[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20530-20534]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    IRAQ AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise to call the Senate's attention to a 
very important address that my distinguished senior colleague, the 
ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, delivered today on 
America's foreign policy and our ongoing operations in Iraq. I commend 
Senator Biden for his wise and eloquent words, and I hope that all of 
my colleagues will take note of this insightful address.
  Senator Biden delivered this address today on the one-year 
anniversary of the bipartisan hearings he held last year as chairman of 
the Foreign Relations Committee, in which the committee explored many 
of the very questions that are bedeviling us today in post-war Iraq. 
Those hearings raised, before the war, all of the questions we are 
confronted with today with respect to how many troops we will need to 
maintain in Iraq and for how long, as well as how much the 
reconstruction of Iraq will cost and how we can best secure 
international cooperation to share the burdens of bringing peace and 
democracy to Iraq. Indeed, Chairman Biden said at the very first of 
those hearings last year, ``We need a better understanding of what it 
would take to secure Iraq and rebuild it economically and politically. 
It would be a tragedy if we removed a tyrant in Iraq, only to leave 
chaos in his wake.'' One can only wish that the administration had paid 
more attention to the questions the committee raised and some of the 
warnings that the committee received from the distinguished witnesses 
that testified during those hearings.
  Senator Biden's speech today was an unapologetic defense of the 
decision to go to war in Iraq. ``Anyone who can't acknowledge that the 
world is better off without [Saddam] is out of touch,'' he said. ``The 
cost of not acting against Saddam would have been much greater, and so 
is the cost of not finishing the job.'' At the same time, Senator 
Biden's speech today was also a ringing affirmation of the historical 
tradition of bipartisan foreign policy that has been the hallmark of 
this institution and of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 
particular. He suggests that today, and I quote, ``the stakes are too 
high and the opportunities too great to conduct foreign policy at the 
extremes.''
  In very convincing terms, Senator Biden argues that we need to chart 
a sensible path between the prescriptions of neo-conservative purists, 
who affirm a strident unilateralism, and multi-lateral purists, who 
shrink from forcefully

[[Page 20531]]

acting in the absence of international consensus. Again I quote: ``What 
we need isn't the death of internationalism or the denial of stark 
national interest, but a more enlightened nationalism--one that 
understands the value of institutions but allows us to use military 
force, without apology or apprehension if we have to, but does not 
allow us to be so blinded by the overwhelming power of our armed forces 
that we fail to see the benefit of sharing the risks and the costs with 
others.''
  As Senator Biden argues, we need to act forcefully, but humbly in the 
world today. We need to be unapologetic in the post-9/11 world about 
fighting for the security of our people. But we need to pursue our 
goals, as Thomas Jefferson once said, ``with a decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind.'' The course that Senator Biden outlined today is 
the course we should follow, Mr. President. Ultimately, I believe that 
most Americans will conclude that we were right to act in Iraq. We also 
need to see the job through. But we need to reengage with the 
international community and make them partners in the noble work of 
securing the peace in Iraq and spreading freedom and democracy 
throughout the region. Again, I commend Senator Biden's address to my 
colleagues' attention, and I ask unanimous consent that the full text 
of it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                The National Dialogue on Iraq + One Year

  (By Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., The Brookings Institute, July 31, 
                                 2003)


               Introduction: America's Place in the World

       Most Americans don't know what you and I know, that there's 
     a war being waged in Washington to determine the direction of 
     our foreign policy. It goes well beyond the ordinary 
     skirmishes that are the stuff of politics and tactics. This 
     war is philosophical. This war is strategic and its outcome 
     will shape the first fifty years of the twenty-first century, 
     just as the consensus behind containment shaped the last 
     fifty years.
       Right now, the neo-conservatives in this Administration are 
     winning that war. They seem to have captured the heart and 
     mind of the President, and they're controlling the foreign 
     policy agenda. They put a premium on the use of unilateral 
     power and have a set of basic prescriptions with which I 
     fundamentally disagree. Just as I disagree with those in my 
     own Party who have not yet faced the reality of the post-9-11 
     world, and believe we can only exercise power if we act 
     multilaterally.
       I don't question the motives of either the neo-
     conservatives or the pure multilateralists. They genuinely 
     view the world differently than I do. Suffice it to say, in 
     my view the neo-cons and the pure multilateralists are both 
     wrong. What we need isn't the death of internationalism or 
     the denial of stark national interest, but a more enlightened 
     nationalism--one that understands the value of institutions 
     but allows us to use military force, without apology or 
     apprehension if we have to, but does not allow us to be so 
     blinded by the overwhelming power of our armed forces that we 
     fail to see the benefit of sharing the risks and the costs 
     with others.
       In my view, the stakes are too high and the opportunities 
     too great to conduct foreign policy at the extremes.


                              One Year Ago

       Exactly one year ago today, when I was Chairman of the 
     Foreign Relations Committee we began a series of bipartisan 
     hearings on America's policy toward Iraq.
       Our purpose was to start a national dialogue and give the 
     American people an informed basis upon which to draw their 
     own conclusions. At that first hearing, I said ``President 
     Bush has stated his determination to remove Saddam from power 
     a view many in Congress share . . .'' and I was among them. I 
     also said as clearly as I could ``If [removing Saddam] is the 
     course we pursue . . . it matters profoundly how we do it and 
     what we do after we succeed.''
       Now, a year later, Saddam is no longer in power and that's 
     a good thing. His sons Ouday and Qusay have been killed. 
     That's another good thing. They deserve their own special 
     place in hell. But the mission is hardly accomplished. The 
     new day in the Middle East has not yet dawned.
       We're still at war. American soldiers are still dying, one, 
     two, three at a time. Iraq is still not secure. Still no one 
     has told our troops that they'll have to stay for a long time 
     in large numbers; that they'll have to tough it out. Most 
     Americans still don't realize it's costing us a billion 
     dollars a week to keep our troops in Iraq, and billions more 
     in reconstruction, and revenue from Iraqi oil will not cover 
     these costs.
       And we still haven't heard a single clear statement from 
     the President articulating what his policy is in general and, 
     specifically, that securing Iraq will cost billions of 
     dollars, require tens of thousands of American troops for a 
     considerable amount of time, and that it's worth it. And, 
     most importantly, why it's in our national interest to stay 
     the course.
       Some in my own Party have said it was a mistake to go into 
     Iraq in the first place, and the benefit is not worth the 
     cost. I believe they're wrong. The cost of not acting against 
     Saddam would have been much greater, and so is the cost of 
     not finishing the job. The President is popular. The stakes 
     are high. The need for leadership is great.
       I wish he'd used some of his stored-up popularity to make 
     what I admit is an unpopular case. I wish the President, 
     instead of standing on an aircraft carrier in front of a 
     banner that said: ``Mission Accomplished'' would have stood 
     in front of a banner that said: ``We've Only Just Begun.''
       I wish he would stand in front of the American people and 
     say: ``My fellow Americans, we have a long and hard road 
     ahead of us in Iraq, but we have to stay in Iraq. We have to 
     finish the job. If we don't, the following will happen. 
     Here's what I'll be asking of you and, by the way, I'm asking 
     the rest of the world to help us as well. And I am confident 
     we'll succeed and as a consequence be more secure.''
       I'm waiting for that speech.
       I said a year ago that, ``In Afghanistan, the war was 
     prosecuted exceptionally well, but the follow-through 
     commitment to Afghanistan's security and reconstruction has 
     fallen short.''
       Our failure to extend security beyond Kabul has handed most 
     of the country to the warlords. The Taliban is regrouping. 
     The border area with Pakistan is a Wild East of lawlessness. 
     Afghanistan is now the number one opium producer in the 
     world. The proceeds will fund tyrants and terrorists, who 
     will fill the security vacuum, just as they did a decade ago. 
     And the billion dollars the Administration is talking about 
     sending Karzai is a year late and about 2 billion short. The 
     failure to win the peace in Afghanistan risks being repeated 
     in Iraq with even graver consequences.
       Those failures could condemn both countries to a future as 
     failed states, and we know from bitter experience that failed 
     states are breeding grounds for terrorists.
       If we don't write a different future, Americans will be 
     less secure.
       I said at that first hearing and I still believe today that 
     ``We need a better understanding of what it would take to 
     secure Iraq and rebuild it economically and politically. It 
     would be a tragedy if we removed a tyrant in Iraq, only to 
     leave chaos in his wake.''
       But that's exactly what could happen unless we make some 
     significant changes.
       Dr. Hamri, in his report to the Secretary of Defense and in 
     testimony before the Committee, said that the window of 
     opportunity is closing and it's closing quickly.


                          The Road to Baghdad

       Nine months ago, I voted to give the President the 
     authority to use force. I would vote that way again today. 
     Why? Because for more than a decade Saddam defied more than a 
     dozen U.N. Security Council Resolutions. He lost the Gulf 
     War, sued for peace, and was told by the U.N. what he had to 
     do to stay in power. Then he violated those agreements and 
     thumbed his nose at the U.N. He played cat-and-mouse with 
     weapons inspectors and failed to account for the huge gaps in 
     his weapons declarations that were documented by the U.N. 
     weapons inspectors in 1998. He refused to abide by the 
     conditions and, when he refused, it became the fundamental 
     right of the international community to enforce those rules.
       I voted to give the President authority to use force 
     because Saddam was in violation of his agreements. He was a 
     sadistic dictator who used chemical weapons against the Kurds 
     and the Iranians. He killed thousands of Shiites. He invaded 
     his neighbors, crossed a line in the sand, fired missiles 
     into Israel. And if we'd left him alone for five years with 
     billions of dollars in oil revenues I'm convinced he'd have 
     had a nuclear weapon that would have radically changed the 
     strategic equation to our detriment.
       In my view, anyone who can't acknowledge that the world is 
     better off without him is out of touch. That was the case 
     against Saddam. The President made it well.
       But then the ideologues took over and made Iraq about 
     something else. They made it about establishing a new 
     doctrine of preemption. And, in so doing, we lost the good 
     will of the world. Let me be clear. We face a nexus of new 
     threats and it requires new responses. Deterrence got us 
     through the Cold War but it can't be the only answer now.
       The right to act preemptively in the face of an imminent 
     threat must remain part of our foreign policy tool kit, as it 
     always has been.
       But this Administration has turned preemption from a 
     necessary option into an ill-defined doctrine. Iraq was to be 
     the test case. In my view, Iraq wasn't about preemption--It 
     was about the enforcement of a surrender agreement drafted by 
     the international community and signed by Saddam.
       Making Iraq the case for preemption, putting it at the 
     heart of our foreign policy,

[[Page 20532]]

     made it harder to get the world to join us. Why? Because not 
     one of our allies wanted to validate the preemption doctrine. 
     Raising preemption to a doctrine sends a message to our 
     enemies that their only insurance against regime change is to 
     acquire weapons of mass destruction as quickly as they can.
       It sends a message from India and Pakistan, to China and 
     Taiwan, to Israel and its Arab neighbors--if the United 
     States can shoot first and ask questions later, so can they.
       Preemption demands a high standard of proof that can stand 
     up to world scrutiny and ``murky intelligence'' is hardly 
     enough to meet that standard.
       Instead of a preemption doctrine, we need a prevention 
     doctrine that defuses problems long before they are on the 
     verge of exploding. And I'll be talking more about that in 
     the coming weeks.
       For now, suffice it to say, the Administration was wrong to 
     make Iraq about preemption. But we were right to confront the 
     challenge posed by Saddam.
       Contrary to what some in my Party might think, Iraq was a 
     problem that had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. I 
     commend the President--He was right to enforce the solemn 
     commitments made by Saddam. If they're not enforced, what 
     good are they?
       For me, the issue was never whether we had to deal with 
     Saddam, but when and how. And it's precisely the when and how 
     that this administration got wrong. We went to war too soon. 
     We went with too few troops. We went without the world. And 
     we're paying a price for it now.
       We authorized the President to use force. Congress gave him 
     a strong hand to play at the United Nations. The idea was 
     simple.
       We would convince the world to speak with one voice to 
     Saddam: disarm or be disarmed. In so doing we hope to make 
     war less likely. If Saddam failed to listen and forced us to 
     act, we'd have the world with us.
       But the Administration mis-played that hand . . . 
     undercutting the Secretary of State allowing our military 
     strategy to trump our diplomatic strategy. The world was 
     convinced that we were determined to go to war no matter what 
     Saddam did, and there were those in Europe who said they'd 
     never go to war no matter what Saddam did or didn't do.
       We insulted our allies and the U.N. weapons inspectors. We 
     failed to be flexible in securing a second U.N. resolution. 
     For the price of a 30-day deadline, we could have brought a 
     majority of the Security Council along with us. We didn't.
       We flip-flopped between trying to bully and bribe the 
     Turks. We lost the option to attack from the North and as a 
     result, we by-passed the Sunni triangle, which is the source 
     of so much of our trouble today. And worst of all, we hyped 
     the intelligence. I said ``hyped'', not ``lied about it.'' I 
     don't believe the President lied. But I do believe he was 
     incredibly ill-served by those in his administration who 
     exaggerated the very pieces of intelligence most likely to 
     raise alarms with the American people.
       It's not just 16 words in the State of the Union. It's that 
     consistently, in speech after speech, TV appearance after TV 
     appearance, the most senior Administration officials left the 
     impression with the American people that Iraq was on the 
     verge of reconstituting nuclear weapons. In fact, the Vice 
     President Cheney said they had already done it that it was in 
     league with Al Qaeda and complicit in the events of 9-11; 
     that it had already weaponized chemical agents that could 
     kill large numbers of Americans; and that it was developing 
     missile capability to strike well beyond its borders.
       The truth is there's little intelligence to substantiate 
     any of these claims. The truth is that there was an on-going 
     debate within our intelligence community about each of these 
     allegations. Yet the administration consistently presented 
     each of these allegations as accepted facts.
       I believe the purpose was to create a sense of urgency, the 
     sense of an imminent threat, and to rally the country into 
     war. The result is: we went to war before we had to--before 
     we had done everything we could to get the world with us.
       Does anyone in this room really, seriously believe that our 
     interests would have been severely hurt if we had waited to 
     go to war until this September or this October when we would 
     have had much of the world with us? And there's another 
     terrible result the damage done to our credibility.
       What happens now when we need to rally the world about a 
     weapons program in North Korea or Iran? Will anyone believe 
     us?
       In 1962, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State 
     Dean Acheson to France to brief DeGaulle about Soviet 
     missiles in Cuba. Acheson offered DeGaulle a full 
     intelligence report to back up the allegations. The French 
     President said that wasn't necessary, he didn't need to see 
     the report.
       He told Acheson he trusted Kennedy. That he knew the 
     President would never risk war unless he was sure of his 
     facts. After the way this Administration handled Iraq, will 
     we ever recover that level of trust with any of our key 
     allies?
       What price will we have to pay for the mistrust we've 
     created?


                        Getting It Right In Iraq

       Last month, Senators Lugar, Hagel and I traveled to 
     Baghdad. We left behind two of our senior staffers for an 
     extra week to see more of the country and talk to Iraqis. We 
     saw first hand that we have the best people on the ground. We 
     met with military commanders with officers and with enlisted 
     men and women and we spent time with Ambassador Bremer and 
     the A-team he's assembled. There's no doubt we've got the 
     right people in place. And we've made some real progress.
       It was clear to us that the vast majority of the Iraqi 
     people are happy Saddam is no longer in power. They want us 
     to stay as long as it takes to get them back on their feet. 
     Much of the country beyond Baghdad is relatively calm--
     hospitals and schools are open; the newly formed Iraqi 
     Governing Council is encouraging; and so are the local 
     councils, one of which we visited.
       But this very real progress is being undermined by our 
     failure so far to come to grips with some very fundamental 
     problems, and security is problem-number-one. It's always 
     problem-number-one. I've seen it in the Balkans. I saw it in 
     Afghanistan. And it's just as true in Iraq. Without security, 
     little else is possible. The problem breaks down into two 
     parts: First, we haven't put down the opposition from forces 
     loyal to Saddam. General Abizaid finally admitted we're 
     facing ``guerilla war.'' Almost every day that our troops 
     continue to get picked off, sometimes by a lone sniper, other 
     times by roadside bombs that kill two, three, four, or more 
     at a time. This cannot, it must not continue.
       There's a short-term fix: more foreign troops to share our 
     mission and more Iraqis to guard hospitals, bridges, banks, 
     and schools. If we had them, we could concentrate our troops 
     in the Sunni triangle--where they're needed and where they 
     can do the type of military job for which they were trained.
       The second security issue is the pervasive lawlessness that 
     makes life in Iraq so difficult for so many of its citizens. 
     During the day, many Iraqis are afraid to leave home, go to 
     work, go shopping even for the basic needs of their family. 
     At night that fear makes much of Baghdad a ghost town. 
     Without cops, there are countless reports of rapes and 
     kidnapings.
       When I was at the Baghdad police academy run by former New 
     York City Police Chief Bernie Kerik, they told us just how 
     far we have to go to get a functioning police force up and 
     running.
       Under Saddam, Iraqi cops rarely left their headquarters. If 
     there was a murder, they wouldn't investigate out in the 
     field. They'd ask people to come to them, and if they 
     didn't--they'd get shot. We're not just RE-training Iraq's 
     cops, we're training them from the ground up.
       We've got to build back to the 18,000 police cars that are 
     needed from the 200 available now. We've got to rebuild 
     Iraq's major prisons, virtually all of which were burned or 
     looted. Ultimately, only Iraqis can provide for their own 
     security.
       The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps we've begun to establish will 
     help, but all of our experts agree that it'll take five years 
     to train the necessary police force of 75,000 and three years 
     to field an army of 40,000. Until then, security is on our 
     shoulders.
       Meanwhile, the Administration seems to have lost interest 
     in the very issue they told us was the reason to go to war--
     Iraq's WMD. I can't fathom how we failed to secure the known 
     WMD sites after the war, leaving them vulnerable to looting 
     and smuggling.
       And I can't understand how the Deputy Secretary of Defense 
     could say, just last week, that he's ``not concerned about 
     weapons of mass destruction.''
       On top of these overwhelming security challenges, the 
     country's infrastructure is suffering from almost 30 years of 
     neglect. That certainly shouldn't have been a surprise.
       Even before the war, demand for electricity exceeded 
     supply--6000 megawatts were needed; 4000 was the capacity. 
     There were brownouts and blackouts. Today we're not even back 
     to 4000 megawatts and may not get there until September. 
     It'll take several years and more than 13 billion dollars to 
     stay even with demand. The same is true with water--we'll 
     need five years and more than 15 billion dollars to meet 
     Iraqi demand. This feeds the gnawing sense of insecurity that 
     paralyzes life in the capital.
       Ultimately, our goal has to be to revive Iraq's economy 
     because idle hands, rising frustration, and 5 million AK-47s 
     is not a recipe for security. Finally, we're doing a terrible 
     job of letting Iraqis know how Saddam destroyed their country 
     and that we're working to make their lives better.
       In fact, when I was in Baghdad, the CPA was broadcasting 
     just 4 hours a day. I'm told we're up to nearly 14 hours but 
     the programming--bureaucrats reading dry, dull official 
     scripts--makes public access television look good! Meanwhile, 
     Al Jazeera and Iranian TV dominate the airwaves 24/7 with 
     more sophisticated programming. The bottom line is this: 
     Iraqis simply can't understand how the most powerful nation 
     on earth, which toppled Saddam in three weeks, and, with 
     exact precision, directed laser guided bombs through the side 
     door of a house, how that all-powerful nation can't get 
     lights turned on.

[[Page 20533]]

       In short, Iraqis have high expectations and we're not 
     coming close to meeting them. Some of this is out of our 
     control but we've brought a large part of this on ourselves. 
     And that's because the problems in Iraq today were compounded 
     by the false assumptions this Administration made going in, 
     and by its failure to listen to its own people and outside 
     experts. They assumed we'd be greeted as liberators. They 
     assumed our favorite exiles would be embraced by the Iraqi 
     people as new leaders. They assumed that the civil service, 
     the army, and the police would remain intact and that all 
     we'd have to do is replace their Baathist leadership. They 
     assumed that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the lion's 
     share of reconstruction. All these assumptions were wrong, 
     wrong, wrong.
       The result is: They failed to begin planning for post-
     Saddam Iraq until just weeks before we attacked forgetting 
     that we began planning for post-war Germany three years 
     before the end of World War II. They failed to plan for the 
     looting and sabotage. They failed to account for the decay 
     and destruction of Iraq's infrastructure. They failed to 
     secure commitments from other countries to help pay for 
     Iraq's reconstruction. They failed to see the critical 
     importance of putting enough boots on the ground, both our 
     own and those of other countries.
       Back in 1999, our military planners ran an exercise that 
     concluded we'd need 400,000 troops--not to win, but to secure 
     Iraq. Just before we invaded, the National Security Council 
     prepared a memo that said the number was more like 500,000. I 
     don't know if the President read the memo--I wish he had!
       We might have planned differently. We might have thought 
     twice about trying out Secretary Rumsfeld's theory that the 
     U.S. should put fewer boots on the ground in military 
     conflicts. And all of this has led us into a box where we 
     have few good choices left. If we don't change course if we 
     don't bring others along with us; if we don't get 5,000 
     foreign cops to train and patrol with the Iraqis; if we don't 
     bring in more than 30,000 foreign troops to help relieve us, 
     as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says we must; if we don't 
     get the water running; if we can't make sure that a woman can 
     leave home or send her children to school safely; if we can't 
     get the lights on; if we fail to bridge the expectations gap 
     by better communicating to the Iraqi people; if paralysis of 
     progress continues for more than a couple more months; if ALL 
     of this happens, we'll lose not only the support of the Iraqi 
     people but the support of the American people as the 
     discontent and the death toll rise. At that point, I predict, 
     this Administration will be seriously tempted to abandon 
     Iraq. They'll hand over power to a handpicked strongman dump 
     security and reconstruction responsibility on the U.N., and 
     we'll lose Iraq.
       Imagine if we lost Iraq. In a worst case scenario, there'd 
     be chaos and the threat of Iranian and fundamentalist 
     domination of the country. The Middle East peace process 
     would likely be derailed. Iraq would become a failed state 
     and a source of instability. We'll have jeopardized our 
     credibility in the world. And we'll be far less secure than 
     when we went in.
       So that leaves us with three options: We can pull out, and 
     lose Iraq. That's a bad option. We can continue to do what 
     we're doing: provide 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of 
     the money, and nearly 100 percent of the deaths. That's 
     another, really bad option. Or, we can bring in the 
     international community and empower Iraqis to bolster our 
     efforts and legitimize a new Iraqi government which will 
     allow us to rotate our troops out and finally bring them 
     home.
       That to me is the clear choice.
       We have to bring in our allies. And you may ask: why would 
     they want to help? The answer is . . . it's in their 
     interest. Iraq is in Europe's front yard. Most European 
     countries have large Muslim populations. They have commercial 
     interests. Stability in Iraq is vital for our European 
     allies, and it's vital for the Arab world as well. They need 
     to get invested just as we are.


                        Three Steps We Can Take

       So what do we do to bring in the international community 
     and sustain the support of the Iraqi as well as the American 
     people? First, we need a new U.N. Resolution. We may not like 
     it, but most of the rest of the world needs it if we expect 
     them to send the troops we need and to help pay for Iraq's 
     reconstruction. Let's keep in mind, the President personally 
     tried for weeks to persuade India to send another 17,000, and 
     they said ``no--not without a U.N. resolution. With such a 
     resolution, I think we could persuade France, and Germany, 
     and NATO to play a larger and official role to secure the 
     peace. But not without a resolution.
       We have to understand that leaders whose people opposed the 
     war need a political rationale to get them to support 
     building the peace. We have to understand and be willing to 
     accept that giving a bigger role to the United Nations and 
     NATO means sharing control, but it's a price worth paying if 
     it decreases the danger to our soldiers and increases the 
     prospects of stability.
       Second, it's time to act magnanimously toward our friends 
     and allies. We are a superpower and we should be magnanimous 
     because it's not just the right thing to do, but because it's 
     the practical thing to do. Not simply because it's consistent 
     with our values as a nation but because if we don't make the 
     on-going war on the ground in Iraq the world's problem, it 
     will remain our problem alone.
       The truth is, we missed a tremendous opportunity after 9-11 
     to bring our friends and allies along with us and to lead in 
     a way that actually encouraged others to follow. We missed an 
     opportunity, in the aftermath of our spectacular military 
     victory to ask those who were not with us in the war to be 
     partners in the peace. Instead we served `freedom toast' on 
     Air Force One.
       The American people get it. They intuitively understand 
     that we can't protect ourselves from a dirty bomb on the Mall 
     in DC; a vial of anthrax in a backpack; or a homemade nuke in 
     the hold of a ship steaming into New York harbor without the 
     help of every intelligence service and every customs service 
     in the world, without Interpol and yes, the French and the 
     Germans and even the U.N.
       Third, and most importantly, I said it a year ago, and I'll 
     say it again: no foreign policy can be sustained without the 
     informed consent of the American people. We learned that 
     lesson in Vietnam, but we haven't applied it to Iraq. I 
     cannot overstate the importance of keeping the American 
     people fully informed of the risks, the costs, to the extent 
     we know them, and the importance of staying the course in 
     Iraq.
       This Administration has been good at projecting power, but 
     it hasn't been anywhere near as good at staying-power. Nor 
     has it been good at convincing the American people that 
     securing Iraq is a necessary, if costly, task--but that it's 
     do-able.
       If we learned one thing last year, it should be that the 
     role of those of us in positions of leadership is to speak 
     the truth to the American people--to lay out the facts to the 
     extent we know them and to explain to the American people 
     exactly what's expected of them in terms of time, dollars, 
     and commitment.
       Our role as leaders is not to color the truth with cynicism 
     and ideological rhetoric but to animate that truth with the 
     same resilience the same dignity, the same decency, and the 
     same pragmatic approach the American people have applied to 
     every task and every challenge.
       It's long past time for the President to address the 
     American people in prime time, to level with us about the 
     monumental task ahead, to summon our support.
       I and most of my colleagues will stand with him.
       So yes, when it comes to foreign policy, I have a 
     fundamental difference of opinion with some in this 
     Administration and I'll be talking more about it in the next 
     few weeks. But that's okay because I'm reminded of the words 
     of Senator Arthur Vandenberg who said: ``Bipartisan foreign 
     policy does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate 
     in determining our position. On the contrary, frank 
     cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate 
     unity. It simply seeks national security ahead of partisan 
     advantage. Every foreign policy must be totally debated and 
     the loyal opposition is under special obligation to see that 
     this occurs.''
       I think it is my obligation to articulate an opposing view.
                                  ____


                               Memorandum

     To: Senator Carper
     From: Margaret Simmons
     Re: Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
     Date: April 28, 2003


                               Background

       The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 provided mandatory minimum 
     sentences of imprisonment for possession with intent to 
     distribute powder and crack cocaine. In this statute Congress 
     established a quantitative 100-to-1 sentence ratio between 
     the two (i.e., it takes 100 times as much powder cocaine as 
     crack cocaine to trigger the same sentence). Under this 
     distinction, a person convicted of possession with intent to 
     distribute a pound of powder cocaine (453.6 grams) would 
     serve considerably less time in a federal prison than one 
     convicted of possession with intent to distribute 5 grams of 
     crack. The United States Sentencing Commission incorporated 
     the ratio into its generally binding sentencing guidelines. 
     Since enactment, it has become apparent that the incidence of 
     this sentencing differential falls disproportionately on 
     African-American defendants.
       Instructed to study the situation, the Sentencing 
     Commission proposed amendments that would equate crack and 
     powder cocaine for sentencing purposes and recommended that 
     Congress drop the 100-to-1 ratio from its own mandatory 
     penalties. Congress rejected both the amendments and the 
     suggestion for equation, but directed the Commission to re-
     examine the issue and report back recommendations reflecting 
     more moderate adjustments.
       In May 2002 the Sentencing Commission issued its report to 
     Congress on cocaine and federal sentencing policy. In that 
     report, the Commission recommended a three-pronged approach 
     for revising federal cocaine sentencing policy: increase the 
     five-year mandatory minimum threshold quantity for crack 
     cocaine offenses to at least 25 grams (and the ten-year 
     threshold quantity to at least 250

[[Page 20534]]

     grams); provide direction for more appropriate sentencing 
     enhancements within the guidelines' structure that target the 
     most serious drug offenders for more severe penalties without 
     regard to the drug involved; and maintain the current 
     mandatory minimum threshold quantities for powder cocaine 
     offenses. The Commission found that there does not appear to 
     be evidence that the current quantity-based penalties for 
     powder cocaine are inadequate.


                   Drug Sentencing Reform Act of 2001

       In the last Congress, Senator Sessions introduced 
     legislation to reduce the disparity in punishment between 
     crack and powder cocaine offenses, and to focus the 
     punishment for drug offenders on the seriousness of the 
     offense and the culpability of the offender. The legislation 
     reduces the disparity in sentences for crack and powder 
     cocaine form the ratio of 100-to-1 to 20-to-1. (Under state 
     law in Delaware, the ratio is 1-to-1.) It does so by reducing 
     the penalty for crack and increasing the penalty for powder 
     cocaine. For example, for the five-year mandatory minimum, 
     the bill would decrease the trigger amount for powder cocaine 
     from 500 grams to 400 grams, and increase the trigger amount 
     for crack cocaine from 5 grams to 20 grams.
       In addition, the bill shifts some of the sentencing 
     emphasis from drug quantity to the nature of the criminal 
     conduct. The bill increases penalties for the worst drug 
     offenders that use violence and employ women and children as 
     couriers to traffic drugs. The bill also decreases mandatory 
     penalties on those who play only a minimal role in a drug 
     trafficking offense, such as a girlfriend or child of a drug 
     dealer.


                             Recommendation

       Senator Sessions legislation is a good start to address the 
     disparities in mandatory sentencing between crack and powder 
     cocaine, and achieves the recommended 20-to-1 sentencing 
     ratio proposed by the Sentencing Commission. The bill does so 
     by lowering the threshold quantities for powder cocaine, and 
     increasing the threshold for crack cocaine.
       However, the Sentencing Commission's recommendation was to 
     leave the quantity-based penalties for powder cocaine 
     unchanged. Given that this recommendation was unanimous, I 
     think it should be given considerable weight. Thus, I would 
     not recommend supporting legislation that adjusts the 
     disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine by 
     changing the threshold amounts for powder cocaine.
       In addition, Hispanic groups and civil rights groups are 
     very opposed to Senator Sessions' legislation since his bill 
     essentially increases the penalties for powder cocaine by 
     lowering the amount needed to receive a mandatory sentence. 
     In addition, the legislation does not address the 5-year 
     mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine. 
     Crack cocaine is the only drug that has a mandatory minimum 
     sentence for simple possession.
       Finally, Senator Biden's Subcommittee held a hearing in the 
     last Congress to review the recommendations of the Sentencing 
     Commission. It is clear from the transcript of that hearing 
     that Senator Biden believes that the mandatory minimum 
     sentencing should be changed, but he does not support Senator 
     Sessions' approach. According to Senator Biden's staff; the 
     Senator had been interested in developing his own legislation 
     to address the mandatory minimum sentence issue in the last 
     Congress. Therefore, given Senator Biden's history on this 
     issue, from writing the original mandatory sentencing law in 
     1986 to his interest in adjusting this law, I would strongly 
     recommend that you speak with him directly before taking any 
     action on this subject.

                          ____________________