[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18212-18214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                NEED OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN IRAQ

  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to address the situation in 
Iraq. Right now, America is bearing the primary burden in Iraq. Almost 
every day

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another soldier dies--not in combat but in postwar occupation. Our 
American soldiers must not bear this burden alone. Quite frankly, the 
American taxpayer must not bear responsibility for the cost of nation 
building alone.
  I urge our President, President Bush, to build an international 
effort to participate in sharing the burden and the responsibility of 
bringing order out of chaos in Iraq.
  The occupation of Iraq is something we all have to face up to. Last 
year, when the Senate debated the Iraq war resolution, I said this: We 
do not know whether our troops will be welcomed with flags or with land 
mines.
  Now we know. Our troops are facing great and grave danger. They are 
facing snipers, ambush. One soldier was shot in the back as he waited 
to buy a soda. Another was standing in line to buy DVDs, and he was 
shot in the back. This is not combat with an opposing army. These are 
murders, these are assassinations, and we need to stand up for our 
troops and give them the help and the backing they need.
  We need to stand up for these troops who are so dedicated, so duty 
driven, so wanting to do the job that America sends them to do, but 
they should not bear this all by themselves, with a few treasured 
allies.
  Since the President declared the end of hostilities, 82 soldiers have 
died. Our troops in Iraq are not peacekeepers or nation builders. There 
is no peace to keep and there is no nation to build. We have to start 
from scratch. America's troops now are an occupying force, and they 
continue to face very fierce resistance in parts of Iraq. In some 
areas, it is guerilla war with house to house fighting with members of 
the Saddam Fedayeen or other groups still loyal to Saddam Hussein 
trying to kill them. They are trying to ambush our military convoys.
  Our forces are seeking to establish order and security. Yet they are 
very highly visible, whether they are guarding facilities such as power 
stations or delivering supplies or training the Iraqi police force. 
This puts them at grave risk. American soldiers must not face this 
danger all alone.
  About 148,000 American soldiers are still serving in Iraq, and we 
salute them. There are over 13,000 troops from the United Kingdom, 
Australia, Poland, and other countries, and we thank them for being 
there. Many Marylanders are serving there, including members of our 
National Guard and Reserves, and I stand up for them to make sure they 
get the backup they need and they can return home from their 
deployment.
  America should not stand with just a coalition of the few. We need to 
have the international force of the many. This is why we need to go to 
the U.N. and ask for help. We need to go to NATO and get them involved, 
and we need to go to the world to help pay for the cost of doing this.
  Occupying Iraq is not easy and it is not cheap. Rumsfeld has now 
doubled his estimates of the cost of occupying Iraq, from $2 billion a 
month to $4 billion a month. The Pentagon estimates that the total cost 
will be over $100 billion. The American taxpayers are bearing that 
responsibility, and they will bear that responsibility for some time to 
come. When we talk about responsibility, it should be the 
responsibility of the world to help rebuild the power stations while we 
are trying to work to create a new power structure.
  Last week I supported a burden sharing amendment to the State 
Department authorization bill. Ninety-seven Senators agreed to that. 
Not one disputed it. What did it recommend? That the President ask NATO 
to raise a military force for deployment in postwar Iraq, and to urge 
NATO allies and other nations to provide troops and police to the 
coalition efforts in Iraq, and that the President should call on the 
United Nations to urge its member states to provide military forces and 
civilian police to promote stability and security in Iraq.
  It also said go to the U.N. to ask for resources to rebuild and 
administer Iraq. Iraqi oil alone will not pay for this. We have to get 
these oil wells ready.
  When the President asked for authorization to go to war, I said that 
if it is important enough to go to war, if it is important enough to 
the world to go to war, then the world should come with us.

       We must bring the entire international community with us to 
     share responsibilities and the burden of stopping these 
     threats.

  I saw the situation we are in coming. That is what I worried about, 
that American troops would be there by themselves, with a few steadfast 
allies, and the American taxpayer would be the one facing this nation 
building. That was my position then and it is still my position.
  During the debate in the Senate, I urged the Senate to support the 
Levin amendment, which called for international legitimacy, for 
international cooperation, international support, including military 
and international resources, meaning real money. I spoke on the Senate 
floor about the threat of Saddam Hussein, and I spoke about the threats 
to our troops. I said then that I firmly believed Saddam Hussein was 
duplicitous, deceptive, and dangerous and that they had grim and 
goulish means to carry out their weapons plans. I did believe that they 
could develop, produce, and stockpile chemical and biological weapons, 
and I did believe that they had the means for delivering them in the 
region. Whether the information I was given in all my briefings was 
valid or not is something to probe in another forum. We are committed 
to doing that.
  Right now, we need to acknowledge Saddam threatened not only the 
United States, he threatened the region and he threatened the world. 
Now the region and the world have to get into this. It is not too late. 
President Bush should mount a new diplomatic effort, recruiting allies 
to share these burdens of occupying Iraq and to root out the remaining 
resistance. We have to go to the U.N. and NATO to get formal 
authorization, get international help for this rebuilding. This is an 
opportunity to reach out, even to countries that opposed the war, such 
as France and Germany, and get them involved.
  I hope we can answer this call before the Iraqi resistance fight 
grows, before more American soldiers die, without sending more troops 
into Iraq by getting our allies to join. If our allies join, they can 
help provide the troops, they can help provide the police, and they can 
help provide the money.
  To our troops--regular, reserve, and their families--I say thanks. 
Thanks for helping get rid of Saddam Hussein and his regime. They were 
international thugs. They have made tremendous sacrifices. Each and 
every member of our military is part of this American family. We thank 
them for their bravery, their fortitude, and their gallantry. They 
answered the call to duty. I salute every single member of our Armed 
Forces.
  I express my condolences to all Marylanders who lost their lives and 
paid the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Rippitoe, CPL Mark Evnin, SGT 
Kendall Waters Bey, PFC Juan Guadalupe, SP George Mitchell, and CPL 
Jason Mileo. I honor these men and their families, all the Marylanders 
wounded, and every American soldier right now either in Baghdad or in a 
hospital recovering.
  Our troops know we count on them. They have to count on us to get 
them the help they need, not only with the right resources for our 
military but to get more military from other nations to support them. 
The international community was divided over whether to go to war in 
Iraq. Now the world should unite in support of winning the peace our 
American men and women have fought so hard to win and for which they 
have given so many sacrifices.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I join with Senator Mikulski in her 
comments expressing concern about the United States role in Iraq, the 
safety of our troops in Iraq, and how proud we are of our troops. I 
urge the administration to do what is necessary to restore morale. The 
best way is to do the right thing by our troops, make sure they are 
strongly supported and, even more fundamentally, rethink our position 
in Iraq: What is our policy? What are we attempting to accomplish? Then

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encourage many more of our allies, both in the Arab world and other 
parts of the world, to join the United States.
  This is a problem that will only be resolved with more thoughtfulness 
and more direct candor about the nature of the problem and working 
closely with our allies, both Arabs and others.
  We should also focus a little bit more on terrorism generally rather 
than get diverted, as we seem to be, in specific countries. It is 
extremely complex, but there is building concern in the United States 
about United States policy in Iraq. I join those who believe we should 
focus more on terrorism around the world. This requires the cooperation 
of a lot more countries around the world to be successful. I hope we 
can accomplish that.

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