[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 87 (Thursday, June 29, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H4905-H4911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WHY ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SO ANGRY?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McCaul of Texas). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Paul) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority
leader.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am going to make an attempt to answer a
question: Why are the American people so angry? I have been involved in
politics for over 30 years and have never seen the American people so
angry. It is not unusual to sense a modest amount of outrage, but it
seems the anger today is unusually intense and quite possibly worse
than ever. It is not easily explained, but I have some thoughts on this
matter.
Generally, anger and frustration among people are related to economic
conditions, bread and butter issues. Yet, today, according to
government statistics, things are going well. We have low unemployment,
low inflation, more homeowners than ever before, and abundant leisure
and abundant luxuries. Even the poor have cell phones, televisions, and
computers. Public school is free and anyone can get free medical care
at any emergency room in the country. Almost all taxes are paid for by
the top 50 percent of income earners.
{time} 2115
The lower 50 percent pay essentially no income tax. Yet general
dissatisfaction and anger are commonplace. The old slogan ``It's the
economy, stupid'' just does not seem to explain things.
Some say it is the war. Yet we have lived with war throughout the
20th century. The bigger they were, the more we pulled together. And
the current war, by comparison, has fewer American casualties than the
rest, so it can't be just the war itself.
People complain about corruption, but what is new about government
corruption? In the 19th century, we had railroad scandals. In the 20th
century, we endured the Teapot Dome scandal, Watergate, Koreagate, and
many others without too much anger and resentment. Yet today, it seems,
anger is pervasive and worse than we have experienced in the past.
Could it be that war, vague yet persistent economic uncertainty,
corruption, and the immigration problem all contribute to the anger we
feel in America? Perhaps. But it is almost as though people are not
exactly sure why they are so uneasy. They only know that they have had
it and are not going to put up with it anymore.
High gasoline prices make a lot of people angry, though there is
little understanding of how deficits, inflation, and the war in the
Middle East all contribute to these higher prices.
Generally speaking, there are two controlling forces that determine
the nature of government: the people's concern for their economic self-
interest and the philosophy of those who hold positions of power and
influence in any particular government.
Under Soviet communism, the workers believed their economic best
interests would be served while a few dedicated theoreticians placed
themselves in positions of power. Likewise, the intellectual leaders of
the American Revolution were few but rallied the colonists who risked
all to overthrow a tyrannical king.
Since there is never a perfect understanding between these two
forces, the people and the philosophical leaders, and because the
motivations of the intellectual leaders vary greatly, any transition
from one system of government to another is unpredictable. The
Communist takeover by Lenin was violent and costly. The demise of
communism and the acceptance of a relatively open system in the former
Soviet Union occurred in a miraculous manner. Both systems had
intellectual underpinnings.
In the United States over the last century, we have witnessed the
coming and going of various intellectual influences by proponents of
the free market, Keynesian welfarism, varieties of socialism, and
supply-side economics. In
[[Page H4906]]
foreign policy, we have seen a transition from the Founders' vision of
nonintervention in the affairs of others to internationalism,
unilateral nation building, and policing the world. We now have in
place a policy driven by determined neoconservatives to promote
American goodness and democracy throughout the world by military force,
with particular emphasis on remaking the entire Middle East.
We all know that ideas do have consequences. Bad ideas, even when
supported naively by the people, will have bad results. Could it be
that the people sense in a profound way that the policies of recent
decades are unworkable and thus they have instinctively lost confidence
in their government leaders? This certainly happened in the final years
of the Soviet system. Though not fully understood, this sense of
frustration may well be the source of anger we hear expressed on a
daily basis by so many. No matter how noble the motivations of
political leaders are, when they achieve positions of power, the power
itself inevitably becomes their driving force. Government officials too
often yield to the temptations and corrupting influences of power.
But there are many others who are not bashful about using government
power to do good. They truly believe they can make the economy fair
through a redistributive tax and spending system, make the people moral
by regulating personal behavior and choices, and remake the world in
our image using armies. They argue that the use of force to achieve
good is legitimate and a proper function of government, always speaking
of the noble goals while ignoring the inevitable failures and evils
caused by coercion. Not only do they justify government force, they
believe they have a moral obligation to do so.
Once we concede government has this legitimate function and can be
manipulated by a majority vote, the various special interests move in
quickly. They gain control to direct government largesse for their own
benefit. Too often, it is corporate interests who learn how to
manipulate every contract, regulation, and tax policy. Likewise,
promoters of the progressive agenda, always hostile to property rights,
compete for government power through safety, health, and environmental
initiatives. Both groups resort to using government power and abuse
this power in an effort to serve their narrow interests. In the
meantime, constitutional limits on power and its mandate to protect
liberty are totally forgotten.
Since the use of power to achieve political ends is accepted,
pervasive, and ever expanding, popular support for various programs is
achieved by creating fear. Sometimes the fear is concocted out of thin
air, but usually it is created by wildly exaggerating a problem or
incident that does not warrant the proposed government so-called
``solution.'' Often government caused the problem in the first place.
The irony, of course, is that government action rarely solves any
problem but rather worsens existing problems or creates altogether new
ones. Fear is generated to garner popular support for the proposed
government action even when some liberty has to be sacrificed. This
leads to a society that is systematically driven toward fear, fear that
gives the monstrous government more and more authority and control over
our lives and property.
Fear is constantly generated by politicians to rally the support of
the people. Environmentalists go back and forth from warning about a
coming ice age to arguing the grave dangers of global warming. It is
said that without an economic safety net for everyone from cradle to
grave people would starve and many would become homeless. It is said
that without government health care, the poor would not receive
treatment, and medical care would be available only to the rich.
Without government insuring pensions, all private pension funds would
be threatened. Without Federal assistance, there would be no funds for
public education, and the quality of our public schools would be
diminished, ignoring, of course, recent history to the contrary.
It is argued that without government surveillance of every American
even without search warrants, security cannot be achieved. The
sacrifice of some liberty is required for security of our citizens,
they claim. We are constantly told that the next terrorist attack could
come at any moment. Rather than questioning why we might be attacked,
this atmosphere of fear, instead, prompts giving up liberty and
privacy. 9/11 has been conveniently used to generate the fear necessary
to expand both our foreign intervention and domestic surveillance.
Fear of nuclear power is used to assure shortages and highly
expensive energy.
In all instances where fear is generated and used to expand
government control, it is safe to say the problems behind the fears
were not caused by the free market economy or too much privacy or
excessive liberty. It is easy to generate fear, fear that too often
becomes excessive, unrealistic, and difficult to curb. This is
important. It leads to even more demands for government action than the
perpetrators of the fear actually anticipated. Once people look to
government to alleviate their fears and make them safe, expectations
exceed reality.
FEMA originally had a small role, but its current mission is to
centrally manage every natural disaster that befalls us. This mission
was exposed as a fraud during last year's hurricanes. Incompetence and
corruption are now FEMA's legacy. This generates anger among those who
have to pay the bills and among those who did not receive the handouts
promised to them quickly enough.
Generating exaggerated fear to justify and promote attacks on private
property is commonplace. It serves to inflame resentment between the
producers in society and the so-called victims, whose demands grow
exponentially.
The economic impossibility of this system guarantees that the harder
government tries to satisfy the unlimited demands, the worse the
problems become. We will not be able to pay the bills forever, and
eventually our ability to borrow and print new money must end. This
dependency on government will guarantee anger when the money runs out.
Today, we are still able to borrow and inflate, but budgets are getting
tighter and people sense serious problems lurking in the future. This
fear is legitimate. No easy solution to our fiscal problems is readily
apparent, and this ignites anger and apprehension. Disenchantment is
directed at the politicians and their false promises made in order to
secure reelection and exert power that so many of them enjoy.
It is, however, in foreign affairs that governments have most abused
fear to generate support for an agenda that, under normal
circumstances, would have been rejected. For decades, our
administrations have targeted one supposed Hitler after another to gain
support for military action against a particular country. Today, we
have three choices termed the axis of evil: Iran, Iraq, or North Korea.
We recently witnessed how unfounded fear was generated concerning
Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to justify our first-ever
preemptive war. It is now universally known the fear was based on
falsehoods, and yet the war goes on and the death and destruction
continues.
This is not a new phenomenon. General Douglas MacArthur understood
the political use of fear when he made this famous statement: ``Always
there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign
power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind
it.''
We should be ever vigilant when we hear the fear mongers preparing us
for the next military conflict our young men and women will be expected
to fight. We are being told of the great danger posed by Ahmadinejad in
Iran and Kim Jong-il in North Korea. Even Russia and China bashing is
in vogue again, and we are still not able to trade with or travel to
Cuba. A constant enemy is required to expand the state. We are hearing
more and more news stories blaming Iran for the bad results in Iraq.
Does this mean Iran is next on the hit list?
The world is much too dangerous, we are told, and therefore we must
be prepared to fight at a moment's notice, regardless of the cost. If
the public could not be manipulated by the politicians' efforts to
instill needless fear, fewer wars would be fought and far fewer lives
would be lost.
Though the American people are fed up for a lot of legitimate
reasons, almost all polls show the mess in Iraq
[[Page H4907]]
leads the list of why the anger is so intense. Short wars with well-
defined victories are tolerated by the American people even when they
are misled as to the reasons for the war. Wars entered into without a
proper declaration tend to be politically motivated and not for
national security reasons. These wars by their very nature are
prolonged, costly, and usually require a new administration to finally
end them. This certainly was true with the Korean and the Vietnam Wars.
The lack of a quick military victory, the loss of life and limb, and
the huge economic costs of lengthy wars precipitate anger. This is
overwhelmingly true when the war propaganda that stirred up the
illegitimate fears is exposed as a fraud. Most soon come to realize the
promise of guns and butter is an illusion. They come to understand that
inflation, a weak economy, and a prolonged war without real success are
the reality.
The anger over the Iraq War is multifaceted. Some are angry believing
they were lied to in order to gain their support at the beginning.
Others are angry that the $40 billion we spend every year on
intelligence gathering fail to provide good information. Proponents of
the war too often are unable to admit the truth. They become frustrated
with the progress of the war and then turn on those wanting to change
course, angrily denouncing them as unpatriotic and unAmerican.
{time} 2130
Those accused are quick to respond to the insulting charges made by
those who want to fight on forever without regard to casualties.
Proponents of the war do not hesitate to challenge the manhood of war
critics, accusing them of wanting to cut and run. Some war supporters
duck military service themselves while others fought and died, only
adding to the anger of those who have seen battle up close and now
question our campaign in Iraq.
When people see a $600 million embassy being built in Baghdad while
funding for services here in the United States is hard to obtain, they
become angry. They can't understand why the money is being spent,
especially when they are told by our government that we have no
intention of remaining permanently in Iraq.
The bickering and anger will not soon subside since victory in Iraq
is not on the horizon and a change in policy is not likely to occur.
The neoconservative instigators of war are angry at everyone, at the
people who want to get out of Iraq and especially at those prosecuting
the war for not bombing more aggressively, sending in more troops and
expanding the war into Iran. As our country becomes poorer due to the
cost of the war, anger surely will escalate. Much of it will be
justified.
It seems bizarre that it is so unthinkable to change course if the
current policy is failing. Our leaders are like a physician who makes a
wrong diagnosis and prescribes the wrong medicine, but because of his
ego can't tell the patient he has made a mistake. Instead, he hopes the
patient will get better on his own. But instead of improving, the
patient gets worse from the medication wrongly prescribed. This would
be abhorrent behavior in medicine, but tragically it is commonplace in
politics.
If the truth is admitted, it would appear that the lives lost and the
money spent have been in vain. Instead, more casualties must be
sustained to prove a false premise. What a tragedy. If the truth is
admitted, imagine the anger of all the families that already have
suffered such a burden. That burden is softened when the families and
the wounded are told their great sacrifice was worthy and required to
preserve our freedoms and our Constitution.
But no one is allowed to ask the obvious: How have the 2,500 plus
deaths and the 18,500 wounded made us more free? What in the world does
Iraq have to do with protecting our civil liberties here at home? What
national security threat prompted America's first preemptive war? How
does our unilateral enforcement of U.N. resolutions enhance our
freedoms?
These questions aren't permitted. They are not politically correct. I
agree that the truth hurts and these questions are terribly hurtful to
the families that have suffered so much. What a horrible thought it
would be to find out the cause for which we fight is not quite so
noble. I don't believe those who hide from the truth and refuse to face
the reality of the war do so deliberately. The pain is too great. Deep
down psychologically many are incapable of admitting such a costly and
emotionally damaging error. They instead become even greater and more
determined supporters of the failed policy.
I would concede that there are some, though, especially the diehard
neoconservatives who believe it is our moral duty to spread American
goodness through force and remake the Middle East who neither suffer
regrets nor are bothered by the casualties. They continue to argue for
more war without remorse as long as they themselves do not have to
fight. Criticism is reserved for the wimps who want to ``cut and run.''
Due to the psychological need to persist with the failed policy, the
war proponents must remain in denial of many facts staring them in the
face. They refuse to accept that the real reason for our invasion and
occupation of Iraq was not related to terrorism. They deny that our
military is weaker as a consequence of this war. They won't admit that
our invasion has served the interests of Osama bin Laden.
They continue to blame our image problems around the world on a few
bad apples. They won't admit that our invasion has served the interests
of Iran's radical regime. The cost in lives lost and dollars spent is
glossed over and the deficit spirals up without concern. They ridicule
those who point out that our relationship with our allies have been
significantly damaged.
We have provided a tremendous incentive for Russia and China and
others like Iran to organize through the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization. They entertain future challenges to our plans to dominate
Southeast Asia and the Middle East and all its oil. Radicalizing the
Middle East will in the long term jeopardize Israel's security and
increase the odds of this war spreading.
War supporters cannot see that for every Iraqi killed, another family
turns on us, regardless of who did the killing. We are and will
continue to be blamed for every wrong done in Iraq, all deaths,
illness, water problems, food shortages and electricity outages. As
long as our political leaders persist in these denials, the war won't
end. The problem is that this is the source of the anger, because the
American people are not in denial and want a change in policy.
Policy changes in wartime are difficult, for it is almost impossible
for the administration to change course since so much emotional energy
has been invested in the effort. That is why Eisenhower ended the
Korean War, not Truman. That is why Nixon ended the Vietnam War, not
LBJ. Even in the case of Vietnam, the end was too slow and costly as
more than 30,000 military deaths came after Nixon's election in 1968.
It makes a lot more sense to avoid unnecessary wars than to overcome
the politics involved in stopping them once they have started. I
personally am convinced that many of our wars could be prevented by
paying stricter attention to the method whereby our troops are
committed to battle. I also am convinced that when Congress does not
declare war, victory is unlikely. The most important thing Congress can
do to prevent needless and foolish wars is for every Member to take
seriously his or her oath to obey the Constitution. Wars should be
entered into only after great deliberation and caution. Wars that are
declared by Congress should reflect the support of the people and the
goal should be a quick and successful resolution.
Our undeclared wars of the past 65 years have dragged on without
precise victories. We fight to spread American values, to enforce U.N.
resolutions, and to slay supposed Hitlers. We forget that once we
spread American values by persuasion and setting an example, not by
bombs and preemptive invasions. Nowhere in the Constitution are we
permitted to go to war on behalf of the United Nations at the sacrifice
of our national sovereignty. We repeatedly use military force against
former allies, thugs we helped empower, like Saddam Hussein and Osama
bin Laden, even when they pose no danger to us.
The 2002 resolution allowing the President to decide when and if to
invade Iraq is an embarrassment. The
[[Page H4908]]
Constitution authorizes only Congress to declare war. Our refusal to
declare war transferred power to the President illegally, without a
constitutional amendment. Congress did this with a simple resolution,
passed by majority vote. This means Congress reneged on its
responsibility as a separate branch of government and should be held
accountable for the bad policy in Iraq that the majority of Americans
are now upset about. Congress is every bit as much at fault as the
President.
Constitutional questions aside, the American people should have
demanded more answers from their government before they supported the
invasion and occupation of a foreign country. Some of the strongest
supporters of the war declare that we are a Christian Nation, yet use
their religious beliefs to justify the war. They claim it is our
Christian duty to remake the Middle East and attack the Muslim
infidels. Evidently I have been reading from a different Bible. I
remember something about ``blessed are the peacemakers.''
My beliefs aside, Christian teaching of nearly a thousand years
reinforces the concept of the ``Just War Theory.'' This Christian
theory emphasizes six criteria needed to justify Christian
participation in war. Briefly, the six points are as follows:
War should be fought only in self-defense.
War should be undertaken only as a last resort.
A decision to enter war should be made only by a legitimate
authority.
All military responses must be proportional to the threat.
There must be a reasonable chance of success.
And a public declaration notifying all parties concerned is required.
The war in Iraq fails to meet almost all of these requirements. This
discrepancy has generated anger and division within the Christian
community. Some are angry because the war is being fought out of
Christian duty, yet does not have uniform support from all Christians.
Others are angry because they see Christianity as a religion of peace
and forgiveness, not war and annihilation of enemies. Constitutional
and moral restraints on wars should be strictly followed. It is
understandable when kings, dictators and tyrants take their people into
war since it serves their selfish interest and those sent to fight have
no say in the matter. It is more difficult to understand why
democracies and democratic legislative bodies, which have a say over
the issue of war, so readily submit to the executive branch of
government. The determined effort of the authors of our Constitution to
firmly place the power to declare war in the legislative branch has
been ignored in the decades following World War II.
Many Members have confided in me that they are quite comfortable with
this arrangement. They flatly do not expect in this modern age to
formally declare war ever again. Yet no one predicts there will be
fewer wars fought. It is instead assumed that they will be ordered by
the executive branch or the United Nations, a rather sad commentary.
What about the practical arguments against war, since no one seems
interested in exerting constitutional or moral restraints? Why do we
continue to fight prolonged, political wars when the practical results
are so bad? Our undeclared wars since 1945 have been very costly, to
put it mildly. We have suffered over 100,000 military deaths and even
more serious casualties. Tens of thousands have suffered from serious
war-related illnesses. Sadly, we as a nation express essentially no
concern for the millions of civilian casualties in the countries where
we fought.
The cost of war since 1945 and our military presence in over 100
countries since exceeds $2 trillion in today's dollars. The cost in
higher taxes, debt and persistent inflation is immeasurable. Likewise,
the economic opportunities lost by diverting trillions of dollars into
war is impossible to measure, but it is huge. Yet our Presidents
persist in picking fights with countries that pose no threat to us,
refusing to participate in true diplomacy to resolve differences.
Congress over the decades has never resisted the political pressures to
send our troops abroad on missions that defy imagination.
When the people object to a new adventure, the propaganda machine
goes into action to make sure critics are seen as unpatriotic Americans
or even traitors. The military-industrial complex we were warned about
has been transformed into a military-media-industrial-government
complex that is capable of silencing the dissenters and cheerleading
for the war. It is only after years of failure that people are able to
overcome the propaganda for war and pressure their representatives in
Congress to stop the needless killing. Many times the economic costs of
war stir people to demand an end.
This time around, the war might be brought to a halt by our actual
inability to pay the bills due to a dollar crisis. A dollar crisis will
make borrowing $2.5 billion per day from foreign powers like China and
Japan virtually impossible, at least at affordable interest rates. That
is when we will be forced to reassess the spending spree, both at home
and abroad.
The solution to this mess is not complicated, but the changes needed
are nearly impossible for political reasons. Sound free market
economics, sound money and a sensible foreign policy would all result
from a strict adherence to the Constitution. If the people desired it,
and the Congress was filled with responsible Members, a smooth although
challenging transition could be achieved. Since this is unlikely, we
can only hope that the rule of law and the goal of liberty can be
reestablished without chaos. We must move quickly toward a more
traditional American foreign policy of peace, friendship and trade with
all nations, entangling alliances with none. We must reject the notion
that we can or should make the world safe for democracy.
We must forget about being the world's policeman. We should disengage
from the unworkable and unforgiving task of nation building. We must
reject the notion that our military should be used to protect natural
resources, private investments, or serve the interests of any foreign
government or the United Nations. Our military should be designed for
one purpose, defending our national security. It is time to come home
now, before financial conditions or military weakness dictates it.
The major obstacle to a sensible foreign policy is the fiction about
what patriotism means. Today, patriotism has come to mean blind support
for the government and its policies. In earlier times, patriotism meant
having the willingness and courage to challenge government policies
regardless of popular perceptions. Today, we constantly hear innuendoes
and direct insults aimed at those who dare to challenge current foreign
policy, no matter how flawed that policy may be. I would suggest it
takes more courage to admit the truth, to admit mistakes, than to
attack others as unpatriotic for disagreeing with the war in Iraq.
{time} 2145
Remember the original American patriots challenged the abuses of King
George and wrote and carried out the Declaration of Independence. Yes,
Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of anger in this country. Much of it is
justified, some of it is totally unnecessary and misdirected. The only
thing that can lessen this anger is an informed public.
A better understanding of economic principles, a rejection of foreign
intervention, and a strict adherence to the Constitutional rule of law.
This will be difficult to achieve. But it is not impossible and well
worth the effort.
Mr. Speaker, I now would like to defer to one of our colleagues who
has arrived on the floor and is going to participate in this special
order, that is the gentleman from North Carolina. I alluded to the fact
that looking for the truth was very important. And there is nobody in
the Congress that surpasses this gentleman's effort to pursue the
truth, and his willingness to take personal responsibility for what he
has said, voted for in the past.
And this to me is so important, because his pursuit of truth I think
is key. And the efforts that he has made here in the last couple of
years I think is just critical, because he has been concerned
specifically about information that we in the Congress were given in
order to make our decision to deliver this authority to the President.
It is this pursuit of truth that I think is so critical, and I have
such high regards for gentleman for doing this. At this time I would
like to yield to the
[[Page H4909]]
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).
Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and the
gentleman from Texas. I would like to say about the gentleman from
Texas that he has been on the floor so many times talking about the
economic future of this country and also taking about unjust wars.
I would like to tonight, in the few minutes I have, I would like to
quote from Rudyard Kipling. It is called the Epitaphs of the War, 1914
to 1918.
Mr. Kipling at one time was a proponent of aggressive actions, but
once his son was killed he seemed to change his thought, which is
understandable. And I quote very quickly before I make my brief
comments. ``If any question why we died, tell them because our fathers
lied''.
I will leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. I think that speaks for itself.
And that again was Rudyard Kipling, not me, Congressman Walter Jones
from North Carolina.
Along with my friend from Texas, I can tell you that I seek the
truth. I came to this floor 3\1/2\ years ago, I cast my votes to give
the President the authority to commit troops to Iraq.
I came to this floor. I was not sure that I was doing the right
thing, but I hoped and prayed that I was. But since that time, because
I do seek the truth, as my friend from Texas said, that I want to
mention to you tonight just a few facts that I have uncovered.
Let me base some of this comment tonight on people I have met with in
my office person to person, such as - Carl Ford, former CIA, Paul
Pillar, former CIA for 31 years, Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to
Colin Powell, General Anthony Zinni, CENTCOM Commander for 3 years,
General Gregory Newbold, General John Batiste, former Colonel Karen
Kwiatowski, Ray McGovern, CIA, and former Colonel Sam Gardiner, Jim
Bamford, author of Pretext for War, and John Landay and Warren Strobel,
writers for Knight Ridder.
Tonight I want to start my brief comments with an article written by
Gregory Newbold. General Newbold is a Marine General. He was part of J-
3 at the Department of Defense prior to our going into war in Iraq.
General Newbold is a very impressive man. He was a 2-star Marine
General on the way to being a 3-star.
But I would like, with unanimous consent, to submit the whole
article, it is a 3-page article in Time Magazine written by General
Newbold, not by a writer at Time.
This is what he said in this article. ``I was a witness and therefore
a party to the actions that led to the invasion of Iraq, an unnecessary
war. Inside the military family I made no secret of my view that the
zealots rationale for war made no sense. I think I was outspoken enough
to make those senior to me uncomfortable.
But I now regret that I did not do more, openly challenge those who
were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to
the real threat, al-Qaeda. I retired from the military 4 months before
the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/
11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now I have resisted
speaking out in public. I have been silent long enough''.
Mr. Speaker, I could quote more from General Newbold's article, but
the Record will show this. I do not need to read more.
It is so sad to me that so many in our military and also our CIA saw
what was happening in those who wanted to go to war in Iraq, but
truthfully did not have the credibility or could prove what they were
saying was a fact.
Just today, as a matter of fact, my good friend and Mr. Paul's good
friend from Missouri, Ike Skelton is on the floor. I assume he will
speak when we finish. We held hearings today on the Armed Services
Committee. He is the ranking member.
This was to, if you will, to rally about the fact that we found 500
weapons known as munitions that Senator Santorum and Representative
Hoekstra were saying, oh, this shows us that there was weapons of mass
destruction. It just was not true. I do not mean to discredit them, but
it was not true.
These weapons, according to the experts were probably in existence
from 1984 to 1991. And as a matter of fact, today at our hearing, we
had a former UN inspector, David Kay, Dr. David Kay. And I quoted this
during the hearing today. Mr. Kay has said, when this announcement was
made 2 weeks ago, and nobody at the administration was excited about
it, and said, oh, this is the secret. This is what happened. This is
why we went to war.
None of that was said. And certainly I have not heard a peep, if you
will from Secretary Rumsfeld. But Dr. Kay said, well, I questioned this
as far as being the weapons of mass destruction. And this is what he
said, and I brought this out today, later on this afternoon.
I will quote this. He said, ``They probably would have been intended
for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq war'', said Dr. Kay who
headed the U.S. weapons hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until 2004.
He said, ``experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in almost 100
percent agreement that Sarin nerve agents produced from the 1980s would
no longer be dangerous''.
And I quote, and a quote Dr. David Kay, and I asked him about this
today. And he said, yes, sir, this is what I said. ``It is less toxic
than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this
point''. That is what he said.
And yet we have got those in the Congress who are just beating the
drums of, this is what we are saying, this is the reason we went to
war. We should never, under any circumstances, send American boys to
die for this country unless we know the intelligence has been verified,
verified, verified.
And I regret, and I said this Monday. I was invited by Senator Dorgan
to sit on the Democratic Policy Committee's investigation of the Iraq
war where they had three or four CIA agents there to testify.
And the Senator very kindly allowed me to sit at the dais. And I
apologized that I did not ask the questions before we went into Iraq. I
know knew better, but I did not at the time. I am not smarter, Mr.
Speaker, but I am wiser, much wiser.
But I said today, as Frank Gaffney who was on the panel with Dr.
Taylor, former UN inspector, and also Dr. David Kay. And Mr. Gaffney
was saying, well, you know what we need to do is we need to get the
President to speak more about the potential threat and this and that.
And I said, well, the problem is trust. The American people have to
trust the Congress. They have to trust the administration, be it
Democrat or Republican. I said to Mr. Gaffney, I said, I assume that an
article in the London Times and the New York Times must be accurate,
because I have heard no one dispute it, because if it is true, I would
want to demand that I get 8 o'clock national TV to say this is not
right, I will not accept it.
But this is what was said, just two quick points. This is by David
Manning, who was Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy advisor at the time.
Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush were meeting. This is about 6 months before we
went into Iraq. And this is what Mr. Manning says, ``our diplomatic
strategy had to be arranged around the military planning''.
He further stated, ``that at one point during this discussion between
Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush, that it was said that Mr. Bush suggested that
the U.S. might be able to have a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, colored
in the UN colors, followed by American fighters and fly it over Iraq
and maybe Saddam Hussein would shoot it down. And if Saddam Hussein
fired on them it would be a breach''.
He further stated that, ``maybe it would be possible to get someone
to come in and testify that, yes, he has got weapons of mass
destruction''.
Mr. Speaker, I bring this forward, I do not delight in challenging
the administration. But I will tell you that when I go to Walter Reed,
like many of my colleagues, both sides, and I never will forget a
soldier 4 weeks ago, I was there with Wayne Gilchrest, Mr. Gilchrest, a
Member of Congress, was a Vietnam veteran. And he was wounded in
Vietnam and spent 4 months at Walter Reed.
And we went to Walter Reed, and it was kind of nice to me, I am not a
veteran, and for me to be able to say to the wounded, this is a Member
of Congress, who like yourself spent 4 months in Walter Reed. He was
wounded in
[[Page H4910]]
Vietnam fighting for his country. He is a Marine.
But I never will forget the fellow, Luke, and then I will yield back
to the gentleman from Texas before we close. We were standing there and
Luke's mom, Luke is from Florida, I do not have permission to use his
last name so I will not use it.
Luke's mom and dad were there. We met them and shook hands. And
Luke's mom never stopped crying. And she would not--it was just tears.
It was not boo-hoo. But tears. So we talked to Luke. And Luke said,
when we got ready to finish, and his girlfriend by the way, he is
engaged now with a ring on her hand, he introduced us.
We got ready to leave. He said, Congressman, can I ask you a
question? And we said certainly. He said, who is responsible for the
stop loss program, where our men and women in uniform who have served
their time in Iraq and Afghanistan are extended because of the fact
that we are really short on replacements, to be honest about it.
And we said, the Department of Defense. They have the authority. He
said, will you do me a favor when you go back to Congress? He said, I
am just a sergeant. He said, tell them two or three things for me. We
said, certainly. He said, first of all, my very best friend was killed
3 months after he was extended.
He said I was on my third tour of duty. He pulled the sheets down.
His legs are gone, both legs are gone. He said, Congressman, my humble
opinion is whether you are there 10 days or 10 years, you are not going
to change the people of Iraq. It is a different culture. It is a
different country.
Whether Luke will be right on that or wrong, I do not know. But why I
am here tonight with my friend from Texas is that I have always
regretted, since I voted for the resolution, because I should have
asked more questions. I should have been more inquisitive. But I was
not.
And I do have a pain. I have signed over 8,000 pieces of paper to
families in this country. There have been over 2,500 killed. And when
you factor in their extended families, we have signed over 8,000 pages.
It requires, it is a two-page letter. It requires my signature on one
page and the second page also.
I have done that because my heart aches, the fact that I did not
question. And yet, I want this Congress, both Democrat and Republican,
as my friend from Texas said just a few minutes ago, we have an
oversight responsibility to say how and why were we given information
that was not credible?
Why were we given intelligence that had not been verified three times
before we sent American kids to give their life and their limbs for
this country.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield back to the gentleman from
Texas and thank him for giving me a few minutes to share my thoughts
with the American people, and to say that I will continue, Congressman
Paul, to seek the truth. Because this democracy will not survive unless
the American people know the truth. Whether it is good or bad, we must
know the truth. Thank you, sir.
[From Time Magazine, Apr. 9, 2006]
Why Iraq Was a Mistake
(By Lieut. General Greg Newbold (Ret.))
Two senior military officers are known to have challenged
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfe1d on the planning of the Iraq
war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found
himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the
Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections
internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the
war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a
full-throated critique:
In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem
``Won't Get Fooled Again.'' To most in my generation, the
song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders,
who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in
Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture--who
became career members of the military during those rough
times--the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its
lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by
quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us
into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never
again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain
silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-
considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment
is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again.
From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps
lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a
party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq--an
unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret
of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense.
And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me
uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly
challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose
actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda. I
retired from the military four months before the invasion, in
part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's
tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have
resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long
enough.
I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments
of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful
visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have
been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but
unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning
from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to
be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to
shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation
for civilian and military leaders to get our defense
policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the
commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.
With the encouragement of some still in positions of
military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in
uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those
who can't--or don't--have the opportunity to speak. Enlisted
members of the armed forces swear their oath to those
appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a
person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.
Before the antiwar banners start to unfurl, however, let me
make clear--I am not opposed to war. I would gladly have
traded my general's stars for a captain's bars to lead our
troops into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
And while I don't accept the stated rationale for invading
Iraq, my view--at the moment--is that a precipitous
withdrawal would be a mistake. It would send a signal, heard
around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists' message
that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances
of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to
govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to
change my position.
I will admit my own prejudice: my deep affection and
respect are for those who volunteer to serve our nation and
therefore shoulder, in those thin ranks, the nation's most
sacred obligation of citizenship. To those of you who don't
know, our country has never been served by a more competent
and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that ``we'' made
the ``right strategic decisions'' but made thousands of
``tactical errors'' is an outrage. It reflects an effort to
obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for
failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The
truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic
guidance they receive, not because of it.
What we are living with now is the consequences of
successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the
distortion of intelligence in the buidup to the war,
McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from
having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain
and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell
civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the
heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies
who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq,
and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our
government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense
Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our
forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger
that are the special province of those who have never had to
execute these missions--or bury the results.
Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the
Pentagon's military leaders is quite another. Those are men
who know the hard consequences of war but, with few
exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently
needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed,
saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war,
or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times
crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who
wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior
officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were
simply intimidated, while still others must have believed
that the principle of obedience does not allow for
respectful dissent. The consequence of the military's
quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was
executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real
enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.
There have been exceptions, albeit uncommon, to the rule of
silence among military leaders. Former Army Chief of Staff
General Shinseki, when challenged to offer his professional
opinion during prewar congressional testimony, suggested that
more troops might be needed for the invasion's aftermath. The
Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense castigated him in
public and marginalized him in his remaining months in his
post. Army GEN John Abizaid, head of Central Command, has
been forceful in his views with appointed officials on
strategy and micromanagement of the fight in
[[Page H4911]]
Iraq--often with success. Marine Commandant GEN Mike Hagee
steadfastly challenged plans to underfund, understaff and
underequip his service as the Corps has struggled to sustain
its fighting capability.
To be sure, the Bush Administration and senior military
officials are not alone in their culpability. Members of
Congress--from both parties--defaulted in fulfilling their
constitutional responsibility for oversight. Many in the
media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before
the invasion from wise observers like former Central Command
chiefs Joe Hoar and Tony Zinni but gave insufficient weight
to their views. These are the same news organizations that
now downplay both the heroic and the constructive in Iraq.
So what is to be done? We need fresh ideas and fresh faces.
That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many
others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach. The
troops in the Middle East have performed their duty. Now we
need people in Washington who can construct a unified
strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our
Nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising
on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve
it. It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution
in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears
them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.
{time} 2200
Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman, and I certainly appreciate your
contribution. And I certainly appreciate your character, because you
have been willing to admit something and change your position, which is
sometimes very, very difficult for most people.
I have, of course, great concern, as I expressed earlier, about the
war that is going on. But war in general is so dangerous to the cause
of liberty, because it is in time of war that people are more willing
to sacrifice their liberties. Today, we are told constantly that we
have to do such-and-such here in this country because we are at war.
Yet, we haven't declared a war. The war has not been declared.
We went to war without a declaration. And instead of being precise on
just who the enemy is, we have a war against terrorism, yet terrorism
is nothing more than a technique. There are all kinds of terror,
terrorist acts, and all kinds of different people. So you really can't
have a war against terrorism. So we should be much more precise.
But why I have, for as long as I can remember, been preaching the
doctrine of the Founding Fathers on foreign policy is because I think
it would be so much better for us. We would fight fewer wars, we would
be a lot wealthier, there would be a lot less killing, and it would be
so much better for us, and that is simply a policy of nonintervention.
And as I stated in my prepared remarks, this is a good moral position,
it is a good constitutional position, and it is a good practical
position.
Wars that are fought indiscriminately and without declaration and
without everybody being together and fighting for a quick victory, they
linger and they just never have good resolve. And that is essentially
what has happened since World War II. So I will continue to talk about
nonintervention. I believe my allies, the Founding Fathers of this
country, and the Constitution, should be enough reason for everybody to
at least give consideration to nonintervention.
And I am convinced that our liberties would be better protected, our
financial circumstances would be so much better off, and certainly we
wouldn't have the burden and the heavy heart that Mr. Jones certainly
bears about seeing so many young people needlessly losing their legs
and dying in a battle that is so difficult to understand and has not
come to resolve.
____________________