[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20651-20653]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Garrett of New Jersey). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) is recognized until midnight.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank my friend for yielding. Here we are once more 
this evening for the next half hour to talk about the situation in the 
Middle East. It seems that we have been doing this now for, I think, 15 
or 16 months. We describe it as the Iraq Watch. I understand, also, 
that tomorrow night we will be back here shortly before the conclusion 
of the legislative business for the day prior to the Vice Presidential 
debate which is scheduled for tomorrow night between Vice President 
Cheney and Senator Edwards.
  Speaking of the Vice President, I remember being somewhat taken aback 
by the continued allegation by the Vice President relative to the 
relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Of course, just 
recently I read again where the Vice President makes allusions to some 
sort of link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Will my friend yield for just 10 seconds on that 
issue and then I will leave you alone?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, I will. Of course.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I will be happy to provide the 9/11 report. The 
committee graphically details from 1990 to 2000, to when Saddam Hussein 
was captured, his linkage with al Qaeda and it is in the 9/11 report.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. With all due respect to my good friend from California, 
I have read the report. I have read it in considerable detail. I agree 
with the chairman of the 9/11 Commission after my review of that report 
that was done by an independent commission comprised of five 
Republicans and five Democrats. In fact, this past June the chairman of 
the commission, a former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, had this to 
say in an interview that was broadcast over one of the networks. The 
report concluded that there was no operational link between al Qaeda 
and Saddam Hussein, that it was absolutely not borne out by any of the 
evidence that was available to them. In fact, the former Governor, and 
let me underscore the fact that he is a highly respected member of the 
Republican Party, had this to say. These are his words, not my words:
  ``We believe that there were a lot more active contacts frankly with 
Iran and Pakistan than there were with Iraq. Al Qaeda did not like to 
get involved with states unless they were living there. They got 
involved with Sudan. They got involved where they lived. But otherwise, 
no,'' he said on ABC's ``This Week.'' I think it is rather clear from 
the 9/11 report that there were no links between Saddam and Osama bin 
Laden. But again that does not seem to deter the Vice President from 
continuing that fiction. But again that does not appear to be unusual 
for the Vice President, because it is clear that the Vice President was 
one of the more significant influences in the determination to seek the 
military intervention with Iraq.
  In a review of the book by Bob Woodward that was posted, by the way, 
on the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site, there was a particular excerpt 
that I thought was very informative about the role of the Vice 
President in the effort to convince the American people about the need 
to go to war in Iraq. Again, I am reading from an excerpt from that 
book by Bob Woodward. It describes the differences between the 
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and his observations and that of the 
Vice President. I am now reading:
  ``Powell thought that Cheney had the fever. The Vice President and 
Wolfowitz kept looking for the connection between Hussein and September 
11. It was a separate little government that was out there, Wolfowitz, 
Libby, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Feith's `gestapo 
office,' as Secretary Powell privately referred to it. Cheney now had 
an unhealthy fixation. Nearly every conversation or reference came back 
to al Qaeda and trying to nail the connection with Iraq. He would often 
have an obscure piece of intelligence. Secretary Powell thought that 
Cheney,'' he is referring to the Vice President obviously, ``took 
intelligence and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact. Cheney 
would take an intercept and say it showed something was happening. `No, 
no, no,' Powell or another would say. `It shows that somebody talked to 
somebody else who said something might be happening.' A conversation 
would suggest something might be happening and the Vice President would 
convert that into a `we know.' Secretary Powell concluded we didn't 
know and no one knew.''
  I think it is unfortunate that, to use the words of Secretary Powell, 
that the Vice President had the fever, had a fixation about Iraq and 
some sort of operational link with al Qaeda when none existed.

                              {time}  2340

  And unfortunately, it has been repeated over and over and over again 
so that many Americans accept it, despite the conclusion reached by the 
9/11 Commission. It simply did not exist.
  My friend from California talks about 1990 and Iraq, and I would 
remind

[[Page 20652]]

my friend from California that, back in 1990, the President's father, 
George Herbert Walker Bush, made every effort to forestall sanctions 
that were passed by this House prior to the Gulf War that would have 
been imposed on Iraq and the Saddam Hussein regime. Not only is there 
inconsistency here, but please do not talk about 1990 and prior to the 
Gulf War when this government, the United States Government, under the 
President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, had what only can be 
described as a special relationship with Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein 
was taken off the terrorist list in 1984. It was that administration 
that installed an embassy in Baghdad in 1986. It was that 
administration that provided, if you will, the dual-use technologies 
that could be utilized in the development of a nuclear weapons program 
to be shipped to Iraq. I mean inconsistency is not a strong enough 
word. But maybe this is what prompted Richard Cheney, the Vice 
President, to be so obsessed and fixated with Iraq.
  The last time we were here, we discussed the need to be forthright 
and to acknowledge mistakes and not paint a picture that is simply not 
matched by the reality on the ground in Iraq. It is important to heed 
the advice of a former member of the administration, David Kay, who was 
responsible for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, who was 
appointed by the Bush-Cheney administration to do so, and came back and 
testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we were 
all wrong. Well, we were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. 
We were wrong about links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. And it 
is dangerous, let me suggest, to continue to attempt, for whatever 
purpose, and I am not impugning the motives or suggesting that there is 
a political reason that the Vice President continues to try to maintain 
that link because far be it from me to question his motives, but, 
again, to quote David Kay, former member of that administration, when 
told that the Vice President continued to suggest that weapons of mass 
destruction might still be found in Iraq, said the following, ``what 
worries me about Cheney's statements is, I think people who hold out 
for a hail Mary pass delay the inevitable looking back at what went 
wrong.'' I believe we have enough evidence now to say that the 
intelligence process and the policy process that used that information 
did not work.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from the State of Washington 
(Mr. Inslee).
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is abundantly clear that the Vice 
President has some explaining to do to the American people about what 
happened and what his participation was in starting a war based on 
false information. And there are two people I have met in the last 24 
hours who I think are deserving of an explanation. One was a mother 
whose son-in-law fortunately just got back from serving proudly in the 
Army in Iraq, and she told me she is just incredibly happy that her 
son-in-law came back healthy to the arms of his family and his wife, 
but she is not happy that others have not and that the Federal 
Government has not been candid about what happened in Iraq that got us 
into this war with such devastating consequences. That mother-in-law is 
entitled to an explanation from the Vice President of the United States 
about why he made repeated statements that are inaccurate that started 
a war that has cost over 1,000 American lives.
  Today, on the plane flying out here from Seattle, which I go home 
every weekend to Seattle, this morning sitting next to me was a major 
heading for Iraq to do an inspection tour. And I just tell my colleague 
that I feel so strongly that he and all of the 100,000-plus troops in 
Iraq deserve an explanation from their Federal Government of what 
happened here, and there are three questions I would like the Vice 
President to answer.
  Question number one, why on September 14, 2003, did the Vice 
President say this: ``If we're successful in Iraq, then we will have 
struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the 
geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault for many 
years but most especially on 9/11''? Vice President Cheney went to the 
American people and told them that Iraq was responsible for the attack 
on 9/11, and he wanted the Americans to believe that. And there was no 
evidence to that then, as we have seen the intelligence. There was no 
evidence at the time we took the vote, and there is no evidence today 
that that statement was true. And a war was started based on a 
statement that this Vice President made to Americans. They deserve an 
explanation why this Vice President sold a bill of goods to the 
American people, specifically saying that the folks had us under 
assault but most especially 9/11?
  And we know exactly what he was trying to do, which was create an 
impression that we were going to attack the people who attacked us, 
which we did in Afghanistan, and that is why we supported it with a 
huge consensus in this body. The people who attacked us were based in 
Afghanistan. But why did this Vice President then gild the lilly and 
stretch the evidence and try to create this misimpression? We deserve 
an answer to that question in this debate tomorrow night.
  Second question for the Vice President: Why on August 26, 2002, did 
the Vice President say, ``simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam 
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction''? We know now, and many of 
us knew then from reading the intelligence, that there was massive 
doubt about this issue, that the Vice President again gilded the lilly, 
tried to say there was no doubt about this issue, and that simply was 
not an accurate statement, and a war occurred as a result. And the 
people serving then and our sons and daughters who might have to serve, 
goodness knows how many years if this administration continues in 
authority in Iraq, they deserve an answer why the Vice President said 
that when it was false.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I just think there is 
a certain level of embarrassment because the Vice President has been 
proven conclusively to be wrong, not simply out of an investigation 
conducted by media, by outside parties, but by an independent 
commission established as a result of action in this body here and in 
the body across the hall that, if the gentleman remembers, the 
administration resisted.

                              {time}  2350

  But to continue to try to justify the rationale for the war, he 
simply refuses to acknowledge the reality. If only, if only he and 
others in the administration would accept the admonition of David Kay, 
who was appointed by the President and the Vice President to search for 
weapons of mass destruction, if he would just simply concur with David 
Kay's statement that we were all wrong, we could then hopefully make 
some progress. But we are not going to get that, and we know that.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, let me 
suggest why that is important. It is not a matter of culpability. That 
is not the issue. But the fact of the matter is if we are going to have 
a success, we have to have people in the administration, when you have 
a failed policy, who are willing to evaluate it and change and decide 
they had said some things that were not true and admit it and change.
  But this administration refuses to accept failure. We continue to 
have simply more of the same, and they want to say, well, we are at 
least certain, we are at least sure, we are at least resolute.
  The best description I had of that is resolution is a good thing, 
certainty is a good thing, but it is not a good thing to have a firm 
grip on the wheel if the car is heading over the cliff, and this 
administration refuses repeatedly to recognize their errors so they can 
change their policy.
  I have a third question the Vice President owes Americans an answer 
to. Why did the Vice President on March 16, 2003, say, and this is a 
long quote, but I will get to the summation, ``And we believe he has in 
fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.''

[[Page 20653]]

  Why did this Vice President want to create this massive cloud of fear 
in America about reconstituted nuclear weapons, when even the 
intelligence reports at that time, and they are now in the public 
domain, did not support that conclusion? I hate to think it was just to 
sort of support their predetermined effort to start a war, but it is 
very difficult to reach a different conclusion, when no one else was 
saying that except the Vice President. And why, if we now find that is 
inaccurate, why does the Vice President not just come clean and be 
candid with the American people, so that we can show some willingness 
to start a new policy in Iraq?
  But they keep clinging to these falsehoods, clinging to these 
misimpres-
sions, clinging to this false information that they have spewed out 
across America. And they have been successful in fooling some Americans 
about the connection of Saddam with al Qaeda. Something like 40 percent 
of Americans believe that, because they want to believe their Vice 
President.
  We all want to believe our Vice President, but the fact of the matter 
is, as long as they cling to this, it will make it more difficult to be 
a successful policy in Iraq.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, it is either a deception to mislead or it could 
be incompetence. But I do not believe it to be incompetence, because no 
one has ever accused the Vice President of being an individual who does 
not thoughtfully analyze information. But, again, as Secretary of State 
Powell concluded, if you have the fever, and he thought that the Vice 
President had the fever, then you are detached from reality.
  For the Secretary of State to use the term ``gestapo office'' as an 
appropriate description of the separate little government that was 
established in the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, I 
think says something about the inability of some people to see the 
world as it really is, as opposed to what you have decided it to be.
  We hear so much about these rosy scenarios that the President and 
other members of the administration paint regarding Iraq and what is 
transpiring there, and yet when we hear the truth as it is reported by 
individuals who do not have a particular ax to grind, such as a 
reporter from the Wall Street Journal.
  The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is, I am sure, an avid 
reader of the Wall Street Journal. That is a publication that clearly 
is pro-administration, is very conservative.
  But here is what a reporter by the name of Farnaz Fassihi says in e-
mails as recently as the 29th of September. ``Being a foreign 
correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house 
arrest. I leave when I have very good reason to and a scheduled 
interview. I avoid going to people's homes, and never walk in the 
streets. I can't go grocery shopping anymore. I can't eat in 
restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for 
stories, can't drive in anything but a full armored car, can't go to 
scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak 
English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, 
can't linger at checkpoints. There have been one too many close calls, 
including a car bomb so near my house that it blew out all the windows. 
I am now a security personnel first, a reporter second.
  ``It is hard to pinpoint when the turning point actually began. Was 
it April when Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it 
when Muqtada al-Sadr declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when 
Sadr City, home to 10 percent of Iraqi's population, became a nightly 
battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began 
spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni Triangle to include most 
of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessment, Iraq remains a 
disaster. If under Saddam it was a potential threat, under the 
Americans it has been transformed to an imminent and active threat.''
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further , I just 
wanted to make one point in response to the statement of our friend the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).
  One of the most telling things in the debate of the two presidential 
candidates last night was where the President said that we had to 
attack Iraq because the enemy attacked us, and his opponent challenged 
that and said, ``Well, no, Osama bin Laden attacked us, not Iraq.'' The 
President said, ``Of course, I know Osama bin Laden attacked us.''
  But the problem is this administration and the Vice President has 
been trying to create a misimpression from day one to tie Saddam 
Hussein to the attacks of 9/11. I want to respond to the assertion of 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) to the contrary, to read 
from the Commission report that says, and the language they used was as 
categoric as you can get, there is ``no credible evidence,'' no 
credible evidence, ``of a link between Iraq and the al Qaeda attacks 
against the United States.''
  They did not say that the evidence was suspect, they did not say the 
evidence is de minimis, they did not say the evidence is debatable. 
They said there is no, zero, zilch, nada, credible evidence of a 
connection that this Vice President for the last 2 years has been 
telling about, trying to create the impression that exists.
  He needs to get up in that debate tomorrow, and the first thing he 
needs to say is, ``You know what? We were wrong. Saddam Hussein for all 
his faults and his terrible heinous, terrible things he did to Iraqis, 
Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.'' He owes that statement to Americans. 
I will be surprised if we hear it, but I think it would be healthy if 
we did.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I can assure the 
gentleman we will not hear it. Right now it is all about trying to 
paint a rosy scenario that is absolutely without any foundation, when 
the reality is it is a disaster.

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