[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18728-18729]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            NO PLAN FOR IRAQ

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, earlier today at the United Nations the 
President of the United States painted a pretty picture of the 
occupation of Iraq. But the President's picture was far from reality. 
The reality is the situation facing our soldiers, the very limited 
Iraqi security forces, and, importantly, the Iraqi people.
  The reality is that today Iraq is in flames. A horrifying wave of 
violence has struck yet again, targeting the Iraqi police, Government 
leaders, innocent civilians, and our very own troops. The death toll in 
Iraq continues to mount. As of today, more than 1,030 American troops 
have died in this war, a war that should not have been fought, a war 
which was wrong in the beginning, wrong today.
  More than 700 Iraqi police have perished in the short time since the 
force has existed. The numbers of civilians killed in President Bush's 
preemptive war is unknown. They may never be known. But it numbers in 
the thousands--the widows and the orphans who have been left alone, the 
tears that have been shed.
  Who is responsible for this bloodshed in Iraq? Is it a small group of 
religious radicals, or the secret agents of Osama bin Laden, or 
terrorists who might otherwise sneak out onto the streets of New York 
City? No, no, and no. An ever growing pile of press reports indicates 
that the insurgency is larger and more broad than the White House will 
admit.
  On Wednesday, September 15, the Wall Street Journal reported that 
``Iraq's once highly fragmented insurgent groups are increasingly 
cooperating to attack U.S. and Iraqi government targets, and steadily 
gaining control of more areas of the country.''
  That was the Wall Street Journal of Wednesday, September 15.
  Meanwhile, the Commander in Chief, President Bush, seems to be in the 
dark about the worsening situation in Iraq. Faced with the spread of 
violence in Iraq, the President continues to speak of Iraq as a country 
of free people. But what liberty, what liberty, is there to be enjoyed 
when the police are being killed by the scores, the chances of a 
peaceful election have been thrown out the window, and many Iraqis are 
too afraid to send their children to school?
  One must begin to question whether the President is getting the bad 
news about what is happening on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah or 
if he is simply ignoring it. Surely the Commander in Chief has a 
responsibility, has the obligation, to change his strategy when it has 
been proven a failure. Instead, the White House blindly insists that 
the problems of Iraq will sort themselves out if we simply maintain a 
resolve to stay the course. Did the American people really want to stay 
the course that has resulted in the deaths and the injuries of 
thousands of our troops?
  Now the President wants to spend another $3.4 billion in 
reconstruction funds to again try to bolster the same Iraqi security 
forces that have been outgunned and inadequately trained to take on the 
insurgents in Iraq. This is even more evidence, is it not, even more 
evidence that the administration had no plan, that the administration 
has no plan for postwar Iraq, other than to throw more money at the 
problem and hope for the best.
  As the cost of the war continues to spin out of control, we must 
remember that last fall the Bush administration promised that its 
request for the biggest foreign aid package in half a century would 
bring security and stability to Iraq. The White House got enough 
Members of Congress to vote for $18.4 billion to buy that pig in a 
poke, and the President got unprecedented flexibility to spend that 
reconstruction money almost as he sees fit. Has that reconstruction 
money helped to get our troops out of harm's way? Has it helped to 
bring our men and our women home? No. In fact, our troops are under a 
greater number of daily attacks now than they were when the President 
asked for his massive foreign aid program.
  As the President wants to spend more and more money in Iraq, our 
troops are getting sucked ever deeper into the bloody quicksand of the 
Middle East. Most astonishing yet, the White House has not held anyone 
in the administration accountable for the mess that has become Iraq. It 
is business as usual in the White House bubble.
  The Pentagon botched plans for postwar Iraq as if there ever were 
any, and the shame of Abu Ghraib has further turned world opinion 
against the United States. But instead of holding someone at the 
Department of Defense accountable for those mistakes, the Vice 
President said that we have the ``best Secretary of Defense the United 
States has ever had.''
  The CIA failed to detect Osama bin Laden's plot to attack New York 
City and Washington, DC, and then it produced faulty intelligence that 
the White House used to take our Nation to war against Iraq.

[[Page 18729]]

  The White House misled the American people. It is a war we should 
never have fought. It was wrong from the beginning; it is wrong today.
  Instead of holding someone at the CIA accountable for those mistakes, 
the President praised the former CIA Director as ``a strong leader on 
the war on terrorism.''
  The U.S.-run occupation government in Iraq mistakenly disbanded the 
Iraqi Army, bungled the management of $18.4 billion in reconstruction 
funds, and turned a blind eye to the rising flames of anti-Americanism 
in Iraq.
  Instead of demanding accountability for mistakes made by the 
Coalition Provisional Authority, rumors abound that its former head, 
Ambassador Paul Bremer, could be up for a promotion to Secretary of 
State.
  How about that? He didn't have time, he said, to come back before the 
Appropriations Committee of the Senate--I was there and asked him. No. 
He said he didn't have time. I will not have time when the time comes 
to vote for him as Secretary of State if such nomination is ever 
presented to this body.
  For all the mistakes that have been made in President Bush's 
unprovoked war on Iraq under the doctrine of preemption, which is 
unconstitutional on its face, and therefore it is fundamentally flawed, 
not a single administration official has been held accountable for the 
mess that Iraq has become. Not a single administration official has 
been called to step aside for the mistakes they have made. In fact, the 
only senior administration official the White House has seen fit to 
fire is the former Secretary of the Treasury, who dared to question the 
fiscal responsibility of more massive tax cuts. If this President 
cannot hold his advisers accountable for their mistakes, then the 
people should hold this President accountable for his poor judgment.
  The situation in Iraq has been elevated beyond a crisis. The White 
House plan for holding Iraqi elections in January 2005 is shaky and 
becoming more so with each new attack on our troops. Instead of 
demonstrating the leadership to bring more countries in to assist in 
rebuilding Iraq, the President pays lipservice to international help.
  The President has only proposed to sink more taxpayer money into the 
same failed policies that brought us to this point. We are falling 
deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. The President has 
failed to act to counter the surge in violence that is costing the 
lives of our men and women in uniform.
  How long can this bumbling by the White House go on? How long must 
our troops be tied down in Iraq? How long will we struggle without a 
plan to end the spreading violence? How long will it take for our 
country to turn away from this dead-end policy created by the dead-
brained thinking in this White House?
  How long, Mr. President? How long?
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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