[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 149 (Wednesday, October 3, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12454-S12456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ACCOUNTABILITY IN IRAQ

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, the calendar has just turned to 
October. The long-awaited month of September has passed. Why September? 
September, the month of the Petraeus report, was to be the month of 
accountability for Iraq, for its Government, and a time for 
accountability of the President's policy in Iraq. Instead, the result 
of the long-awaited month of September is that we are, once again, 
staying the course, as the President would have us do. We were not able 
to change course through the Defense authorization bill which passed 
yesterday, though many of us tried. Our efforts to change the mission 
away from deep involvement in Iraq's civil war and toward a more narrow 
focus on fighting al-Qaida failed, by a narrow margin, but failed. 
Efforts to enforce the transition with the power of the purse came up 
short as well.
  Tragically, for well over 4 years into this war, at a time when the 
Army chief of staff is sounding the alarm about readiness of our Army, 
the Senate was not even able to provide our troops and their families 
with predictable deployment schedules--a stunning week. This is far 
less than the American people expect from us, when they elected us to 
do far more. Over the next few months, I implore my colleagues to use 
this time well and to think deeply about what our commitment in Iraq 
means to our future and the world. I especially want my colleagues and 
the American people to think about what might happen if there is 
another attack on the United States, which is always a possibility. The 
fact there has not been says there has been some interdiction and a lot 
of good luck, and al-Qaida takes its time in planning what it really 
cares about.

  What if that attack has nothing to do with Iraq? What if the next 
attack is the result of planning and plotting

[[Page S12455]]

from al-Qaida and its terrorist affiliates who live in a safe haven on 
the Pakistani border? Will we regret that we did not do more to force 
the President to focus on the real threat facing this country--the only 
threat which wants to take us down in any way, shape, or form, which is 
possible?
  We cannot continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over. It is 
past time for a thorough understanding of how we got to be mired in 
Iraq's civil war, and why we must get out of it.
  I am often reminded of a prescient quote from Sandra Mackey in her 
book, ``The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein,'' which 
was written, incidentally, before the war began.
  Her book posed the central question: Would a future Iraq without 
Saddam Hussein be even more unstable and more problematic for the 
security of the United States itself?
  Mackey did what this administration failed to do prior to the war and 
continues to fail to do today. She studied the historical, religious, 
ethnic, and political landscape that produced Iraq and the combination 
of the above factors that produced Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and 
allowed it to be sustained. She did her homework on the background and 
the nature of the country and the people and the ebb and the flow of 
the forces that have worked there for 1,500 years.
  She predicted that we would pay a great price for our ignorance and 
utter lack of understanding of Iraq as a country.
  She wrote in her book, looking back to the first gulf war, and now 
the future:

       Then, in August of 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the 
     media turned its pages and air time over to Saddam Hussein.

  Just say the word ``Saddam,'' and you had people's attention, at 
least for a few moments.

       Ever since, it has been Hussein, not Iraq, on whom 
     Americans and their [civilian] leaders have riveted their 
     attention. But the time is fast approaching when the United 
     States, for a series of perilous reasons, will be forced to 
     look beyond Hussein to Iraq itself. That is when all 
     Americans will pay the price for what has been a long night 
     of ignorance about the land between the rivers.

  That being the Tigris and the Euphrates.
  What a horrible price it is: 3,800 brave men and women killed; nearly 
28,000 wounded, maimed, and scarred--most mentally and/or physically 
for the rest of their lives. Families have been torn apart. Divorce and 
suicide rates are climbing rapidly. Last year, 99 of our soldiers 
committed suicide, which is the highest rate since the Army started 
keeping records on that 26 years ago.
  The war has cost us as a people and our security so dearly in lives, 
resources, our standing around the world, our sense of ourselves, our 
self-esteem, and our moral authority.
  It tears my heart out that our troops are dying every day and 
suffering from these horrific wounds which are the new property of the 
recent years because of the White House's misguided policies from which 
it will not move.
  So I ask, why must we remain bogged down in Iraq--at such great 
cost--when there is a far greater threat that we must face and are not 
facing? Instead of focusing our resources on Iraq's civil war, we 
should be focusing all of our efforts on the elimination of al-Qaida, 
and, incidentally, doing something called protecting the American 
homeland, which seems to be casually handled in budget and in action.
  We must finally understand the fundamental fact that our brave and 
highly skilled soldiers cannot resolve Iraq's internal political, 
social, and religious fights--there is no argument about that--
particularly when enormous majorities of these people--98 percent of 
Sunni Arabs and 84 percent of Shia--want our forces to leave the 
country. That is more than a hint.
  This is not defeat. It is not surrender. It is not retreat. It is 
simply getting a grip on the problems we face.
  The reality is, it is not our fight. We cannot contribute there. 
There is very little we can do to affect it, if anything. Iraq is 
chaotic and violent because of deep-seated, centuries-old disputes that 
have nothing to do with us. It will likely remain chaotic and violent 
for the long foreseeable future, whether our military is involved in 
their dispute or whether it is not involved. It will not make any 
difference.
  We had an open intelligence hearing in which a number of experts, 
Arabists came and told us that, in fact, America is marginal to what is 
going on over there. It is all about Sunnis and Shias and Kurds, and 
about their ancient fights going all the way back to the death of 
Muhammad. So this sectarian war has nothing to do at all with the 
United States, and it has nothing to do with our true enemy, al-Qaida, 
which has only latched on to the sectarian competition to take 
advantage of our own mistaken involvement in it.
  The only thing that can change the course of Iraq is the Iraqi people 
and their leaders, and only if they can make dramatic changes in the 
way they view one another. I do not think that day will come. That is 
this Senator's opinion. We have examples of people getting along on a 
temporary basis when there are lots of troops around, other things, but 
that is not in their nature. It is not in the nature of that part of 
the world. We like to think it is because that is our nature. But it is 
not their nature.
  There is, however, a vital strategic and tactical role for our 
military, and that is eliminating al-Qaida. But it first requires 
understanding that global terrorism inspired by al-Qaida is a different 
problem from sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia. That is what 
you have to understand first--very simple, very plain. Our present 
policy continues to follow al-Qaida's playbook by conflating these two 
problems to create one single-minded ``enemy,'' thereby tying several 
different strands of violence into a single tangled knot. We must untie 
this knot and address these issues separately. And we must recognize 
that our involvement with Iraq is drastically diminishing our ability 
to do anything about al-Qaida.

  The war against al-Qaida and affiliated terrorists has two key 
components, in this Senator's point of view: a tactical component--
which is tracking, catching, and killing terrorists and disrupting 
their plots--and a strategic component--which is addressing the 
circumstances that produce terrorists and countering the ideology that 
drives them.
  Our war in Iraq diverts our military and intelligence resources from 
the tactical component--it is very clear that al-Qaida is gaining 
strength along with the Taliban in Afghanistan because we moved a lot 
of people out to fight a war that we had no business being in, and so 
we suffered where we originally were about to be strong--and it limits 
the amount of money available to address poverty and evolution of 
governments in the Muslim world.
  But perhaps the most damaging effect of the war in Iraq is the war of 
ideology. The Intelligence Committee has held several hearings this 
year looking at the role of ideology in the struggle against violent 
extremism. There is plenty of evidence, including unclassified 
intelligence assessments, that al-Qaida has successfully exploited the 
war in Iraq to recruit and train a new generation of terrorists--thanks 
to us. We have made that a possibility for them. Civilian leadership 
has handed them that golden gift, and they have made good use of it.
  But there is longer term damage the war in Iraq is doing to our 
counterterrorism efforts. It is making it impossible for us to make any 
progress in the war of ideas throughout the Muslim world. It is clear 
that winning this part of the war is the only way we will have an 
effect in the long term on this kind of instability and chaos.
  Al-Qaida wants us to stay in Iraq. As I said, we are following their 
game plan faithfully because our presence validates everything about 
their message of Westerners trying to dominate Muslims and occupy their 
lands--all of which is sacred to them. As long as we are there, voices 
of moderation toward the West will be drowned out.
  The bottom line is this: Continued U.S. involvement in Iraq is in al-
Qaida's interest, not America's. The longer we stay mired in Iraq, the 
stronger al-Qaida will grow.
  Again, declassified intelligence reports and a broad spectrum of 
experts have noted al-Qaida is as strong as any other time since 9/11--
this day--and growing stronger.
  President Bush says we should not allow Iraq to become ``a safe-haven 
from which they could launch new attacks on our country.'' Yet the 
President has already allowed al-Qaida to

[[Page S12456]]

create a safe haven, a huge safe haven on the Pakistani border. That 
situation is deteriorating on a daily basis, and it allows al-Qaida to 
continue to plan deadly attacks. And, believe me, that is their purpose 
for existing and living, and that is what they want from us. We have 
given them what they want from us.
  Our struggle to eliminate global terrorism may remain a mystery to 
our President, but it must not remain a mystery to us in the Congress 
and to the American people. We do have a responsibility to act. Whether 
history looks kindly on this Congress or not is not really so 
important. But we must take every single serious measure available to 
force the President to face reality and refocus America's mission in 
that part of the world.
  We have created deep and profound sadness and left thousands of 
people sitting in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives with shards 
of steel through their bodies that cannot be removed by surgeons. So 
they sit in wheelchairs in agony for the rest of their lives. They 
cannot take them out because they are too close to organs, arteries, so 
they sit in agony, probably a great number of them wishing they had 
just simply been killed.
  I will end that part and simply say that I would also like to remind 
the President of the United States that signing the CHIP bill won't 
change anything in Iraq, but it may have a whole lot to do with 
changing young people in America in the way they grow up, what their 
opportunities are, and their sense of optimism and commitment to public 
service and to the good of our country.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, would the Senator yield?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I yield to the Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I wanted to ask the Senator a 
question, but first I want to thank him for his very thoughtful and 
almost scholarly exposition of an examination of the situation in which 
we find ourselves in Iraq. I thank him for the service to his country, 
first in State government, rising to the position of Governor of his 
State, and now these many years as the Senator from West Virginia.
  The question I want to ask the Senator is, in his statement about the 
antipathy between Sunnis and Shiites--and he noted the historical 
antipathy as it goes back, he said, to the time of Muhammad. Indeed, we 
saw that first erupt from--I guess it was Muhammad's grandson at the 
Battle of Karbala in 680 A.D., and as a result of the murder--or the 
defeat of the grandson at that point, it was that group that was 
defeated that went on, out of revenge, to become the Shiites--a 
minority among all Muslims but nevertheless one that was potent and 
built on revenge. Is this the understanding of history the Senator from 
West Virginia recalls in his statement and why it is so difficult for 
us as an outside power to come in, in the middle of that sectarian 
strife, and try to bring about reconciliation?
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, the Senator from Florida, as usual, 
is correct. I thank him for his kind comments; he is not quite so 
correct about that.
  But, yes, that is very much the case. It is simply an example of why 
it is that America--why intelligence is the spear, the tip of the 
spear, and that we never do anything ever again without listening to 
our intelligence--not to Chalabi, not to Richard Perle, but to our 
intelligence--which told us all of these things, which told us what 
would happen, timidly at first but more boldly later on.
  We just live in a different world. We are homesteaders. I have always 
felt that way.
  After the industrial revolution, the East got sort of flooded up with 
folks who had come from other places, and they went out West with the 
Gold Rush and the land rush, they got their 10 square acres and built 
their houses and picket fences and went about educating their children 
and doing good things but paying very little attention to the rest of 
the world because there was no apparent reason to do so. We had never 
been attacked since 1812, and that was marginal, and 1941 had not 
arrived. This awakened us in many ways, but, in fact, it really didn't. 
Conscription for World War II passed the Congress, I believe--or one 
House of the Congress--I believe by one vote, after Pearl Harbor. We go 
over and we fight just wars, and then we come back and we disarm.
  It is not in our nature to know about the rest of the world. There is 
not a profound curiosity factor that pulls us, now that we are very 
much a part of the world, to understand what is going on in other parts 
of the world and in specific countries where there happens to be a 
threat of people who have come to see us as greedy, hate our green 
lawns and picket fences, and think that our view of life and morality 
is way off. They are very serious about that. We slough it aside, but 
they are very serious about that.
  So how we thought we could somehow do this, come in and mediate 
something which had been going on I would say since the death of 
Muhammad in 632--but that doesn't matter; it is a question of how his 
succession would be carried out. That has lasted ever since. The 
British and French came in and created a place called Iraq, but the 
tribal people who kept living all through those years there were always 
the same and their habits were always the same, and, in fact, it is 
true throughout most of the rest of the world, if you go to the 
Philippines, if you go to many places--revenge, tribal loyalties, as 
opposed to central government loyalties. I have never been convinced 
that a constitution or a parliament means a whit to the people of Iraq. 
It meant everything to us because it is sort of the definition of 
democracy on the rise, but I don't think it made any difference to them 
at all.
  So we misread because we don't read, we don't read and we don't 
study, we don't go, we don't learn languages because we don't think we 
have to, and we have not had to because the world has been very 
simple--the Soviet soldiers in uniform versus American soldiers in 
uniform, our various planes, tanks, and all the rest of it, but then a 
red phone on each side to try to calm things down. The world is no 
longer simple. Everybody looks like everybody else in very dangerous 
places.
  When we entered into Iraq, it was without thought, it was without 
study. The decision was more or less made within 2 or 3 days of 9/11, 
which, when you think about it, is rather silly. So there was no real 
understanding of Iraq, even as there is no real understanding of Iran 
today, no understanding of North Korea. There is a superficial 
understanding, the dramatic parts--nuclear this, something else that, 
starvation that. But who are they?
  Why is it that North Korea and South Korea--44 million in the south, 
22 million in the north--that amongst all of those people, 66 million 
people, there are only 400 surnames--``Nelson'' being a surname, 
``Rockefeller'' being a surname--there are only 400 surnames. The world 
is mixed and varied.
  Japan disappeared for 250 years during the Tokugawa era. Nobody could 
get in, nobody could get out. That was just 150 years ago, and they 
still bear some of that with them. Do we understand that? I don't think 
we do. They are a democracy. Are they? They were handed their 
Constitution by GEN Douglas MacArthur, and except for a period of 3 
months--and I was there during those 3 months--in the last 60 years, 
one party has controlled the country in its entirety.
  So there are many things to understand in this world, but among those 
places we did not understand and still do not are the vicissitudes of 
Iraq, the Sunni and the Shiites, each of them bearing within them many 
layers of competition, revenge, family feuds, all the rest of it.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the Senate has just witnessed 
one of the most insightful analyses by the chairman of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee on the present-day changes on planet Earth and 
how the United States should adapt to it by virtue of the fact of 
recounting history. This Senator is grateful to his chairman for that 
statement.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Senator.

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