[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17738-17740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  INACCURATE INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there has been a great deal of debate in 
Washington, DC, about the circumstances leading up to the invasion of 
Iraq earlier this year. No one has come to the defense of Saddam 
Hussein, nor should they. He was a tyrant who oppressed his people. The 
fact that he is out of power is in the best interest of not only the 
people in Iraq but in the Middle East and the world.
  But leading up to our invasion of Iraq were a series of statements 
and events from the administration justifying our role and our 
leadership. They were hotly debated on the floor of the Senate last 
October, leading to a vote on the use of force resolution--a vote which 
23 of us opposed, believing that if we were going to be engaged in 
Iraq, it should be on an international basis, using the United Nations 
and other countries to join us in a coalition that would not only lead 
to a successful military invasion but also to a successful peace 
afterward, stability in Iraq for years to come.
  The prevailing view, the majority view in the House and the Senate, 
was otherwise, giving the President the authority to go forward with 
this military invasion of Iraq. And so, for the months that followed 
between October and the ultimate invasion, the administration came 
forward with additional evidence, additional statements, and additional 
rationalization for our role and our leadership.
  One of the key moments in the development of this case against Iraq 
and support by the American people was President Bush's State of the 
Union Address. It is a historic gathering each year, where a joint 
session of Congress comes together in the House Chamber, joined by the 
President's Cabinet, the Supreme Court, the diplomatic corps, and 
scores of people in the balconies, as the President comes and speaks 
from his heart to the American people. It is probably the most closely 
watched and covered Presidential speech of any year, and should be, 
because the President really tries to outline where America is and 
where it is going.
  So we listened carefully to each word. And many times during the 
course of that speech, President Bush made his case for the United 
States invasion of Iraq. One of the statements he made during the 
course of that speech has taken on quite a bit of controversy. It was a 
statement that the President made, attributing to British intelligence 
sources, which suggested that from the African country of Niger there 
was a sale or shipment of uranium which could be used for nuclear 
weapons in Iraq. President Bush said those words in his State of the 
Union Address. And, of course, this was growing evidence of our concern 
about the increased militarization of Saddam Hussein and his threat not 
only to his people and the region but to other nations as well.
  This was one of many elements in the President's case against Iraq, 
but it was an important one because there was the belief that if Saddam 
Hussein had moved beyond chemical and biological weapons and now could 
threaten the world with nuclear weapons, he had to be viewed in a 
different context, as a much more dangerous leader than ever before. So 
people listened carefully to President Bush's statement.
  But then, after that State of the Union Address--within a matter of 
days--questions were being raised as to the truthfulness of the 
President's statement, whether or not it was accurate to say that 
uranium or any type of

[[Page 17739]]

nuclear fissile material had been sent from an African nation to Iraq. 
The debate ensued for many months, even as the invasion started.
  Last night, CBS issued a special report based on statements coming 
out of the Central Intelligence Agency. Those statements are very 
troubling. Those statements indicate that America's intelligence 
agencies came to the White House before the State of the Union Address 
and told the National Security Council there was no credible evidence 
linking Niger or any African nation with providing nuclear fissile 
materials to Iraq, and despite that statement from the CIA to the 
National Security Council, and to the White House, decisions were made 
in the White House for the President to go forward with his speech 
saying exactly the opposite, carefully wording it so that it attributed 
that information to British intelligence sources, carefully making 
certain that the President did not allude to the fact that American 
intelligence sources thought that was not a credible statement.
  So where do we stand today? The President said earlier this week that 
he apologizes, that that was an unsubstantiated remark and it was not 
accurate. And now, with this release of information from our 
intelligence agencies, reporters, who are traveling with the President 
and his group in Africa, are asking the leaders of the White House who 
made this decision, who decided to go forward with the statement in the 
President's State of the Union Address which was not accurate, which 
was misleading.
  Condoleezza Rice, the President's National Security Adviser, insists 
that George Tenet of the CIA approved this information that was 
included in the President's speech. George Tenet, in a press report, 
said he did not, he was not involved in making that statement to the 
White House. Two of the highest officials in the Bush administration 
are at odds as to who was responsible for that information. That 
question has to be asked and answered, and it has to be done so 
immediately.
  I can think of nothing worse than someone at the highest level of 
leadership in the White House deliberately misleading the President or 
deliberately misleading the American people about something as 
essential as whether or not nuclear materials were being sent into Iraq 
before our invasion.
  What was at stake, of course, was not just another foreign policy 
debate. What was at stake was an invasion of military force, largely 
led by the United States, putting American lives on the line.
  The case was being made in that State of the Union Address for the 
American people to rally behind the President, rally behind the troops, 
and invade Iraq. And now we know that one of the elements--one of the 
central elements--in that argument was, at best, misleading--that in 
fact we knew better. We knew, based on our own investigation, based on 
a visit by former Ambassador Joe Wilson, based on the evidence of 
forged documents, that uranium and other fissile materials were not in 
fact transported from Niger to Iraq. Despite that, in the State of the 
Union Address, exactly the opposite was said.
  Yesterday, on the State Department authorization, I offered an 
amendment, a bipartisan amendment, joined in by several of my 
Democratic colleagues and many of my Republican colleagues, calling on 
the inspectors general in the Department of State and the CIA to get to 
the bottom of this, and do it immediately. I believe the American 
people deserve an answer. We need to know what White House official 
decided to distort the intelligence information and give the President 
a statement which was in fact misleading.
  I want to make it clear that there is no evidence whatsoever that the 
President knew this information was inaccurate. I do not make that 
accusation, nor will I. But someone knew. Someone in the White House 
knew the National Security Council had been briefed and told that this 
information was not accurate, and yet it was still included in the 
State of the Union Address. It really calls into question the 
leadership of the White House and our intelligence agencies. And I can 
tell you, now, more than ever, we need to have the best intelligence 
sources in the world.
  You cannot successfully wage a war on terrorism without the very best 
military intelligence, without the best information about those 
threatening the United States. It has to be credible evidence. The 
people in the intelligence agency have to have a sound working 
relationship with the White House and the Congress. What we saw in the 
State of the Union Address was a breakdown of that relationship. That 
does not make America safer. It makes us more vulnerable.
  Secondly, this is a Nation now pledged to a policy of preemption. We 
are prepared, according to this President, to invade a nation that may 
threaten us, even if they do not apparently pose any imminent danger to 
us at the time. How do you reach the conclusion that a nation threatens 
us? Clearly from intelligence information. Clearly, the intelligence 
coming out of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National 
Security Agency, and others has to be delivered to the National 
Security Council and to the President in a credible fashion. Yet we 
have clear evidence that the chain of communication which we count on 
for the security of our Nation broke down when it came to the 
President's State of the Union Address.
  The credibility of our President is on the line. I believe he should 
move forward as quickly as possible to call for a full investigation. 
We should be able to point to those people responsible for putting this 
misleading language in the State of the Union Address. They should be 
held accountable, and they should be dismissed. That is inexcusable 
conduct by someone at that level of government to mislead the President 
or allow him to mislead the American people.
  It is interesting to me that this issue is gaining ground and 
velocity as the President travels overseas. I certainly wish that were 
not the case. It would be better for him to be home because he has an 
important mission in Africa and a message that now will not be as clear 
because of this surrounding controversy. It is incumbent on us in 
Congress in our oversight role, and it is incumbent on the press corps 
in America to stand up to their responsibility to ask the hard 
questions and, in asking those questions, find out who should be held 
accountable for this misleading statement in the President's State of 
the Union Address. We owe it to the American people to give them the 
answers, to tell them that in the war on terrorism our intelligence 
sources are credible, that they have a good linkage and dialog with the 
White House and that the linkage will make America a safer place.
  Someone made a decision to twist and distort this information for 
reasons which have yet to be disclosed. As we led to the buildup to the 
invasion of Iraq, that was one of the things the American people 
believed because they heard it from their President. The President in 
the State of the Union Address speaks from the heart to the American 
people. He should be believed. In that situation, he needs to have the 
very best advisers and staff near him giving him accurate information. 
We now know that the President has been embarrassed by information 
which he said and has now had to say to the American people was not 
true. That has to change. People have to be held accountable. That 
should be done immediately.
  If Congress cannot force this investigation, the President, as our 
leader, as the person responsible for the executive branch, should 
initiate this investigation on his own, find those responsible, hold 
them accountable, and dismiss them from the Federal Government.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 40 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the Chamber to speak about a 
very important subject, one we will be debating more vigorously next 
week

[[Page 17740]]

when we return. Hopefully, we will be back on the subject of energy 
independence and energy policy for the Nation. The Chair and I serve on 
a subcommittee with responsibility in that regard, and we both work 
closely with Senator Domenici and Senator Bingaman on fashioning energy 
policy. We will soon be back on that. I wanted to make a couple of 
comments regarding several important aspects of the energy legislation.
  Before I do, I would be remiss if I did not associate myself with the 
remarks of the Senator from Illinois. He raises a very important point, 
a critical point, one that deserves the full attention of the Congress 
and the administration.
  As most Americans are well aware, we are going to be conducting war 
in a very different way than we have conducted it in the past. The 
visions we all have growing up, and some of us even from personal 
experience in fighting in World War I or World War II or Vietnam of 
Korea, are going to be very different than what we face in the future. 
Wars are not necessarily going to be fought nation against nation, army 
against army, air force against air force, but they are going to be 
fought by our military and our homeland security apparatus and our 
intelligence, along with multinational intelligence against terrorist 
cells, some of which are not state-supported. Some cells are very 
difficult to find, as we know from experience because we have yet to 
find the leaders of two of the worst terrorist organizations in the 
world.
  Intelligence has always been so essential to war, having the generals 
on the battlefield know more about the enemy than the enemy knows about 
us. Intelligence has been critical in winning in times past, and there 
is no substitute. No amount of manpower or womanpower, no 
sophistication of weapons systems, no strategic battle plans can take 
the place now in the wars we are going to face, because it is a war 
against terror, than complete excellence through and through at every 
level in our intelligence apparatus.
  It does not have to be only American intelligence. We have to have an 
international intelligence network with our allies that is the most 
superior ever in the world if we are going to protect the American 
people and act in their best interest, to use our resources wisely and 
to win the war against terror.
  This is not something in which I like to engage, not only as a 
Senator but as a mother. I am not engaging in a war on terrorism so 
this is going to be a permanent situation. I engage in the war against 
terror to provide for a world where my children, who are now 11 and 6, 
don't have to engage. We want to win the war and win it in 5 or 10 or 
15 years. It is incomprehensible to the American people that we would 
be engaged in such a war over the next 50 or 60 years. We want to win. 
We want to show the world a better way. To do that, we have to have the 
very best intelligence we can. The Senator from Illinois raises a very 
important point. While there might not have been purposeful 
manipulation, while no one here wants to accuse the President in any 
way, there are clearly some problems right now, based on the 
information we are receiving about who knew what and what reports were 
adhered to, what were pushed to the side, what information was provided 
and what was not.
  For the overall credibility of our intelligence, the credibility of 
our military, the credibility of our Government, this information must 
be investigated more fully. The truth must come to light. The 
appropriate actions must be taken so we can move on to improve the 
current situation, which is extremely difficult.
  I associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Illinois 
regarding our intelligence personnel.

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