[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 116 (Monday, September 18, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9666-S9668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ADMINISTRATION'S MISTAKES IN THE IRAQ WAR
Mr. REID. Mr. President, for more than 3 years, this Congress, which
has been given the name of the ``do-nothing Congress,'' has turned a
blind eye to the intractable war in Iraq, ignoring the administration's
many mistakes and allowing it to stay on a failed course.
Here we are, with 6 days left in the 109th Congress, and the
Republicans, who control the House and Senate and the White House, have
not held one hearing--not one--into the President's wartime failures.
During the Civil War, President Lincoln was faced continually with
oversight hearings by his Congress. Of course, we know during World War
II, there were a number of commissions. The most famous was that
conducted by Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, which led to his
becoming Vice President. Some say, but for that he would not have been
chosen as Vice President. What was the Truman Commission? It was to
determine what was going on with World War II. Was money being wasted?
Were troop levels right? Korean war hearings were also held, and the
same for the Vietnam war. But for this war, none--even though this war
has taken longer than it took to settle the differences in the European
theater in World War II. Soon it will be the same amount of time that
we were able to beat Japan.
This Republican Congress has wasted 20 months on horse slaughtering;
the Schiavo case, dealing with someone's personal relationship, which
should not even have been before this body; gay marriage; the nuclear
option; flag burning; repealing the estate tax. But they could not find
a day for some time to look at the President's mistakes, missteps, and
misconduct, which have hurt American security and plunged Iraq into a
civil war--not a day.
Yesterday's Washington Post newspaper brought the latest indictment
of the Bush incompetence in Iraq, in a front-page story entitled ``Ties
to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq.'' Mr.
President, this article says a lot of things, but here is some of it:
. . . applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle
East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most
important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
It is interesting to note that the person selected to do this is a
man by the name of O'Beirne. I saw that name and it flashed because I
have been on programs with a woman by the name of Kate O'Beirne. And
I'll be darned, it happened to be her husband who was chosen to find
the people to take care of postwar Iraq.
Here are some of the questions that were asked of the applicants:
``Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000?'' They even asked questions
about how the applicant felt about Roe v. Wade. People being
interviewed for purposes of helping rebuild war-damaged Iraq were asked
questions on Roe v. Wade. The questions had nothing to do with one's
competence, their educational background, or their experience. The
article says that
. . . from April 2003 to June 2004 [it was clear that
O'Beirne] lacked vital skills and experience
to do what he was required to do. It says:
A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance--but had
applied for a White House job--was sent to reopen Baghdad's
stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative
commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical
university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage
Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a
background in accounting.
The article also says:
Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the
past two years depict an organization that was dominated--and
ultimately hobbled--by administration ideologues.
``We didn't tap--and it should have started from the White
House on down--just didn't tap the right people to do this
job,'' said Frederick Smith, who served as deputy director of
the DPA's Washington office. ``It was a tough, tough job.
Instead we got people who went out there because of their
political leanings.''
But many CPA staff members were more interested in other
things: in instituting a flat tax--
People were sent there with no background, no education, no academic
experience, and set out to create a flat tax in Iraq.
They were interested ``in selling off government assets, in ending
food rations and otherwise fashioning a new nation that looked a lot
like the United States. Many of them spent their days cloistered in the
Green Zone, a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad with towering
palms, posh villas, well-stocked bars and resort-size swimming pools.''
Mr. President, this picture says it all. Here is Paul Bremmer. They
dumped General Garner after a few weeks and brought Bremmer in. Here he
is, on his throne--on his throne. He is on a throne surrounded by
Iraqis.
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Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. REID. I will be happy to yield for a question.
Mr. DURBIN. Can the Senator refresh my memory? Was Mr. Bremmer the
recipient of a gold medal or something from the President? Didn't he
receive some high decoration or medal for his performance in Iraq?
Mr. REID. The answer is, yes, he received that. I assume one would
expect that from somebody who had a throne while he was over there.
Mr. DURBIN. Isn't it also true that George Tenet, who was responsible
for the intelligence that was so bad that led us into the war in Iraq,
got a medal from the President the same day?
Mr. REID. That is true.
Mr. DURBIN. Did Michael Brown with FEMA receive a gold medal from the
White House before he was dismissed?
Mr. REID. I don't think he did. Even though he was doing a heck of a
job, I don't think he obtained a medal from the White House.
Mr. DURBIN. Apparently, these gold medals were being awarded for
incompetence. They missed Mr. Brown, but they did give one to Mr.
Bremmer.
Mr. REID. The article goes on to say--and I say to my friend and
anyone within the sound of my voice:
To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought resumes
from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative
think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from
those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the
applicants possessed Arab language skills or postwar
rebuilding experience.
Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's resume
and pronounced him ``an ideal candidate.'' His chief
qualification was that had he worked for the Republican Party
in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.
I am not making this up. This is hard to comprehend.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for another question?
Mr. REID. I will be happy to.
Mr. DURBIN. I am trying to recall the exact number--it was in the
billions of dollars--that we gave to the President for the
reconstruction of Iraq; is that not true?
Mr. REID. It started out at $18 billion. But as the Senator from
Illinois will remember, part of that money, stacks of one-hundred-
dollar bills, was used by some of the contractors who were sent over
there to play football games--some of these same people.
Mr. DURBIN. It is also true, is it not, that the Democratic policy
conference has been holding hearings--in fact, I think it is the only
agency on the Hill holding hearings--on this waste and abuse, this
profiteering and corruption at the expense of American taxpayers and
even, equally important--more importantly--at the expense of our
troops?
Mr. REID. I say to my friend, this war is approaching 3\1/2\ years,
and there has not been a single congressional oversight hearing on the
conduct of the war. This war has now cost us, the American taxpayers,
about $325 billion. There has not been a single congressional oversight
hearing on the war.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from Nevada if he might comment on this
as well: Are we not in a situation where the President has told us that
he wants to ``stay the course'' in Iraq, and Vice President Cheney,
when asked a week ago, said he wouldn't change a thing in the way they
have done this war in Iraq? Is it very clear that unless there is a
change in leadership in this town soon, we are going to continue down
this disastrous course, exposing our soldiers to danger every single
day, their families to the anxiety of separation, and the taxpayers of
this country to billions and billions of dollars more being spent that
don't make us any safer?
Mr. REID. I say to my friend, I spent the weekend reading a book. I
did other things. I spent a lot of time on an airplane. The book is
called ``Fiasco,'' written by a man named Thomas Ricks who has spent
his life covering the military. He has written books on the military. I
don't know his political persuasion. This book is on the best seller's
list of the New York Times.
In this book, he talks in such detail about what has happened as a
result of the incompetence of this administration to our valiant
fighting men and women over there. I recommend the book to anyone. It
is a searing indictment of this administration. It is in keeping with
what this article is all about.
Another paragraph:
One former CPA employee who had an office near O'Beirne's
wrote an e-mail to a friend describing the recruitment
process: ``I watched resumes of immensely talented
individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown
in the trash because their adherence to `the President's
vision for Iraq' (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was
`uncertain.' I saw senior civil servants from agencies like
Treasury, Energy . . . and Commerce denied advisory positions
in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC
(Republican National Committee) contributors.''
One staffer said:
I'm not here for the Iraqis, I'm here for George Bush.''
Mr. President, this is really a sad commentary. Important jobs, such
as rebuilding the Iraq stock exchange, were given to applicants who
agreed with the President on Roe v. Wade. Qualified individuals were
turned down for jobs if they didn't vote for Bush in 2000. The children
of the President's conservative friends were given authority over the
country's $13 billion budget.
Today in Iraq we are witnessing the terrible consequences of Bush
cronyism, and it is our troops, the Iraqi people, and the American
people who are paying the price.
Reconstruction has been a failure. The economy is a mess. Thousands
are dying. Whole provinces have been lost. One province, Anbar
Province, makes up a third of the country. The military people said it
is gone. And the political solution necessary to bring Americans home
is nowhere to be found.
The testimony we hear from people such as the people in this
newspaper article is unbelievable. We have heard it time and again. The
only people who aren't listening are George Bush and this do-nothing
Congress.
If the Iraq war has taught us anything, it is that Congress must take
seriously its responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable,
and it has not happened. For 2 years, Democrats have offered
constructive solutions to change course in Iraq and give our troops and
the Iraqi people the chance for some type of stability and success. We
have said there must be a redeployment of forces this year to
transition the mission, to change the mission.
We have said we must resolve the sectarian differences through a
political settlement. That is called diplomacy. They need to amend
their constitution.
We said they must regionalize the conflict with a contact group or
conference to bring in those countries that said they will help.
We need to revitalize, and we can do that as I have indicated: get
the countries that said they would help to come in and help. There
needs to be a regional solution. We need to rebuild our badly strained
U.S. military. There is not a single undeployed Army unit today that is
battle ready. That says it all.
A number of generals have witnessed this administration's flawed Iraq
policy firsthand, and they have repeatedly called for new civilian
leadership at the Pentagon.
I say this with all due respect: I bet if those military personnel
weren't working for Government defense contracts, we would have a few
more speaking out. But we have had plenty.
In each instance, when the generals speak out, the Republican
Congress blocks their efforts and puts their political interests ahead
of America's safety.
The war in Iraq has been a diversion from the real war on terror. But
this administration and this do-nothing Congress are content to stay
the course, even as it makes America less safe and Iraq less stable.
We need a new direction. This Congress has failed.
I yield the floor.
(The remarks of Mr. Wyden and Mr. Bennett pertaining to the
introduction of S. 3908 are printed in today's Record under
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The Senator from West
Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. Madam President, what is the limitation on speeches at this
point?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are currently in morning business, with
[[Page S9668]]
Senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes.
Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak
for no more than 30 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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