[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24722-24723]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I will say a few words about the 
supplemental appropriation which the leader just addressed a moment ago 
and we are addressing all week and also about the ongoing search for 
weapons of mass destruction.
  I was in a Senate Armed Services Committee briefing when Dr. David 
Kay, one of the leaders of the Iraqi Survey Group, briefed me, and 
later briefed Congress as a whole, on the ongoing search for weapons of 
mass destruction. In that briefing and in the published statement he 
made that is now on the CIA Web site, he says:

       In searching for retained stocks of chemical munitions, the 
     ISG [Iraqi survey group] has had to contend with an almost 
     unbelievable scale of Iraq's conventional weapons armory, 
     which dwarfs by orders of magnitude the physical size of any 
     conceivable stock of chemical weapons. For example, there are 
     approximately 130 known Iraqi Ammunition Storage Points, many 
     of which exceed 50 square miles--

  I had to doublecheck that quote to make sure it was accurate because 
it boggles the mind.
  Continuing--

     50 square miles in size and hold an estimated 600,000 tons of 
     artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordnance. 
     Of these 130 ASP's, approximately 120 remain unex-
     amined. As Iraqi practice was not to mark much of their 
     chemical ordnance and to store it the same as they would 
     conventional weapons, the size of the required search effort 
     is enormous.

  Dr. Kay has a gift for understatement. Having only in this time since 
the fall of Saddam Hussein been able to examine 10 out of a possible 
130 ammunition sites gives an idea of the tremendous task ahead. 
Perhaps the critics should give some pause about the ongoing search for 
weapons of mass destruction and the likelihood--indeed, I would say the 
probability--that we will find those weapons of mass destruction in the 
end.
  The search is ongoing, but we know for certain that 17 U.N. 
resolutions and numerous inspection missions by the U.N. weapons 
inspection team from 1991 to 2003 were not sufficient to stop Saddam 
Hussein. Even though we have not yet found the degree of weapons we 
anticipated, it is clear Saddam Hussein lied to the world about his 
arsenal despite all the steps taken by the international community. 
There have also been significant finds that indicate we have only 
grazed the surface of Iraq's weapons capabilities.
  According to the same report I quoted a moment ago:

       The home of an Iraqi scientist brought the discovery of 
     strains of biological organisms, one of which can be used to 
     produce biological weapons. The team found new research on 
     [Biological Weapons]-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo 
     Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on 
     ricin and aflatoxin, none of which were made known to the 
     U.N.

  It will be many months before we will have a clear picture of the 
nature and extent of Saddam's weaponry, but already some things are 
crystal clear.
  There are some in this body who have opposed the conflict in Iraq 
from the beginning. I disagree with them, but they have a right to 
their views. I am sad to say there are also those who have come close--
too close--to exploiting for political gain the hardships we have 
encountered following Saddam's fall, hardships experienced in serving 
the cause of freedom. I believe that is wrong and should be repudiated 
in the strongest terms.
  We all know Congress voted overwhelmingly to authorize the President 
to use necessary force to remove Saddam's regime in Iraq. Subsequent 
events, including Dr. Kay's report on behalf of the Iraqi Survey Group, 
have vindicated that decision. I am also glad to see that today France, 
Germany, and Russia are planning to support the resolution concerning 
our efforts in Iraq before the U.N. Security Council. I would only hope 
the administration's critics in this body would express such strong 
support as well.
  We all know that the great efforts and sacrifices made by our brave 
men in the coalition forces who ignored the beltway echo chamber and 
suggestions from the outset of quagmire, the cynical prognosticators 
who claim that our forces were on the brink of collapse, and the 
handwringing doubters who said Operation Iraqi Freedom was nothing but 
a pipe dream--we know these critics were wrong. The dedicated men and 
women of our coalition forces acted as true professionals. They were 
interested in actions and not words. We all know they liberated Baghdad 
in a mere 21 days.
  Even in the face of that success, there still are naysayers who 
refuse to acknowledge the tremendous and dramatic accomplishments we 
have made as well as the necessity that we finish the task ahead. They 
are urging in so many words that we abandon Iraq, leaving behind an 
unstable nation still trying desperately to crawl up from under the 
rubble of destruction by Saddam's ruthless regime. That is a dangerous 
and an unwise suggestion.
  This mission must end when we complete the task of stabilizing Iraq 
and we are able to hand power over to leaders who are elected by a free 
Iraqi people--not before. While we all want to return Iraq to the Iraqi 
people as soon as possible, and at the same time get our troops back 
home as soon as possible, these well-intentioned desires should not 
blind us to our duty to finish the job we started. There is no doubt 
that the enemies of democracy in Iraq, both inside and outside of that 
country, will exploit any short-lived commitment.
  Indeed, I believe the evidence is overwhelming that the events of 
September 11 were largely caused by the apparent lack of American 
resolve to defeat terrorism, and what we are doing today--maintaining 
our strong resolve and finishing the job that we started in the war 
against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq--is absolutely essential to our 
success.
  If we leave Iraq prematurely, we will play into the hands of the 
terrorists and Baathist remnants. They are counting on the resolve of 
the coalition to falter, freeing them to seek to regain control of this 
fledgling nation. We must not cut and run and, in so doing, leave the 
Iraqi people as they are, undefended, or we risk the possibility that 
the sacrifices that have been made by this Nation, and particularly our 
military and other coalition forces, will all be for naught.
  Today in Iraq there is religious freedom and human rights unlike 
anything seen during Saddam's regime. The Iraqi people now have hope 
where there was formerly only despair. They have hope for a future that 
must have seemed like only a dream a few short months ago.
  The ``blame America first'' gang is grasping for anything they can to 
prop up the illusion they were right all along. But the absence, so 
far, of weapons of mass destruction and stockpiles of biological agents 
does not mean Saddam's Iraq was some kind of sunny paradise or a 
thriving garden dictatorship, one long springtime for Saddam. Nothing--
nothing--could be further from the truth.
  We have not yet found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but let me 
remind all of us what we have found. We have found torture chambers. We 
have found execution sites. We have found prisons where children were 
held in order to coerce their parents to bend to Saddam's will. We have 
found a legacy of fear and terror, the vestiges of years of tyranny and 
cruelty. We have found as many as 300,000 people--maybe more--buried in 
mass graves throughout Iraq in nearly 100 reported sites. They stretch 
from Basrah to Baghdad, from Najaf to Kirkuk. These stand as silent 
monuments of Saddam's ruthlessness left behind for all to see.
  For the Iraqi people living under Saddam, peace--if you can call it 
that--was far more bloody than the current war.

[[Page 24723]]

  To those who continue to doubt our mission in Iraq, I say this: Peace 
is a good thing but at what price is it purchased? By turning our backs 
on suffering, genocide, and evil? By tolerating those who defy the 
civilized world and encourage, facilitate, and promote international 
terrorism?
  If the 20th century has taught us anything, it is that if America is 
to fulfill its role as the guardian of the free world, a beacon of 
light shining in the darkness, we cannot allow bloodthirsty tyrants 
such as Saddam Hussein to act with impunity.
  Clearly, there are obstacles to overcome in Iraq, and there will be 
setbacks along the way. Yet we cannot allow the politics of the moment 
or the upcoming Presidential election to undermine the war on terror 
and American resolve.
  I believe the task that falls to us at this moment in history is 
spreading the blessings of liberty and bringing the light of freedom to 
a nation that has, for too long, been imprisoned by darkness.
  We must not falter in our efforts. We must not play political games 
while the world turns inward. We must fulfill our duty to defend 
America's interests abroad and ensure that the tragedies of September 
11 are never repeated.
  In the end, if there is one thing certain, it is this: In Iraq the 
mass murder has stopped. And we stopped it. The Iraqi people and the 
American people and all the people of the civilized world are better 
off for it.
  Those who would play political games with our mission in Iraq, even 
while our brave men and women labor to secure and stabilize this 
fledging nation, risk dishonoring the memories of those who sacrificed 
all in opposing this bloodthirsty regime.
  No, Mr. President, we must not cut and run, leaving the Iraqi people 
with a promise unfulfilled. Success in Iraq depends enormously on our 
willingness to stay the course and finishing the job we started, and 
through it all, we owe our men and women in uniform our unequivocal 
support as they labor in a dangerous place for an honorable cause.
  In summary, America needs from this body and from its leaders less 
babble and more backbone.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.

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