[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 25, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5914-S5916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE SERVICE OF DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PAUL WOLFOWITZ
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, last Friday, May 13, Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz ended his distinguished tour of duty at the
Department of Defense.
During his 4 years at the Pentagon, Secretary Wolfowitz played a
critical role as our Nation responded to the terrorist attacks of
September 11, and our military defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan and
liberated Iraq from decades of tyranny. We continue to fight an all-out
global war on terrorism, guided by the policies which Secretary
Wolfowitz, acting as a true partner to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld,
helped to craft.
He was a true partner with Rumsfeld throughout. I have had some
modest experience in the Department having served there myself during
the war in Vietnam as Secretary of the Navy. I served under Messrs.
Laird and Packard. I served under three Secretaries.
Their partnership, as the two principal's sharing an evergrowing,
awesome, level of responsibilities has been exemplary in the annals of
the Department of Defense.
On April 29, I was privileged to attend a ceremony at the Pentagon in
honor of Secretary Wolfowitz's years of service. The speeches given
that day--by General Pace, Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Wolfowitz--
are among the finest I have ever heard, and are a true testament to
this extraordinary individual. I wish Secretary Wolfowitz well as he
prepares for his new duties as the President of the World Bank. I ask
unanimous consent to have these speeches printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Hosts a Full Honor Review and
Award Ceremony for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
(With Remarks by: General Pete Pace, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of
Staff)
Dr. Paul Wolfowitz is recognized for exceptionally
distinguished public service as deputy secretary of Defense
from March 2001 through April 2005. During that critical
period, Dr. Wolfowitz's performance was brilliant. While
overseeing many of the department's day-to-day operations, he
was also a key leader in developing United States policy to
respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
A leader in developing United States policy to respond to
terrorist attack, and an internationally recognized voice for
freedom,
Dr. Wolfowitz contributed to the intellectual framework for
operations in Afghanistan and Iraq that removed two brutally
oppressive regimes that encouraged and gave sanctuary to
terrorists. Fifty million people are now free from the bonds
of tyranny. Self-government is on the march in countries once
believed beyond freedom's reach. And Afghanistan and Iraq
have become our newest allies in the war on terror.
While addressing these sizable challenges, Dr. Wolfowitz
was a driving force in addressing President Bush's charge to
transform the Department of Defense to better fit the
challenges of the 21st century. He encouraged a culture of
planning that stresses innovation and supports intelligent
risk in areas ranging from defense organization to technology
development and training.
And Dr. Wolfowitz is a tireless advocate for America's men
and women in uniform. A frequent visitor to wounded forces
and their families in hospitals and rehabilitation centers,
he paid particular attention to the needs and concerns that
went beyond the typically excellent care they receive. Dr.
Wolfowitz oversaw the creation of a 24-hour operations center
to reduce bureaucratic procedures for the severely injured,
significantly improving the flow of information to ease their
burdens during recovery.
Dr. Wolfowitz's countless achievements reflect his keen
intellect, management acumen, vision and compassion.
Through his dedication to the pursuit of policies of
freedom and transformation, Dr. Wolfowitz contributed greatly
to the work of the Department of Defense and the United
States. The distinctive accomplishments of Dr. Wolfowitz
reflect great credit upon himself, the Department of Defense,
and the United States of America.
Dr. Wolfowitz has also received the Decoration for
Distinguished Civilian Service from the secretary of the
Army, the Distinguished Public Service Award from the
secretary of the Navy, and the Decoration for Exceptional
Civilian Service from the acting secretary of the Air Force.
Gen. Pace. Secretary Rumsfeld, Mrs. Rumsfeld, Senator
Warner, Senator Coleman, assembled leadership of the
Department of Defense, special guests and friends, and
especially to our wounded servicemembers who are here today.
It is my distinct honor and privilege to stand here
representing our Chairman, General Dick Myers, and all the
men and women who are proud to wear the uniform of the United
States Armed Forces to say farewell and thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for all you've done for all of us in uniform
during your tenure as our deputy secretary of Defense.
It's been my great honor and privilege, Secretary
Wolfowitz, to have known you and worked with you for the last
three-and-a-half years, and in that time, I think I've gotten
to know a little bit about the man.
You have great humility. Of all the titles that you have
earned--doctor, professor, dean, ambassador, secretary--the
two you prefer most are Dad and Paul. That says a lot about
you.
You're a man of great intellect. Put simply, you work hard
and you're smart. And you make those of us who work with you
feel good about our contributions, and you elicit from us our
very best recommendations, because you are, in fact, a
facilitator and a person who values the judgment of others--
and for that, we thank you.
You're also a man of great courage. Those of us who wear
the uniform understand courage on the battlefield, but
there's another very distinct form of courage, and that is
intellectual courage. Many times it has been my great
pleasure to watch you, when conversations have been going in
a particular direction, and someone would turn to you and
say, ``Don't you agree, Paul?'' And you would say, ``No, I
don't.'' And then you'd explain why you didn't in a very,
very well-reasoned, articulate way that although did not
always carry the day, certainly made everybody in that room
understand that you were part of this process, and that you
were going to speak your mind as you knew it should be
spoken, and benefit all of us in uniform by always speaking
the truth, as you knew it.
You're also a man of compassion. If I speak too much about
this, I will blow your cover. But the fact is that many, many
times in the halls of this building, you have said to me,
``Pete, Sergeant so-and-so--or Lieutenant so-and-so, or
General so-and-so--has a problem, and I think if you say
something to him, or you look into this, it will make life
better for him.'' Certainly, all that you have done for the
wounded, both in your official capacity, but also as a human
being in your visits to the hospitals, in your caring for the
families, in your attendance at funerals, in your caring for
the families of the fallen.
In all those ways, Mr. Secretary, you have shown enormous
compassion. And for that, we are grateful. We will miss you,
but we know that there are millions of people around this
world who are now going to benefit from the intellect,
strength and compassion of Paul Wolfowitz as you go to lead
the World Bank.
It is my great honor now to introduce the man in this
building who works harder than anybody else, has more focus
than anybody else, and makes the rest of us work very, very
hard, very diligently, to be part of the team that is trying
to do for this country all that we should be doing.
Mr. Secretary: Secretary Rumsfeld.
Sec. Rumsfeld. Well, thank you all for coming. We're
pleased you're here. A special welcome to Paul Wolfowitz and
his family and friends and lovely daughter, Rachel, sitting
there. And welcome to Chairman John Warner. We appreciate
your being here, your old stomping grounds. And Senator
Coleman, thank you so much for being here, and all the senior
military and civilian officials of the Department of Defense
and guests. Welcome.
Three years ago, The Economist magazine had an interesting
take on the job of deputy Cabinet secretary. It wrote, ``Most
deputy secretaries live lives of quiet frustration. They get
stuck with all the grunt work, while their bosses swan around
in the limelight. And they have to sit mutely while the
[[Page S5915]]
best ideas are either buried or stolen.'' And then there's
Paul Wolfowitz. (Laughter.)
History is not always generous to the men and women who
help to shape it. Great abolitionists like John Quincy Adams
and Frederick Douglas would not live to see full equality for
African Americans that they had envisioned and fought to
bring about. Many brave East Germans were shot as they tried
to breach the Berlin Wall and would never see the wall
crumble under the weight of lies and pretensions that built
it. But sometimes history is kind, and it gave President
Harry Truman, for example, and George Marshall the chance to
see the fall of the Third Reich and the fulfillment of their
charge to rebuild Western Europe.
And it allowed Corazon Aquino, with the help from a young
assistant secretary of State, Paul Wolfowitz, to see the
triumph of people power in the Philippines, the dream her
husband had nurtured and for which he was cut down before it
was fulfilled.
And although it may not always have seemed to Paul, the
fact is history has smiled on Paul, as it should.
So he leaves us today with the good fortune of seeing so
much accomplished--or being accomplished, I should say--he
helped bring to fruition or things that he helped set in
motion: reform and the modernizing of America's defense
establishment, the dispatch of dangerous regimes in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the spark of freedom and self-
government that is finding oxygen in the Middle East.
Paul now will add one more title to all the titles that
Pete Pace listed, and it's a heady list. When I stood with
Paul at his welcoming ceremony at the Pentagon way back in
2001, more than four years ago--it seems like eight--
(laughter)--I noted that this was Paul's third tour in the
Department of Defense. I told him we were going to keep
bringing him back until he got it right.
Well, he got it right this time. The activities he has been
involved with over the past four years are extensive. He has
helped craft four defense budgets and supplementals. He has
helped bring new technologies to protect our troops. And he
has helped to reconfigure a number of Cold War systems and
organizations to help us meet the threats of the 21st
century.
So as we bid Paul a warm farewell, I might just say a word
or two about the Paul Wolfowitz that I have worked with these
past four years. They say in life people tend to fall into
one of two categories--dreamers and doers. Well, our friend
Paul is a bit of a ``mugwamp,'' as they used to say in the
old days; he's a bit of both, one who lives the creed that
``think as a man of action and act as a man of thought''.
He grew up in Brooklyn in a household of Polish immigrants
for whom names like Hitler and Stalin and words like
holocaust were not abstractions or simply pages in a history
book. And it should be no surprise to those who know him that
one of Paul's early political acts--at the age of 19, I'm
told--was to participate in the March for Civil Rights with
Dr. Martin Luther King.
Paul was a bright young mathematician who drifted into
political science, undoubtedly disappointing his father, who
I am told would have preferred he pursue a career in a real
subject, like chemistry or something like that. But Paul's
analytic talents have been put to excellent use as someone
who has grasped future trends and threats before many were
able to and before some probably wanted to.
As early as the 1960s, he foresaw the dangers of nuclear
weapon programs in the Middle East In the 1970s he identified
the territorial ambitions of Iraq as a future concern for the
U.S. military. And before September 11th, he grasped that the
civilized world could not make a separate peace with
terrorists and that our future security was certainly linked
to addressing the freedom deficit in much of the Muslim
world.
History will see Paul as one of the consequential thinkers
and public servants of his generation. He's worked to ease
the burdens of the wounded and their families, as we've seen.
And he's departing the Pentagon now, but the legacy that Paul
has been a part of, the ideas he has helped to weave into
public and private debates, the effects of the policies that
he's championed so effectively and with such courage and
determination are not going anywhere, because they're not
found only in this building or only in the department all
across the globe; they are found now in towns and villages in
Indonesia, where I'm told that pictures still hang in tribute
to an American ambassador who put the aspirations of
dissidents and ordinary Indonesians above the temporary
convenience of power politics.
They're found in Afghanistan today, where a democratically
elected government now protects women and imprisons
terrorists, instead of imprisoning women and harboring
terrorists. And they're found in a schoolroom in Iraq, where
a young girl will learn real history and real subjects
instead of lies and tributes to tyrants.
That girl is free, and so are millions like her--and that,
in part, is because of you, Paul. You've been on their side.
And as General Pace said, you have never wavered. The
threatened, the oppressed and the persecuted around the world
must know in their heart that they have had a friend in Paul
Wolfowitz. You are one of those rare people who, as the
Talmud puts it, would rather light candles than curse the
darkness.
So I thank you, your country thanks you, and on behalf of
the Department of Defense, we wish you Godspeed in your new
post, a post of service to the world. The department will
miss one of its finest public servants, and I will miss a
treasured friend. Godspeed.
Staff: Ladies and gentlemen, Deputy Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz.
Mr. Wolfowitz. Thank you all for coming today.
Thank you for braving the weather. Thank you, all of you
who helped arrange the weather so that we could stay
outdoors. I appreciate it enormously.
Senator Warner, great chairman of our Armed Services
Committee and a good friend all these many years, and
particularly the last four years, thank you for being here.
Senator Coleman, and so many distinguished guests. You really
do me honor to be here.
Secretary Rumsfeld, thank you for those extremely generous
remarks. Thank you for an award, which recognizes me, but
actually recognizes the work of literally millions of great
Americans. Your remarks call to mind something that President
Johnson said on a similar occasion many years ago when he
said he wished that his late parents could have been alive to
hear that introduction because his father would have been so
proud, and his mother would have believed it. (Chuckles.)
(Laughter.)
Maybe now is the time to come clean and to thank you for
something else. For four years now, I've been
telling audiences about what you said about keeping--
bringing me back until I got it right. It gets a laugh
every time. So I want to thank you for that great line.
It's been good to me all those years.
And now I'd like to just turn the tables a little bit and
trade a story somewhat along the same lines. It may be
apocryphal, but it's just too good to check whether it's true
or not. It's about how Don Rumsfeld once asked Henry
Kissinger if he was planning to come back as secretary of
State. And Kissinger said, ``No, Don, I got it right the
first time.'' (Laughter.)
So, Don, it looks like we've been in the same boat all
along!
Truthfully, Don Rumsfeld has a great sense of humor, that's
why I can tease him a bit too. And he's known for many other
things: His determination, his forcefulness, his command of
the podium, his charm, his matinee idol good looks--yes, he's
one of the stars of C-SPAN!
But to be totally serious, what really stands out for me is
something that may not be widely known, and that is what a
great teacher Don Rumsfeld is. He has sharpened everybody's
thinking and raised everybody's standards. And he's taught me
an enormous amount. He encourages and cajoles everyone to do
better, always for the purpose of making this Defense
Department as good as it can be, and to make our country more
secure.
It's been my good fortune, Don, to have you as a friend,
and America's to have your steady leadership at this
demanding helm. Thank you.
I also want to say thank you to so many of my wounded
veteran friends from Walter Reed and Bethesda who have braved
the weather to be here today. There are so many other
distinguished guests and friends and colleagues, that if I
tried to mention you all and give you the thanks you deserve,
I'd just get into deeper trouble. At a time like this, words
inevitably fall short, and I'm sure I'd leave someone out.
But you don't do a job like this without enormous amounts of
help.
So, to each one of you who has been there along the way,
just know that I am deeply grateful for what we've shared
during this most important chapter of American history.
And I'm particularly grateful to my personal staff, an
extraordinary combination of civilians and military, active
and reserve, officers and enlisted, who make a difference
every day.
Last Friday I was privileged to be present at the White
House when President Bush announced his nominee to be our
next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There in front of
me was an extraordinary team of civilian and military
leaders. First, there was our president, whom it's been such
an honor to serve. I've been privileged to be there as George
W. Bush has made some of the toughest decisions a leader can
make. I can tell you that this is a man who understands the
true costs of war, and his charge to defend what we hold most
dear. We are blessed in this time of testing to have a
president who possesses the deep moral courage to do what it
takes to protect our country.
Next to him was Secretary Rumsfeld, and there too was our
chairman, General Dick Myers. As we wage this global war,
Dick's been a leader of quiet, reassuring confidence; a rock
of strength and a source of steady judgment and deep concern
for those he serves. Dick never forgets that every decision
he makes directly affects the individual men and women who
serve this country so well.
And its been my good luck to have as my closest military
counterpart most of these past four years, General Peter
Pace, our vice chairman. It was a special moment last Friday,
Pete, to see you nominated to be the first Marine to serve as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You have the
character, the commitment and the courage to do an
outstanding job as our top military leader.
I'm delighted, Gordon--that Gordon England, our secretary
of the Navy, who has been an outstanding member of this
civilian military leadership team, has agreed to take
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on this challenging job--and it is challenging.
Over the last four years, I've had the privilege of working
with perhaps the finest group of Joint Chiefs and combatant
commanders that we've ever had. And our many outstanding one-
and two-star flag officers promise to continue or even exceed
that record of excellence.
But the people who have earned a truly special place in my
heart, in all of our hearts, are the men and women whose
names don't appear in the papers or on the evening news; the
ones who serve America quietly and professionally every day,
the men and women who wear this country's uniform, and the
dedicated civil servants who support them. They are the ones
who deserve our special and lasting gratitude. They are
represented here today by these magnificent troops and by our
wounded veterans. Please join me now in recognizing them for
their service.
And let us remember in a special way those who have fallen
in service to this nation. They remain in our hearts, each
one of them, a reminder that our country is blessed beyond
all measure. Let us never forget how much we owe them.
When terrorists attacked us so ruthlessly on September
11th, they may have thought they knew who we were. They may
have thought we were weak, grown used to comfort, softened by
everything we enjoy in this great nation. But they
were wrong. They must have failed to notice that it was by
the sweat and blood of each soldier, sailor, airman, and
Marine, and each member of the Coast Guard, that America
has met every threat throughout our history.
When we needed them, the heroes of this generation stepped
forward to defend America from terrorists. In the process,
two brutal regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq--regimes that
harbored and encouraged terrorists--have been removed from
power. And as a result, 50 million people, almost all of them
Muslims, have also been released from tyranny.
In a region where many thought freedom and self-government
could never succeed, those values are beginning to take hold.
The tide is turning against the terrorists' brand of
totalitarianism. Like Nazism and communism before them, this
false ideology is headed for the ash heap of history.
And at the same time that we are facing the enormous of
winning a global war, we've also advanced the president's
agenda for transforming the department. We've made major
adjustments in programs such as the Trident Submarine Force,
new classes of surface ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, Army
artillery and Army aviation, missile defense and
transformational communications across the department.
We've introduced a whole new civilian personnel system for
the department. And along the way, we've done four regular
budgets, four budget amendments, and at least six
supplementals. None of these decisions was easy; indeed, many
were difficult. But in no small measure, because of what
seemed, at times, like endless hours of meetings--and no,
Don, I'm not complaining--we managed to achieve agreement
between the senior civilian and military leadership of DoD.
Senator Ted Stevens paid tribute to that fact this past
week when he said, ``I've never seen such a relationship
between chiefs and the secretary--open discussions, open
critique--and really, a give and take that was very helpful
and very healthy as far as the department is concerned.''
However, as important as these programmatic decisions have
been, transformation is most of all about new ways of
thinking; about how to use old systems in new ways. During
the last four years, the concepts of transformation and
asymmetric warfare have gone from being theoretical concepts
to battlefield realities, and are even penetrating our vast
acquisition apparatus, from the bureaucracy, to industry, to
Congress.
But I don't have to tell this audience that all our
marvelous machines and technology would mean nothing without
innovative and skillful people to employ them.
And even then, this department would be of little value if
our people lacked one particular quality. It's the
indispensable quality and the most precious one of all, human
courage. In this job, which has been so much more than a job
to me, I've seen courage in abundance.
I remember the valor of an Army sergeant named Steve
Workman. In the desperate moments after Flight 77 slammed
into these walls, he risked his life to get Navy Lieutenant
Kevin Shaeffer out of the building and to the medical
attention he desperately needed. Sergeant Workman stayed with
the badly wounded--burned officer and kept him talking and
kept him alive.
I'll remember the bravery of people like Corporal Eddie
Wright, a Marine who was hit by an RPG that ruptured his
eardrum, broke his femur and, most seriously, blew off both
his hands. In the confusion, Marines who had never seen
combat before needed reassurance, and it was Eddie Wright, as
badly wounded as he was, who gave it to them, telling them he
was fine, giving instructions on his own first aid, pointing
out enemy positions while directing his driver to get them
out of the ambush zone. Like so many of our wounded heroes,
Eddie's moving on in life with the same courage that he
summoned in those desperate moments in Iraq.
And I remember October 26, 2003, the day our hotel in
Baghdad, the AI-Rashid, was attacked. Tragically, a great
soldier, Lieutenant Colonel Chad Buehring, was killed that
day, and five others, civilian and military, were severely
wounded.
Visiting the hospital that afternoon, I spoke to an Army
colonel who was the most severely wounded. I asked him where
he was from, and he said, ``I live in Arlington, Virginia,
but I grew up in Lebanon, in Beirut.'' So I asked him how he
felt about building a new Middle East. He gave me a thumbs-
up, and despite his obvious pain, he also gave me a smile.
Today Colonel Elias Nimmer is now virtually recovered and
still on active duty with the U.S. Army.
But courage comes in many forms. Sometimes moral courage,
the courage to face criticism and challenge-received wisdom
is as important as physical courage, and I see many examples
of that. One such hero I've been privileged to know is Navy
Medical Doctor Captain Marlene DeMaio. She was convinced that
there was a serious flaw in the way we were designing body
armor. In the face of considerable resistance and criticism,
she put together a team whose research proved the need to
modify the body armor design. She and her team took on the
bureaucracy and won. Her moral courage has saved countless
American lives in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
There are so many other stories I could share, but I will
tell you just one more. Three months ago, I attended a
funeral at Arlington for a soldier from St. Paul, Minnesota.
Sergeant Michael Carlson had been killed just before the
January 30th elections in Iraq. Not long after those historic
elections, I received a letter from his mother.
Mrs. Carlson wrote to tell me how much it meant to her to
see the joy on the faces of Iraqi voters, men and women who
had risked their lives for something they believed in. She
knew her son shared that same sort of vision, and she sent me
an essay that he had written as a high school senior that
explained how she could be certain of that. It's a remarkable
essay, particularly from such a young man.
Michael had been an outstanding high school football
player, but he didn't want to become a professional athlete.
He wrote, ``I want my life to count for something more than
just a game. I want to be good at life. I want to fight for
something, be part of something that is greater than myself.
The only way to live forever,'' this high school senior
wrote, ``is to live on in those you have affected. I
sometimes dream of being a soldier, helping to liberate
people from oppression. In the end,'' he said, ``there's a
monument built to immortalize us in stone.''
Men and women like that, men and women like Michael Carlson
do become immortalized because they live on in our nation's
soul.
President Reagan used to ask, where do we find such people?
And he would answer: We find them where we've always found
them, on the streets and the farms of America. They are the
product of the freest society man has ever known.
On one of my visits to Iraq, I met a brigade commander who
told me how he explained his mission to his men. He said, ``I
tell them what they're doing in Iraq and what their comrades
are doing in Afghanistan is every bit as important what their
grandfathers did in Germany and Japan in World War II, or
what their fathers did in Korea or Europe during the Cold
War.''
That colonel was right.
It's been a privilege of a lifetime to serve with the
heroes of this generation who will be remembered with the
same gratitude as we remember those who have gone before.
Nothing is more satisfying than to be able to do work that
can really make a difference, and I've been lucky to have
many opportunities to do that, but this one was as good as
they come.
Now the president has asked me to take on a new mission
that of working on behalf of the world's poor. Although I
leave the Department of Defense, I believe both our missions
serve the goal of making this world a better place. It's an
honor. But I have one big regret: I'll be leaving some of the
most dedicated, most capable, most courageous people in the
world.
In many speeches over these years, I've been accustomed to
ask the good Lord to bless our troops and our country. While
I do it for the last time as your deputy secretary, I want
you to know that I will always carry these words as a prayer
in my heart: May God bless you, may God bless the men and
women who serve this country so nobly and so well, and may
God bless America.
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