[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 25, 2005)] [Senate] [Pages S378-S391] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] NOMINATION OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE TO BE SECRETARY OF STATE The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will proceed to executive session for the consideration of Executive Calendar No. 4, which the clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Condoleezza Rice, of California, to be Secretary of State. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 9 hours of debate on the nomination equally divided between the two leaders or their designees. The Senator from Indiana. Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chair. I yield myself as much time as I may require of the time on our side. Mr. President, I have the pleasure and honor today of speaking in support of the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be our Secretary of State. As a result of her distinguished career as National Security Adviser to [[Page S379]] President Bush and her earlier assignment on the NSC, she is well known to most Members of the Senate. I admire her accomplishments, and I am particularly thankful for the cooperation she has provided to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and to me personally. The enormously complex job before Dr. Rice will require all of her talents and experience. American credibility in the world, the progress in the war on terrorism, and our relationships with our allies will be greatly affected by the Secretary of State's actions and the effectiveness of the State Department in the coming years. Dr. Rice is highly qualified to meet those challenges. We recognize the deep personal commitment necessary to undertake this difficult assignment, and we are grateful that a leader of her stature is willing to step forward. I had the good fortune to get to know Dr. Rice before she assumed the post of National Security Adviser to President Bush. Before President George W. Bush was elected, I enjoyed visits with Dr. Rice when we both attended Stanford University meetings on foreign policy hosted by former Secretary of State George Shultz. Secretary Shultz, a close friend of many of us in the Senate, was a very early supporter of the then-Governor Bush of Texas. He recognized Dr. Rice's prodigious talents and encouraged her leadership within the Bush foreign policy team. At the Stanford University meetings, Dr. Rice's analytical brilliance and broad knowledge of world affairs were evident. During the campaign for the Presidency of George Bush, she established a trusted relationship with then-Governor Bush that has carried through in her work as National Security Adviser to President Bush. Last week, the Committee on Foreign Relations held exhaustive hearings on this nomination. Dr. Rice fielded questions on every imaginable subject for more than 10\1/2\ hours over 2 days. All 18 members of our committee took advantage of the opportunity to ask Dr. Rice questions. At the hearings, she responded to 199 questions, 129 from Democrats and 70 from Republicans. In addition, in advance of the hearings, members of the committee submitted 191 additional detailed questions for the record to Dr. Rice. Members received answers to each of those questions. Thus, Dr. Rice responded to a total of 390 questions from Senators. In American history, few Cabinet members have provided as much information or answered as many questions as Dr. Rice answered during the confirmation process. She demonstrated that her understanding of U.S. foreign policy is comprehensive and insightful. Our hearings served not only as an examination of Dr. Rice's substantial qualifications but also as a fundamental debate on the direction of American foreign policy. I believe this debate was useful to the Senate and to the American people. Having the opportunity to question a Secretary of State nominee is a key aspect of congressional oversight of any administration's foreign policy. Dr. Rice enthusiastically embraced this function of the hearing, and at many points she engaged in theoretical exchanges on national security choices. Dr. Rice emphasized that support for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law would be at the core of U.S. foreign policy during her watch. She said: In these momentous times, American diplomacy has three great tasks. First, we will unite the community of democracies in building an international system that is based on our shared values and the rule of law. Second, we will strengthen the community of democracies to fight the threats to our common security and alleviate the hopelessness that feeds terror. And third, we will spread freedom and democracy throughout the globe. The Secretary of State serves as the President's top foreign policy adviser, as our Nation's most visible emissary to the rest of the world, and as manager of one of the most important departments in our Government. Any one of these jobs would be a challenge for even the most talented public servant, but, as I told Dr. Rice during our hearings, the Secretary of State, at this critical time in our history, must excel in all three roles. Since 2001, we have witnessed terrorists killing thousands of people in our country and the destruction of the World Trade Center and a part of the Pentagon. We have seen U.S. military personnel engaged in two difficult and costly wars. We have seen the expansion of a nihilistic form of terrorism that is only loosely attached to political objectives and is, therefore, very difficult to deter. We have seen frequent expressions of virulent anti-Americanism in many parts of the Islamic world. We have seen our alliances, our international standing, and our Federal budget strained by the hard choices we have to make in response to terrorism. In this context, many diplomatic tasks must be approached with urgency. In particular, our success in Iraq is critical. The elections scheduled for January 30 must go forward, and the United States must work closely with Iraqi authorities to achieve the fairest and the most complete outcome. At the same time, we must understand that those forces that want to keep Iraq in chaos will commit violence and intimidation. Both Iraqis and the coalition will have to be resilient and flexible in the elections' aftermath. The Bush administration and the State Department also must devote themselves to achieving a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict; to coming to grips with the nuclear proliferation problems in Iran and North Korea; to continuing urgent humanitarian efforts in Sudan, the Indian Ocean region, and elsewhere; to maintaining our commitment to the global fight against AIDS and other infectious diseases; to advancing democracy in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and elsewhere; to repairing alliances with longstanding friends in Europe; to reinvigorating our economic and security relationships in our own hemisphere; and to engaging with rapidly changing national powers, especially China, India, and Russia. Even though this list of diplomatic priorities is daunting, it is not exhaustive, and it does not anticipate unforeseeable events. Just weeks ago, none of us could have predicted a tragic earthquake and a tsunami would change the face of the Indian Ocean region. Our efforts must include the expansion of our foreign policy capabilities so we are better prepared for crises that cannot be averted and better able to prevent those that can be. With this in mind, I would observe that Congress must improve its own performance in foreign affairs, particularly in the area of legislation. The enthusiasm for engaging in the details of U.S. foreign policy the Senate demonstrated last week, and will again demonstrate today, too often has been absent when it is time to perform our legislative duties. Even as Senators have cited shortcomings of administration policy in responding to extraordinarily difficult circumstances in Iraq and elsewhere, the Senate has allowed partisan fights and unrelated domestic legislation and disagreements over that legislation during the last Congress to delay the far simpler task of passing the foreign affairs authorization bill, for example. Now, this bill includes new initiatives and funding authority related to the security and productivity of our diplomats, our outreach to the Muslim world, our nonproliferation efforts, our foreign assistance, and innumerable other national security priorities. Yet politically motivated obstacles were thrown in the path of the bill almost cavalierly, as if Congress's duty to pass foreign affairs legislation had little connection to our success in Iraq or in our war against terrorism. Even as we do our duty to oversee the foreign policy performance of the executive branch, we must take a sober look at our own performance. We must critique ourselves with the same diligence that we have applied to the administration. Every Senator should reflect on the troubling fact that we have not passed a comprehensive foreign assistance bill since 1985. This means that for 20 years we have depended primarily on stopgap measures and bandaids applied during the appropriations process to govern one of the major tools of U.S. foreign policy. Only 24 Members of the current Senate body were here the last time we passed a comprehensive foreign aid bill. Our single largest foreign assistance program, the Millennium Challenge Account, cannot even be found in the core legislation affecting foreign assistance. [[Page S380]] Moreover, many aspects of our foreign assistance law have not been updated since the original Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Forty-four years ago, when our basic foreign assistance law was written, we were preoccupied with the Cold War, terrorism was a rare phenomenon, scientists had not identified the HIV/AIDS virus, the illegal trade in drugs was a small fraction of what it is today, dozens of present day countries did not exist, and only one Senator who still sits in this body was present. Congress's most basic responsibility is to write and pass good legislation that provides clear direction to U.S. policy. In the area of foreign assistance, however, we are operating under an archaic Rube Goldberg contraption that has been patched hundreds of times. Much of the underlying law is irrelevant or redundant. Other parts are contradictory. As a result, the law is a confusing muddle that serves neither the interests of U.S. taxpayers nor our national security goals. We are tolerating this legislation of irresponsibility at a time of great national vulnerability. Congress's failure in this area has more to do with inattention than with disagreement. In both 2003 and 2004, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a foreign affairs authorization bill by a unanimous vote. In 2003, we were mere hours away from final Senate passage, when the bill was derailed by unrelated domestic issues. We have not been blocked by intractable policy disagreements but by our devaluation of our own legislative role in foreign policy. We need to make a bipartisan decision that passing a foreign affairs authorization bill each Congress is as important as passing a defense authorization bill or a homeland security authorization bill. We must be prepared to fulfill our own core national security responsibilities. Dr. Rice indicated her strong support for passage of a comprehensive foreign affairs bill. I know we will have a powerful advocate in Dr. Rice for such action. I would like to emphasize another critical area of national security policy where Dr. Rice's advocacy has been strong, consistent, and persuasive. During the Foreign Relations Committee hearings last week, I opened the question period with three questions pertaining to the Nunn-Lugar program and other aspects of our nonproliferation efforts. In each case Dr. Rice expressed the administration's strongest commitment to the programs and to diplomatic objectives in question. She stated: I really can think of nothing more important than being able to proceed with the safe dismantlement of the Soviet arsenal, with nuclear safeguards to make certain that nuclear programs facilities and the like are well secured, and then the blending down--as we are doing--of a number of hazardous, potentially lethal materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons, as well as, of course . . . the chemical weapons. . . . It is just an extremely important program that I think you know that we continue to push. In fact, the Bush administration has achieved a great deal in the area of nonproliferation. Dr. Rice has been a stalwart proponent of a robust Nunn-Lugar program. Chief among these successes is the rarely mentioned Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, informally known as ``10 plus 10 over 10.'' Under this agreement, negotiated by the Bush administration, the United States will spend $10 billion over the next 10 years to safeguard and to dismantle the weapons of mass destruction arsenal of the former Soviet Union. The other members of the G8 agreed collectively to spend another $10 billion over the same time period. Our commitment of funds is primarily money that we had planned to spend in any event through the Nunn-Lugar program and other associated efforts. With this agreement, the President effectively doubled the funds committed to securing weapons of mass destruction in Russia with minimal additional obligation to American taxpayers. The Bush administration also has successfully recruited more than 60 countries to join the Proliferation Security Initiative Program that has enhanced our ability to interdict illegal weapons of mass destruction shipments around the world. Through the Energy Department, it established the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which aims to secure high-risk nuclear and radiological materials globally. It has facilitated at several junctures the acceleration of Nunn-Lugar work at critical chemical weapons destruction facilities at Shchuchye in Russia through personal intervention by the President and by Dr. Rice. It finalized the deal with Libya to lay open that country's weapons of mass destruction programs. And it advocated passage of the IAEA additional protocol which greatly expands that international agency's ability to detect clandestine nuclear activities. It secured the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 in April 2004, which for the first time declared that weapons of mass destruction proliferation is illegal. It has also provided constant encouragement to the promising talks between India and Pakistan that represent the best chance in years to reduce tensions between these nuclear powers. The President supported, through personal communication to congressional leaders, and signed into law the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, which establishes the authority to use Nunn-Lugar moneys and expertise outside the former Soviet Union. In these cases and others, the President and his administration have embraced diplomacy and skillfully employed multilateralists in support of important nonproliferation objectives. I believe Dr. Rice's strong statements of support for nonproliferation programs last week demonstrate the Bush administration's continuing commitment to these vital objectives. Last November, I introduced two new bills to strengthen U.S. nonproliferation efforts, and I will be introducing these bills again this week. They represent the fourth installment of the Nunn-Lugar legislation that I have offered since 1991. In that year, former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia and I authored the Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. That program has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle an enormous stockpile of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, the means of delivery, and related materials. In 1997, Senator Nunn and I were joined by Senator Domenici in introducing the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, which expanded Nunn-Lugar authorities in the former Soviet Union and provided weapons of mass destruction expertise to first responders in American cities. In 2003, Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, which authorized the Nunn-Lugar program to operate outside the former Soviet Union to address proliferation threats. The bills I am introducing this week would strengthen the Nunn-Lugar program and other nonproliferation efforts and provide them with greater flexibility to address emerging threats. To date, the Nunn- Lugar program has deactivated or destroyed 6,564 nuclear warheads, 568 ICBMs, 477 ICBM silos, 17 ICBM mobile missile launchers, 142 bombers, 761 nuclear air-to-surface missiles, 420 submarine missile launchers, 543 submarine-launched missiles, 28 nuclear submarines, and 194 nuclear test tunnels. The Nunn-Lugar program also facilitated the removal of all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. And after the fall of the Soviet Union, these three nations emerged as the third, fourth, and eighth largest nuclear powers in the world. Today, all three are nuclear weapons free as a result of the cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. In addition, the program provides the primary tool with which the United States is working with Russian authorities to identify, to safeguard, and to destroy Russia's massive chemical and biological warfare capacity. Countless individuals of great dedication, serving on the ground in the former Soviet Union and in our Government, have made the Nunn-Lugar program work. Nevertheless, from the beginning we have encountered resistance to the concept in both the United States and Russia. In our own country opposition has sometimes been motivated by false perceptions that Nunn-Lugar money is foreign assistance or by the belief that Defense Department funds should only be spent on troops, weapons, or other warfighting capabilities. Until recently, we also faced a general disinterest in nonproliferation which made gaining support for Nunn-Lugar funding and activities an annual struggle. [[Page S381]] The attacks of September 11 changed the political discourse radically on that subject. We have turned a corner. The public, the media, and political candidates are now paying more attention. In a remarkable moment in the first Presidential debate of 2004, both President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed that the No. 1 national security threat facing the United States was the prospect that weapons of mass destruction would fall into the hands of terrorists. The 9/11 Commission weighed in with another important endorsement of the Nunn-Lugar program saying that: Preventing the proliferation of [weapons of mass destruction] warrants a maximum effort--by strengthening counterproliferation efforts, expanding the Proliferation Security Initiative, and supporting the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. The report went on to say that: Nunn-Lugar . . . is now in need of expansion, improvement and resources. The first new bill I have introduced is the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 2005. This bill, which is cosponsored by Senators Domenici and Hagel, would underscore the bipartisan consensus on Nunn-Lugar by streamlining and accelerating Nunn-Lugar implementation. It would grant more flexibility to the President and to the Secretary of Defense to undertake nonproliferation projects outside the former Soviet Union. It also would eliminate congressionally imposed conditions on Nunn-Lugar assistance that in the past have forced the suspension of time-sensitive nonproliferation projects. The purpose of the bill is to reduce bureaucratic redtape and friction within our Government that hinder effective responses to nonproliferational opportunities and emergencies. At last week's hearing, Dr. Rice reiterated the administration's strong support of the bill. She understands how important it is to prevent needless delays in our weapons dismantlement schedule. Our recent experience in Albania is illustrative of the need to reduce bureaucratic delays. Last year in 2004, Albania appealed for help in destroying 16 tons of chemical agent left over from the Cold War. In August of last year, I visited this remote facility, the location of which still remains classified. Nunn-Lugar officials are working closely with Albanian leaders to destroy this dangerous stockpile. But from beginning to end, the bureaucratic process to authorize the dismantlement of chemical weapons in Albania took more than 3 months, largely because of requirements in current law. Fortunately, the situation in Albania was not a crisis. But we may not be able to afford these timelines in future nonproliferation emergencies. The second piece of legislation that I will introduce is the Conventional Arms Threat Reduction Act of 2005 or CATRA. This legislation, cosponsored by Senator Domenici, is modeled on the original Nunn-Lugar Act. Its purpose is to provide the Department of State with a focused response to the threat posed by vulnerable stockpiles of conventional weapons around the world, including tactical missiles and man portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, as they are now more commonly called. Such missile systems could be used by terrorists to attack commercial airlines, military installations, and government facilities at home and abroad. Reports suggest that al-Qaida has attempted to acquire these kinds of weapons. In addition, unsecured conventional weapons stockpiles are a major obstacle to peace, reconstruction, and economic development in regions suffering from instability. My bill declares it to be the policy of the United States to seek out surplus and unguarded stocks of conventional armaments, including small arms and light weapons and tactical missile systems, for elimination. It authorizes the Department of State to carry out a global effort to destroy such weapons and to cooperate with allies and international organizations when possible. The Secretary of State is charged with devising a strategy for prioritizing, on a country-by-country basis, the obligation of funds in a global program of conventional arms elimination. Lastly, the Secretary is required to unify program planning, coordination, and implementation of the strategy into one office at the State Department and to request a budget commensurate with the risk posed by these weapons. The Department of State has been working to address the threats posed by conventional weapons. But in my judgment, the current funding allocation and organizational structure are not up to the task. Only about $6 million was devoted to securing small arms and light weapons during the two-year period that covered FY 2003 and FY 2004. We need more focus on this problem and more funding to take advantage of opportunities to secure vulnerable stockpiles. In August, I visited Albania, Ukraine, and Georgia. Each of these countries has large stockpiles of MANPADS and tactical missile systems and each has requested U.S. assistance to destroy them. On August 27, I stood in a remote Albanian military storage facility as the base commander unloaded a fully functioning MANPAD from its crate and readied it for use. This storage site contained 79 MANPADS that could have been used to attack an American commercial aircraft or installation. Fortunately, the MANPADS that I saw that day were destroyed on September 2, but there are many more like them throughout the world. Too often, conventional weapons are inadequately stored and protected. This presents grave risk to American military bases, embassy compounds, and even targets within the United States. We must develop a response that is commensurate with the threat. I am offering these two bills, with the hope of passing them at the earliest opportunity. I anticipate and welcome strong support from Members of the Senate that reflects the priority status of U.S. non proliferation efforts. Mr. President, I would like to highlight another topic that is critical to U.S. foreign policy. This is our effort to lead the global fight against the horrific HIV/AIDS pandemic. During the hearings on Dr. Rice's nomination, she responded to several questions on the administration's Global AIDS initiative. I was pleased that she reiterated the administration's strong commitment to fighting AIDS and underscored the importance of paying special attention to the needs of women, who are contracting AIDS at an accelerated rate. In 2003, at the administration's urging, Congress passed comprehensive legislation that created the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator and pledged $15 billion over five years to address the HIV/ AIDS crisis. We must be mindful of the President's observation that, ``Time is not on our side,'' in combating this disease. In Africa, nearly 10,000 people contract the HIV virus each day. The United States has a clear moral obligation to respond generously and quickly to this crisis. The United States has acted with unprecedented urgency in combating HIV/AIDS globally, and the President's emergency plan for HIV/AIDS Relief is showing clear signs of progress. In the first 8 months of the President's emergency plan, the United States has supported bilateral programs in 15 of the most afflicted countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean to provide anti-retroviral treatment to those living with HIV/AIDS. I am pleased with the emergency plan's deep commitment to international cooperation. In fact, tomorrow, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Ambassador Tobias will be joining the leaders of the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the Global Fund to report on the progress that has been made in making drug treatment available to the developing world. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues to work closely with the administration to make the fight against HIV/AIDS a priority. Charged with the oversight of the President's initiative, we will continue to hold hearings and briefings on the subject of AIDS and the progress of the President's emergency plan for AIDS Relief. In 2004, for instance, we held a hearing focused on the intersection of HIV/AIDS and hunger. At this hearing, Ambassador Randall Tobias, the Global AIDS Coordinator, and Jim Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Program, testified about the devastating effects that the HIV/AIDS crisis is having on agricultural workers and the food supply in sub- Saharan Africa. In addition, we explored the special nutritional needs of individuals who are taking antiretroviral medication. [[Page S382]] We are just beginning to understand how women, and young girls in particular, are especially vulnerable to HIV and AIDS, due to a combination of biological, cultural, economic, social and legal factors. Young girls constitute 75 percent of new infections in South Africa among individuals between 14 and 25 years of age. In Malawi, the National AIDS Commission has said that HIV and AIDS is killing more women than men, and that HIV-positive girls between 15 and 24 years of age outnumber males in the same age group by a six to one margin. Even in the United States, the disease is having a devastating effect on women, and is the leading cause of death among African American women ages 25 to 34. Not only are women and girls more vulnerable to infection, they are also shouldering much of the burden of taking care of sick and dying relatives and friends. In addition, in the vast majority of cases, they are the caretakers of the estimated 14 million children who have been orphaned by this pandemic. Grandmothers often take the responsibility of caring for grandchildren, and older female children often take care of their younger siblings. One such young girl is Fanny Madanitsa. Fanny is a 16-year-old girl living in Malawi with her two younger sisters and a brother. Life has been difficult for Fanny and her siblings since they lost their parents to AIDS. As the oldest child, Fanny must deal with the stress of taking care of her younger siblings. They live in a modest house and share one bed. Fanny dreams of being a nurse, but reaching this goal will be a challenge for her. She cannot always attend classes, as she sometimes has to look after her siblings. Because money is scarce, she has a difficult time paying for school materials and other costs of her education. But Fanny is more fortunate that many girls in similar circumstances. With the help of her Village AIDS Committee, a community-based organization that has organized to take care of the orphans in its village, Fanny and her siblings receive food, soap, school materials and also medicines. Through the Village AIDS Committee, which receives support from Save the Children, the community assists Fanny in watching her siblings so she can attend school. Last June, I introduced the Assistance for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act of 2004. I will reintroduce this bill in the coming days. It was written with the support of the administration, and I have received letters from both the State Department and USAID endorsing its passage. My bill would require the United States Government to develop a comprehensive strategy for providing assistance to orphans and would authorize the President to support community-based organizations that provide basic care for orphans and vulnerable children. Furthermore, my bill aims to improve enrollment and access to primary school education for orphans and vulnerable children by supporting programs that reduce the negative impact of school fees and other expenses. It also would reaffirm our commitment to international school lunch programs. School meals provide basic nutrition to children who otherwise do not have access to reliable food. They have been a proven incentive for poor and orphaned children to enroll in school. In addition, many women and children who lose one or both parents often face difficulty in asserting their inheritance rights. Even when the inheritance rights of women and children are spelled out in law, such rights are difficult to claim and are seldom enforced. In many countries it is difficult or impossible for a widow--even if she has small children--to claim property after the death of her husband. This often leaves the most vulnerable children impoverished and homeless. My bill seeks to support programs that protect the inheritance rights of orphans and widows with children. I know that Dr. Rice is supportive of this legislation, and I am hopeful that, with bipartisan action, it will become law early this year. The AIDS orphans crisis in sub-Saharan Africa has implications for political stability, development, and human welfare that extend far beyond the region. Turning the tide on this crisis will require a coordinated, comprehensive, and swift response. I know Dr. Rice shares the view that fighting Global AIDS must be a priority for U.S. foreign policy. I am hopeful that, with the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Global Fund, and Congressional initiatives, we can make great strides together in the battle against this pandemic. In addition, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an editorial that I co-authored in the January 19 edition of the Washington Post with Patty Stonesifer, co-chair and President of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From the Washington Post, Jan. 19, 2005] In the Footsteps of History (By Dorothy Height) When Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as secretary of state, she will be following in the footsteps of Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the National Council of Negro Women. Mrs. Bethune was the first black woman to be called upon for policy help by the White House, when Republican President Calvin Coolidge asked her to take part in a conference on child care in 1928. She went on to work with Republican and Democratic presidents while always fighting to advance the interests of black women and children. From Sojourner Truth speaking out in the abolitionist movement, to Constance Baker Motley as a voice in the courtroom to Shirley Chisholm as a candidate for president, African American women have braved a world that did not welcome their participation. Ms. Rice will be the first woman of color to assume the highest diplomatic post in the U.S. government. As secretary of state, she will face challenges that confront women everywhere. As we engage the Muslim and Arab worlds, efforts are being renewed to suppress women's participation in education, politics and civil society. In Africa, HIV and AIDS are ravaging a generation of women and leaving millions of orphans to be comforted. In Central and Eastern Europe, women and girls are being sold into prostitution. Despite the challenges she will face, Ms. Rice's appointment is a time for women of color to smile. Our nation finally will put forward a face that reflects the hopes of generations of black women to sit at the table of national and global affairs and participate as equals. Many women sacrificed to make this moment possible. I pray that Ms. Rice will use this profound honor and heavy burden to represent our country with compassion, strength and integrity, while seeking peaceful solutions and working to make the world a better place for all people. Mr. LUGAR. This editorial entitled ``Speeding an AIDS Vaccine'' lays out the case for improved global coordination in this area. Achievement of an AIDS vaccine would save millions of lives and billions of dollars in treatment costs in the coming decades. I am pleased that the Bush administration, through the NIH, already has taken the initiative to establish one Vaccine Research Center and has unveiled support for a second one. These centers are a critical element in improving global cooperation on the development of an AIDS vaccine. Mr. President, I have cited just a small sample of critical issues on which work in both the executive and legislative branches is proceeding with good results. From my own conversations with Dr. Rice, I am confident that she understands that the President's foreign policy can be enhanced in the second term by a closer working relationship with Congress. In moving to head the State Department, she understands that much of this communication will depend on her. Last week's hearings were an excellent start. Her attitude throughout these arduous hearings was always accommodating and always respectful of the Senate's constitutional role in the nomination process. From the start she made clear her desire to have a wide-ranging discussion of U.S. foreign policy and to take all the questions that members wanted to ask. If confirmed, it will be her duty to use the foundation of these hearings to build a consistent bridge of communication to the Congress. As legislators, we have equal responsibility in this process. We have the responsibility of educating ourselves about national security issues, even when they are not the top issues in headlines or polls. We have the responsibility to maintain good foreign affairs law, even when taking care of this duty yields little credit back home. We have the responsibility to ensure that our first impulse in foreign affairs is one of bipartisanship. And we have the responsibility to speak plainly when we disagree with the administration, but to avoid inflammatory rhetoric that is designed [[Page S383]] merely to create partisan advantage or settle partisan scores. I believe that we have the opportunity with the beginning of a new Presidential term to enhance the constructive role of Congress in foreign policy. We have made an excellent start during the past week. I thank all 18 Senators who participated in the Foreign Relations Committee hearings and all Senators who will join in the debate today. I strongly urge Members to vote in favor of the nomination of Dr. Rice to be Secretary of State. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time allotted for Democratic Members under the agreement regarding the Rice nomination be modified as follows: The time for Senator Lieberman be allocated to Senator Bayh; Senator Dayton be allocated 15 minutes, 5 minutes from Senator Boxer's time and 10 minutes from the time controlled by Senator Durbin. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I commend my friend and colleague, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, for the way he conducted the hearings on the nomination for Secretary of State. I think many of us who were not members of the committee but followed the hearings very closely were enormously impressed by the conduct of the hearings, by the flexibility he showed in permitting Senators to follow up on questions so we could reach the real nub of the situation and yet to move the hearings along in a timely way. That is part of the long tradition that is associated with the chairman of the committee, and it is one of the reasons, among others, that he is held in such high regard and respect in the Senate. I intend to oppose Condoleezza Rice's nomination. There is no doubt that Dr. Rice has impressive credentials. Her life story is very moving, and she has extensive experience in foreign policy. In general, I believe the President should be able to choose his Cabinet officials, but this nomination is different because of the war in Iraq. Dr. Rice was a key member of the national security team that developed and justified the rationale for war, and it has been a catastrophic failure, a continuing quagmire. In these circumstances, she should not be promoted to Secretary of State. There is a critical question about accountability. Dr. Rice was a principal architect and advocate of the decision to go to war in Iraq at a time when our mission in Afghanistan was not complete and Osama bin Laden was a continuing threat because of our failure to track him down. In the Armed Services Committee before the war, generals advised against the rush to war, but Dr. Rice and others in the administration pressed forward anyway despite the clear warnings. Dr. Rice was the first in the administration to invoke the terrifying image of a nuclear holocaust to justify the need to go to war in Iraq. On September 9, 2002, as Congress was first considering the resolution to authorize the war, Dr. Rice said: We do not want the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud. In fact, as we now know, there was significant disagreement in the intelligence community that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program, but Dr. Rice spoke instead about a consensus in the intelligence community that the infamous aluminum tubes were for the development of nuclear weapons. On the eve of the war many of us argued that inspectors should be given a chance to do their job and that America should share information to facilitate their work. In a March 6, 2000, letter to Senator Levin, Dr. Rice assured the Congress that the United Nations inspectors had been briefed on every high or medium priority weapons of mass destruction missile and UAV- related site the U.S. intelligence community has identified. In fact, we had not done so. Dr. Rice was plain wrong. The Intelligence Committee report on the prewar intelligence at page 418 stated: Public pronouncements by Administration officials that the Central Intelligence Agency had shared information on all high and moderate priority suspect sites with United Nations inspectors were factually incorrect. Had Dr. Rice and others in the administration shared all of the information, it might have changed the course of history. We might have discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction. The rush to war might have been stopped. We would have stayed focused on the real threat, kept faith with our allies, and would be safer today. America is in deep trouble in Iraq today because of our misguided policy, and the quagmire is very real. Nearly 1,400 of our finest men and women in uniform have been killed and more than 10,000 have been wounded. We now know that Saddam had no nuclear weapons, had no weapons of mass destruction of any kind, and that the war has not made America safer from the threat of al-Qaida. Instead, as the National Intelligence Council recently stated, the war has made Iraq a breeding ground for terrorism that previously did not exist. As a result, the war has made us less secure, not more secure. It has increased support for al-Qaida, made America more hated in the world, and made it much harder to win the real war against terrorism, the war against al-Qaida. Before we can repair our broken policy, the administration needs to admit it is broken. Yet in 2 days of confirmation hearings, Dr. Rice categorically defended the President's decision to invade Iraq, saying the strategic decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was the right one. She defended the President's decision to ignore the advice of GEN Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, who thought that a large number of troops would be necessary if we went to war. She said: I do believe that the plan and forces that we went in with were appropriate to the task. She refused to disavow the shameful acts of torture that have undermined America's credibility in Iraq and the world. When Senator Dodd asked her whether in her personal view, as a matter of basic humanity, the interrogation techniques amounted to torture, she said: I'm not going to speak to any specific interrogation techniques . . . The determination of whether interrogation techniques are consistent with our international obligations and American law are made by the Justice Department. I don't want to comment on any specific interrogation techniques. This is after Senator Dodd asked about water-boarding and other interrogation techniques. She continued: I don't think that would be appropriate, and I think it would not be very good for American security. Yet, as Secretary of State, Dr. Rice will be the chief human rights official for our Government. She will be responsible for monitoring human rights globally, and defending America's human rights record. She cannot abdicate that responsibility or hide behind the Justice Department if Secretary of State. Dr. Rice also minimized the enormous challenge we face in training a competent Iraqi security force. She insisted 120,000 Iraqis now have been trained, when the quality of training for the vast majority of them is obviously very much in doubt. There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did, and for the false reasons we were given. As a principal architect of our failed policy, Dr. Rice is the wrong choice for Secretary of State. We need, instead, a Secretary who is open to a clearer vision and a better strategy to stabilize Iraq, to work with the international community, to bring our troops home with dignity and honor, and to restore our lost respect in the world. The stakes are very high and the challenge is vast. Dr. Rice's failed record on Iraq makes her unqualified for promotion to Secretary of State and I urge the Senate to oppose her nomination. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota. Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, First let me thank my colleagues, Senator Boxer and Senator Durbin for making available this time for me to address the Senate regarding this nomination. I rise today to oppose the nomination of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State. I do so because she misled me [[Page S384]] about the situation in Iraq before and after the congressional resolution in October of 2002 authorizing that war, a resolution that I opposed. She misled other Members of Congress about the situation in Iraq, Members who have said they would have opposed that resolution if they had been told the truth, and she misled the people of Minnesota and Americans everywhere about the situation in Iraq before and after that war began. It is a war in which 1,372 American soldiers have lost their lives, and over 10,000 have been wounded--many of them maimed for life. Thousands more have been scarred emotionally and physically. All of those families and thousands of other American families whose loved ones are now serving in Iraq are suffering serious financial and family hardships, and must wonder and worry every day and night for a year or longer whether their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters are still alive, will stay alive, and wonder when they will be coming home. For many, the answer is: Not soon. I read in today's Washington Post that the Army is planning to keep its current troop strength in Iraq at 120,000 for at least 2 more years. I did not learn that information as a Member of Congress. I did not learn it as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee where I regularly attend public hearings, classified meetings, and top secret briefings. I did not learn it from the U.S. military command in Iraq with whom I met in Baghdad last month. I read it in the Washington Post, just as I read last weekend that the Secretary of Defense has created his own new espionage arm by ``reinterpreting an existing law,'' without informing most, if any, Members of Congress and by reportedly ``reprogramming funds appropriated for other purposes;'' just as I learned last weekend by reading the New York Times that the Administration is exploring a reinterpretation of the law to allow secret U.S. commando units to operate in this country. I also learned of official reports documenting horrible abuses of prisoners, innocent civilians as well as enemy combatants, at numerous locations in countries besides the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which directly contradicts assurances we have been given repeatedly by administration officials in the Senate Armed Services Committee. I might as well skip all the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings and meetings and top secret briefings and just read the papers--and thank goodness for a free and vigilant press to ferret out the truth and to report the truth, because we cannot get the truth from this administration. Sadly, the attitude of too many of my colleagues across the aisle is: Our President, regardless whether he is wrong, wrong, or wrong, they defend him, they protect him, and they allow his top administration officials to get away with lying. Lying to Congress, lying to our committees, and lying to the American people. It is wrong. It is immoral. It is un-American. And it has to stop. It stops by not promoting top administration officials who engage in the practice, who have been instrumental in deceiving Congress and the American people and, regrettably, that includes Dr. Rice. Dr. Rice, in a television interview on September 8, 2002, as the administration was launching its campaign to scare the American people and stampede Congress about Saddam Hussein's supposedly urgent threat to our national security, shrewdly invoked the ultimate threat, that he possessed or would soon possess nuclear weapons. She said that day: We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. Soon thereafter she and other top administration officials cited intercepted aluminum tubes as definite proof that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons program underway. Dr. Rice stated publicly at the time the tubes: . . . are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. In late September of 2002, shortly before we in Congress were to vote on the Iraq war resolution, Dr. Rice invited me, along with I believe five of my Senate colleagues, to the White House where we were briefed by her and then-CIA Director George Tenet. That briefing was classified. What I was shown and told conformed to Dr. Rice's public statements, with no qualification whatsoever. Now, of course, we have been told, after an exhaustive search for 18 months by over 1,400 United States weapons inspectors, that Saddam Hussein did not have an active nuclear weapons development program underway and that he apparently possessed no weapons of mass destruction of any kind. We have also been told that in the fall of 2002, right at the time of my meeting in the White House, right at the time of the Senate and the House's votes on the Iraq war resolution, the top nuclear experts at the U.S. Department of Energy and officials in other Federal agencies were disagreeing strongly with Dr. Rice's claim that those aluminum tubes could only have been intended for use in developing nuclear weapons materials. That expert dissent and honest disagreement--a different point of view--was not communicated to me then nor was it brought to me later. I received no phone call or letter saying: Senator Dayton just wanted to correct a mis-impression that I unintentionally gave you at that meeting. I now have information that contradicts what we were told then. I still believe in my own views but I want you to be aware of others before you cast the most important vote of your Senate career or even a call or communication after that vote was cast. There was nothing. When Senator Boxer rightly pressed Dr. Rice on this point in the Foreign Relations confirmation hearing, there was no admission even then of any mistake. In fact, she replied: ``I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity. Thank you, very much.'' There is a saying that we judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge it by our actions. I don't know what Dr. Rice's intentions were, but I do have direct experience with her actions. There was no slight misunderstanding, or a slip, or even a mistake that was limited to one meeting. This was a public statement made repeatedly by Dr. Rice and similar words by Vice President Cheney and even by President Bush as part of an all-out campaign, which continues even today, to mobilize public support and maintain public support for the invasion of Iraq and for continuing war there regardless of what the facts were then, or are now, and it has been done by misrepresenting those facts, by distorting the facts, by withholding the facts, by hiding the truth, by hiding the truth in matters of life and death, of war and peace, that profoundly affect our national security, our international reputation, and our future well- being--and will for many years to come. I don't like to impugn anyone's integrity. But I really do not like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally. It is wrong. It is undemocratic. It is un-American, and it is dangerous. It is very dangerous, and it is occurring far too frequently in this administration. This Congress, this Senate must demand that it stop now. My vote against this nomination is my statement that this administration's lying must stop now. I urge my colleagues to join me in this demand, Democrat, Republicans, Independents. All of us first and foremost are Americans. We must be told the truth--for us to govern our country and to preserve our world. That is why we must vote against this nomination. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana. Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an editorial by Dorothy Height of the Washington Post of January 19 be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From the Washington Post, Jan. 19, 2005] In the Footsteps of History (By Dorothy Height) When Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as secretary of state, she will be following in the footsteps of Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the National Council of Negro Women. Mrs. Bethune was the first black woman to be called upon for policy help by the White House, when Republican President Calvin Coolidge asked her to take part in a conference on child care in 1928. She went on to work with Republican and Democratic presidents while always fighting to advance the interests of black woman and children. From Sojourner Truth speaking out in the abolitionist movement, to Constance Baker Motley as a voice in the courtroom to Shirley Chisholm as a candidate for president, [[Page S385]] African American women have braved a world that did not welcome their participation. Ms. Rice will be the first woman of color to assume the highest diplomatic post in the U.S. government. As secretary of state, she will face challenges that confront women everywhere. As we engage the Muslim and Arab worlds, efforts are being renewed to suppress women's participation in education, politics and civil society. In Africa, HIV and AIDS are ravaging a generation of women and leaving millions of orphans to be comforted. In Central and Eastern Europe, woman and girls are being sold into prostitution. Despite the challenges she will face, Ms. Rice's appointment is a time for women of color to smile. Our nation finally will put forward a face that reflects the hopes of generations of black women to sit at the table of national and global affairs and participates as equals. Many women sacrificed to make this moment possible. I pray that Ms. Rice will use this profound honor and heavy burden to represent our country with compassion, strength and integrity, while seeking peaceful solutions and working to make the world a better place for all people. Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the President's nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be Secretary of State presents the Senate with a difficult decision. Dr. Rice will bring an impressive set of public policy and academic credentials to the job of Secretary of State. Her personal story is inspiring. Nonetheless, Dr. Rice's record on Iraq gives me great concern. In her public statements, she clearly overstated and exaggerated the intelligence concerning Iraq before the war in order to support the President's decision to initiate military action against Iraq. Since the Iraq effort has run into great difficulty, she has also attempted to revise history as to why we went into Iraq. I approach this issue as the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and as a member of the Intelligence Committee. Both committees have devoted a great deal of time over the last 2 years to issues concerning Iraq, including the Intelligence Committee inquiry into prewar intelligence. These inquiries indicated major problems with the intelligence on Iraq and how it was exaggerated or misused to make the case to the American people of the need to initiate an attack against Iraq. Dr. Rice is a major player in that effort--a frequent and highly visible public voice. Dr. Rice is not directly responsible for the intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. The intelligence community's many failures are catalogued in the 500-page report of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But Dr. Rice is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her. Here are a few of those exaggerations and distortions. One of the most well known was the allegation that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Africa, which was cited to demonstrate that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. But our intelligence community did not believe it was true, and took numerous actions to make its concerns known--even urging the British not to publish the allegation in September of 2002. So how did it happen that President Bush in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union speech said that ``The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa''? When the CIA saw a draft of the President's Cincinnati speech for October 7, 2002, it asked the White House to delete the allegation that Iraq had been seeking uranium from Africa, and the White House did remove the reference entirely. On October 5, 2002, the CIA sent a memo explaining its views to Steven Hadley, Dr. Rice's deputy. It sent another memo to Dr. Rice and to Mr. Hadley on October 6, again expressing doubt about the reports of Iraq's attempt to get uranium from Africa. Finally, George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence himself, personally called Mr. Hadley to urge that the uranium allegation be removed from the speech--which it was. This was not just some routine staff action or a low-level CIA analyst who called the National Security Council. It was a memorandum from the CIA to Dr. Rice, and the Director of Central Intelligence himself who called Dr. Rice's deputy to make it clear what his concerns were and to request the removal of the allegation. Yet just 3\1/2\ months later the White House put the African uranium allegation back into a draft of the State of the Union speech. That draft made no mention of the British. It was a reference like the one that was removed from the Cincinnati speech a few months before. It asserted in that draft what purported to be the view of the U.S. Government--that Iraq had been trying to obtain uranium from Africa. According to Director Tenet, shortly before the speech was delivered, the CIA received portions of the draft of the State of the Union to review, including the allegation about uranium from Africa. A senior CIA staff member called the National Security Council staff to repeat his concerns about the allegation. Instead of removing the text from the speech, the National Security Council and the White House changed the text to make reference to the British view, suggesting, of course, that the United States believed the British view to be accurate. That formula was highly deceptive. The only reason to say the ``British have learned'' that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium from Africa was to create the impression that we believed it. But our intelligence community did not believe it. Indeed, they had attempted to dissuade the British from publishing the allegation in September, and they successfully made several high-level interventions with the White House in October to have the allegation removed from the President's Cincinnati speech. Concerning the British report, Director Tenet said the CIA ``differed with the British on the reliability of the uranium reporting.'' What was the role of Dr. Rice in all of this? I asked her in my questions for the record whether she was aware the intelligence community had doubts about the credibility of the reports, and if not, how she could not know, given all of the activity prior to the President's October 7 Cincinnati speech, including the memo to her. In response, Dr. Rice said, ``I do not recall reading or receiving the CIA memo,'' and ``I do not recall Intelligence Community concerns about the credibility of reports about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa either at the time of the Cincinnati speech or the State of the Union speech.'' Frankly, I am surprised and disappointed that the National Security Adviser would not remember an issue of this magnitude. However, it was not only the President who made that allegation, Dr. Rice made it herself in an op-ed in the New York Times on January 23, 2003, 5 days before the State of the Union speech, and 3\1/2\ months after the same allegation had been removed from the Cincinnati speech at the CIA's request. She wrote that Iraq's declaration to the U.N. ``fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad.'' Another question I asked Dr. Rice for the record was whether, prior to the January 2003 State of the Union speech, she had discussed with Steven Hadley, her Deputy, the choice of wording in that portion of the speech and whether she was aware that the language had been changed to refer to the British rather than stating it as the U.S. Government's view. In her response she said: Yes, I did discuss with Stephen Hadley concerns the intelligence community had about protecting sources and methods regarding reports on Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from Africa. These concerns were addressed by citing a foreign government service. I do not recall any discussion of concerns about the credibility of the report. However, the CIA requested on three separate occasions that the reference in the Cincinnati speech be removed entirely because the CIA had doubts about the credibility of the reports. In Dr. Rice's answers to my questions, while she failed to remember all the direct interventions by the CIA to have the uranium allegation removed from the President's Cincinnati speech, including a CIA memo to her, she instead relied on a single sentence from [[Page S386]] the October 1, 2002, national intelligence estimate, asserting that ``Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium and yellow cake'' from Africa. There are four problems with her answers. First, after that national intelligence estimate was produced, the CIA made its multiple interventions with the National Security Council, including two memos and the call from DCI Tenet to Dr. Rice's Deputy, to have the uranium allegation removed from the draft October 7 Cincinnati speech because of the doubts about the credibility of the reports. It was then removed. So the CIA's doubts about the reporting and the White House's removal of that allegation from the Cincinnati speech came after the hastily assembled national intelligence estimate of October 1, 2002. Second, according to George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, the CIA's concerns were with the credibility of the reports, not with sources and methods. In a statement issued in July of 2003, he said the CIA received portions of the draft speech shortly before it was given and that the CIA officials ``raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with the National Security Council colleagues.'' In that statement he made no fewer than five references to CIA doubts about the reliability of the intelligence. He did not mention concerns about protecting sources and methods. Third, in relying on one erroneous sentence in the NIE, Dr. Rice did not mention the opposing sentence in that same NIE written by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which stated that ``the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious.'' So the NIE, which she referred to, also contained an explicit dissenting view on the issue of African uranium, but she ignored that portion of the NIE. Finally, and most significantly, if the State of the Union speech was relying upon that one sentence in the national intelligence estimate, it would have presented the allegation about Iraq seeking African uranium as something the United States believed rather than something the ``British have learned.'' That is where Dr. Rice's answers unravel. If the NIE's erroneous statement that ``Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellow-cake'' from Africa was the basis for the State of the Union speech representations, that speech would not have relied on the British view. It would have been stated as our own view. The problem is that it was not our view. The statement about the British learning of Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium in Africa was a conscious effort to create an impression that we believed something that we actually did not believe. Now, there are other examples in which Dr. Rice exaggerated the intelligence or overstated the case to help persuade the public of the need to go to war against Iraq. Let me cite a few. On September 8, 2002, Dr. Rice said on CNN: We do know that there have been shipments going into . . . Iraq, for instance, of . . . high quality aluminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons, centrifuge programs. On July 30, 2003, she said that ``the consensus view of the American intelligence agency'' was that the aluminum tubes ``were most likely for this use''--meaning for centrifuges to make nuclear weapons. However, contrary to her claim, there was no certainty and no consensus view within the intelligence community about the use of the aluminum tubes. In fact, there was a fundamental disagreement, and the Department of Energy, which has the Nation's foremost centrifuge experts, and the State Department did not believe the tubes were intended for centrifuges. They believed the tubes were intended for conventional artillery rockets. Their disagreeing views were explicitly included in the October 2002 national intelligence estimate. In my questions for the record, I asked Dr. Rice why she had said there was a consensus when there was none. Her answer did not respond to my question. So the question remains: Why did she say there was a consensus when there was not a consensus, and why did she say they were ``only really suited for nuclear weapons'' when they were, in fact, not only suitable for other purposes but, indeed, had been used for other purposes by Iraq--namely, for conventional artillery rockets? In summary, Dr. Rice made the public case against Iraq as having reconstituted its nuclear weapons program far stronger than was supported by the classified intelligence. She exaggerated and distorted the facts and the intelligence provided to her in order to help convince the American public of the need to go to war. Dr. Rice has also not been forthcoming on the question of when she knew of the differences within the intelligence community relative to the intended use of the aluminum tubes. Senator Biden asked Dr. Rice in a written question before the confirmation hearings whether she knew of the long-standing debate within the intelligence community at the time of her September 8, 2002 statement that the aluminum tubes ``are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs,'' and when President Bush said four days later that ``Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.'' She simply ducked the issue, and quoted a passage from the October 2002 NIE about a number of alleged Iraqi uranium enrichment activities--including the aluminum tubes--noting that the Department of Energy believed the tubes ``probably are not part of'' the nuclear program. She never answered the question of whether she was aware of the debate when she and the President made their erroneous statements. One more example. On November 15, 2002, Dr. Rice said Saddam Hussein had been ``helping some al Qaeda operatives gain training in CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear weapons].'' On March 9, 2003, shortly before the war, she made a statement about the links between Saddam and al Qaeda, including a ``very strong link to training al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons techniques.'' On September 7, 2003, she said: we know there was training of al Qaeda in chemical and perhaps biological warfare. Those comments indicated certainty that Iraq provided training in chemical and biological weapons to al-Qaida. But the CIA had said that the reports of training came from sources of ``varying reliability,'' and were ``contradictory,'' as the Senate Intelligence Committee report makes clear. Dr. Rice took what was a possibility and portrayed it as a fact. Prior to the war, senior administration officials repeatedly and publicly stated that the reason the United States had to be prepared to use military force, and then go to war against Saddam, was to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam was said to be likely to provide to terrorists like al-Qaida. Before the war, Dr. Rice said the following, on September 25, 2002: ``This is a matter of disarming the Iraqi regime, because that's the danger, is that Saddam Hussein with nuclear, chemical, biological weapons will be a threat to his people, his neighbors, and to us.'' On March 9, 2003, just 10 days before the start of the war, she said: ``What the President is saying to the American people is . . . `I will not stand by until the moment when Saddam Hussein is good at delivering biological weapons, by unmanned aerial vehicles.' '' On April 10, 2003 Ari Fleischer, the President's spokesman, summarized the point succinctly: ``We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about.'' When questioned about this issue at her confirmation hearing on January 18, Dr. Rice joined the effort to rewrite the history of the publicly stated reasons for attacking Iraq. She said: ``It wasn't just weapons of mass destruction. . . . It was the total picture, Senator, not just weapons of mass destruction, that caused us to decide that, post-September 11th, it was finally time to deal with Saddam Hussein.'' The simple fact is that before the war, the administration repeatedly and dramatically made the case for war on the issue of Iraq possessing and continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction, and the likelihood that Saddam Hussein would provide those weapons to terrorists like al Qaeda. For Dr. [[Page S387]] Rice to suggest that there were many other, equally compelling, reasons to go to war simply does not square with the reality of how the administration persuaded the American people and the Congress of the need for war. Her suggestion is an effort to revise the history of the administration's presentations to the American people. Dr. Rice again engaged in revisionist history about the Iraq military campaign during her nomination hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18, 2005. Dr. Rice claimed: ``This was never going to be easy; it was always going to have ups and downs.'' Dr. Rice's statement is striking, not because of its substance, but because of how it stands in contrast to what the administration was telling Congress and the American people in the months before the invasion of Iraq. The administration downplayed the difficulties of invading Iraq by claiming that we would be greeted as ``liberators'' by the Iraqi people. When Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki predicted that ``several hundred thousand soldiers'' probably would be needed for the occupation of Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, senior Defense Department officials rejected General Shinseki's assessment. Instead, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee before the start of the war: ``I am reasonably certain that they [the Iraqi people] will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down.'' He also said that ``the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark.'' Vice President Cheney also repeated this claim to downplay the cost of regime change in Iraq. During an appearance on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' on March 16, 2003, the Vice President said: ``The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question . . . they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.'' It was precisely the administration's rose-colored conviction that our troops would be hailed by the Iraqi people as liberators that resulted in the inexcusable failure to plan for a difficult and costly occupation of Iraq following the end of major hostilities. Similarly, administration officials grossly underestimated the costs to the American people of rebuilding Iraq. In March 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz testified before Congress that Iraq ``can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' The next month, in April 2003, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development publicly estimated that the American taxpayers' portion of Iraqi reconstruction costs would be $1.7 billion, adding that there were ``no plans for any further-on funding for this.'' Instead, Congress has approved over $20 billion in reconstruction funds for Iraq, and the final bill for the American taxpayer could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. The Administration used the same rose-colored glasses in estimating the cost of rebuilding Iraq. Dr. Rice said there were always going to be ``ups and downs''. But before the war, the administration never talked about, never planned for, and never prepared the American people for the ``downs'' of rebuilding Iraq. It only focused on the ``ups''. So I find Dr. Rice's latest assessment that the administration never thought that the post-Saddam period was going to be easy to be startlingly at odds with the administration's claims in making the case for the Iraq war in the first place. One of my main concerns about this administration, including Dr. Rice, is that there appears to be no accountability for the many mistakes. Consider the case of George Tenet, the former Director of Central Intelligence, who covered the administration's exaggerations on Iraq. President Bush had been publicly saying things like ``on any given day,'' Saddam could provide WMD to terrorists, and that Saddam ``would like nothing more than to use a terrorist network to attack and kill and leave no fingerprints.'' President Bush repeatedly indicated that Saddam might give WMD to terrorists without provocation. On October 7, 2002 DCI Tenet sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee declassifying portions of its new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. That letter made clear that the intelligence community believed it was unlikely that Saddam would share WMD with terrorists, and said it would be an ``extreme step'' and a ``last chance to exact vengeance'' if the U.S. had already attacked Iraq. So there was a clear inconsistency between the views of the intelligence community and the public comments of the President. Yet, incredibly, on October 8, 2002, just a few days before the Senate was to vote on the resolution to authorize the use of force against Iraq, DCI Tenet issued a statement to the press saying ``there is no inconsistency'' between the views in the letter and the President's views, which was simply false. Its motivation was transparent: An honest acknowledgment of inconsistency might have had a negative effect on the Senate vote. Instead of being held accountable for that critical misstatement, and instead of being held accountable for the October 2002 NIE, which was rife with errors, all in the direction of making Iraq more threatening, including erroneous statements not based on the underlying intelligence, George Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush. That is not accountability. Accountability for mistakes and failures, no matter how serious, is not the hallmark of this administration. Dr. Rice's exaggerations and distortions concerning Iraq were an important part of the administration's effort to convince the American people of the need to go to war. Few things are as fateful as that decision. Finally, Secretaries of State must be strong enough to tell a President what he may not want to hear. There is admittedly one recent glimmer of hope in that regard. In response to my written question, Dr. Rice did acknowledge that ``there is of course a distinction'' between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda when it comes to the war on terrorism. That stands in contrast to President Bush's claim on September 25, 2002, that ``[Y]ou can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.'' But that glimmer of independence is not enough to change my view that Dr. Rice should not be confirmed as Secretary of State. The Bush administration's prewar distortions and exaggerations of intelligence concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda were the publicly stated basis for initiating the war. I ask unanimous consent the questions and answers I asked of Dr. Rice also be printed in the Record following my statement. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burr). Without objection, it is so ordered. (See exhibit 1.) Mr. LEVIN. Finally, I think I have 1 additional minute. I will use that to conclude. Voting to confirm Dr. Rice as Secretary of State would be a stamp of approval for her participation in the distortions and exaggerations of intelligence that the administration used before it initiated the war in Iraq, and the hubris which led to the administration's inexcusable failure to plan and prepare for the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, with tragic ongoing consequences. I believe we must do all we can to support our troops in their efforts to create a democratic government in Iraq, despite the circumstances we are in. But I cannot, in good conscience, give my approval to the mistakes and misjudgments that helped to create those circumstances. I will, therefore, vote against the confirmation of Dr. Rice to be Secretary of State. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Exhibit 1 Questions for the Record From Senator Carl Levin to Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and Her Responses (in Conjunction With Her Nomination To Be Secretary of State) Uranium From Africa 1. The CIA had sent a memo to you and Mr. Hadley on October 6, 2002 concerning a draft of the President's scheduled October 7, 2002 Cincinnati speech. That memo included an explanation of the reasons why the CIA believed the reference to Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa should be deleted. The CIA had sent a previous memo to Mr. Hadley (and Mr. Gerson, who was the speechwriter) the day before that memo sent to you, again expressing its doubts about the reports of Iraq's attempts to get uranium from Africa. Finally, the Director of Central [[Page S388]] Intelligence, George Tenet, called Mr. Hadley directly to ask that the reference to uranium from Africa be deleted from the October 7 speech. As a result of the CIA's multiple expressions of its doubts about these reports, the reference was deleted, and the October 2002 speech made no mention of Iraq's purported attempts to obtain uranium from Africa. Given all this and other activity, were you aware at that time (October 2002) that the Intelligence Community had doubts about the reports of Iraq's purported efforts to obtain uranium from Africa? Were you aware prior to January 28, 2003, the date of the President's State of the Union speech? Answer: I do not recall Intelligence Community concerns about the credibility of reports about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Africa either at the time of the Cincinnati speech or the State of the Union speech. I would note that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on prewar intelligence assessments on Iraq stated: ``When coordinating the State of the Union, no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts or officials told the National Security Council (NSC) to remove the `6 words' or that there were concerns about the credibility of the Iraq- Niger uranium reporting.'' 2. Prior to the State of the Union speech (January 28, 2003), did you ever discuss with the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, the Intelligence Community's doubts about reports of Iraq's attempts to get uranium from Africa? If so, when was the first time you discussed the matter with him, and how many times did you discuss the issue prior to the State of the Union? Answer: I do not recall discussing Intelligence Community doubts about such reports with Director Tenet prior to the State of the Union. 3. Prior to the State of the Union speech of January 2003, did you ever discuss with Stephen Hadley, your deputy, the choice of wording for the speech concerning Iraq's purported attempts to obtain uranium from Africa? Prior to the speech, were you aware that the language had been changed to make reference to the British having learned of such efforts, rather than stating it as the US Government view? Answer: Yes, I did discuss with Stephen Hadley concerns the Intelligence Community had about protecting sources and methods regarding reports on Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Africa. These concerns were addressed by citing a foreign government service. I do not recall any discussion of concerns about the credibility of the reports. 4. Were you at all involved in the decision-making process about the phraseology of the wording for the January 28, 2003 State of the Union speech concerning Iraq's purported attempts to obtain uranium from Africa (``The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa'')? Who was the author of the wording, and was the author aware that the CIA had serious doubts about the claim at least as early as September 2002? Answer: Yes, I did discuss with Stephen Hadley concerns the Intelligence Community had about protecting sources and methods regarding reports on Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Africa. The State of the Union speech was prepared by the President's speechwriters, in coordination with other members of the executive branch. I do not know who actually authored the words about Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from Africa. 5. On July 13, 2004 you said the following on Face the Nation: ``What I knew at the time is that no one had told us that there were concerns about the British reporting.'' Given all the activity indicating CIA doubts and concerns about the claim, including a CIA memo sent to you in early October 2002, how could you not know of the doubts and concerns? Answer: I do not recall reading or receiving the CIA memo of October 2002. However, I was aware of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate stating ``Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake; acquiring either could shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons.'' 6. On June 8, 2003, on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, you said ``At the time the State of the Union address was prepared, there were also other sources that said that they were, the Iraqis were seeking yellow-cake, uranium oxide, from Africa. And that was taken out of a British report. Clearly, that particular report, we learned subsequently, subsequently, was not credible. . . . The intelligence community did not know at that time or at levels that got to us that this, that there was serious questions about this report.'' How could you say such a thing when, before the State of the Union speech, the CIA had told the British of its doubts about the claim and urged them to remove it from their dossier; when the Director of Central Intelligence had personally called your Deputy, Stephen Hadley; when the DCI had sent a memo on October 5 to Mr. Hadley; and when he sent another memo to you and Mr. Hadley on October 6, all explaining why the claim should be removed from the President's October 7 Cincinnati speech, which it was. How can you claim that ``the intelligence community did not know at that time or at levels that got to us that this, that there was serious questions about this report''? Answer: National Intelligence Estimates represent the authoritative judgment of the Intelligence Community. CIA also provided information citing Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from Africa to the White House four days before the State of the Union speech. I would also note that the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that no CIA analysts or officials expressed doubt about the uranium reporting when coordinating on the State of the Union speech. Iraq: Aluminum Tubes 7. On July 30, 2003, you said ``the consensus view of the American intelligence agency'' [sic] was . . . that the aluminum tubes ``were most likely for this use,'' meaning for centrifuges to make nuclear weapons. However, there was no consensus view on the use of the aluminum tubes; there was a fundamental disagreement within the Intelligence Community, and the Department of Energy and the State Department did not believe the tubes were intended for centrifuges. Given that there was no consensus, why did you say there was? Answer: The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate established the Intelligence Community's authoritative assessment on the aluminum tubes issue. It stated: ``Most agencies believe that Saddam's personal interest in and Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors--as well as Iraq's attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines and machine tools--provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. (DOE agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes are probably not part of the program.)'' A footnote noted INR's alternative view to the NIE's authoritative assessment. No Distinction Between Iraq and al Qaeda? 8. Do you make any distinction between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda when it comes to the war on terror, or do you think they are indistinguishable? Answer: Yes, there is of course a distinction, but Saddam Hussein did harbor terrorists and had many other ties to terrorists, including contacts with al Qaeda, as the 9-11 Commission recognized. And he was an avowed enemy of America and of our allies. The possibility that an outlaw state might pass a weapon of mass destruction to a terrorist is the greatest danger of our time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana. Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate reconvenes at 2:15, the following be the order of speakers: Senator McConnell, Senator Byrd, Senator Hagel, Senator Allen, Senator Boxer, Senator Alexander, Senator Durbin, a Republican Senator, and Senator Feinstein. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mrs. HUTCHISON. No objection. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chair. This will be helpful, I believe, so Senators can allocate their time. I would comment to the Chair this means that essentially the period from 2:15 to approximately 5 o'clock will be consumed by these Senators. But the order allows for 9 hours of debate, which means theoretically there could be 4 more hours-plus after that to accommodate other Senators. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that during quorum calls the time be charged equally against both sides. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Indiana. Mr. BAYH. I ask my colleague from Texas, which of us was on the floor first? Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I do not know. I thought I was supposed to speak at 12:15, but if---- Mr. BAYH. I thought I was supposed to speak at 12:10. So I guess the trains are not running on schedule today. Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished chairman, are there any other speakers or are Senator Bayh and I the last two? Mr. LUGAR. My information is at some point Senator Salazar wishes to speak before the luncheons. Mrs. HUTCHISON. I would suggest, then, that Senator Bayh go next and I be able to follow him. Mr. LUGAR. And then Senator Salazar be accommodated. I ask unanimous consent that be the order. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The Senator from Indiana. Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for her courtesy, and I pledge I will do my best to finish in 10 minutes or less. [[Page S389]] It is a pleasure to be on the floor today with my friend and colleague from Indiana. I have often thought that events around the world, and particularly in Iraq, would have gone so much better if those in a position to make policy for our country had listened to his wise counsel and advice. It is not often I find myself in disagreement with my friend, but on this occasion I do. I rise to express my opposition to the nomination of Condoleezza Rice and her proposed promotion to that of the position of Secretary of State--not because I object to her personally; I do not; not because I oppose the mission of establishing freedom and democracy in Iraq; on the contrary, I support it; but because I believe she has been a principal architect of policy errors that have tragically undermined our prospects for success in this endeavor. Those in charge must be held accountable for mistakes. We must learn from them, correct them, so we may succeed in Iraq. If the President of the United States will not do this, then those in the Senate must. The list of errors is lengthy and profound, and, unfortunately, many could have been avoided if Dr. Rice and others had only listened to the counsel offered from both sides of the aisle. From the beginning of this undertaking, we have had inadequate troop strength to accomplish the mission. The mission was, of course, not to simply realize regime change in Iraq but, instead, to recognize and accomplish nation building at its most profound. We violated a fundamental tenet of planning for war, which is to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Instead, all too often in Iraq we have hoped for the best and, instead, are reaching the worst. The advice to have greater troop strength was not partisan. Our colleagues, Senator McCain, Senator Hagel, and others, virtually pleaded with the administration to provide for greater security through troop strength on the ground. Those pleas fell on deaf ears. We have never had a realistic plan for the aftermath of this conflict. The State Department made plans. They were disregarded. The CIA warned of the potential for a growing insurgency. Their concerns were dismissed. Senator Lugar held hearings that were prescient in this regard, pointing out the importance of planning for the aftermath and the inadequacy of the preparation for the aftermath before the war. The results of those hearings were ignored. This is no ordinary incompetence. Men and women are dying as a result of these mistakes. Accountability must be had. We dismissed the Iraqi Army. In my trip to Iraq in December, one of our top ranking officials told me there that things today in Iraq would be 100-percent better--100- percent better--if we had only not dismissed the Iraqi Army; not the generals, not the human rights violators, not those who should be held accountable for their own actions, but the privates, the corporals, the lieutenants, the captains, those who should be on our side providing for stability and security in Iraq and now, tragically, are being paid to kill Americans because we sent them home and said they had no future in the Iraq that we were hoping to build. Likewise, we disqualified all former Baathists from serving even in lower levels of the bureaucracy in that country. They could have helped us run the nation. They could have helped us to reassure the Sunni community that we wanted to reincorporate them in the future of Iraq. Instead, many of them are fighting us today in Iraq as well. All of these mistakes have substantially undermined our prospects for success, and tragically so. The chaos that has arisen from the lack of security and stability has fed this insurgency. I asked one of our top ranking officials in Iraq in December which was growing more quickly, our ability to train Iraqis to combat the insurgency or the insurgency itself? His two-word response: The insurgency. Unfortunately, in some regards we have even succeeded in discrediting the very cause for which we are fighting and dying today. I listened intently to the President's inaugural address on the steps of this Capitol in which he spoke repeatedly about the need to advocate freedom and liberty and democracy around the world, not only because it is in our interest but because it is in the interest of peace and stability across the planet as a whole. In that regard he is right. But I could not help but recall the words of a member of the Iraqi Electoral Commission, a Turkoman from Kirkuk, who finally looked at me in Baghdad and said: Senator, you do not understand. For too many of my people, when they hear the word ``democracy,'' they think violence, they think disorder, they think death and economic disintegration. It does not get much sadder than that. It is heartbreaking that the sacrifices that have been made, the idealism of our troops, America's prospects for success in Iraq, our very standing in the world, have too often been undercut by ineptitude at the highest levels of our own Government. I think of a visit, 6 months ago, with some of our colleagues to Walter Reed Army Hospital to visit with some of the soldiers who have returned. They are constantly on my mind. I think of their idealism, their heroism, their perseverance in the face of an adversity that those of us who are not there can hardly imagine. We have a moral obligation to provide better leadership than that which has been provided in this conflict. Too often this administration has suggested that the refusal to admit error, to learn from error, to correct error is a virtue. When lives and limbs are at stake, it is not. As a former executive of our own State, I have always believed that accountability for performance is vitally important to success. If this President will not provide it, then it is up to those of us in the Senate to do so. I believe with all of my heart that our country is strongest when we stand for freedom and democracy. We are attempting to accomplish the right thing in Iraq. We have been the authors of much of our own misery. As a result of that, I cannot find it in my heart or in my mind to vote for the promotion of Dr. Rice. Accountability is important. I will vote no and urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized. Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I have listened to some of the debate on this nomination. It is unfortunate that we have lost focus about what we should be doing in the confirmation of the Secretary of State. I don't think rehashing potential mistakes some think may have been made in the war on terrorism, specifically in Iraq, is something that should be brought up as a reason to vote against Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State. I, for one, will say mistakes have been made. I don't think war is ever perfect. You can't make an outline and say this is how a war is going to go and expect it to go in that exact way. However, I don't think anyone could have anticipated all that has happened or the kind of enemy that we face. An enemy that is willing to blow itself up to kill innocent people requires a different strategy and approach. We are making the adjustments. One of the leaders who has kept a steady focus on the war on terrorism and our efforts in Iraq is the woman who is before us today. It is Condoleezza Rice who has kept the steady aim and helped our President see all of the minefields out there. This has strengthened our country, to stay the course in the war on terrorism. The stabilization of Iraq is a step forward to promoting peace worldwide. Condoleezza Rice is absolutely the most qualified person to succeed a wonderful Secretary of State, Colin Powell. What do you want in a Secretary of State? What do you look for? What would foreign leaders look for in a Secretary of State? No. 1: Somebody who has a deep understanding of foreign policy. Condoleezza Rice has had a 25-year career in foreign policy, an exemplary academic background, graduating with a Ph.D. in international studies with a Russian focus--concentration on Russian history and Russian relations--cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She has the absolute ability to do this job, unquestionably, and she has the experience. For 25 years she has served three Presidents, been a key adviser in the one of the most tumultuous times of our history, and after 9/11, brought our country together by focusing on an [[Page S390]] enemy that is a new kind of enemy. Condoleezza Rice has done that, and she has done a great job. No. 2: In looking for a Secretary of State, you want someone who is known to our country and known to foreign leaders. She will not be a stranger, speaking for our President. She is known to foreign leaders because as national security advisor, she has dealt with foreign leaders throughout the world. She has strong working relationships with world leaders, foreign ministers, national security advisers, and our closest allies. These relationships have been developed for over a quarter of a century. They will be valuable assets to our country and to her. Having been a Soviet affairs specialist, who worked during the Cold War, she helped guide our Nation's efforts to promote freedom and democracy throughout that part of the world in the emerging Soviet republics. She helped guide our Nation to promote freedom throughout the world, by stressing the virtues of democracy, defying those who suggested that communism was here to stay and Eastern Europe could not be liberated. With the unification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Reagan administration made history with Condoleezza Rice in a key position. No 3: You want a Secretary of State to be a trusted adviser to the President. There is no doubt the President and Dr. Rice know each other well. The President trusts her. And when foreign leaders talk to Condoleezza Rice, they will know she is speaking for the President, through offers made and pronouncements stated. Being a trusted adviser to the President is very important. And, No. 4: You need someone who can manage a very large and important department of our Government with offices strewn throughout the world and with ambassadors reporting affairs in those countries. It will be important to have someone who is a good manager. She has served as Provost of Stanford University during her 6 years there, managing a diverse population. On a personal note, I wrote a book called ``American Heroines,'' and one of the interviewees I had was Condoleezza Rice. I was talking to contemporary women who have broken barriers, and I interviewed Condoleezza Rice. I asked her the question: What is the best preparation for the rough and tumble of your job? She said: Without a doubt, being provost of Stanford University, because I dealt with 1,400 very smart people who were basically independent contractors, and I had to learn when to persuade, when to inform, and when to demand. If that isn't a recipe for Secretary of State, I don't know one: When to persuade, when to inform, and when to demand. Diplomats need to know when to do each of these and she has honed these skills during her time as National Security Adviser, and most certainly while managing the 1,400-member faculty at Stanford University. She has become a person uniquely qualified for this position. I am so proud to support her. She is a woman who is unflappable and has comported herself with dignity through the most trying times, through trying hearings and trying questioning. She has dealt with the largest crisis that we have had in our country, surely in the last 25 years, 9/ 11, finding out who the enemy is, where that enemy was being trained, and trying to make sure that we had a strategy to combat it. Condoleezza Rice will be a great Secretary of State. She will make her mark on this position as some of the best Secretaries of State in our history have done. She has the capability. She has the trusted ear of the President. She has the knowledge of foreign policy from 25 years of experience and relationships with heads of state and foreign ministers, friend and enemy alike, and will work well with them. She is going to collaborate when collaboration is called for in our foreign policy but more importantly, she will protect America when it is necessary. I am proud of this nomination. I am proud of the President for bringing her in as National Security Adviser, working with her, learning from her and teaching her at the same time. The relationship is perfect for the new challenge she will face. She is up to this challenge. I have every faith in her. I hope our colleagues will look to the future, look to what she can do, and will not rehash things in the past for which she was not responsible. She deserves the opportunity to represent our country, and, more important, give the President of the United States the person he wants in this job. As we face a very difficult 4 years, he deserves to have the person he chose. I hope the vote will be overwhelming. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Colorado. Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise today in relation to the nomination of Dr. Rice to be Secretary of State. Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution obligates the Senate to advise and consent on the President's nominees for his cabinet. That is a solemn duty, to be sure. So let me be clear up front that I will give my consent to Dr. Rice's nomination. I believe she is qualified for this important post and I am hopeful she will do an outstanding job advancing the interests and ideals of this great country. As a U.S. Senator, given the gravity of the situation facing the United States in Iraq, I also want to take this moment to meet my obligation to advise Dr. Rice and the President. I do this for one reason. We all serve here at the pleasure of the citizens of our States. Our efforts fail or succeed based on the informed consent of those citizens. Nowhere is that more clear than in the areas of war and peace. The consequences of war are clear. Like so many American families, my family knows the pain and sacrifice of war. My relatives have been killed on the soils of Europe and other places. In World War II, we lost nearly half a million Americans. In the war in Iraq, we have lost 1,371 soldiers and more than 10,000 have been wounded. I visited some of our young brave men and women at Walter Reed Army Medical Center a few weeks ago and saw the struggles and pains of them and their families as they suffered from the wounds of war. I support our troops and I pray and hope that their efforts in Iraq will have not been in vain and that the elections next week will usher in a new and free democracy in that nation. Nor do I rise today out of some partisan spirit. In fact, over the last 3 weeks I have very publicly and very clearly spoken in favor of two other cabinet nominees. This is a patriotic obligation, not a partisan exercise. As we look to the future, I believe strongly we must reflect on the past and constantly review and assess our performance for lessons learned for the American people. In fact, no one does a better job of this than the United States military. It invests great manpower and hours in after-action reviews to ensure that its doctrine, planning and execution were as good as it could have and should have been. Such an after-action review for the aministration would, I think, reveal clear concerns. There has been a general lack of candor--to our troops and their families, to our taxpayers and even, to some extent, to ourselves. Only by addressing this failure can we hope to ensure the continued informed consent of the American people for this historic undertaking in Iraq. This morning's paper reports that the Army is preparing to keep the level of U.S. troops in Iraq unchanged through the next 2 years. It is troubling because our troops have been told so many different things so many times that I fear they no longer know what lies ahead in their future. I have to believe that was a troubling headline to read for the 150,000 families--including the more than 2,000 in Colorado--who have loved ones deployed to Iraq and the thousands of others who know that their loved ones will be redeploying to Iraq for a second or even a third tour. This morning's newspaper also reports that the administration will seek an additional $80 billion for ongoing operations in Iraq. This is over and above the more than $149 billion already appropriated for this effort. Compare that with what the aministration told the American people on January 19, 2003, when it said that this entire effort would cost less than $50 billion. I remind my colleagues that each and every dollar of this operation is money added to the deficit. That is money borrowed from foreign governments that will have to be paid for by our children. [[Page S391]] As troubling as that deficit is, we will soon be faced with the challenge of deciding how to pay for many domestic issues, including most importantly, the health care our veterans have earned, and some are arguing we should tell the American people and our veterans that we simply cannot afford a level of care they have come to expect. Lastly, I am concerned about what can only be called a lack of candor--and urgency--with ourselves and our decisions. What else could explain the massive intelligence failures that preceded 9/11--the failure to see what was coming from al-Qaida, despite the years of its hateful rhetoric and despicable actions. And what else can explain the slowness in creating the Department on Homeland Security, or the lack of support for the 9/11 Commission and its clarion call for intelligence reform in the face of this hateful enemy. And what else-- unless it was that, counter to all warnings from our military, we convinced ourselves that this effort in Iraq would be over in weeks, not years--can account for the fact that now, nearly 2 years since the start of this operation, our troops do not have the armor they need? I end where I began, Mr. President. My advice is simple. To succeed in Iraq and elsewhere in the world, we need to heed the lessons learned over the past years. We need to be sure our intelligence is sound before we commit our troops, ensure our troops are prepared, and ensure our citizens are informed. Educated, as she was, in Denver, I am confident Dr. Rice took to heart the candor and straight talk that we value in the West and in Colorado. Those will be important attributes for her to employ as she becomes Secretary of State. I yield the floor. Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask the Chair how much time remains on both sides of the aisle for debate this afternoon? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority has 3 hours 35 minutes. The minority has 3 hours 39 minutes. Mr. LUGAR. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. ____________________