[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 8599-8600]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              TIME TO HOLD PENTAGON LEADERSHIP ACCOUNTABLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, we are at a critical juncture. The 
horrible photographs of abused and humiliated Iraqi prisoners being 
beamed around the world have seriously wounded our already tattered 
credibility in Iraq, the Middle East, and around the world. The damage 
done to our effort to win the hearts of the Iraqi people may be 
irreversible, but we owe it to the 130,000 American troops putting 
their lives on the line every day in Iraq to show the world that 
America will not tolerate such abuse. We must take strong action to 
demonstrate that we understand the severity of the problem and blunt 
the damage to our image and reputation around the world. Failure to 
send a strong signal will further strengthen the hand of al Qaeda and 
the terrorist groups who will use these photographs to bolster recruits 
and promote their cause.
  It is easy to try and dismiss the abuse as the acts of a few bad 
apples acting alone. But the fact that a situation developed where such 
abuse could occur in a facility under the total control of the United 
States represents a failure of leadership at the highest levels of the 
Pentagon. It is inexcusable that the Secretary of Defense and the top 
civilian leadership of the Pentagon did not foresee the possibility of 
such abuses happening and take steps to prevent it. The fact that some 
are now trying to brush aside these abuses on the grounds that 
sometimes terrible things happen to prisoners of war only reinforces 
the fact that such abuses were foreseeable and could have been 
prevented.
  Before the war began, we know that experts on Iraq warned that the 
toughest fight would not be the military conquest over the forces of 
Saddam Hussein, but the battle to win the peace. A fundamental 
miscalculation of our civilian leadership was their belief that removal 
of the hated Saddam would automatically leave the Iraqi people to 
embrace the United States. And the Bush administration has since made 
many miscalculations that have increased the number of Iraqis who view 
us as occupiers, including the continued detention of many Iraqis 
without proof of wrongdoing.
  In a battle where we knew that the greatest challenge was to win the 
hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, political considerations are 
often more important than military calculations. Making sure those 
considerations are taken into account is the responsibility of the 
President and his leadership team. It should have been obvious to 
everybody that the negative fallout from any hint of abuse of Iraqi 
prisoners would be a huge setback to our efforts throughout the Middle 
East.
  Secretary Rumsfeld should have ensured that the procedures were in 
place to better screen the Iraqis being thrown into prison and taken 
extra precautions to ensure the physical well-being of those who were 
detained. Instead, just as the Bush administration has ignored the 
international concerns about prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, it has 
shown a cavalier attitude when international human rights groups and 
Iraqis raised issues about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
  We will be learning more about the facts in the days ahead, but the 
lawyers representing the American soldiers who were directly involved 
have already warned that these prosecutions will ``open up a can of 
worms'' that will show that these abusive practices were not only 
tolerated, but encouraged by some of their superiors as a useful part 
of interrogation.
  Nothing, nothing could be more damaging to U.S. credibility in Iraq 
than to have Iraqis abused by Americans in the same Abu Ghraib Prison 
where Saddam tortured prisoners. The awful symbolism is devastating to 
U.S. efforts around the world, and reports that Iraqi women may have 
been subject to sexual abuse will further inflame the problem. It is 
hard to think of a more serious blow to our international reputation as 
we seek to promote human rights, freedom, and democracy in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, and the Middle East.
  The tragedy, the real tragedy is that the heroic efforts of our 
soldiers who have performed so courageously in Iraq have now been 
compromised by the negligence of the Secretary of Defense and the 
Pentagon civilian leadership. Throughout the war, President Bush has 
used the rhetoric of leadership, but has failed to hold leaders in his 
administration accountable for bad decisions and serious omissions. 
Indeed, those who did raise prescient questions about the true costs 
and required troop levels were publicly rebuked, while those who have 
been consistently wrong in their predictions have received no sanction.
  This is a critical moment. The world is watching. If we do not want 
al Qaeda and our enemies to gain an even bigger public relations 
victory than they already have, the President must show the world that 
America will not stand for such abuse. The President was right to go on 
Arabic-speaking television stations in the Middle East to express his 
outrage at the abuses that occurred and make it clear that they are 
unacceptable to the American people, but that is not enough to repair 
the severe damage that has been done. We must take additional steps 
and, Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record five additional steps 
that we must take to blunt the damage that has been done as a result of 
this.
  First, it is not enough for the President to allow a few very bad 
apples to shoulder the entire blame for actions that have seriously 
undermined our efforts in Iraq and around the world. Leadership begins 
at the top and these abuses are the result of failed leadership. Even 
if Secretary Rumsfeld had no actual notice of prisoner abuse, Secretary 
Rumsfeld should have taken steps to ensure the safety of Iraqi 
prisoners. But Secretary Rumsfeld was on notice. He and his deputies at 
the Pentagon had access to numerous reports of alleged prisoner abuse 
and did nothing. That

[[Page 8600]]

failure to act has now undercut the brave efforts of our men and women 
in Iraq; their failure to act has violated the trust of our soldiers 
and the trust of the American people. The President owes it to our 
troops and the American people to act quickly to remove those 
individuals who should have acted early to prevent this debacle.
  Second, the Administration must stop being so contemptuous of 
international law and norms and immediately grant an independent third 
party, such as the International Committee for the Red Cross, full and 
unimpeded access to all the prisoners being detained in Iraq. It has 
become fashionable in this Administration to argue that the United 
States should no longer be constrained by international law and norms. 
Indeed, Secretary Rumsfeld overrode previous U.S. practice in the 
handling of detainees overseas when he ruled that the U.S. would no 
longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions. That decision and other 
statements by the Secretary sent exactly the wrong signal. At a time 
when both U.S. values and U.S. foreign policy interests demanded tight 
procedures to prevent abuse of prisoners, Secretary Rumsfeld discarded 
the rules that had been in place. The result was sadly predictable and 
avoidable. We must now work to repair our credibility by providing the 
appropriate international agencies total access to prisoners being 
held.
  Third, the Congress must take its constitutional responsibilities 
seriously. Formal congressional oversight by the relevant committees of 
this House has been virtually non-existent regarding the conduct of the 
war in Iraq. Congress has a constitutional responsibility to oversee 
the actions of the Executive Branch and to hold it accountable. Yet, 
unfortunately, especially when it comes to Iraq, the House leadership 
gets its talking points straight from the White House. It has abdicated 
its institutional responsibilities as a separate branch of government 
and become a rubber-stamp for Administration policy. It is time for 
this House to fulfill its duty to our troops and the American people by 
putting aside short term election year politics and taking its 
responsibilities seriously.
  Fourth, we should immediately close the Abu Ghraib prison. It remains 
a symbol of the brutal repression under Saddam's regime. Regional 
experts had previously recommended against using that hated facility to 
hold Iraqi prisoners because of the terrible message it sent to the 
Iraqi people. The Administration ignored their advice. It is time to 
shut it down.
  Fifth, the Administration and the Congress must immediately focus on 
the role of civilian contractors in Iraq. There are up to 20,000 
private contractors operating in Iraq, carrying out military roles from 
logistics and local army training to guarding installations and 
convoys. It is stunning that the Defense Department would contract out 
the interrogation of prisoners of war to private firms. A number of 
these contractors have been implicated in the abuses of Iraqi 
prisoners. The legal status of these contractors in war zones is a 
murky area. How do we hold these contractors accountable?
  The abuse of prisoners in Iraq has severely damaged our standing in 
the world and undercut our efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle 
East. The real tragedy is that it was avoidable. Our troops and the 
American people have been let down by a failure of leadership. Real 
leadership is now required to attempt to limit the damage that has been 
done.

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