[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 143-144]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            DO NOT TRIVIALIZE NEED TO INTERNATIONALIZE IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, last night in his State of the Union 
address to the Nation, President Bush attempted to deride critics who 
have called upon him to broaden the coalition and internationalize the 
effort to provide security to Iraq and rebuild that war-torn nation. 
The President said, ``This particular criticism is hard to explain to 
our partners in Britain.'' And then he named 15 other countries and 
cited 17 others.
  I respect the contributions that these other nations have made in 
Iraq, some of which like Spain, Italy and Japan have also lost sons to 
the war in Iraq. But let us not be disingenuous on the subject of our 
allies in Iraq. With the exception of the United Kingdom, none are 
engaged in the arduous combat-related work that confronts the 130,000 
American troops in Iraq who have endured over 500 dead and thousands of 
wounded among their ranks. And none carry the financial burden that the 
American taxpayer provides for the security of Iraq. President Bush 
should not trivialize the need to create a genuine international 
coalition capable of sharing the burdens of building a safe, secure and 
democratic Iraq.
  I would like to have heard President Bush talk about how the United 
States needs the help, support and expertise of the United Nations, 
which has also paid in blood for our Iraq policy to ensure that the 
democracy-building and election process in Iraq are inclusive and 
successful. I would have liked to have heard President Bush talk about 
how the international community could help in the prosecution of Saddam 
Hussein so that his trial has credibility both inside and outside Iraq. 
I would have liked to have heard just one word from President Bush that 
indicates that he gets it, that he understands the United States must 
work with allies, NATO and the United Nations in order to secure the 
manpower and money necessary for a secure and stable Iraq. Certainly 
those of us concerned about the resources of our Federal budget 
understand this as we prepare to receive another supplemental spending 
request for at least $50 billion sometime later this year. That is $50 
billion in addition to the more than $120 billion we have already spent 
so far on Iraq over the last year.
  And, most of all, our troops on the ground understand this, including 
the members and families of our National Guard and Reserves who have 
served so valiantly, despite open-ended deployments and equipment 
shortages. But President Bush simply does not get it and last night he 
outlined how he will stay on the same go-it-alone course that has so 
alienated the rest of the world, diminished the credibility of U.S. 
foreign policy and intelligence, undermined international institutions, 
and left us resented rather than respected.
  I do not believe the United States needs a permission slip to act 
when our security is genuinely threatened, but we now know that with 
Iraq, our security was never in imminent danger. There were no weapons 
of mass destruction. Instead, last night the President talked about 
``weapons of mass destruction-related program activities,'' whatever 
that means. There were no ties to Osama bin Laden, whose name the 
President never even mentioned last night.

                              {time}  1330

  There was only a driving hunger to overthrow the Iraqi regime from 
the moment this administration entered the White House.
  The unilateral and arrogant way in which the Bush administration has 
handled the Iraq war and its aftermath has resulted in a U.S. 
occupation that has cost us dearly in terms of human life and precious 
resources. It would have been nice if the President had even 
acknowledged last night the 500 American soldiers who have sacrificed 
their lives in Iraq and the thousands more who have been wounded.
  Mr. Speaker, the exaggeration and the manipulation of intelligence 
and our changing rationales for our involvement have diminished the 
credibility and standing of the United States around the globe in ways 
that I truly believe undermine our security. Now we have a moral 
obligation to rebuild Iraq and to safeguard the Iraqi people, and we 
can only do that successfully with the help and support of the United 
Nations and the broader international community. It would have been 
nice if President Bush had taken just a few seconds in an hour-long 
speech to acknowledge that reality last night.

               [From the Washington Post, Jan. 19, 2004]

           Arms Issue Seen as Hurting U.S. Credibility Abroad

                           (By Glenn Kessler)

       The Bush administration's inability to find weapons of mass 
     destruction in Iraq--after public statements declaring an 
     imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein--has 
     begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and 
     of American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts 
     in both parties.
       In last year's State of the Union address, President Bush 
     used stark imagery to make the case that military action was 
     necessary. Among other claims, Bush said that Hussein had 
     enough anthrax to ``kill several million people,'' enough 
     botulinum toxin to ``subject millions of people to death by 
     respiratory failure'' and enough chemical agents to ``kill 
     untold thousands.''
       Now, as the president prepared for this State of the Union 
     address Tuesday, those frightening images of death and 
     destruction have been replaced by a different reality: Few of 
     the many claims made by the administration have been 
     confirmed after months of searching by weapons inspectors.
       Within the United States, Bush does not appear to have 
     suffered much political damage from the failure to find 
     weapons, with polls showing high ratings for his handling of 
     the war and little concern that he misrepresented the threat.
       But a range of foreign policy experts, including supporters 
     of the war, said the long-term consequences of the 
     administration's rhetoric could be severe overseas--
     especially because the war was waged without the backing of 
     the United Nations and was opposed by large majorities, even 
     in countries run by leaders that supported the invasion.
       ``The foreign policy blow-back is pretty serious,'' said 
     Kenneth Adelman, member of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory 
     Board and a supporter of the war. He said the gaps between 
     the administration's rhetoric and the

[[Page 144]]

     postwar findings threaten Bush's doctrine of ``preemption,'' 
     which envisions attacking a nation because it is an imminent 
     threat.
       The doctrine ``rests not just on solid intelligence,'' 
     Adelman said, but ``also on the credibility that the 
     intelligence is solid.''
       Already, in the crisis over North Korea's nuclear 
     ambitions, China has rejected U.S. intelligence that North 
     Korea has a secret program to enrich uranium for use in 
     weapons. China is a key player in resolving the North Korean 
     standoff, but its refusal to embrace the U.S. intelligence 
     has disappointed U.S. official and could complicate 
     negotiations to eliminate North Korea's weapons programs.
       Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign 
     Relations, said the same problem could occur if the United 
     States presses for action against alleged weapons programs in 
     Iran and Syria. The solution, he said, is to let 
     international organizations such as the International Atomic 
     Energy Agency take the lead in making the case, as has 
     happened thus far in Iran, and also to be willing to share 
     more of the intelligence with other countries.
       The inability to find suspected weapons ``has to make it 
     more difficult on some future occasion if the United States 
     argues the intelligence warrants something controversial, 
     like a preventive attack,'' said Haass, a Republican who was 
     head of policy planning for Secretary of State Colin L. 
     Powell when the war started. ``The result is we've made the 
     bar higher for ourselves and we have to expect greater 
     skepticism in the future.''
       James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the 
     Clinton administration who believed there were legitimate 
     concerns about Iraq's weapons programs, said the failure of 
     the prewar claims to match the postwar reality ``add to the 
     general sense of criticism about the U.S., that we will do 
     anything, say anything'' to prevail.
       Indeed, whenever Powell grants interviews to foreign news 
     organizations, he is often hit with a question about the 
     search for weapons of mass destruction. Last Friday, a 
     British TV reporter asked whether in retirement he would 
     ``admit that you had concerns about invading Iraq,'' and a 
     Dutch reporter asked whether he ever had doubts about the 
     Iraq policy.
       ``There's no doubt in my mind that he had the intention, he 
     had the capability,'' Powell responded. ``How many weapons he 
     had or didn't have, that will be determined.''
       Some on Capitol Hill believe the issue is so important that 
     they are pressing the president to address the apparent 
     intelligence failure in the State of the Union address and 
     propose ways to fix it.
       ``I believe that unanswered questions regarding the 
     accuracy and reliability of U.S. intelligence have created a 
     credibility gap and left the nation in a precarious 
     position,'' Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat on 
     the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a 
     speech last week. ``The intelligence community seems to be in 
     a state of denial, and the administration seems to have moved 
     on.''
       Since last year's State of the Union, the White House has 
     established procedures for handling intelligence in 
     presidential speeches by including a CIA officer in the 
     speechwriting process. The CIA is also conducting an internal 
     review, comparing prewar estimates with postwar findings, and 
     the final report will be finished after inspectors in Iraq 
     complete their work.
       But Bush and his aides have largely sought to divert 
     attention from the issue. White House aides have said they 
     expect this year's State of the Union speech to look ahead--
     to the democracy the administration hopes to establish in 
     Iraq--rather than look back.
       Officials also have turned the focus to celebrating 
     Hussein's capture last month and repeatedly drawing attention 
     to Hussein's mistreatment of his people. Officials have 
     argued that if Iraq's stocks of weapons are still unclear, 
     Hussein's intentions to again possess such weapons are not. 
     Thirteen years ago, when the United States was a backer of 
     Hussein, Iraq used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war.
       The administration ``rid the Iraqi people of a murderous 
     dictator, and rid the world of a menace to our future peace 
     and security,'' Vice President Cheney said in a speech last 
     week. Cheney--and other U.S. officials--increasingly point to 
     Libya's decision last month to give up its weapons of mass 
     destruction as a direct consequence of challenging Iraq.
       Bush, when asked by ABC's Diane Sawyer why he said Iraq had 
     weapons of mass destruction when intelligence pointed more to 
     the possibility Hussein would obtain such weapons, dismissed 
     the question: ``So, what's the difference?''
       The U.S. team searching for Iraq's weapons has not issued a 
     report since October, but in recent weeks the gap between 
     administration claims and Iraq's actual weapons holdings has 
     become increasingly clear. The Washington Post reported 
     earlier this month that U.S. investigators have found no 
     evidence that Iraq had a hidden cache of old chemical or 
     biological weapons, and that its nuclear program had been 
     shattered after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. A lengthy study 
     issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also 
     concluded the administration shifted the intelligence 
     consensus on Iraq's weapons in 2002 as officials prepared for 
     war, making it appear more imminent and threatening than was 
     warranted by the evidence.
       The report further said that the administration 
     ``systematically misrepresented the threat'' posed by Iraq, 
     often on purpose, in four ways: one, treating nuclear, 
     chemical and biological weapons as a single threat, although 
     each posed different dangers and evidence was particularly 
     thin on Iraq's nuclear and chemical programs; two, insisting 
     without evidence that Hussein would give his weapons to 
     terrorists; three, often dropping caveats and uncertainties 
     contained in the intelligence assessments when making public 
     statements; and four, misrepresenting inspectors' findings so 
     that minor threats were depicted as emergencies.
       Jessica T. Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment and 
     co-author of the report, pointed to one example in a speech 
     delivered by Bush in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002. U.N. 
     inspectors had noted that Iraq had failed to account for 
     bacterial growth media that, if used, ``could have produced 
     about three times as much'' anthrax as Iraq had admitted. But 
     Bush, in his speech, turned a theoretical possibility into a 
     fact.
       ``The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely 
     produced two to four times that amount,'' Bush said. ``This 
     is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never 
     been accounted for and is capable of killing millions.''
       Mathews said her research showed the administration 
     repeatedly and frequently took such liberties with the 
     intelligence and inspectors' findings to bolster its cases 
     for immediate action. In the Cincinnati example, ``in 35 
     words, you go from probably to a likelihood to a fact,'' she 
     said. ``With a few little changes in wording, you turn an 
     `if' into a dire biological weapons stockpile. Anyone hearing 
     that must be thinking, `My God, this is an imminent 
     threat.'''
       Steinberg, who was privy to the intelligence before 
     President Bill Clinton left office, said that while at the 
     National Security Council he saw no evidence Iraq had 
     reconstituted its nuclear weapons program, but that there 
     were unresolved questions about Hussein's chemical and 
     biological weapons programs. ``Given his reluctance to 
     address these questions, you had to conclude he was hiding 
     something,'' he said, adding that given the intelligence he 
     saw, ``I certainly expected something would have turned up.''
       ``I think there are [diplomatic] consequences as a result 
     of the president asking these questions [about Iraq's weapons 
     holdings] and the answer being no'' weapons, said Danielle 
     Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies 
     at the American Enterprise Institute, who believes the ouster 
     of Hussein justified the war. ``The intelligence could have 
     been better.''
       Richard Perle, another member of the Defense Advisory 
     Board, said the criticism of the Bush administration is 
     unfair. ``Intelligence is not an audit,'' he said. ``It's the 
     best information you can get in circumstances of uncertainty, 
     and you use it to make the best prudent judgment you can.''
       He added that presidents in particular tend not to place 
     qualifiers on their statements, especially when they are 
     advocating a particular policy. ``Public officials tend to 
     avoid hedging,'' he said.
       Given the stakes involved--going to war--Mathews said the 
     standards must be higher for such statements. ``The most 
     important call a president can make by a mile is whether to 
     take a country to war,'' she argued, making the consequences 
     of unwise decisions or misleading statements even greater.
       Indeed, she said, the reverberations are still being felt, 
     even as the administration tries to put the problem behind 
     it. A recent CBS poll found that only 16 percent of those 
     surveyed believed the administration lied about Iraq's 
     weapons. But she said there is intense interest in the 
     report's findings, with 35,000 copies downloaded from the 
     think tank's Web site in just five days. ``It is too soon to 
     say there was no cost'' to the failure to find weapons, she 
     said. ``I think there is a huge appetite for learning about 
     this.''

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