[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13292-S13297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JACK MURTHA, AN AMERICAN PATRIOT
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, yesterday, as all of us know, Jack Murtha,
one of the most respected Congressmen on military affairs, one of the
most respected Congressmen on national security issues, a former marine
drill sergeant and a decorated Vietnam veteran, spoke out on our policy
in Iraq. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Congressman Murtha is not
the point. He did not come to this moment lightly. Any one of us who
knows Congressman Murtha or anybody who has
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worked with him over these years, Republican or Democrat, respects this
man, respects his personal commitment to our country, respects his
understanding of these issues, and understands he did not come to that
moment lightly.
He spoke his mind and he spoke his heart out of love for his country
and out of absolute and total unconditional support for the troops, of
which he was once one.
I do not intend to stand for, nor should any of us in the Congress
stand for, another Swiftboat attack on the character of Jack Murtha. It
frankly disgusts me that a bunch of guys who never chose to put on the
uniform of their country now choose in the most personal way, in the
most venomous, to question the character of a man who did wear the
uniform of his country and who bled doing it. It is wrong. He served
heroically in uniform. He served heroically for our country.
Have we lost all civility and all common sense in this institution
and in this city? No matter what J.D. Hayworth says, there is no
sterner stuff than the backbone and courage that defines Jack Murtha's
character and his conscience.
Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, who never chose to put on
the uniform of his country and serve, called Jack Murtha a coward and
accused him of wanting to cut and run. On its face, looking at the
record, looking at his life, Jack Murtha has never cut and run from
anything. Jack Murtha was not a coward when he put himself in harm's
way for his country in Vietnam and he earned two Purple Hearts. He was
a patriot then and he is a patriot today. He deserves his views to be
respected, not vilified.
Jack Murtha did not cut and run when his courage earned him a Bronze
Star, and his voice ought to be heard today, not silenced by those who
would actually choose to cut and run from the truth.
Just a day after Vice President Dick Cheney, who himself had five
deferments from service to his country because, as he said, he had
other priorities than serving his country, just 1 day after he accused
Democrats of being unpatriotic, the White House accused Jack Murtha of
surrendering.
Jack Murtha served 37 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. Jack Murtha
does not know how to surrender, not to enemy combatants and not to
politicians in Washington who say speaking one's conscience is
unpatriotic.
The other day we celebrated what would have been the 80th birthday of
Robert Kennedy. When Robert Kennedy opposed the war in Vietnam, despite
the fact that his brother and the administration he was in had been
involved in articulating that policy, he talked about how there was
blame enough to go around. He also said the sharpest criticism often
goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.
Chuck Hagel showed that he has not forgotten that when he said: The
Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to
question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for
disagreeing with them.
Too many people seem to have forgotten that long ago and too many of
our friends on the other side of the aisle somehow think that asking
tough questions is pessimism. It is not pessimism. It is patriotism. It
is how one lives in a democracy. We are busy trying to take to Iraq and
take to Afghanistan and take to the world the democracy we love and we
are somehow unwilling to fully practice it at home.
We have seen the politics of fear and smear too many times. Whenever
challenged, there are some Republican leaders who engage in the
politics of personal destruction rather than debate the issues. It does
not matter who one is. When they did it to John McCain, we saw that it
does not matter what political party one is in. When they did it to Max
Cleland, we saw that it does not matter if one's service put them in a
wheelchair. And when they did it to Jack Murtha yesterday, perhaps the
most respected voice on military matters in all of the Congress, we saw
that some in this administration and their supporters will go to any
lengths to crush any dissent.
Once again, some are engaged in the lowest form of smear-and-fear
politics because I guess they are afraid of actually debating a senior
Congressman who has advised Presidents of both parties on how to best
defend our country. They are afraid to debate the substance with a
veteran who lives and breathes the concerns of our troops, not the
empty slogans that sent our troops to war without adequate body armor,
without adequate planning, without adequate strategy.
Maybe they are terrified of actually leveling with the American
people about the way that they did, in fact, mislead the country into
war or of admitting that they have no clear plan to finish the job and
get our troops home.
Whether one agrees with Jack Murtha's policy statement yesterday is
irrelevant. The truth is there is a better course for our troops and a
better course for America in Iraq. The Senate itself went on record
this week as saying exactly that. Every Senator in this body voted one
way or the other to express their feelings about Iraq.
I intend to keep fighting, along with a lot of other people, to make
certain we take that better course for the good of our country.
American families who have lost or who fear the loss of their loved
ones plain deserve to know the truth about what we have asked them to
do, what we are doing to complete the mission, and what we are doing to
prevent our forces from being trapped in an endless quagmire. Our
military families understand--I mean, all one has to do is visit with
them when they come here and they talk about their sons, their
husbands, and their fathers who are over there. They are concerned and
want an open debate about what will best support the troops and how to
get them home the fastest with the job done the most effectively.
The only way to get it done right in Iraq, the only way to get our
sons and daughters home, is for all of us to weigh in on this issue. We
also need to be mindful that as the White House yet again engages in a
character assassination to stop Americans from listening to the words
of a military expert and understanding the consequences, we need to
understand the consequences of the road we have already traveled
because when one looks at the road we have already traveled, it makes
it even more imperative that we have this debate and engage in this
dialogue.
It is a stunning and tragic journey that on many different occasions
even defies fundamental common sense and leaves a trail of broken
promises. From the very start, when we were talking about what it might
cost or not cost, when an administration official suggested it would
cost $200 billion, he was fired, not listened to. When people wondered
how we would pay for the war and we were told the oil will pay for it,
while others were saying the oil infrastructure was not sufficient to
pay for it, they were not listened to. When the administration could
have listened to General Shinseki and actually put in enough troops to
maintain order, they chose not to. When they could have learned from
George Herbert Walker Bush and built a genuine global coalition so we
had the world with us, not most of the world questioning us or against
us, they chose not to. When they could have implemented a detailed
State Department plan for reconstructing post-Saddam Iraq, they chose
not to. When they could have protected American forces and prevented
our kids from getting blown up by ammunition that was in the dumps of
Saddam Hussein and in the various locations our military were aware of,
they chose not to. Instead of guarding those ammunition dumps and
armories, they chose not to. When they could have imposed immediate
order and structure in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam, Secretary
Rumsfeld shrugged his shoulders and said, Baghdad was safer than
Washington, DC, and they chose not to take action.
When the administration could have kept an Iraqi army selectively
intact, they chose not to. When they could have kept an entire civil
structure functioning in order to deliver basic services to Iraqi
citizens, they chose not to. When they could have accepted the offers
of the nations and individual countries to provide on-the-ground
peacekeepers, reconstruction assistance, they chose not to. When they
should have leveled with the American people that the insurgency had in
fact grown, they chose not to. Vice President Cheney even absurdly
claimed
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that the insurgency was in its last throes.
All of these mistakes tell us something. They scream out for a
debate. They scream out for a dialogue. They scream out for a policy
that gets it right.
We are in trouble today precisely because of a policy of cut and run
where the administration made the wrong choice to cut and run from
established procedures of gathering intelligence and of how it is
evaluated and shared with the Congress; to cut and run from the best
military advice; to cut and run from sensible wartime planning; to cut
and run from their responsibility to properly arm and protect our
troops; to cut and run from history's clear lessons about the Middle
East and about Iraq itself; to cut and run from common sense. That is
the debate some people appear to want to avoid in this country.
Instead of letting his cronies verbally blast away, the President
ought to finally find the will to debate the real issue instead of
destroying anyone who speaks truth to power as they see it.
It is time for Americans to stand up and fight back against this kind
of politics and make it clear that it is unacceptable to do this to any
leader of any party anywhere in our country at any time. We can
disagree, but we do not have to engage in this kind of personal attack
and personal destruction.
I hope my colleagues will come to the floor and engage in this
debate. Our country will be stronger for it. That is what we ought to
do instead of attacking the character of a man such as Jack Murtha.
Believe me, that is a fight nobody is going to win in our America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. I ask unanimous consent to consume such time as I may take.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am going to speak in a moment about the
PATRIOT Act, but before I do, I want to respond to a couple of comments
that were made by the Senator from Massachusetts.
I served with Congressman Murtha when I was in the House of
Representatives, and there is no greater patriot in the United States
than Congressman Murtha. In that, the Senator from Massachusetts and I
agree. I disagree with Congressman Murtha's opinions, but that is a
matter of debate and that is one of the reasons we have the kind of
open society that we do.
I do not think anyone is trying to crush debate or dissent or prevent
questions from being asked. But it is a fact that when the President of
the United States is accused of deliberate manipulation of intelligence
to bring us into war--some have even said lied in order to bring us
into war--that deserves response. That is part of a healthy debate.
When the President spoke in response, I think he was entitled to be
listened to and not ridiculed and not condemned for criticizing those
who disagreed with him. Neither side need back away from making their
arguments and arguing that the other side is wrong. But of course no
one should be questioning anyone else's patriotism. It is assumed
anyone who serves this Government, and certainly anyone who has put on
the uniform of this Government, is a patriot. In the case of
Congressman Murtha, I would be the first to assert that fact.
I think there are two critical facts with respect to this dispute.
The first set of facts is that our intelligence, and that of virtually
every other nation in the world, believed that Saddam Hussein was a
threat to the world and had weapons of mass destruction and in some
cases was developing capability for additional weapons of mass
destruction, such as nuclear weapons. Some of that intelligence turned
out not to be correct. But it does not mean that the people who debated
the issues were liars or deliberately misrepresenting the facts. I
daresay, if you took comments I made on the floor of the Senate and
comments the Senator from Massachusetts made on the floor of the
Senate, they would align pretty closely. They were pretty similar
because they were based on the same intelligence. The same thing was
said by other Democrats and Republicans, by people in the
administration, by people in the former administration. I do not think
it is appropriate to assign deliberate motives to mislead to any of
those people.
I myself believe that the information was not correct with respect to
the weapons of mass destruction but that the people who were giving it
to us honestly believed it was correct. So I don't even think the
people in the CIA were deliberately misleading anyone, though they
turned out to be wrong. Can't we agree that people make mistakes,
especially with respect to that murky area of intelligence where
nothing is ever black and white, where everyone is always gathering
bits and pieces of information and trying to construct a jigsaw puzzle
out of it when a lot of pieces are missing and where the enemy is
deliberately trying to deceive you? It is very difficult business.
While I am somewhat critical, as a member of the Intelligence
Committee, of the people who were engaged in the activity at the time,
I don't question their motives either.
The other fact that I think is true is that it would be wrong for us
to leave Iraq now. This is where I would disagree with Congressman
Murtha. I believe the consequences of leaving or setting up a timetable
to leave soon, before the job is done, would not only be absolutely
devastating for the people in Iraq who have been trying to set up their
own government but would also set us back in the war against these
terrorists, these evildoers, these radical Islamists who are watching
very carefully what we do in Iraq. When you remember what Saddam
Hussein said about the weak horse and the strong horse, you know how
important it is for the United States to maintain a firm, strong
position with respect to completing the job in Iraq.
To the extent that there is a suggestion that we will back out if
they keep enough pressure on us, it does play into their hands because
they simply play the waiting game in order to wait us out until they
can move in and do more evil deeds. That is where I think the debate
comes down. It is a legitimate debate to have, but I think the
President is on the right side of that debate. We have to finish the
job before we withdraw.
Mr. KERRY. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. KYL. I am happy to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I respect the comments of the Senator and I
appreciate the way he has approached it and I am grateful to him and
thank him, as I am sure others do, for his comments about Congressman
Murtha. I know he would agree with me that those who suggested what he
is saying is cowardly or suggested that is surrender, that those are
words probably inappropriate in this debate. I think the Senator would
agree with me that those characterizations have no place here. And he
is right about the question of how everybody approached the
intelligence. We all did have a unified belief about the existence of
weapons--most of us.
But I disagree with the Senator. I would ask him if he does not agree
that there are legitimate areas of inquiry, which the Intelligence
Committee is now pursuing, with respect to what happened to certain
intelligence that came to the Congress? For instance--about five areas.
One was the speech that was made by the President, where he referenced
nuclear materials coming from Africa which, in fact, the CIA on three
different occasions, both verbally and in writing, informed the White
House: Don't use this. But nevertheless it was used.
Whether that was intentional or inadvertent, all we know is that
winds up being misleading because the CIA disagreed with the evidence.
Likewise, telling America they could deliver biological, chemical
weapons within the period of 45 minutes, which was disagreed with in
the intelligence community, was not signed off within the intelligence
community.
Likewise, suggesting Iraq had trained al-Qaida in the creation of
bombs, bomb making, and poison creation--not agreed by the intelligence
community; in fact, erroneous.
Likewise, as the Vice President said on several occasions, that there
was a meeting between Iraq and al-Qaida operatives, a meeting that the
intelligence community did not substantiate, which we now know did not
take place.
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Those are, on their face, misleading representations made to us,
which Members of the Congress operated on. I would assume the Senator
would agree the mere fact that there were no weapons of mass
destruction means we were all misled. Whether it was intentional is the
operative question.
I can't tell you whether it was intentional. But I certainly know
that when you ignore the CIA's warnings, don't use this intelligence,
and nevertheless it winds up in the State of the Union message, there
is a disconnect that raises the most serious questions, that leaves a
lot of us wondering.
I ask the Senator, does he not agree that those instances where the
intelligence community is in disagreement and they don't tell us they
are in disagreement and we don't get the same intelligence, provides
some serious questions?
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I was very happy to have the Senator from
Massachusetts take a long time to make a lot of points, asking an
important question. Therefore, I am happy to engage in what amounts to
a debate on the issue. I would be delighted to comment on the specifics
that he points out.
I served on the Intelligence Committee for 8 years during this period
of time and have a fair degree of information about it. I need to
reflect a little bit carefully about what one can now say because,
after a while, you realize, when you are on the committee, it is better
not to say a lot because it might be one of the things you should not
be talking about. But I think I should speak to each of these items.
The last one first. No, I don't agree that being in error is the same
as misleading. I don't think that the people in the intelligence
agencies were misleading us. They were, in some instances, in error.
Frequently, they expressed their views with caveats and degrees of
certainty that, frankly, are not reflected in the public debate.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. KYL. Let me make my point here. They have a very careful way of
expressing their views. In the public debate, I have noted the
political people are not nearly as nuanced and careful in expressing
these views as the member of the intelligence community is.
Second, with respect to that, ordinarily the way that views were
expressed to us, and specifically in this case, they represented the
majority opinion or the consensus within the intelligence community.
Where there were significant questions or differences of opinion within
the intelligence community, those were noted and sometimes with respect
to some issues, there were divisions. Without getting into a lot of
detail, there has been a lot of talk about another issue that the
Senator did not raise, the so-called aluminum tubes. Without getting
into a big debate about it, you had the majority of the intelligence
community believing that those were for one purpose related to
production of nuclear materials. And you had a couple of other agencies
that had expertise in the area saying they didn't think so.
I am not sure that anyone has ever concluded which were actually
correct, or not, but a lot of information has been thrown out that
clearly the majority opinion was wrong. I don't know that one can say
that.
So I think we have to be careful. There are frequently, in
intelligence estimates, little caveats: We are not sure how good this
particular source is; we are not sure about this particular element.
But usually a consensus is reached. That consensus is what was
briefed to us and that is what we were relying on. With respect to the
four specific points--with respect to the issue of yellow cake coming
from Niger, it was a fact that the intelligence the United States had
was not nearly as conclusive as the intelligence from Great Britain,
and therefore the President was advised--not the President himself
directly but his speechwriters were advised--not to suggest that our
intelligence confirmed the attempts of Iraq to acquire this nuclear
material from Niger but rather to refer to a different intelligence
service which, in fact, had concluded that the attempt had been made.
That was the British service and that was the reference in the speech.
The British service still stands by its position.
With respect to the bioweapons, there was very good evidence to
suggest, prior to the war, that Saddam Hussein not only had a viable
bioterrorism program but that he had even mobilized--in one respect,
mobilized that program.
I am not certain we can say, from the Senate floor, how we have
finally evaluated the intelligence with respect to that. I think it
would be probably difficult for any Senator to discuss the issue in
great length. I would be willing to acknowledge that, certainly,
questions have been raised about whether it turns out that there were
mobile units devoted to creation of bioweapons.
Third, with respect to the intelligence that Iraq agents had actually
instructed terrorists in bomb making and poison making, that
information was very clear. It was issued by CIA Director George Tenet.
It was public information, so that can be discussed on the floor of the
Senate, and I am aware of nothing that draws any question about that
particular evidence. I do not recall whether it specifically related to
al-Qaida or terrorists or al-Qaida-connected terrorists. I probably
should not speak to that issue because I am not certain how much is
classified. But it is absolutely certain in public testimony, and in a
letter George Tenet specifically sent to the Congress he discussed the
issue of Iraq training terrorist bomb makers in the art of chemical
weapon-making.
Finally, in regard to this alleged meeting that never actually
occurred, if it is the meeting in Czechoslovakia that the Senator was
referring to, that is a matter of dispute. I don't think it has ever
been resolved one way or the other.
The point of all of this is it is one thing to say the intelligence
was inconclusive and in some cases that there were disputes in the
intelligence community and in some cases it was not accurate. It is
quite another to allege that the people who used the intelligence were
misleading other people.
Certainly, I was not deliberately misleading anyone, and I am certain
the Senator from Massachusetts was not deliberately misleading anyone
when we said roughly the same thing based upon the same intelligence
that suggested that Saddam Hussein was a threat and had weapons of mass
destruction.
The final point on this, and then I do want to turn to the PATRIOT
Act, there is a bit of a double standard in that critics of the
administration are now saying: You can't just look to the consensus
opinion, you need to look at some of those within the intelligence
community who were dissenting about certain aspects of intelligence,
the so-called nuggets. If you look deeply into this report, you will
find there was some element of it that did not quite jibe with the rest
of the consensus or there was some entity in our Government that didn't
totally agree with the consensus opinion. As I said, you are going to
see that through any national intelligence estimate or any other
description of intelligence analysis.
We encourage that. One of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, and
the other commissions that have looked into this, is that there is not
enough devil's advocacy going on. There is too much ``group think''
within the intelligence community. So it is a good thing to have that
intelligence questioned.
I remember there was actually criticism of Vice President Cheney
because he went down to the CIA headquarters and had the temerity to
ask these agents: Are you sure about this? Are you sure about this
intelligence?
They said: What's he doing that for?
He is a so-called consumer of the intelligence. He has every right to
say: Are you absolutely sure of this?
People within the administration should be questioning as well. That
is why I think it is so unfortunate that there is, literally, a cabal
to attack the Defense Department for questioning some of the
intelligence community's estimates--not all of which turned out to be
right, as we know. But there is an investigation that has been actually
formally requested. In order to get it resolved, the Defense Department
has agreed to conduct an inspector general's investigation into one of
the offices of the Department of Defense, into the question of whether
it should have questioned the intelligence of the
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CIA and taken its analysis and its questions to other people within the
Defense Department or the national security apparatus of the
administration.
Why not? The whole point of these commission recommendations is
people ought to be asking questions. The CIA is not a monastery of
monks who get manipulated intelligence that nobody else ever looks at.
The whole point of gathering intelligence is so our policymakers can
use it and make decisions based upon it. When the policymakers have
questions about it, they have every right to ask those questions. And
when there is some evidence that suggests the intelligence is not
exactly accurate, they have a duty to raise that kind of issue.
There is a bit of a double standard going on that when one wants to
criticize the administration and wants to play devil's advocate, there
was a little bit of evidence over here that contradicted the consensus
in the community, and we should have paid more attention to that. Maybe
so. You can't turn around and criticize those, in this case, in the
Department of Defense who saw the same infirmities, and who had
questions about the CIA intelligence and now are being criticized
because they had the temerity to raise those questions. You can't have
it both ways.
In reality, intelligence is an imperfect proposition at best, and we
ought to be playing devil's advocate and be asking tough questions
about it. But I daresay, unless you get very good evidence that someone
was deliberately lying or misleading, you shouldn't throw those kinds
of words around.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. KYL. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. SESSIONS. I hope every Senator was listening to Senator Kyl's
explanation of the important issues that have been raised. I hope the
American people are listening. He served on the Intelligence Committee.
He has been through these debates from the very beginning. He is a man
of integrity, and he will be responsible in summarizing the matters
that came before us.
He indicated that we hear allegations that things were black and
white, when those of us who heard the briefings didn't hear them that
way. They weren't black and white. The aluminum tubes--I ask the
Senator from Arizona, regardless of the detail of it, whether he heard
from those who debriefed us and got various opinions about that issue,
and we were not misled. We were told there were various ways to
interpret that evidence, were we not?
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I say that is exactly right. In fact, the
National Intelligence Estimate itself specifically characterized the
dissenting as well as the majority views with respect to what those
tubes were for. The majority view was that they were for centrifuge,
for weapons material production. The minority view was they might be
for artillery shells, or some other kind of projectile. There were two
agencies within our government that held that latter view. The majority
of the intelligence community held the former view.
But, yes, I remember as a member of the committee being briefed on
that and hearing testimony on it numerous times.
Mr. SESSIONS. That was before 78 Members of this body--a majority of
the Democratic Members along with a majority and maybe all of the
Republicans--voted to authorize hostilities in Iraq.
Mr. KYL. That is true.
Mr. SESSIONS. We knew these subtleties and disagreements, and we were
given the best estimate that the intelligence agency was given.
Let me ask the Senator this: The CIA is the Central Intelligence
Agency. The Senator talked about the contradiction between saying at
one point you should follow one or the other, or the minority opinion.
Is one of the responsibilities of the CIA to review all intelligence
and help advise the President, as that central agency, what he should
take as reliable?
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the Senator from Alabama is absolutely
correct. There is an important factor the American people need to
understand. There is not just one intelligence agency, the CIA; there
are lots of different elements of our Government gathering information,
a lot of it secret information. They meet as a group to try to put this
together and to reach a consensus. But when the estimates are briefed
to us and to the President, they try to arrive at a consensus.
Frequently, that consensus is less certain because there are some
dissenting views that characterize the consensus. Doubts are expressed
in certain technical ways.
It is one thing for the community to say it is the community's
judgment; of course, that is stepping down from saying we know it as a
fact. A judgment is not fact, it is an opinion. Then there are further
gradations down. We are exposed to those same--these are all footnoted.
We all know who believed what. But at the end of the day, in order for
us to get good advice, they try to put it together in a form that
reaches a conclusion. Sometimes because there are differences within
the intelligence community, those conclusions are not as certain or as
certainly expressed as they are on other occasions because of that
uncertainty.
Mr. SESSIONS. That is beautifully expressed. I think that is so
important for us to know.
I want to drive home one point. The Senator from Massachusetts and
other Senators have been complaining about these matters. I remember
the briefings we attended. Every Senator was invited. Every Senator had
the right to ask questions. People stayed late, if they chose to, and
asked additional questions. They were given these nuanced opinions. It
was only after all that, was it not, that this Senate, after full
debate, voted to authorize military actions in Iraq.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the Senator from Alabama is correct. I would
say that we should not make too much of these nuance opinions and
disagreements. In one sense, they are important; but in another sense,
you have to balance that against the fact that there was a mountain of
evidence in different areas that all add up to the same proposition.
And add to that--some of that turned out not to be correct--but add to
that the element of judgment.
This can't be overemphasized. Intelligence analysts apply judgments
and common sense to the evidence that they have. Because the evidence
is rarely black and white, you very rarely get the bad guy to say, I
will tell you everything I know, and it is everything you need to know
about this. So you have to exercise judgment.
After the first gulf war, we later learned that Saddam Hussein was
about 6 months away from having a nuclear weapon program. That is fact
No. 1.
Fact No. 2: Throughout the ensuing decade, he hid his programs. He
tried to deceive the inspectors. He refused to comply with U.N.
resolutions to release information. One could, therefore, surmise--or
at least it would not be a bad presumption to engage in--that if he had
it at one point, or almost had it, we had evidence he was trying to get
it. Again, he was hiding the ball at every opportunity. The
intelligence analysts have to say, Which way am I going to presume
this, that he does or that he doesn't? They concluded that there is
every indication that we had better assume that he does.
The policymakers have to take that a step further. We say they are
not absolutely certain; they are pretty sure, but they are not
absolutely certain which way we should flop on this. Should we flop to
the direction of inaction? Let's wait until we have absolute proof
before we do anything, or go the other way? This is pretty dangerous
business. If, in fact, he has, we had better act now before it is too
late.
We think we will take the action that is based upon the proposition
that he will have it. That is a judgment that we engaged in.
As my colleague, the Senator from Arizona, so eloquently has pointed
out, the choice was when, not if, we would face Saddam Hussein. The
question was, would we do it on his terms or on ours? We chose to do it
on ours. The result is Saddam Hussein today stands trial for mass
murder. The Iraqi people have an opportunity for freedom, and we have
an opportunity to transform that region of the world into one that
supports peace and opposes evildoers and terrorists as opposed to one
which was a hot bed when Saddam Hussein was in charge.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, again, I thank the Senator for his
thoughtful
[[Page S13297]]
and thorough analysis of how we came to know what we knew and how we
came to make the decisions about matters that came before us. We think
there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction
against his own people. We know that. That is indisputable. Where it
went subsequently I don't know, and people are shocked that we have not
found them. We know that the French intelligence agency--the French
Government opposed our entry into the war--believed he had weapons of
mass destruction.
Those matters were very important. And what I am so glad about is
people have heard what Senator Kyl said and discussed, which is
relevant to this Senate. We knew these things, fellow Senators. We
discussed these things. Grown people make decisions based on the best
evidence they have.
We had many hearings, top secret briefings, and every Senator could
go. We heard the argument. We heard the evidence. We cross-examined,
and we heard the uncertainties and certain levels expressed by the
authorities that came before us. Then we came into this body and we
voted to send our soldiers to execute our policy in harm's way. And we
owe those soldiers our support. We don't need to be undermining the
President, or even ourselves and our system, as in this circumstance
making the policy. We voted by a 78-to-22 vote to make it more
difficult to achieve and to place our soldiers at greater risk.
I thank the Senator for his wonderful comments.
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