[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24166-24167]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to share a few thoughts. I will 
probably talk about it next week on the supplemental for our activities 
in Iraq.
  I congratulate and will be forthright in my support for the military 
men and women who are serving so extraordinarily well and Ambassador 
Bremer for his leadership in an effort to create a new government in 
Iraq where the people can live and progress and have the benefits of 
progress that have been denied them for so long.
  I am exceedingly pleased with what they are doing. They are operating 
at risk, particularly in certain areas of Iraq--at less risk in other 
areas. Progress continues to be made throughout the country. I am proud 
of that.
  I was a Federal prosecutor and attorney general of Alabama. I served 
in law enforcement for over 15 years. I went to Iraq in August and 
asked specifically to visit the Iraqi police training center, which I 
was allowed to do. From the beginning of this effort, it was clear to 
me that the key to a prosperous and healthy and stable and peaceful 
Iraq is the bringing on of a capable police force.
  It is not as easy as you would think. The Iraqi police were 
functionaries under Saddam Hussein. He had a tough secret police that 
did the heavy, vicious work, and he had other police who were poorly 
trained, and many of them not functioning at the level at which we 
would expect police in the United States to function. So it is not an 
easy thing.
  Originally the plan was to bring on a smaller police force. I urged 
them to go to a larger police force, and they certainly are doing that. 
We now have 35,000 police up and operating in Iraq. These are Iraqis. 
The goal is going to be to double, or more, that number.
  We also have plans to bring on an Iraqi Army, which is exactly the 
right thing. Our numbers were smaller but now we are looking to have a 
40,000-person army. We could go more. I would have thought at first 
glance that we would have a larger army. But the truth is, Iraq is not 
subject and not expecting and we should not worry too much about an 
invasion of Iraq. What we have in Iraq is a suppression of pure and 
simple crime--criminals, thugs, gang members, and that sort of thing. 
We have the remnants of a Baathist regime that is attempting to 
sabotage a new and free government in the hopes they can at some point 
in the future recapture control of Iraq. Then we have Islamic 
extremists, not out of the heart of Islam but this extremist element 
that is slipping into the country and participating. So this is quite a 
different thing than what normally an army would confront.
  These comments are relevant because a large part of the supplemental 
that the President has asked for has been for the training of police 
and security forces. The administration, Ambassador Bremer also plans 
to bring on a substantial number of security forces. Those would 
protect sites such as the oil companies or the electricity or the water 
companies that may be subject to sabotage and may require a different 
kind of training; maybe less training.
  I point out these officers are being paid less than $100 per month. 
And I suppose for the most part they pay their own food, rent, and that 
kind of thing. But in salary alone, we could hire 20 Iraqi police 
officers for the cost of one American soldier there on salary, not 
counting the support group that has to keep that soldier there, not 
counting the food they have or the retirement benefits or any of those 
things. So we can probably do 30 or 40, maybe 50 Iraqi soldiers for the 
cost of 1 American soldier. The price, as I understand the salaries for 
the soldiers and police, are not a lot different, and run, generally, 
under $100 a month. This is the right way to go.
  I had the opportunity when I visited in Iraq in August to go to the 
base, the operating base of a military police unit from my home State 
of Alabama. They were first rate. Over half of them were police 
officers in the State, patrolling State Troopers and sheriff's deputies 
and others. They have real-world experience. They told me they were 
patrolling with Iraqi police officers on a daily basis. They go to the 
Iraqi police station, they buddy up, and go out and patrol in that 
fashion. That is precisely what we need to see more of.
  There are a lot of reasons for that. Our soldiers, the mere presence 
of them, sends a clear message that we will not allow any organized 
group to assume control or domination over any area of Iraq.
  Really, they are not good police officers because they can't speak 
the language.
  They may be some of the best police officers in Alabama or anyplace 
in the country, and they may have been trained going through the FBI 
Academy. But if you can't speak the language, you really can't be as 
effective as you would like to be. What they are effective at is 
encouraging and strengthening the local Iraqi police officers. They are 
good at training them, showing them how to keep records and how to 
maintain intelligence. They can provide integrity, courage, and a sense 
of consciousness that we are going to be with those Iraqi police 
officers who stand for a new Iraq, who put on that uniform, and who go 
out on patrols in neighborhoods where people know them and their 
families. If they will show that courage and step out there and do the 
job, they can be successful and create a country that would be quite 
different than they have had before. I know that can happen. I am 
really convinced that can happen.
  I am pleased that this supplemental has a good deal of money for 
that. Some Members complain, well, we don't mind helping our American 
soldiers over there, but we don't want to spend our money on 
infrastructure or police training.
  By the way, the infrastructure money includes training for police and 
soldiers and for deployment of police and soldiers. I think that is 
wrong. What we know is this: We know we are spending almost $4 billion 
a month to sustain our military forces there at some risk. There is no 
doubt about it. We have lost 90 soldiers since May 1. I suppose it has 
been 120 days since that time. It is very disturbing.
  I went by Walter Reed the weekend before last. I talked to soldiers 
who lost limbs, who had been injured and are rehabilitating. Their 
spirit was terrific. But it does not cause you to lose appreciation. It 
causes you to increase appreciation for them. I know the Senator from 
Texas has lost soldiers from Texas. We have lost 10 soldiers from my 
home State of Alabama since this war began. I have had the burden of 
calling families to express my personal sympathy and the sympathy on 
behalf of our country for their service.
  What do we do here? People say let us support our troops. Let us make 
sure they have the money, but we want to attack this extra money. It is 
$60

[[Page 24167]]

billion of this $87 billion for soldiers and maintaining our military 
presence. It is $20 billion for reconstruction, which includes bringing 
on a military and a police force.
  I am going to tell you frankly what my view is. I believe we need to 
help this country create a new country, one that provides opportunities 
for all Iraqis to succeed.
  Dr. Chalabi was the president last month of the council. They rotate. 
He was here this past week. I note that some have criticized Dr. 
Chalabi here and there. But he has been very effective as a leader over 
there, it appears to me. He is outspoken and brilliant. He went to the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He majored in mathematics. He 
went to the University of Chicago and got his Ph.D. in mathematics. He 
was dean of the American University School in Beirut, Lebanon. He spent 
4 years living with the Kurds in northern Iraq as he helped to 
participate in the effort to overthrow the evil regime of Saddam 
Hussein. He was sharing his vision of how they have already passed laws 
to allow economic progress to occur. They have already passed rules 
that would break down the racial traditions. He said they had a law. 
Saddam Hussein went back to determine racial ancestries to the fifth 
generation and completely wiped them out. People are going to be given 
a chance no matter what background or religion or ethnic group they are 
from to progress. It is exciting to hear people who have been there 
talk about it. The key to it is going to be the police.
  One Senator said, well, they are not very good. Senator Kennedy said 
they are not effective. I asked our MPs in August about Baghdad. 
Baghdad is a tough area. Some of the areas are very peaceful, and 
things going along much better than some of the areas in Baghdad. There 
are tough areas. They said: We like these police officers. They are 
working with us. We patrol with them on a daily basis. One young 
soldier told me, with no brass around: We bonded with them.
  That is an important concept.
  At Walter Reed the week before last, one of the soldiers who was 
injured was an MP. He is a good-looking young man. I asked him some 
questions. I asked him about local police, did he work with them. Yes.
  I asked: How good were they? What he said to me really kind of 
shocked me.
  He said: That is exactly what President Bush asked me when he came by 
here.
  The President was at Walter Reed and visited with him and asked him 
that question. How are the local police doing? He said: Yes, they are 
not ready to take over the country right now. But he said they are 
good. There are some good ones. He talked about when they went on 
patrol. One of the Iraqi policeman was at the rear of the patrol. They 
took fire. He returned fire in an effective and courageous way. He was 
impressed with him. He said that he showed discipline and courage under 
stress. He was impressed.
  I also had the opportunity to meet the chief of police in Baghdad. He 
is a very impressive man; a two-star general under Saddam Hussein who 
made negative comments about Saddam Hussein which resulted in him being 
put in jail for 2 years.
  When asked by Secretary Wolfowitz at one point why he spoke out 
against Saddam Hussein, he said he really didn't speak out. He was 
talking to his closest friend, questioning him, and it leaked back to 
Saddam Hussein and he goes to jail. That is the kind of life under 
which they lived. This man is courageous. Some say the police don't 
have gumption. But he goes out personally on raids. They are doing 
raids every night seizing weapons and arresting dangerous individuals.
  Two weeks before I got there, leading a raid late one night, the 
chief of police--you will not see that much in America cities--was out 
on a raid and was shot in the leg and wounded. He came back to work 
sooner than he was supposed to according to the doctors because he 
wanted to be there. He wanted to show his commitment and wanted to get 
the work done for Iraq.
  Subsequent to my return, there was a bomb attempt to kill him.
  There is a tough, dangerous group out there. How do you get them? We 
are not going to get them with rolling tanks down the street. We are 
not going to get them with armored vehicles on the streets with 
Americans who really become targets. We are going to get them by 
utilizing intelligence from individuals. We are going to utilize 
individual police officers who are Iraqi citizens, who believe in a new 
Iraq, who are willing to step up and be counted, and who can change 
that country forever.
  It is an exciting thing out there. I particularly wanted to share my 
thoughts today.
  I do not agree with the comments of the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts who suggested that the police in Iraq are not effective 
and can't do the job. No, we shouldn't walk away from that. We 
shouldn't leave them out there exposed. If we stay to back them up, we 
will be able to draw down our soldiers. And the sooner we can draw down 
our soldiers, the better we are going to be. That local police force 
can be the key to stabilizing the country so that a new government can 
be formed--a free, independent constitutional government that provides 
legal protection for all.
  I think we can be successful. We have made a commitment as a country. 
We voted in this body 77 to 12 to undertake this activity. We were told 
that all kinds of bad things would happen. Some have happened. We lost 
some soldiers. But we lost fewer than most people were predicting. We 
didn't have the house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We didn't have the 
thousands of casualties that many predicted. We didn't have a 
humanitarian disaster. We did not have a lot of things that were 
predicted. But the looting that took place exceeded anything I 
imagined. We found out the infrastructure in Iraq was far more damaged, 
having had far less updating and improvement in 20 or 30 years of his 
warring than most people imagined. It will take more money than we 
thought.
  So we get electricity turned on in that country and have it reliable 
for the first time ever, we get the water on, a healthy water system, a 
police force, and a continuing strengthening of that government.
  We will have a new government and we will have been successful in 
eliminating a major threat to this world and eliminating one of the 
most despicable evil leaders this world has seen. I will put him in the 
top 10 at any time. Any person who sees the graves of people killed by 
him knows that is true. You see the pleasure the people have of seeing 
him gone. It is overwhelming. A European poll not too long ago said 87 
percent of the Iraqi people did not want the United States to leave 
right now.
  We will be able to help them do something special, create a better 
life for that area of the world, and in the long run that will be a 
magnificent advantage to us. We do not want to take over their oil or 
their land or dictate religious faith. We simply want them to progress, 
to be successful, to create a good government so their people will be 
able to live in peace and harmony. That is our goal. It is a great goal 
and worthy of the United States.
  This supplemental is critical. I am a frugal Member of this body. I 
am proud of the Watchdog of the Treasury Awards I get. I watch closely 
how we spend money. But right now, let's do the right thing. Step up 
the effort to create a stable Iraq, step up the timetable of bringing 
our troops home, and help step up the time the people of Iraq can have 
a decent government.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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