will mean 
     about 5,000 troops being diverted from fighting the 
     insurgency to protecting the UN presence. Secretary General 
     Annan told me that an American general committed to do that.
       This failure to convince any other nations to contribute to 
     a UN security force is a direct consequence of the 
     Administration's alienation of large portions of the world 
     community by its go-it-alone approach to the war in the first 
     place.
       The unfortunate result is that a scant four months before 
     nation-wide elections in Iraq, there are only 35 UN staff 
     members in Iraq--far short of the 200 required to support the 
     U.N. staff so essential to a credible election. Just as 
     troubling, virtually none of the 120,000 Iraqis needed to run 
     the 20,000 to 30,000 polling places have been identified and 
     trained for the task.
       In the upcoming election, seats in the 275-member National 
     Assembly will be allocated based upon a percentage of overall 
     votes received throughout Iraq. The Secretary General told us 
     that it is not possible to have a credible election in Iraq 
     if parts of the country are not able to participate because 
     of an on-going insurgency. Apparently Secretary of Defense 
     Rumsfeld does not share that concern. In recent testimony 
     before the Senate Armed Services Committee he said, ``Let's 
     say you tried to have an election and you could have it in 
     three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some 
     places you couldn't because the violence was too great . . . 
     Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an 
     election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not 
     having an election? You bet.''
       Well, maybe it is not better than not having an election--
     in fact, it very well might be worse. How would people in 
     Lansing, Detroit and Traverse City feel about the legitimacy 
     of a state-wide election for Governor that they couldn't vote 
     in? A single district election in which large numbers of 
     Iraqis are unable to participate is not likely to move Iraq 
     forward toward a stable political system but toward civil war 
     because it would further alienate a significant portion of 
     the population from the Iraqi government.
       The first step in dealing with the problems in Iraq is to 
     face reality. If we insist things are going fine, or if we 
     pretend, as the President incredibly enough put it, that we 
     are dealing with just a ``handful of people who are willing 
     to kill,'' we will be less willing to search for ways to 
     change the negative dynamic and downward spiral which have 
     been unleashed in Iraq. And we will be less willing to search 
     for ways to motivate Iraqi factions' leaders and Islamic 
     countries to become more involved in and be willing to take 
     the risks necessary to build a democratic nation in Iraq. 
     Surely, unless Iraqis want a democratic nation for themselves 
     as much as we want it for them--unless they suppress the 
     violent ones inside their own communities and the terrorists 
     who want to prevent the election in January from happening--
     our presence will continue to be more destabilizing than 
     stabilizing.
       In a recent interview, President Musharraf of Pakistan was 
     asked whether the world is a safer place because of the war 
     in Iraq. He replied, ``No. It's more dangerous. It's not 
     safer, certainly not.'' President Musharraf continued, ``I 
     would say that [the war] has ended up bringing more trouble 
     to the world.'' President Musharraf concluded that the war in 
     Iraq has ``complicated'' the war on terror and ``has made the 
     job more difficult.'' The leader of a pivotal Muslim nation 
     and one of America's key allies in the fight against al Qaeda 
     has concluded that the Iraq war has made the world more 
     dangerous and complicated the overall war on terror.
       On September 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 attack upon 
     us, headlines in European newspapers proclaimed ``We are all 
     Americans.'' The world community united behind America in 
     the effort to destroy al Qaeda and remove the Taliban 
     regime in Afghanistan that supported it. But the 
     President's unilateralist policies and cocky ``bring 'em 
     on'' rhetoric squandered that good will and undermined 
     that spirit of cooperation by terminating UN inspections 
     and invading Iraq without any Islamic nations' support--
     thereby diverting the focus from the real terrorist threat 
     of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The 
     western invasion and occupation of an Islamic country has 
     swelled the ranks of terrorists.
       We would be compounding that strategic blunder by leaving 
     Iraq as an unstable, failed state dominated by Islamist 
     extremists and a haven and breeding ground for even more 
     terrorists. To succeed we must be willing to change direction 
     to seek an alternative third path to the two stark choices 
     the President offers--of staying the course or cutting and 
     running.
       The alternative is to change our course with an 
     Administration that sees the reality on the ground; that is 
     open to new approaches and isn't locked in to a course of 
     action that isn't working; and that hasn't dismantled bridges 
     to the international community, particularly Islamic 
     countries, whose support we need.
       President Bush is incapable of rebuilding the bridges to 
     the international community which he dismantled. A poll by a 
     Canadian company found that only 20% of the people in the 
     countries surveyed overseas support President Bush's 
     policies.
       Loss of public support in other countries isn't simply a 
     matter of losing a popularity contest--it is a direct threat 
     to our security. The leaders of those countries are far less 
     likely to take the political risks that are entailed in 
     joining us in Iraq with troops or police if their publics 
     strongly oppose their doing so and strongly disagree with the 
     policies of the American administration. Listen to what the 
     Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Admiral Lowell 
     Jacoby, told the Senate Armed Services Committee about how 
     America is viewed in the world:
       ``Much of the world is increasingly apprehensive about U.S. 
     power and influence. Many are concerned about the expansion, 
     consolidation, and dominance of American values, ideals, 
     culture, and institutions . . . . We should consider that 
     these perceptions mixed with angst over perceived `U.S. 
     unilateralism' will give rise to significant anti-American 
     behavior.''
       So what should we do in Iraq?
       We need an Administration which can rebuild those bridges 
     to the international community, so we can ``de-Americanize'' 
     this conflict and move towards a stable and democratic Iraq. 
     To do that, we need additional international troops, 
     particularly from Muslim nations, which this Administration 
     has proven incapable of obtaining.
       We also need to train and equip Iraqi troops more quickly 
     and more throughly than we are currently doing. It is 
     particularly critical to provide these Iraqi troops far more 
     quickly with the equipment that will instill in them a 
     confidence in their abilities to defeat insurgents.
       Creating a secure environment is not only a military task, 
     but a political one as well. We must make it clear to all 
     segments of Iraqi society that the U.S. has no design on 
     Iraqi oil or other resources and has no intention of creating 
     a long-term base structure or military presence in Iraq.
       The reconstruction effort must be brought back on track. 
     According to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and 
     International Studies, ``The lack of sufficient electricity 
     in major cities continues to undermine public confidence, 
     fueling worrisome discontent in cities like Fallujah and 
     Mosul, which were favored under Saddam and now receive 
     considerably less power than in prewar days. Sewage systems 
     are worse that they were under Saddam, causing spillover 
     health and environmental problems.''
       Eleven months after Congress approved the money, only 6% of 
     the $18.4 billion for Iraq reconstruction has been spent. And 
     recently the Administration asked Congress for permission to 
     transfer nearly $3.5 billion from Iraqi water, sewer and 
     electricity projects to security and electoral efforts. 
     Unfortunately this needs to be done, but it is another 
     example of how the failure to properly plan for the post-
     combat stability phase and the failure to ensure the 
     necessary troop levels to ensure security has hampered 
     reconstruction and the creation of a stable Iraq.
       The Republican Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, 
     Senator Dick Lugar, recently blamed the mismanagement of the 
     whole Iraq reconstruction effort on ``incompetence in the 
     administration''. The focus of the reconstruction effort must 
     be shifted from large projects awarded to U.S. and other 
     foreign companies to those that will employ the greatest 
     number of Iraqis, giving Iraqi society at large an economic 
     stake in the post-Saddam Iraq that will contribute to a 
     politically stable state.
       None of this will be easy. But we are where we are in Iraq. 
     Just as it took a new administration to extract the United 
     States from Vietnam, it will take a new administration to 
     extract us from Iraq in a way which leaves that country 
     stable and democratic. We cannot leave Iraq as we did 
     Vietnam.
       Nor can we just continue a western occupation of a Muslim 
     nation that is the target and magnet for violence and terror, 
     and that has become more destabilizing than stabilizing. We 
     must change course in Iraq--or else Iraq's future is not 
     likely to be stability and democracy, and the legacy to the 
     world of the Iraq war is likely to be greater turmoil and 
     terror.

                          ____________________