[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Pages 31832-31834]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            INVASION OF IRAQ

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it was the prophet Hosea who lamented of the 
ancient Israelites, ``For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap 
the whirlwind.''
  I wonder if it will come to pass that the President's flawed and 
dangerous doctrine of preemption on which the United States predicated 
its invasion of Iraq will some day come to be seen as a modern-day 
parable of Hosea's lament. Could it be that the Bush administration, in 
its disdain for the rest of the world, elected to sow the wind, and is 
now reaping the whirlwind?
  I ponder this as the casualties in Iraq continue to mount, long past 
the end of major conflict, and as the vicious attacks against American 
troops, humanitarian workers, and coalition partners increase in both 
intensity and sophistication. I ponder this as the number of terrorists 
attacks bearing the hallmarks of al-Qaida appear to be increasing, not 
just in Iraq but elsewhere, including Saudi Arabia and, most recently, 
Turkey. I cannot help but wonder, as I view these developments with a 
sorrowful heart, what the President has wrought. By failing to win 
international support for the war in Iraq and by failing to plan 
effectively for an orderly post-war transition of power, has the 
President managed to create in Iraq the very situation he was trying to 
preempt?
  The deaths of three more American soldiers in Iraq over the weekend, 
and the vicious mob attack on the bodies of

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two of them, are but the latest evidence of a plan gone tragically 
awry. The death toll of American military personnel in Iraq since the 
beginning of the war has now reached 427, and it continues to climb on 
a near-daily basis. Most troubling of all is the fact that more than 
two-thirds of those soldiers who have died in Iraq have been killed 
since the end of major combat operations. At that time, 138 American 
fighting men and women had died in Iraq, at the time major combat 
operations had ended. Instead of making headway in the effort to 
stabilize and democratize post-war Iraq, the administration seems to be 
losing ground. If the current violence cannot be curbed, if Iraq is 
allowed to descend unchecked into a holy hell of chaos and anarchy, the 
implications could be catastrophic for the region and the world.
  An article earlier this month in the Los Angeles Times, entitled 
``Iraq Seen As Al Qaeda's Top Battlefield,'' raises the alarming 
specter that Iraq already is replacing Afghanistan as the global center 
of Islamic jihad. According to the article, as many as 2,000 Muslim 
fighters from a number of countries, including Sudan, Algeria and 
Afghanistan, may now be operating in Iraq. No one knows the numbers for 
certain, but foreign Islamic terrorists are suspected in some of the 
deadliest attacks in Iraq, including the bombing of the United Nations 
headquarters and the Red Cross offices in Baghdad.
  It seems only yesterday that the President and his advisers were 
warning the United Nations that Saddam Hussein must be disarmed at 
once, forcibly if necessary, to preempt Iraq from becoming the next 
front in the war on terrorism. On May 1, when the President announced 
the end of major combat operations in Iraq as he basked in the glow of 
a banner that was waving overhead proclaiming ``Mission Accomplished,'' 
he described the liberation of Iraq as ``a crucial advance in the 
campaign against terror.''
  What a difference a few months makes. Before the war, it was 
Afghanistan and al-Qaida, not Iraq, that constituted the central front 
in the war on terror. It was Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, who 
orchestrated the September 11 attacks on the United States, and it was 
Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, who orchestrated earlier attacks 
on the USS Cole and on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It 
is Osama bin Laden who continues to taunt the United States and who 
continues to plot against us, and it is Osama bin Laden who has 
exhorted his followers to gather in Iraq to avenge the U.S. invasion.
  Today, while the Taliban appears to be regrouping in Afghanistan, it 
is Iraq that has become the most powerful magnet for Islamic 
terrorists. It is Iraq where these forces have coalesced with Saddam 
Hussein loyalists to create an increasingly sophisticated and deadly 
insurgency that has paralyzed U.S. efforts to establish postwar 
stability. Ironically, Saddam Hussein and his henchmen are more of a 
threat to the United States today than they were before the war began.
  Could it be that the war on Iraq, while succeeding in chasing one 
monster into hiding, has created another, equally vicious, monster in 
his stead, a hydra-headed monster that is spewing terrorism against 
both the Iraqi people and their would-be liberators? Could it be that 
the convergence of Islamic jihadists and Baathist loyalists constitutes 
a more potent adversary than we ever imagined possible in Iraq?
  Could it be, that instead of providing a ``crucial advance'' in the 
war on terrorism, as the President suggested, the war on Iraq has 
provided crucial new resources--money, weapons, and manpower, as well 
as motivation--for the terrorists themselves? Could it be that instead 
of curbing terrorism, the war on Iraq has served to fan the flames of 
terrorism?
  If only the President had listened more closely to his father, and 
his father's advisers. In the 1998 book that he co-authored with former 
National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, the 
first President Bush said of his decision to end the 1991 Gulf War 
without attempting to remove Saddam Hussein from power, ``We would have 
been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. . . .there was 
no viable `exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our 
principles.''
  The former President Bush and his national security adviser further 
cautioned that, ``Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally 
exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the 
precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to 
establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could 
conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It 
would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--
outcome.''
  Clearly the situation in Iraq today is far more difficult and 
dangerous than the administration ever envisioned or prepared for 
before the war. Although the President declared an end to major combat 
operations more than six months ago, U.S. forces in Iraq have recently 
been forced to resort to a new bombing campaign in and around Baghdad--
the most intense aerial offensive since active combat ended--in an 
effort to stem the insurgency. More than 6 months after the end of 
major combat operations, the situation in Iraq appears to be 
deteriorating, not improving.
  While the President and his military advisers remain upbeat about 
Iraq, the top CIA official in Baghdad appears to have reached a far 
bleaker assessment of the situation on the ground. According to news 
reports, a top secret CIA analysis from Baghdad has concluded that 
growing numbers of Iraqi citizens are turning against the American 
occupation and supporting the insurgents. It may well have been this 
report that prompted the President to recall the U.S. administrator of 
the Coalition Provisional Authority to Washington two weeks ago for a 
hastily arranged round of meetings on accelerating the transition of 
power to an Iraqi provisional government.
  Nothing could do more to spotlight the Administration's abysmal 
failure to rally international support for the stabilization and 
rebuilding of Iraq than this frantic scramble to arrange a Hail Mary 
pass of power from the United States to a provisional government in 
Iraq that does not yet exist. The Administration has slapped a new 
deadline on the democratization of Iraq--an Iraqi ``transitional 
assembly'' is to be in place by June 1--but it has come up with no 
blueprint as to how that assembly is to function or how it can be 
expected to stem the violence in Iraq.
  Once again, the administration is ignoring the obvious--the United 
States cannot go it alone in Iraq. The United Nations and NATO need to 
be brought on board as full partners with a personal stake in the 
governance, the stabilization, and the future of Iraq.
  Every day that the administration continues to spurn the United 
Nations is another day that the insurgents have to choreograph their 
attacks in Iraq and further isolate the United States from the rest of 
the world. The pattern is becoming chillingly clear. Systematic 
attacks, including those against the United Nations and the Red Cross 
headquarters in Baghdad and the Italian military police headquarters in 
Nasiriyah, have succeeded in driving most humanitarian workers from 
Iraq and have rocked the resolve of U.S. allies to support the Iraq 
operation. In the wake of the attack on the Italian troops, Japan is 
reconsidering its offer to send troops to Iraq, and South Korea 
continues to procrastinate. Help from other countries on which the 
United States had pinned its hopes, including Turkey and Pakistan, has 
evaporated.
  Even in the streets of London, the seat of government of America's 
strongest ally, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched on Trafalgar 
Square last week to protest President Bush's state visit and his 
policies in Iraq.
  Because of the administration's arrogance and impatience, the United 
States, for better or worse, is the make-or-break force in Iraq. Could 
it be that the President, in his haste to impose his will on the rest 
of the world, has inadvertently sown the wind and must now confront the 
whirlwind?
  Mr. President, in a short time--perhaps the next day or so--the 
Senate

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will adjourn for the year. We are privileged and blessed to return to 
the comfort of our families for the holidays. Not all families in 
America will share in our blessings.
  Many families will wait out the holidays in fear and tension as they 
worry about their loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  We in the Senate will not be here to absorb the news from the battle 
fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan or to voice our response to these 
developments. I pray that all will be calm, that ``Silent Night, Holy 
Night'' will be more than the strain of a familiar carol. But I worry 
it will not be so, that reality will be harsher than sentimentality.
  The war in Iraq is far from over. When we will ultimately be able to 
declare victory, I do not know and I dare not venture a guess. I only 
hope that the President will be able to put the good of the Nation over 
the pride of his administration and accept a helping hand from the 
United Nations to turn the tide of anarchy in Iraq. Perhaps he may 
finally be ready to do so. Senior administration officials have been 
quoted as suggesting that the United States is preparing to seek 
another U.N. resolution endorsing a new plan for the transition of 
power in Iraq. I urge the President to do so without delay. This time 
around, the effort must be genuine, and the resolution must be 
meaningful.
  The facts are stark and hard to accept. If not outright losing, the 
United States is far from winning the peace in Iraq. Only a significant 
turnabout in the handling of the security and reconstruction effort, 
centered on giving the United Nations a leading role in the transition 
of power, holds any hope for a constructive course change in Iraq. It 
is a course change that is desperately needed.
  As the crisis in Iraq deepens, leadership and statesmanship are 
urgently needed. I pray that the President, in his desperate quest for 
a new solution to the chaos in Iraq, will demonstrate those qualities, 
abandon the U.S. stranglehold on Baghdad, and forge a meaningful 
partnership with other nations of the world, a partnership with the 
United Nations so that a swift, orderly, and effective transition of 
power in Iraq can be achieved and American fighting men and women can 
come home.

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