[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 8645-8675]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

    NOMINATION OF JOHN D. NEGROPONTE, OF NEW YORK, TO BE AMBASSADOR 
 EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO 
                                  IRAQ

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, 
which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of John D. Negroponte, of 
New York, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the 
United States of America to Iraq.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 5\1/2\ hours equally divided. Who 
yields time?
  The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I direct a parliamentary inquiry to the 
Chair. Would the Chair describe at the outset of this debate the 
unanimous consent agreement and the allocation of 5\1/2\ hours of time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 5\1/2\ hours for debate is equally divided 
between the chairman and the ranking member of the committee.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I yield myself as much time as I require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

[[Page 8646]]


  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, today the Senate considers the nomination 
of Ambassador John Negroponte to be U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. This 
position will clearly be one of the most consequential ambassadorships 
in American history. The Ambassador to Iraq not only will be called 
upon to lead an estimated 1,700 embassy personnel--1,000 Americans from 
as many as 15 different agencies of our Federal Government, and 700 
Iraqis--but he will also be the focal point of international efforts to 
secure and reconstruct Iraq and to provide the developing Iraqi 
government with the opportunity to achieve responsible nationhood.
  American credibility in the world, progress in the war on terrorism, 
relationships with our allies, and the future of the Middle East depend 
on a positive outcome in Iraq. What happens there during the next 18 
months almost certainly will determine whether we can begin to redirect 
the Middle East toward a more productive and peaceful future beyond the 
grip of terrorist influences. Helping the Iraqi people achieve a 
secure, independent state is a vital United States national security 
priority that requires the highest level of national commitment. With 
so much at stake, I am pleased the President has nominated a veteran 
diplomat and manager to lead the American presence in Iraq.
  Ambassador John Negroponte has served as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, 
to Mexico, and to the Philippines. He has also served as an Assistant 
Secretary of State and Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs 
under President Ronald Reagan. He has been the U.S. Ambassador to the 
United Nations since September 18, 2001, 7 days after the September 11 
attacks. The contacts and credibility he has developed at the United 
Nations will be invaluable.
  If we are to be successful in Iraq, the United Nations and the 
international community must play a more central role. The United 
Nations' involvement can help us generate greater international 
participation, improve the political legitimacy of the interim Iraqi 
government, and take the American face off of the occupation of Iraq. 
The appointment of an ambassador who occupies such a high and visible 
post underscores for our coalition partners and the Iraqis that the 
American commitment to Iraq is strong and we mean to succeed.
  In April, the Foreign Relations Committee held three hearings to 
examine whether American and Iraqi authorities are ready for the 
transition to Iraqi sovereignty on June 30. These hearings greatly 
advanced our understanding of the situation in Iraq and answered many 
questions. We will hold additional hearings this month to monitor 
developments and to illuminate for the American people the challenges 
and responsibility we face in Iraq.
  The President and other leaders, including Members of Congress, must 
communicate with the American people about our plan in Iraq. American 
lives will continue to be at risk in Iraq, and substantial American 
resources will continue to be spent there for the foreseeable future. I 
am convinced that the confidence and commitment demonstrated by the 
pronouncement of a flexible but detailed plan for Iraq is necessary for 
our success, and such a plan would prove to our allies and to Iraqis 
that we have a strategy and we are committed to making it work. If we 
cannot provide this clarity, we risk the loss of support of the 
American people, the loss of potential contributions from our allies, 
and the disillusionment of Iraqis.
  During Foreign Relations Committee hearings, I posed six detailed 
questions as a way of fleshing out a plan for Iraq. Answers to these 
questions would constitute a coherent transition strategy.
  We discussed issues surrounding Ambassador Brahimi's efforts, the 
status of American Armed Forces in Iraq after the transition, the role 
of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, plans for elections, the 
composition of the U.S. Embassy, efforts to provide security for its 
personnel, and how we intend to pay for the continued U.S. involvement 
in Iraq.
  Under Secretary of State Mark Grossman testified about the reporting 
of engaging the interim Iraq government as soon as it is selected. We 
cannot simply turn on the lights in the Embassy on June 30 and expect 
everything to go well. We must be rehearsing with Iraqi authorities and 
our coalition partners on how decisionmaking and administrative power 
will be distributed and exercised.
  It is critical, therefore, that Ambassador Negroponte and his team be 
in place at the earliest possible moment. For this reason, the Foreign 
Relations Committee made a bipartisan decision to take up Ambassador 
Negroponte's nomination in an expedited fashion. Processing the 
diplomatic nomination often requires weeks and sometimes months from 
the time the President announces it. Through the diligent efforts of 
the State Department and our own committee staff on both sides of the 
aisle, we accelerated the normal timetable to give Ambassador 
Negroponte and the administration a chance to stand up the U.S. Embassy 
in Iraq as soon as possible.
  I thank Senator Joe Biden and all the members of the Foreign 
Relations Committee for their help in moving this nomination forward 
unanimously.
  Ambassador Negroponte, with the support of his family, has made an 
extraordinary personal commitment to undertake this difficult 
assignment. Our Nation is fortunate that a leader of his stature and 
experience is willing to step forward. The Senate must do our part by 
supporting his efforts with the necessary attention and resources by 
allowing him to take his post as soon as possible.
  I am grateful to the leaders on both sides of the aisle for allowing 
us to commence this debate this morning.
  I add that Ambassador Negroponte's appearance before the Foreign 
Relations Committee--that led to a business meeting and the unanimous 
vote 19 to 0 on behalf of this nomination--was very important in terms 
of fleshing out the plan I mentioned in this comment.
  We specifically asked Ambassador Negroponte questions regarding what 
could be very difficult conversations even within our own Government--
specifically, a chain of command with the Ambassador, the Embassy, with 
the thousand Americans from 12 to 15 agencies, as submitted in Under 
Secretary Mark Grossman's testimony, that these people coordinate the 
chain of command responsible for security in Iraq, the chain of command 
going from the President of the United States as Commander in Chief 
through the Secretary of Defense and through the Pentagon, through 
General Abizaid and General Sanchez presently on the ground in command 
in Iraq. We asked specifically: What if there are disagreements or 
differences of judgment as to how the security functions ought to 
proceed, given political considerations, given international 
considerations that Ambassador Negroponte, if confirmed, would bring to 
the fore? These are issues that can only be worked out in the field. 
But it is important to raise the issues now.
  Our current CPA Director, Ambassador Jerry Bremmer, understands this 
situation very specifically. He told me in a telephone conversation 
yesterday that he has been visiting with General Abizaid and General 
Sanchez specifically on these issues.
  It is important for Ambassador Negroponte to be confirmed, to be a 
part of this conversation at the earliest possible moment.
  Ambassador Negroponte responded to our questioning by pointing out 
that he will physically be in New York during many days of this month 
because of his responsibilities as our Ambassador to the U.N. and that 
is a very important and pivotal position in the Iraq planning.
  Ambassador Negroponte returned, in fact, from our public hearing 
before the Foreign Relations Committee to the U.N. to consult with 
Ambassador Brahimi who was, in fact, making a presentation before the 
Security Council that very afternoon.
  Ambassador Brahimi is now in Iraq. He is, once again, proceeding 
through consultation with Iraq authorities and others. He estimates 
around the 1st of June coming forward with those who have been 
suggested by all parties to be

[[Page 8647]]

the interim government: Apparently, 29 persons, including a Prime 
Minister, a President, two Vice Presidents, 25 members of the 
consulting counsel.
  It is very important, and we asked Ambassador Negroponte about this 
issue, that Ambassador Negroponte and those who he is going to have 
with him--he has mentioned a DCM, Mr. Jeffrey, probably onboard within 
the next 10 days in Baghdad--be in consultation with the 29 members, if 
they prove to be acceptable to the Iraqis and to other parties involved 
because, in addition to conversations between our Ambassador and the 
chain of command, there will need to be intensive consultation with the 
Iraqi leadership to which this measure of sovereignty is to be extended 
beginning July 1.
  On security issues and likewise on political issues, Ambassador 
Negroponte understands the Iraqi officials will believe, correctly, 
that the governors of Iraq have Iraqi constituents, that on their part, 
as described in our hearing, there could be a certain amount of push-
back from time to time by what they think are American measures or 
decisions that are not wise, in their judgment, for either the security 
or the politics or the economy of Iraq.
  Accommodating these three channels of thought requires what I 
describe as a time for rehearsal during June. Before the curtain opens 
July 1, it is extremely important that all of these parties have had 
intensive conversations, because the success demands--at least of the 
Iraqi transition government, working with Ambassador Brahimi and other 
U.N. officials on the plans for elections now estimated to occur 
anytime from the end of December of this year to January of calendar 
2005--those preparations go smoothly.
  These elections are the basis that many Iraqis have suggested provide 
legitimacy for some Iraqis then to proceed to build a constitution and 
a structure for governance of the country while security is provided by 
Americans, by other coalition members, and increasingly, apparently by 
the Iraqis themselves, and as the vetting of those who were previously 
in the army takes place, the continuing training of police so not only 
numbers are increased but equally important the quality of service and, 
therefore, the possibility for a security situation that involves 
Iraqis and the expertise they may bring to that, well coordinated with 
the military figures we have onboard now.
  In our hearing, we also raised with Ambassador Negroponte the 
probability of a U.N. Security Council resolution that brings some 
certainty to these arrangements I have been describing and does so at 
least in as timely a way as possible. Clearly, Ambassador Negroponte's 
current duties--he has worked with colleagues on the Security Council--
will be very important in the careful drafting and execution of that 
resolution. He believes it is important, and so do members of our 
committee.
  Likewise, we would like to see worked out, although this may not be 
possible, after July 1, the greatest possible certainty about the 
status of our forces and the forces of other foreign countries that are 
a part of the coalition in Iraq--that issue is not at all a certainty--
and precisely who is competent, given the governance situation to give 
it is still an open question, but it is a question that must be 
resolved. That is why we have laid it on the table as a part of our 
confirmation proceeding with Ambassador Negroponte.
  We have asked the Ambassador, likewise, about his enthusiasm for this 
post. I simply want to say, as I have in my earlier comments, we admire 
his ability to take hold on fairly short notice of such a momentous 
responsibility. He is a professional in every sense of the word, a man 
of great experience.
  The committee was mindful from previous confirmation hearings on 
Ambassador Negroponte that questions have been raised about his tenure 
in Honduras. There have been, at the time of his U.N. confirmation, 
those questions and others, at least, that members had.
  I mention this because this has not always been smooth sailing with 
regard to these confirmation proceedings, nor should it be. Our members 
take very seriously what happens in various countries during the tenure 
of Ambassadorships or what has been taking place at the United Nations 
during the current responsibilities of Ambassador Negroponte.
  The committee also is mindful simply of the hazards, the dangers, the 
political and security difficulties, that will attend not only our 
Ambassador but all of our American personnel who may be proceeding to 
set up the largest embassy we have had in any country at any time, in a 
very short period of time, in which responsibilities have to be 
carefully defined.
  I am pleased a great number of brave Americans have, in fact, stepped 
forward and volunteered for positions in the American Embassy complex, 
not only as a part of the State Department contingent, but from the 
other agencies that will be represented. That is the spirit with which 
Ambassador Negroponte approaches this responsibility. I find it not 
only admirable but very fulfilling to see and to witness this kind of 
responsiveness on his part.
  Therefore, it is a privilege to commence this debate, indicating the 
nature of our hearing and the nature of other hearings we have had on 
Ambassador Negroponte in the past and our observation of his conduct 
and his achievements as an American public servant over the years. I 
believe the record is very complete on those achievements and on his 
qualifications. I am most hopeful during the course of the day our 
debate will do much to boost the prospects for his success and will 
lead to a favorable vote of confirmation for him.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). The Senator 
from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak to the Negroponte 
nomination. Let me begin where I end up: I think we owe Ambassador 
Negroponte and his wife Diana, quite frankly, a debt of gratitude. It 
takes political courage, physical courage, and moral courage to take on 
this assignment. I cannot think in my years in the Senate of a 
circumstance where we have placed an individual into a position where 
the degree of difficulty in accomplishing his mission has been as high 
and the stakes as profound as Ambassador Negroponte is being positioned 
now.
  It is unusual, in all my years here of speaking to and voting on the 
Ambassadorships and positions of the State Department, for me to start 
off by thanking the nominee for being willing to take on this 
responsibility.
  Although the circumstance we find ourselves in in Iraq, I think, is 
still redeemable, the degree of difficulty in accomplishing our mission 
has been made extraordinarily more difficult by the events of the past 
year and particularly by the revelations of the past several days.
  Let me define at the outset once again--and I apologize to my friend 
and my chairman for having to hear me say this again and again and 
again and again and again--what I would consider to constitute success, 
what our mission is. For me--and I have said this from before we went 
in, and consistently since then--it is leaving the Iraqi people with a 
representative government of their choosing that is secure within its 
own borders and poses no threat to its neighbors and does not possess 
or seek to possess weapons of mass destruction or harbor terrorists. 
That is difficult but doable. It is my hope that if we are able to help 
the Iraqi people accomplish that, in time they could build political 
and economic institutions that we would recognize as a liberal 
democracy. But I want to make it clear what I believe the test of 
success or failure is.
  Unfortunately, the Negroponte nomination has been swamped by the 
debate and the crisis we now face in Iraq and in the Middle East. So it 
is necessary to talk about the policy in Iraq more than about the 
personality of the individual we are about to put in place to carry out 
American policy.
  As complicated as Iraq seems, in one sense it is fairly simple. We 
have three basic options as a nation. One, we can continue to try to 
seek the objective I

[[Page 8648]]

have stated, or even a broader objective of liberal democratization on 
the western model as some in the administration state, by ourselves in 
the hope that more of the same of we have been prescribing will bring 
about success.
  Or we can conclude--as some have in this body, although they have 
refrained from stating it; as some have in the American public, and 
they have stated it; and as some serious press people and political 
pundits and think-tank types have--that this is not doable, meaning the 
objective I stated, and that we should figure out how, as rapidly as 
possible, to leave Iraq before it implodes.
  There is a third option, which seems to me the only rational option, 
notwithstanding the fact that the degree of difficulty has increased; 
and that is, we can get the Iraqi people more engaged and the world's 
major powers to help us invest in helping the Iraqi people accomplish 
the goal of self-government. Nothing, in my view, from this point on 
will be easy--nothing. Not a single aspect of this undertaking will be 
easy.
  The chairman and I, from different perspectives, independently have 
been characterized as critics of administration policy. We both voted 
for this. We both, in differing degrees, but I think on balance in 
agreement, laid out--this is not 20/20 hindsight--how difficult we 
thought the task would be before we went in, and the predicates that 
should have been laid down to increase the prospects of success before 
we went in, and have independently, together and with others, from the 
moment we went in, met privately, publicly, within the committee and 
through our personal relationship, with administration officials and 
others, argued for a different approach or a ratcheting up of the 
effort in Iraq in a way that could and would allow for legitimacy for 
whatever government came forward and more security on the ground. 
Because security is a precondition, in my view, for getting the Iraqi 
people into a position where they are willing to take the risk--and 
there will be risk--of raising their heads in an effort to form a 
government that is not an Iranian model and not a strongman model.
  This has been made more difficult by the fact that, in my view--
speaking for myself only--we have squandered every opportunity since 
the statue of Saddam was pulled down by ropes. Since that moment we 
have squandered every major opportunity we have had to get this 
endeavor on the right track. I want to make clear for anyone who is 
listening that an incredibly large dose of humility is in order for 
anyone who stands and suggests that they know the answer in Iraq. I am 
not suggesting that I know with any degree of certainty whether the 
prescription that I and others laid out in detail in July, August and 
September the year before we went to war, in innumerable speeches and 
presentations on the Senate floor and other places since we went to 
war, whether if had every single thing that I and others had suggested 
been done, I could guarantee the American public I am certain we would 
succeed.
  This is an incredible undertaking. There has been no time in the 
history of the modern nation state where what we are attempting to do 
in that region of the world has succeeded.
  As I said to Ambassador Bremer, when Mr. Talwar and I were there a 
few months after Saddam fell: ``Mr. Ambassador, I want you to 
understand that I believe if the Lord Almighty came down and gave you 
the absolute correct answer to the first 20 major decisions you have to 
make, you still only have a 65 percent of getting this right.''
  I want to make clear, I understand this is a difficult deal. I 
understand that mistakes would be made no matter who had been 
President, no matter who had been in charge. But I do think we put 
ourselves in a position where we started off this occupation having 
made three very fundamental mistakes that have to be corrected.
  One, we can correct. I believe the administration significantly 
exaggerated the imminence of the threat posed by Saddam, thereby 
squandering an opportunity to build the international consensus we 
needed, not to win the war but secure the peace. Committee reports we 
wrote, Democrats and Republicans in the committee, repeatedly started 
off saying: We do not need international help to win the war, but it 
will be essential in winning the peace.
  As a consequence of the exaggeration of the threat in terms of how 
imminent it was, we squandered the opportunity to isolate the French 
and the Germans, who I believe were taking advantage of President 
Bush's misstatements and/or mistakes--unfairly taking advantage. We 
lost and squandered the opportunity to isolate them and, as a 
consequence of that, at the same time to generate much broader 
international support so when we did go, there was a genuine coalition; 
that there was more legitimacy for the undertaking from the outset.
  The second serious mistake we made is going in with too few forces, 
squandering the opportunity to wipe out the Republican Guard, to 
prevent looting and street crime, to secure nearly 1 million tons of 
weapons that are now being used against our troops that were left in 
open depots, to avoid a security vacuum that is now being filled by 
common criminals, insurgents and rogue militias, and outside ``foreign 
fighters.'' It was not as if this was not a topic of debate before we 
went. The way we treated and approached the Turks when we wanted the 
4th ID to come through, the arrogance of suggesting that we didn't need 
that, we could still move anyway. What would be the status, I ask my 
friend from Connecticut, of the Sunni triangle, had the 4th ID come 
down from the north through the Kurdish area into the triangle?
  Can I guarantee it would have been crushed? No. Can I say with 
certainty we would be better off than we are now? Yes. We went with too 
little force, too little power.
  That brings us to the third fundamental mistake we made--and I say 
this not to criticize but to set up what I think we have to do from 
this point on. If we can't determine individually or collectively what 
the mistakes were that put us in this position, how in the devil are we 
going to get to the right decision now, if there is one? The third 
fundamental mistake in getting this right was, we went in with too 
little legitimacy. Not only didn't we have the rest of the world with 
us, we decided for some reason unknown to me--and I don't want to bash 
anybody--that Ahmed Chalabi and the expatriates were the answer to 
legitimacy, and that initially General Garner, on the one hand, and 
Chalabi on the other, would move along very quickly.
  As a consequence, we squandered the opportunity to generate wider 
support inside Iraq and in the Arab world and among the major powers.
  Now I have to add to the list of serious mistakes that were made 
these horribly degrading abuses of jailed Iraqis that have made the 
problem exponentially worse. I don't pretend to be an expert on Islam. 
I don't pretend to be an expert in terms of the culture in the Arab 
world.
  But I, like my chairman, have gone out and tried to hire for my staff 
serious experts. I have, as he has and my friend from Connecticut has 
and my friend from New Mexico has--we have, over the last couple of 
years, sought out the most informed voices in this country about Islam, 
about the Arab culture. I went so far, 2\1/2\ years or 3 years ago, as 
to go to Harvard and hire a professor whose expertise is Islam, because 
I was aware of how little I knew about the 1.2 billion Muslims in the 
world.
  One of the fairly clear conclusions I have arrived at, which is no 
revelation to anyone, is that, as horrible as this sounds, we probably 
would have done less damage to our image and our legitimacy and our 
motive had the Iraqi prisoners been shot, like Saddam and other despots 
in that region do, than to have forced them, in some circumstances at 
least, to engage in degrading, sexually embarrassing, humil-
iating positions.
  If I am not mistaken, a picture I saw in the paper today was of a 
naked Iraqi prisoner with a leash around his neck. There are certain 
things that certain cultures take on as a degree of gravity and 
depravity that don't occur in other communities.

[[Page 8649]]

  So now these mistakes have complicated our mission and, I believe, 
genuinely jeopardized our objective: a stable Iraq, with a 
representative government that poses no threat to its neighbors, does 
not possess weapons of mass destruction, or cradle terrorists.
  To find our way from here, it seems to me we have to go back to first 
principles. I think one of those first principles is that we cannot 
want freedom for the Iraqi people more than they want it. My premise 
has been--and it is beginning to evaporate--that the vast silent 
majority of Iraqis want freedom. They want a representative government, 
but they have been brutalized for three decades and they have learned 
to keep their heads down, not merely as a consequence of the despot who 
ruled them, but also because of a sense that the outside world won't 
stick with them. So they are keeping a pretty low profile. 
Consequently, the ``insurgents'' and others are the face of Iraq, in 
many cases right now.
  The second part of the first principle is that we have to create a 
condition on the ground which will let them raise their heads above the 
crowd and begin to take charge of their own country. The most important 
condition, in my view--so you understand where I am coming from--the 
necessary precondition for that is security in the neighborhood, 
security in the streets, security so you can send your daughter from 
your home to the corner store to pick up sundries needed for the meal. 
That is the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, in the personal experience 
of all of us who have been there, as well as what the polling data 
shows.
  So that raises a very difficult question: How could we create 
security or a condition for security? There is no single step, in my 
view, that we can take. There is a coordinated series of steps that 
would move us toward real security in Iraq for the purpose of letting 
the Iraqis begin to work out their own governmental circumstances. The 
first is very unpopular. As my Democratic friends here can tell you, 
when I raise it in the caucus, it is not very popular. One is more 
American troops now.
  I have, as you have, surveyed not only the existing military force 
and generals, but I have been in contact recently with a total of seven 
former CENTCOM commanders, supreme allied commanders, and/or generals 
in charge of the distribution of our forces for the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff over the last several years. There is an absolutely common thread 
they all have. They have differences as to how many troops we could 
garner quickly and from where we could get them. But they all agree on 
several things. We need more troops, if only for troop protection. We 
clearly need more troops, as well, to begin to create the environment 
of greater security on the ground. These generals also tell me--these 
are four-star folks, people who have run these shows--that we need to 
demonstrate our resolve to our NATO friends, European friends, Arab 
friends, Pakistani friends, all of whom have the capacity to help us in 
one form or another in this. But as strange as it sounds to us, they 
are doubtful of our commitment. Are we going to stay? So I think we 
need more forces.
  Do I expect any Delawarean listening to this to be happy with me 
saying that? No, not one. Am I frustrated that the failure to have the 
forces we recommended, that General Shinseki recommended, and others 
recommended but was not followed puts me in the position of being the 
guy calling for more forces? Purely personally, it makes me angry that 
I am in the spot of having to be the one to deliver bad news to folks 
at home, as if this is my idea. But the fact is, no matter what we say, 
in my view, security requires more force.
  It is going to require more sacrifice from the middle class and the 
poor. We have to do a much better job of sharing the burden here. I 
want to warn everybody now. I am going to vote for more money for Iraq, 
but I will introduce my amendment again, that people who are willing 
and able to pay for it now--pay for it, us, and not hand the bill to my 
granddaughters. I will get back to that at another time.
  The second thing in terms of security that we have to do is get a 
buy-in from the world's major powers. It is going to be years before 
Iraq can handle their own security. But we cannot sustain the effort on 
our own for years. We are providing nearly 90 percent of the troops, 
taking 90 percent of the non-Iraqi casualties, and spending the bulk of 
the reconstruction costs. Our troops have to be bolstered with troops 
from NATO, from India and Pakistan, and from the region.
  Am I suggesting to you that I am naive enough to think we can do it 
in a big way now? No. But I have done the homework we have all done. I 
have spoken with our Supreme Allied Commander; I have gone to NATO; I 
have sat down with these generals. This is what they tell me.
  Immediately, if there is a consensus among our NATO allies, we could 
get somewhere between as few as 3,000 and as many as 7,000 NATO troops. 
Immediately they could take over the border patrol. Immediately they 
could take over what is left in the north, although we depleted many of 
our forces in the north in the Kurdish area, and/or coordinate the 
Polish division in the south, freeing up American forces that are now 
doing those functions.
  Why is that important? You say: Biden, out of 150,000, 160,000 folks, 
another 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 troops are not going to make much 
difference here. I argue it makes a significant difference in the buy-
in of the major powers in the world. That, in turn, would open the door 
for an appropriate resolution authorizing--this from the U.N., not U.N. 
blue helmets--an authorization for NATO forces. I believe that would 
bring in, with a lot of diplomacy and Presidential leadership, 
significant numbers of troops from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and 
from the region. But it is a process.
  I do not know what the folks in South Carolina are saying, but I know 
what they are saying in Delaware: ``I ain't doing this alone, Joe.'' 
And they know if NATO is in, the prestige of the major powers is on the 
line, as well as ours, to stay the course.
  Our troops have to be bolstered and NATO and the surrounding Arab 
countries must be convinced to take on the urgent responsibility of 
training Iraqi armed forces and police.
  I might add, the Germans and the French offered that right after 
Saddam's statue fell if, in fact, we were willing to get authorization 
for that from the U.N.
  The neighboring Arab countries are fully capable of training some of 
these forces. Clearly, the Europeans have even greater experience in 
training police forces, all of which are urgently needed.
  Many say this cannot be done. I know from the very serious people in 
the press, they look at me and privately say to me: Senator, great 
idea, too late, man; get real. What can really be done?
  Look, the President does not collect his paycheck--no President 
collects his paycheck--by managing. He gets paid to lead.
  We had before our committee two men I have high regard for, Mark 
Grossman from the State Department and Peter Rodman from the Defense 
Department. I asked Secretary Rodman what we're doing to get NATO to 
participate. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here: We have already asked, 
which is mildly disingenuous. I do not know anybody who has been here 
very long who can name for me anything, other than declaring article V 
invoked, that NATO has done spontaneously without U.S. leadership 
without a specific plan being brought to NATO, sold to NATO, and 
negotiating with NATO in Brussels through Presidential leadership. The 
President has to commit to sell this.
  Going to the U.N. is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Let's not 
get into this sort of ideological war that has taken place in the 30 
years I have been here about the U.N. The President has to win support 
of key countries first before he goes to the U.N., or before someone 
goes to the U.N., and then the U.N. has to engage a Security Council 
resolution to give those major countries the political justification 
for going to their constituencies and saying: I want to get in a deal 
you didn't want me in, in the first place; it looks

[[Page 8650]]

like it is going bad now, but is necessary for our security--ours, 
meaning France, England, Germany, wherever, any country.
  The President should immediately, in my view, in light of the recent 
revelations convene a summit of the major powers with the most at stake 
in Iraq, including those from the Arab world. The objectives for this 
group should be to endorse the Brahimi plan for a caretaker government, 
propose a senior international figure to referee the political disputes 
that are going to take place between June 30 and elections being held 
in January, and call for and authorize a multinational security force 
under NATO command and U.S. leadership to be the vehicle that provides 
the security.
  Then, as a final step, I think this group--call it a new contact 
group--should go to the U.N. and seek a security council blessing for 
this agreement.
  I have no illusions about the U.N. being able to bring anything 
special to Iraq, but its blessing is necessary to provide political 
cover to leaders whose people oppose the war and who will now be asked 
to sacrifice to build the peace. To paraphrase George Will, it may be a 
necessary mask to hide the American face. And George Will is no fan of 
the U.N.
  Simultaneously, the President should be going to NATO. NATO cannot 
take it on right away, and I will not go back through this again, but 
it can do a lot. It would free up, I am told, as many as 20,000 
American troops, open the door to participation by countries such as 
India and Pakistan, and send an important message to the American 
people that we are not bearing the security burden in Iraq virtually 
alone.
  By the way, when I go home, the people say to me: Well, the Brits are 
with us, Joe? Americans do not know there are only 7,500 Brits there, 
God bless them, in all their bravery--7,500. We have, what, 160,000 
Americans in the region? As John Kerry suggested, it seems to me we 
should also make the training of Iraqi security forces a much more 
urgent mission than we have thus far but we must understand it will 
take time and that it needs to be done right.
  When I was in Iraq last summer, our specialists told me it would take 
five years to recruit and train a police force of 75,000 and three 
years to recruit and train an army of 40,000. Instead, the 
Administration rushed 150,000 Iraqis into uniform with minimal vetting 
and training. When trouble came, many abandoned their posts.
  Here, too, other countries could play a potentially decisive role. 
For example, the Europeans have greater expertise than we do in 
training police. Even the French told me that under the right 
conditions they would be willing to train Iraqi police. Our friends in 
the region, including Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco, could host training 
sessions for Iraqi police, border security forces, and the military. 
They could, in fact, take American-trained Arab officers from Morocco, 
Egypt, and Jordan and embed them with Iraqi forces in Iraq now, a la 
Fallujah.
  There are a lot of specific ideas I will not bore my colleagues with 
now that are not new to me. I am getting these from serious people who 
have run the show in that region of the world, military forces. But by 
doing this, it seems to me, we can significantly speed up the day when 
the Iraqis can provide their own security and Americans can come home.
  Why would other countries join what looks like a lost cause they did 
not support in the first place? It is a reasonable question to ask. For 
one simple reason: It is in their naked self-interest. For Europeans, 
Iraq's failure endangers the security of their oil supply. They get a 
significantly higher percentage of their oil from the region than we 
do. It is in their interest because they have large Muslim populations 
that could be radicalized. It is in their interest because of the 
threatening destabilization of refugee flows that would be created if a 
civil war breaks out. It is in their interest because it is their front 
yard, and we may be creating a new, huge source of terrorism if the 
result is not a civil election, but a civil war.
  For Iraq's neighbors, a civil war in Iraq would draw them in--i.e., 
the Kurds, the Turks, the Iranians. It would put moderates in the 
region on the shelf for another generation. It would put radicals in 
the driver's seat, and I think it would threaten the very survival of 
the regimes in Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
  Would what I am suggesting be difficult to achieve? You bet. The bar 
has been raised here. The degree of difficulty is exponentially 
greater. Will it guarantee success? No. But I know of no other 
alternative than to try.
  In light of all the mistakes we made, no one can guarantee success, 
but if we do not do this, I think success will, in fact, be near 
impossible.
  If the President does do all of what we are talking about, it is not 
going to be enough to put us on the path to success given the 
revelations of this week, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. As I said 
before, no single act I can think of, other than maybe the bombing of 
the holiest shrines in Najaf loaded with pilgrims, could have been 
worse for America's image than what has happened, notwithstanding the 
fact that it does not represent American troops, it does not represent 
American values, it does not represent what the American people believe 
needs be done.
  The facts are appalling and so is the symbolism. Ironically, the 
abuses took place in the same prison that Saddam made himself famous 
for his torture of his opponents. As a result, I am concerned that even 
if we do everything I just outlined in which several of us have been 
advocating for months, we will not be able to muddle through the so-
called transition of sovereignty on June 30 and then the elections next 
year. The revelations have so damaged our prospects of success that I 
believe the only way to recover is to do something equally dramatic in 
a positive sense. I think we need to make this less about us and more 
about the Iraqi people.
  The Iraqi people are going to wake up on July 1 and still see 140,000 
American troops out their window, patrols going by in Humvees at 40 
miles an hour. They will still lack security and they will still be 
seething about the abuse of the prison scandal. And they will continue 
to blame us for everything that has gone wrong in the country.
  I ask any of my colleagues who are listening whether there is any 
possibility, no matter what the interim government is, that they will 
be able to, even if they want to, vote to keep American forces in their 
country after July 1, when they are ostensibly in charge? Even as we 
move to increase security and bring the rest of the world in, there are 
four things we have to do right away, and I will end with this.
  First, we should today announce that the Red Crescent, the Red Cross, 
the international community, should be able to come into every prison 
in Iraq, open them up and put the international community permanently 
in the prisons as observers.
  Second, we have to establish a credible, independent investigation of 
the abuses and go as high in the command chain as the facts lead us and 
demand accountability.
  Third, we should close the Abu Ghraib prison, work with the Iraqi 
people on a plan to destroy it or convert it to a monument. We cannot 
do that precipitously because we need to build other facilities to 
house 5,000 prisoners. Possibly we should do as was recommended by the 
State Department and release a significant number of those prisoners 
who, according to some in the State Department, need not be detained in 
the first place.
  Fourthly, and this is the most controversial thing I suspect I am 
going to say in the minds of my colleagues, in coordination with the 
Brahimi plan, we should hold snap elections now, ideally early this 
summer, to create the equivalent of a loya jirga where on a community 
level across Iraq they will hold down and dirty elections to elect 
those who will write this new constitution.
  I want to see pictures and debates about whether people are getting 
shot going to the polls, scrambling going to the polls, arguing about 
whether the election is free or not. I want this about the Iraqi 
people.

[[Page 8651]]

  This election will be far from perfect, but they could use their oil-
for-food ration cards as proof of registration and get on with it 
quickly as part of the transition that is already envisioned for the 
total free election in November of 2006 of an actual government.
  The Iraqis would elect government representatives at a local level 
who would come together, as I said, the equivalent of a loya jirga.
  Until now, I believed that, provided the caretaker government was 
selected by a respected international figure with buy-in from the 
Iraqis, not the U.S., it would pass the legitimacy test. In the wake of 
the prison incident, I do not think that is possible.
  The big obstacle would be security, especially in the Sunni triangle. 
And there is the certain prospect that some people will be elected that 
we will not like.
  But the vast bulk of the country could handle elections now. In the 
Shi'a south, it is a gamble, but it is better than an even chance that 
moderate Shi'a would emerge if given an opportunity for elections, and 
they would finally use their power and influence to defeat Sadr and 
other radicals among them.
  The U.N. has a team in place now to prepare for elections in January. 
Let's speak with Brahimi and see if we can speed up that process and 
make elections the next step in the transition plan.
  I realize this is a fairly radical proposal, but I believe we need a 
fairly radical proposal. This should focus on what the Iraqi people 
need now, and we should demonstrate that everything in our mission is 
to turn this over as rapidly and clearly as possible.
  I close with this one rhetorical question: The chairman of the 
Foreign Relations Committee has been pointing out, what about the 
conundrum when the interim government is appointed and it concludes we 
should not be sending troops to Fallujah? I think there is a more basic 
question than that. What happens now that 70 percent of the Iraqi 
people now think we should get out? By the time this prison scandal is 
over, it is going to be 90 percent. What happens when we appoint the 
new Iraqi government and give it partial sovereignty and right out of 
the box they say, Get out of Dodge?
  We better do something quickly or Negroponte's Herculean efforts are 
likely to be for naught.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I support the nomination of Ambassador 
Negroponte. He is assuming an extremely difficult position. I wish him 
well in this new position, and I commend him for his willingness to 
take it on, quite frankly.
  One of the most difficult problems he will face is how we correct the 
perceptions and the reality that have come to light with regard to 
abuse and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq. I want to say a few words 
about that issue today as well.
  I congratulate and commend BG Mark Kimmitt for the statement he made 
yesterday at a press briefing in Baghdad. He gave what I consider to be 
a straightforward, unambiguous apology to the Iraqi people for what has 
occurred. In my view, that is the message that all of us in positions 
of responsibility should be conveying to the Iraqi people on this 
issue. His statement was as follows:

       My Army's been embarrassed by this. My Army's been shamed 
     by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those 
     soldiers did to your citizens. It was reprehensible and it 
     was unacceptable. And it is more than just words, that we 
     have to take those words into action and ensure that never 
     happens again. And we will make a full-faith effort to ensure 
     that never happens again.

  Frankly, I regret the President did not use his opportunity in his 
interviews to make the same straightforward apology to the Iraqi 
people. I hope this Senate, in the resolution the leadership of 
Republican and Democratic leaders is drafting for consideration in the 
Senate on this issue will contain that kind of straightforward apology 
to the Iraqi people. I think that is an appropriate message for all of 
us to embrace.
  Much needs to be done in order to correct the situation that has 
occurred. I suggest one starting point would be the following.
  First, a full accounting about who we have detained and what the 
administration plan has been and is for these detainees; not just in 
Iraq but in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, wherever our military is 
detaining foreigners, we need to come clean about what our intentions 
are and what actions we have taken.
  Second, as to all detainees, we need to fully comply with the Geneva 
Convention. That means providing each of them an opportunity for a 
hearing, an opportunity to argue to someone they are improperly being 
detained. As to detainees who are not a threat to our troops or to our 
national interests and about whom we do not have evidence of criminal 
activity, we need to release those detainees. Obviously, if they pose a 
threat to U.S. forces or a threat to U.S. interests, then they should 
be charged and they should be prosecuted. But if they pose no such 
threat, they should be released.
  According to the morning paper, the President has privately chided 
the Secretary of Defense. This is an unusual way to conduct business 
here in Washington, but I am never surprised anymore about how business 
is conducted. I heard the statement on the news that the President was 
standing behind the Secretary of Defense. Then I opened the paper this 
morning and it said a senior White House official said the President 
has privately admonished the Secretary of Defense; that:

     . . . Bush is ``not satisfied'' and ``not happy'' with the 
     way that Rumsfeld informed him about the investigation into 
     the abuses of U.S. soldiers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison or 
     the quantity of information that Rumsfeld provided, the 
     senior White House official said.

  Then it goes on to point out the senior White House official did:

     . . . refuse to be named, so that he could speak more 
     candidly.

  As I say, I am always amazed by the goings on in our Government. But 
I am glad to see the President shares some of the frustration I and 
many of us here in Congress have had about the lack of full 
information, the lack of adequate knowledge about what is going on. In 
order to remedy the situation, I recommend the President start by 
demanding a quick and a full response to the following questions: How 
many people have we detained in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in other 
parts of the world? Who have we detained? Who have we taken into 
custody? How many of them are still in custody, and to those who are 
not still in custody, what has happened to them?
  There is a report that there are investigations about 25 deaths that 
have occurred among detainees in Iraq. Where are these prisoners being 
detained? Where in Iraq are they being detained? Which prisons? How 
many in each prison? Where in Afghanistan are they being detained? 
Which prisons? Where are they located? How long have these detainees 
been in custody? How many have been charged with crimes? Are we 
intending to charge these detainees with crimes? If not, what are we 
intending with regard to these detainees?
  What is our position regarding our obligations under the Geneva 
Convention with regard to military detainees, with regard to civilian 
detainees? How can we justify continued detention of people in each of 
these categories?
  Another set of questions I believe the President should insist upon 
answers to, is what has happened to any prisoners we have transferred 
to third countries? How many captives have we in fact turned over to 
other countries for questioning? Which countries? Pakistan? Israel? 
Other nations? What are the policies and practices of those countries 
with regard to torture of prisoners and treatment of prisoners? Have 
they been afforded their Geneva Convention rights in those countries? 
What is the status of those prisoners now?
  This is obviously a partial list of questions. The American public 
deserves answers to these questions. The President deserves answers to 
these questions. Those of us in Congress deserve answers to these 
questions. If we are serious about taking corrective action to deal 
with the abuses that have

[[Page 8652]]

been disclosed, then in my view, at least, answering these kinds of 
basic questions is an essential starting point.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, let me thank my 
colleague from New Mexico for his thoughtful comments. I certainly want 
to associate myself with them. I, too, want to commend General Kimmett 
for his very concise, clear, unambiguous statement yesterday. I was 
moved by it.
  I was moved by the personal pronoun ``my,'' too--``my Army.'' This is 
someone who dedicated his life--in fact, the Kimmett family has one of 
the most distinguished records of any American family when it comes to 
serving the U.S. Government in uniform. Mark and his family have worn 
that uniform proudly. Over the years, numerous members of his family 
have. I could feel the pain of Mark Kimmett's sentiments in those brief 
comments he made so eloquently yesterday.
  It is on that note that I would like to begin my remarks. Clearly the 
events of the last several days, the revelations we have become aware 
of, the events going back now apparently as late as last November, 
indicate a very serious problem. But before getting into the details of 
that, speaking for myself--and I am quite confident that I speak for my 
colleagues here, and others--it is very clear that while this is a 
serious problem, the overwhelming majority of the more than 130,000 
American men and women in uniform who are operating in Iraq are good, 
decent and caring people, who would never allow this kind of activity 
to occur on their watch. So I want to begin by thanking them. This is a 
very difficult service they are engaged in.
  Certainly those who are responsible for these acts and those who 
condoned or allowed them to happen need to be brought to a bar of 
justice as soon as possible.
  But I think it would be a mistake if we allowed our disgust with 
these abuses to somehow cause those who are in uniform, serving in Iraq 
today, to believe that there is any feeling here that this is an 
indictment of all of them. It certainly is not.
  Let me be clear--my disagreements with U.S. policy and how this whole 
matter of Iraq has been handled, as well as the actions of what seem to 
be only a few, in no way diminish my admiration and respect for those 
in uniform who are serving in Iraq or anywhere else.
  However, these reports of abuses are very disturbing. And they are 
not only unacceptable, they are possibly violations of United States 
law and international law. Moreover, it is obvious that this matter has 
not been treated with the urgency it warrants. If in fact the reports 
are accurate, these events may have occurred as early as last November 
or December, and they are only now coming to light--primarily, it 
appears, because there are photographs. I suspect that had this been an 
account reported in some written document, without any photographic 
evidence, it might not be receiving the kind of attention it deserves.
  Obviously these allegations of abuse must be quickly investigated, 
and those responsible for these reprehensible acts brought to justice. 
Those in the chain of command as well, who failed to discharge their 
duties effectively to detect and prevent such actions, need to be 
sanctioned, including, to put it simply, fired.
  Again, I want to emphasize that the majority of our service men and 
women are not to blame. I can not stress this point enough. The 
overwhelming majority of our troops are doing a superb job under very 
difficult circumstances. They are putting their lives at risk every 
single day for this country.
  Indeed, what has happened here, what has occurred, also puts all of 
these honorable men and women who are serving, not only in Iraq but 
elsewhere, at risk. These abuses damage not only the victims, but our 
troops. And they also damage America--they do great damage to our 
country. This is not who we are. This is not what we stand for. We are 
a nation of laws. That is what we have stated over and over again.
  A few moments ago, my colleague from New Mexico and I were having a 
conversation about these abuses. He eloquently pointed out that our 
Constitution is based on the fundamental concept and idea that it is 
not just what we do, but how we do things. The founders of this country 
could have set up any kind of a system. But they picked a system that 
in many ways is terribly inefficient. That is because they wanted to 
make sure not only that we would do the right thing, but that we do it 
the right way--that the ends do not justify the means; the means are 
also important.
  It is why a generation ago when there were trials to prosecute those 
who were guilty of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime, every 
single one of those defendants at Nuremberg had a lawyer and had the 
right to present evidence. Some people suggested that those on trial in 
Nuremberg ought to be summarily executed--that they shouldn't have a 
trial. After all, these were dreadful human beings who committed 
dreadful and unspeakable crimes. But cooler heads and wiser heads 
prevailed and asserted that there is a huge difference between Western 
civilization and the Nazis, not the least of which is that we do things 
differently. And by holding these trials, we set an example.
  Unfortunately, the events that have just become known over the last 
several days indicate, at least in this instance, that we did not do 
things any differently in the eyes of many than the dreadful regime we 
overthrew a year ago--the regime of Saddam Hussein. That is what I 
worry about. This does damage to the United States. It does damage to 
people like Mark Kimmitt who spoke eloquently yesterday about his Army. 
And I worry about our men and women all over the globe who put 
themselves in jeopardy for our country--not only in that the reports of 
these abuses could cause an increase in violence against them, but I 
worry about what might happen if, heaven forbid, they are apprehended, 
and how they may be treated.
  I know the matter before the Senate is the nomination of John 
Negroponte. I support that nomination. We have had our difficulties 
over the years, one going back to his days in Honduras when there were 
issues of human rights violations. I know Ambassador Negroponte. He has 
been a good ambassador in other capacities, a good ambassador at the 
U.N. He has done a good job in Mexico. We have worked together since 
our days of difficulty more than 20 years ago. I am confident John 
Negroponte can do a good job, particularly, I hope, in the area of 
human rights. He will be in charge of what I am told will become the 
largest U.S. mission anywhere on the globe. And I am hopeful that John 
Negroponte, when he is confirmed--and I believe he will be--will grab 
this issue and do what has to be done to get our work in Iraq on track.
  The responsibility for these abuses that have occurred in Iraq goes 
beyond a few low-level bad apples. That is what worries me. This is 
clearly a problem of mismanagement at very high levels, which the Bush 
administration needs to get a handle on, and quickly. If that means 
high-ranking officials need to be replaced, then that is a judgment 
that we shouldn't dismiss out of hand.
  After all, we are currently in the throes of trying to prove that we 
want to help Iraqis create a new and democratic Iraq, and that in doing 
so we will respect Iraqi and Arab culture and tradition. It does not 
take much of an imagination to figure out the disastrous consequences 
of these abuses, not only with respect to U.S. policy in Iraq but with 
respect to our policies throughout the greater Middle East.
  Over the past week, newspapers throughout the world have carried 
headlines about these abuses. Not only in English speaking countries, 
obviously--Arab language newspapers have also carried the stories with 
headlines such as ``The Scandal'' and ``The Shame.''
  Anyone who knows anything about Arab culture will know this much: 
Honor and respect are valued highly. Many of these abuses with sexual 
overtones were directly aimed at damaging

[[Page 8653]]

the honor of Iraqis or forcing them to do things in contravention of 
their most deeply held beliefs.
  Let's not forget these abuses occurred in the very same prison Saddam 
Hussein used to torture Iraqis. Now this prison has served as a source 
of allegations of sexual abuse, psychological torture, and even murder.
  In the minds of Iraqis and those in the Arab world, what is to 
separate these acts from past abuses?
  Certainly the scope of these abuses does not compare to those that 
occurred under Saddam Hussein, but the unacceptability of these acts is 
not something we should attempt to measure in quantitative terms. 
Surely we hold ourselves, I hope, to an entirely different and higher 
standard than that with which we judged Saddam Hussein.
  Moreover, diplomacy is a delicate game, and one mistake by the 
world's superpower reverberates around the globe to the detriment of 
our foreign policy. It is going to make the job of Ambassador 
Negroponte--when the majority leader decides to move on his 
nomination--all the more difficult. As difficult as his job was going 
to be prior to the emergence of these allegations, it is exponentially 
more so today.
  Given the situation, I urge Ambassador Negroponte, when he is 
confirmed, to draw on his previous experience to make the protections 
of human rights in Iraq a top priority.
  I am stating the obvious. But these abuses must not occur again.
  Moreover, we owe it to the more than 130,000 honorable and dedicated 
U.S. troops currently risking their lives in Iraq to ensure that those 
who are found guilty of these crimes be punished to the fullest extent 
possible. Anything less would be a great disservice to all of these 
brave men and women in uniform who now face a much more difficult task 
than winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
  Equally troubling is that these disgraceful acts have been made 
possible by the administration's rigid philosophy of outsourcing jobs 
and responsibility. This time, though, it outsourced much of our 
mission in Iraq, responsibilities that should be given to well-trained 
military personnel. The administration has outsourced these 
responsibilities to private military firms (PMFs), that are virtually 
unregulated by our Government or any other.
  I don't support the outsourcing American jobs abroad and I don't 
think we should give our military duties to independent contractors, 
either. Indeed, reportedly, there are as many as 20,000 private 
military firm personnel currently working in Iraq. It appears that no 
chain of accountability exists for their actions, that no universal 
rules exist to govern their operation in coordination with U.S. and 
coalition troops. Most disturbing, according to reports, these private 
military firms' personnel have been directly involved in some of these 
crimes.
  I ask my colleagues, is it any surprise to learn that members of an 
unregulated group of paramilitaries is alleged to have committed human 
rights abuses?
  And I would ask the President of the United States and the Secretary 
of Defense--why were private contractors taking part in U.S. military 
interrogations? And since when do we assign to non-official personnel 
the most critical and delicate task to our military operations--
unregulated personnel, I might add.
  I am sure many agree that the use of these companies in sensitive 
military situations certainly raises some ominous questions. That is 
why last week I sent a letter to the GAO along with four of my 
colleagues--Senator Feingold, Senator Reid, Senator Leahy, and Senator 
Corzine--requesting that GAO investigators undertake an extensive 
investigation into the employment of these firms in Iraq.
  I am hopeful, given the increasing violence in that country and 
recent reports of abuse, including reports of abuse by private 
contractors, that the General Accounting Office will expedite this 
investigation and answer all of the questions posed. Our troops, our 
mission in Iraq, and the American taxpayer deserve a prompt, 
independent, and careful look into this matter.
  Mr. President, if we are lucky, we may get a second chance to 
demonstrate to the Iraqi people and the Arab world that we came to Iraq 
for good--not abuse.
  But we will only get that chance if we make amends fully and 
completely. That is why the administration must move quickly and 
publicly to bring the criminals who committed these abuses to justice. 
We must also take back direct responsibilities related to the 
administration of Iraq from private contractors and assume 
responsibility for what are clearly official and delicate functions 
which have profound foreign policy implications if not handled 
properly.
  Mr. President, the sooner we do these things, the sooner we can get 
back on track helping the Iraqi people build a democratic and just 
society that reflects their own values and aspirations.
  Ambassador Negroponte can play a critical role in making that happen, 
and I am therefore pleased that the Senate is poised to approve his 
nomination today. I fully support moving ahead to confirm him for this 
critical post.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used his 15 minutes.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if I might have an additional minute or 2.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         National Day Of Prayer

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I would also like to bring to the attention 
of my colleagues an article from today's Washington Post. It was on 
page A-3 carried over to page A-6, and it worries me deeply because it 
goes to what I am fearful may have had some underlying and undercurrent 
effect on the events of the last several days. It seems to speak to the 
extent that we are dehumanizing and minimizing and casting this pall of 
accusation over an entire religious group in the world.
  Senator Biden pointed out in his remarks here this morning that 1.2 
billion people are observers of the Muslim faith.
  And today is a national day of prayer in the U.S. It began with a 
resolution adopted in the Truman administration in 1952 and has been 
followed every year since then. When Harry Truman signed the 
congressional resolution he called for ``a suitable day each year other 
than a Sunday to be set aside for common prayer.'' Every administration 
since 1952 has taken that day out of the calendar year to focus on 
common prayer. And it was under the Reagan administration that the 
first Thursday of May was set aside as the permanent day each year.
  I cannot tell you how disturbing it was to read in this morning's 
paper a quote from one of the organizers of this year's day of prayer. 
The quote was buried away, but let me read it, because it actually goes 
to the heart of what we are talking about. We are told here, this 
morning, that they would make ``no apologies'' in today's celebration 
of prayer ``about the exclusion of Muslims and others outside of the 
`Judeo-Christian tradition' from ceremonies planned by the task force 
on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the country.''
  ``They are free to have their own national day of prayer if they want 
to,'' she said.
  Well, if you have that attitude about common prayer today, and you 
exclude religious groups from a national day of prayer, then what have 
we come to?
  I might point out as well, because the Presiding Officer will 
appreciate this--my wife pointed this out to me this morning--in Salt 
Lake City, Mormons have complained that they are not allowed to lead 
prayers during today's observance. I don't know how you have a national 
prayer day in Salt Lake City and exclude the Mormons from 
participating.
  But this sort of attitude where we are going to selectively choose 
religious groups that can be involved, and the particular reference 
here to the exclusion of anyone who might be of the Muslim faith, is 
troubling to me because it is that sort of an attitude that contributes 
to the dehumanization of people and casts aspersions on an entire group 
of people.
  Indeed, as we talk about what has occurred as a result of the actions 
of a few bad apples, I point out the story in

[[Page 8654]]

today's newspaper because I think that the attitude of exclusion 
expressed in the story contributes to an environment, if you will, that 
somehow makes these abuses permissible in the minds of some--that 
somehow these people are undeserving of the kind of treatment that 
every other human ought to receive--particularly in the hands of a 
nation that prides itself on being governed by the rule of law and 
which respects individual rights.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article in today's 
Washington Post entitled ``Bush to Appear On Christian TV For Prayer 
Day'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             Bush To Appear on Christian TV for Prayer Day

                          (By Alan Cooperman)

       President Bush's participation in a National Day of Prayer 
     ceremony with evangelical Christian leaders at the White 
     House will be shown tonight, for the first time in prime-time 
     viewing hours, on Christian cable and satellite TV outlets 
     nationwide.
       For Bush, the broadcast is an opportunity to address a 
     sympathetic evangelical audience without the risk of 
     alienating secular or non-Christian viewers, because it will 
     not be carried in full by the major television networks. 
     Frank Wright, president of the National Association of 
     Religious Broadcasters, said more than a million evangelicals 
     are expected to see the broadcast.
       Some civil liberties groups and religious minorities 
     charged that the National Day of Prayer has lost its 
     nonpartisan veneer and is being turned into a platform for 
     evangelical groups to endorse Bush--and vice versa.
       ``Over the years, the National Day of Prayer has gradually 
     been adopted more and more by the religious right, and this 
     year in particular there is such an undercurrent of 
     partisanship because for the first time they are broadcasting 
     Bush's message in an election year,'' said the Rev. Barry W. 
     Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation 
     of Church and State.
       The event's organizers denied that it amounts to a tacit 
     political endorsement.
       ``We're in an election year, and we believe God cares who's 
     in those positions of authority,'' said Mark Fried, spokesman 
     for the National Day of Prayer Task Force. ``But we're not 
     endorsing a candidate--just praying that God's hand will be 
     on the election.''
       The private task force, which operates from the Colorado 
     headquarters of the Christian organization Focus on the 
     Family, has encouraged the nation's churches to organize 
     potluck suppers and pipe the ceremony into their sanctuaries. 
     It will be taped in mid-afternoon in the East Room and re-
     broadcast during a three-hour, late evening ``Concert of 
     Prayer'' featuring Christian music stars and other 
     luminaries, such as Bruce Wilkinson, author of the best-
     selling ``Prayer of Jabez.''
       ``This feed is available to any network anywhere in the 
     world free of charge, but only religious networks have an 
     inclination to pick it up,'' Wright said.
       Fried said this year's theme is ``Let Freedom Ring.'' He 
     described it as the evangelical response to efforts to remove 
     the words ``under God'' from the Pledge of Allegiance and 
     keep the Ten Commandments out of public buildings.
       ``Our theme is, there is a small group of activists 
     unleashing an all-out assault on our religious freedoms. They 
     are targeting the Christian faith,'' he said.
       The National Day of Prayer has been celebrated every year 
     since 1952, when President Harry S. Truman signed a 
     congressional resolution calling for ``a suitable day each 
     year, other than a Sunday to be set aside for common prayer.
       Under President Ronald Reagan, the date was set permanently 
     as the first Thursday in May. Since the mid-1980s, the 
     ceremony has been organized by the nonprofit task force 
     headed by two prominent evangelical women: Vonette Bright, 
     widow of Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, and 
     Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James C. 
     Dobson.
       As in recent years, today's observances will begin with a 
     congressional prayer session on Capitol Hill in the morning, 
     followed by the afternoon ceremony at the White House. Under 
     President Bill Clinton, Bright said in an interview this 
     week, the White House observance was private and ``very 
     definitely lower key'' than under Bush, who has invited print 
     and television coverage each year.
       Although ``we were disappointed'' with Clinton's low-
     profile celebration, Bright said, evangelicals did not make 
     that sentiment public. ``We have as enthusiastically promoted 
     the Day of Prayer when Democrats were in office as when they 
     were not,'' she said, adding that any ``politicization'' of 
     the Day of Prayer ``would be so unfortunate.''
       Bright did not hesitate, however, to express admiration for 
     Bush: ``I don't think he has a political agenda of his own. I 
     think he's really trying to do what would please God.''
       She also made no apologies about the exclusion of Muslims 
     and others outside of the ``Judeao-Christian tradition'' from 
     ceremonies planned by the task force on Capitol Hill and in 
     state capitals across the country. ``They are free to have 
     their own national day of prayer if they want to,'' she said. 
     ``We are a Christian task force.''
       The White House press office and presidential adviser Karl 
     Rove's office did not respond to calls seeking comment on the 
     National Day of Prayer observances.
       Organizers said some Jewish rabbis, Catholic clergy and 
     mainline Protestants have been invited to the congressional 
     and White House ceremonies. But the exclusion of religious 
     minorities has led to protests in several cities.
       In Salt Lake City, Mormons have complained that they are 
     not allowed to lead prayers during the local observance.
       In Oklahoma City, the Rev. W. Bruce Prescott has planned an 
     interfaith ceremony on the steps of the state Capitol today 
     to protest the exclusively Christian ceremony inside the 
     building. ``As a Baptist preacher, it's hard for me to 
     protest prayer,'' he said. ``What I'd rather do is see if we 
     can't find a way to do it right.''

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that in addition to 
my time, I receive 10 minutes from Senator Harkin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, we are currently engaged in a fierce battle to salvage 
something, anything, from the administration's effort at regime change 
and reconstruction in Iraq. Each day, the costs in lives and dollars 
accumulate, as the Iraqi people become more restive and impatient. 
International and regional support for our efforts is eroding at a time 
when an international effort, as distinct from the administration's 
unilateral approach, may be the only effective way to change the 
political dynamic and allow us to avoid being trapped in a long, 
bloody, and uncertain conflict.
  Many Americans are asking how we came to this point. Some are asking 
why we must remain. The President has responded with a slogan: ``We 
must not waiver.'' What we need is a plan, a plan based on reality, not 
on ideology.
  The administration launched the preemptive attack on Iraq to counter, 
according to their claims, the overwhelming danger of Iraqi weapons of 
mass destruction and alleged ties between Saddam Hussein and 
terrorists. In the last year, no weapons of mass destruction have been 
found, and no strong link has been established between Saddam and 
terrorists. Ironically, today, there is no shortage of terrorists in 
Iraq. They have been drawn there not by Saddam but by his demise.
  Now, the administration returns to the subtext of its justification 
for preemptive action in the fall of 2002, the unalloyed evil of 
Saddam. That, of course, is a point beyond debate; indeed, a point that 
was acknowledged by all sides during the debate in the fall of 2002.
  When Secretary Wolfowitz testified recently before the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, he continually reiterated the depravity of Saddam 
stressing, in his words, the ``density of evil'' that gripped Iraq 
under Saddam. Looking backward at Saddam will not help us find a way 
ahead today. Today, more relevant than the ``density of evil'' that 
gripped Iraq is the ``density of illusion'' that continues to grip the 
administration and the Pentagon. The administration and the Pentagon 
stubbornly cling to illusions about the situation in Iraq. Let me 
suggest some of the most salient.
  For months, they have attempted to convince the world--and, perhaps, 
themselves--that Iraqi security forces were capable of making a 
significant contribution to establish order and to defeat the 
insurgency. No such capability exists at this time, and it may take 
years to train a competent and cohesive force that can assume the 
security role in Iraq that currently falls primarily upon the United 
States.
  For months, the Pentagon regaled us with charts showing the 
astronomical and rapid growth of Iraqi security forces from mere 
handfuls to hundreds

[[Page 8655]]

of thousands. They repeatedly stressed the proportional decrease of the 
American presence as a sign of progress. All this was wishful thinking 
and political spinning.
  The last few weeks have revealed the fact that a significant number 
of Iraqi security forces are ill prepared, ill equipped, and 
unmotivated.
  A Washington Post article pointed out that on April 5, a new Iraqi 
battalion of several hundred Iraqi soldiers refused to join U.S. 
Marines in the offensive in Fallujah. In the south, police units as 
well as members of the Iraqi Civilian Defense Corps, equivalent to the 
National Guard of the United States, refused to engage Sadr's forces. 
MG Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq, 
estimated that one in 10 members of the Iraqi security forces actually 
worked against the U.S. forces and 40 percent simply walked away from 
their post because of intimidation during the recent violence in 
Fallujah and in the south of Iraq.
  The Pentagon likely had indications of problems with these forces. 
Several months ago MG Karl Eikenberry was dispatched to Iraq to conduct 
a survey of Iraqi security forces. General Eikenberry is an extremely 
competent and experienced officer who played a key role in establishing 
the new national army in Afghanistan after Operation Enduring Freedom.
  For many weeks, I have been attempting to obtain this report to 
become informed and to inform my colleagues about the state of 
readiness of the Iraqi security forces. The Pentagon has been 
completely uncooperative. This lack of cooperation and respect for the 
responsibilities of Congress to perform oversight over the Department 
of Defense has been characteristic of this administration's approach 
throughout the conduct of operations in Iraq, and it has contributed to 
the predicament we find ourselves in today. Too often a small group of 
civilians in the Pentagon has displaced normal planning functions and 
instead, insulated from appropriate congressional oversight, has 
hatched plans for the occupation in Iraq that have proven to be 
misguided and inept. The formation of credible and effective Iraqi 
security forces is imperative, but not just because it reduces the 
burden and the threat to our forces. It is imperative we establish 
these forces because today our goals for Iraq are being thwarted by a 
climate of violence that affects every Iraqi and saps their willingness 
to commit to the reform of their country.
  We often see the violence in Iraq as those attacks against our 
forces. When we do, we miss the pervasive and disturbing violence that 
touches the lives of every Iraqi and, in a cruel irony, has many Iraqis 
comparing the order under Saddam with the chronic disorder under the 
United States.
  The following is an article, translated from Arabic, in the April 
25th edition of Al Manar, a newspaper from Baghdad:

       The Iraqi society has never known or, even in U.S. gang 
     movies, seen such acts of looting, robbery, and murder as the 
     current crimes taking place in Iraq today, which cause 
     newborn's hair to turn gray. The crimes have become so common 
     that hardly an hour passes without hearing that some people 
     are being plundered or a number of cars are being stolen. The 
     drivers of the new and expensive cars have become a target 
     for the thieves and burglars.
       Someone may think that such crimes occur in other places at 
     night; however, the strange thing is that in Iraq, they take 
     place during the day for everyone to see. In addition, the 
     numbers of these looting gangs have become very well known to 
     the ordinary citizens of Baghdad.
       A few days ago, my relative's car was stolen at gun point 
     in Baghdad, but he managed to escape without being physically 
     harmed or injured in the incident. Having recovered from the 
     shock a few days later, his friends advised him to meet with 
     a former gang leader who enjoyed considerable status and 
     reputation among the members of the other criminal gangs. 
     Having no other option, my relative went to see the guy who 
     promised to take him to the gangs operating in the zone where 
     his car was stolen.
       As promised, the man secretly took my relative to meet well 
     known gangsters where one of them congratulated him [my 
     relative] for his good luck because his car was stolen by a 
     gang ``that only steals cars but does not kill the owners; 
     otherwise, you would have been killed if it was another 
     gang.'' The strange thing is that most of the gangsters are 
     young boys between the age of 15 and 20 years.
       After several terrifying trips, my relative found his car 
     when tough negotiations began. He was asked to pay $500, a 
     special offer out of honor and respect for their repentant 
     comrade who brought him to get his car back.

  This true story is an example of dozens of other similar robbery, 
looting, and murder crimes taking place in Baghdad where stealing and 
murdering gangs have dramatically increased. Unless we are able to 
protect the people of Iraq from criminal gangs and from situations as 
illustrated in these comments in the newspaper, we will fail in our 
mission because we have a situation where the basic elements of order, 
the basic sense of safety and security have been completely eviscerated 
for a vast number of Iraqis.
  These are off the TV screens. But this is one of the constant 
drumbeats that is turning the people of Iraq to become resentful of our 
presence.
  The administration has also, together with the Pentagon, consistently 
underestimated the number of troops necessary for the successful 
occupation of Iraq. Secretary Rumsfeld and General Franks adroitly 
planned the air and ground campaign that shattered the Iraqi army in a 
matter of days. They correctly judged our overwhelming technological 
advantages, together with the extraordinary courage and skill of our 
fighting forces, would quickly overwhelm the much larger Iraqi forces. 
But winning a swift victory over a conventional military force is not 
the same as successfully occupying a large country with a population of 
25 million.
  From the beginning, our forces, including international allies, were 
insufficient to physically and psychologically dominate the scene. The 
absence or limited presence of coalition forces in many parts of Iraq 
gave the insurgents opportunities to organize and the perception they 
could initiate hostile actions against our forces. One of the first 
clues I had suggesting a lack of adequate forces was the briefing I 
received last July from the 4th Infantry Division in Kirkuk on my first 
trip to Iraq. I was taken aback, frankly, to learn there were hundreds, 
if not thousands, of Iraqi ammo dumps. Many of them were totally 
unsecured while others had some security barriers but were not secured 
by military personnel. This was the case all over the country.
  Today munitions in these ammo dumps are being used to craft the 
improvised explosive devices that bedevil our forces. This is one 
example indicating additional troops could have been used effectively.
  Another indication of the insufficient number of coalition military 
forces is the proliferation of private security forces. Why is it 
necessary to have 20,000 armed private security guards in Iraq 
performing essential military duties? The answer is simple. We did not 
deploy sufficient military forces. These private security forces are 
generally highly trained professionals, typically veterans of our 
special operations forces. But their presence raises numerous 
questions.
  How, for example, do they coordinate with our military forces? What 
rules of engagement may they use? What is their legal status, 
particularly after June 30, when limited sovereignty is transferred to 
some Iraqi authority? I am still awaiting the answer to these questions 
from the Pentagon. Once again, my request has not been responded to 
promptly with detailed information or any information.
  Last September, Senator Hagel and I proposed an amendment to the 
supplemental appropriations bill to increase the size of our Army by 
10,000 soldiers. That is a necessary initial step to provide the 
manpower to continue to commit further forces to Iraq and to continue 
to meet the worldwide demands upon our Army. The Senate supported that 
amendment. Unfortunately, the administration vociferously opposed it. 
They claimed Iraq was just a spike and that in the months ahead, the 
Army could begin to withdraw forces.
  In January, they suddenly reversed this position and announced they 
would take steps to increase the Army by 30,000 soldiers by tapping 
into the

[[Page 8656]]

supplemental appropriations bill. I am pleased the Pentagon is finally 
convinced we need more forces for our Army, but they still maintain 
this is a temporary emergency condition that is best funded through the 
supplemental appropriations process.
  The reality is, this condition is not temporary. If we are serious 
about succeeding in Iraq and meeting other demands throughout the 
world, we must admit this is a task that will take many years and a 
larger army for many years. We must provide for increases in end 
strength for our Army in the regular budget process, not the 
supplemental, by directing more resources to the Army from the other 
services or by increasing the overall defense budget.
  The administration and the Pentagon continually insist that we are 
being opposed by a small group of unrepentant holdouts from the former 
Baathist regime and an even smaller cadre of terrorists who have 
flocked to Iraq after the defeat of Saddam.
  This view dangerously misconstrues the growing resentment of the Iraq 
population to our presence and the very real possibility that many 
Iraqis will sympathize with the insurgents not because they agree with 
their political or religious views but because they see them as fellow 
Iraqis resisting a foreign occupation.
  Anthony Cordesman, a very prescient analyst at the Center for 
Strategic and International Studies, pointed out that ``it is important 
to note that an ABC poll in February found a large core of hostility to 
the Coalition before the tensions unleashed by current fighting, and 
that core involved many Shi'ites as well as Sunnis.'' And, as reported 
in a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll, ``only a third of the Iraqi people 
now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing 
more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate pullout 
even though they fear that could put them in greater danger . . .'' 
Although half the Iraqis who responded to the poll said that they and 
their families were better off now then under Saddam, 71 percent of the 
respondents when asked to classify the Americans as ``liberators'' or 
``occupiers'' chose ``occupier.'' The figure increases to 81 percent if 
you exclude respondents from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. More 
startling is the fact that more than half the respondents outside of 
the Kurdish region ``say killing U.S. troops can be justified in at 
least some cases.''
  What might have begun as the desperate acts of diehards from Saddam's 
regime has rapidly morphed into a widespread resentment of the United 
States as ``occupiers.'' The insurgents have touched a nationalistic 
nerve that vastly complicates our efforts. Popular support is the 
critical element in political warfare, and the administration is 
squandering that support.
  The latest revelations of gross abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu 
Ghraib prison have further fanned the flames of resentment and anger. 
It is an aberration in the conduct of American soldiers, but its 
occurrence has confirmed in a very suspicious population the worst lies 
spread by our adversaries. In addition, these actions have poisoned our 
already strained relations with many countries and their citizens 
around the world.
  For months now, the Coalition Provisional Authority has been in 
power, and the administration touted that as an example of our 
reconstruction efforts. Frankly, I believe it has been dysfunctional 
from the beginning.
  The President vested the Department of Defense with extraordinary 
powers in the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. Even before the 
initiation of military operations, the decision was made to exclude 
experts from the State Department from planning for the reconstruction 
and administration of Iraq. The task was given to a small group of 
ideologues in the Department of Defense. They relied on the self-
serving declarations of Chalabi and the exile crowd to assume away most 
of the problems that we later encountered in Iraq. Problems such as a 
dilapidated infrastructure an ancient rivalries between religious and 
ethnic factions were conveniently ignored as the ``neocons'' predicted 
that we would be welcomed with open arms in a country that was 
economically and culturally ready for a rapid transition to democracy.
  The institutional responsibilities for the transformation of Iraq 
were given to Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional 
Authority, the ``CPA''. And, in this regard, the record is one of 
confusion and ineptness.
  The decision to disband the Iraqi army threw thousands of desperate 
and dangerous individuals onto the streets of Iraq. Many of these 
individuals formed the heart of the insurgency that continues to attack 
our troops.
  The decision to eliminate the Baath party from the civic life of Iraq 
was quite correct in principle, but carried to such extremes that it 
alienated the Sunni community and provided additional fuel for the 
growing fires of resistance. To add insult to injury, the process of 
debaathification was placed under the control of Chalabi, a figure of 
immense distrust and dislike in Iraq.
  I first heard these complaints from our military commanders last 
November during one of my trips to Iraq. They complained that thousands 
of teachers were being excluded from schools at a time when there was a 
concerted effort to reopen schools throughout the country. These 
officers explained that membership in the Baath Party was obligatory 
for anyone who hoped to obtain a job like teaching in Iraq. Most of 
these individuals were motivated not by political impulses but by 
economic and career goals. Nevertheless, they were categorically 
excluded subject to the discretion of Chalabi. It was a situation that 
further antagonized the Sunni community. The policy has been belatedly 
amended but not after doing great damage.
  This episode also illustrates the gap between the CPA and the 
military commanders that actually were doing the work of rebuilding 
Iraq. The CPA existed in a security bubble in Baghdad disconnected from 
the field where Army division commanders and their staffs were taking 
pragmatic actions to restore services, rebuild communities and instill 
hope in the people of Iraq. The CPA added little to these actions 
except indecision that simply complicated the action of commanders on 
the ground.
  In the past few days, a revealing memorandum by someone who served in 
the CPA has surfaced that provided additional details illustrating the 
incompetence of the CPA. The anonymous author of the memo is a fan of 
Chalabi and is hopeful for success in Iraq. This makes his criticism 
even more telling.
  He describes the CPA as handling ``an issue like six-year-olds play 
soccer: Someone kicks the ball and one hundred people chase after it 
hoping to be noticed, without a care as to what happens on the field.'' 
My view is that the CPA quickly became a 30-day summer camp for 
``neocons.'' Subject-matter experts were displaced by ideological true 
believers who rotated in and out at a dizzying rate.
  The CPA installed the Iraqi Governing Council composed of 
representatives from the major factions and then allowed the Governing 
Council to pick ministers to run the major ministries, like Oil and 
Public Works. The result was nepotism and corruption. As the memo 
points out, ``both for political and organizational reasons, the 
decision to allow the Governing Council to pick 25 ministers did the 
greatest damage. Not only did we endorse nepotism, with men choosing 
their sons and brothers-in-law; but we also failed to use our 
prerogative to shape a system that would work . . . our failure to 
promote accountability has hurt us.
  I met with a member of the Iraqi Governing Council on March 17 in 
Baghdad. He explained to me the importance of the June 30 date. As 
Chalabi explained it to him, it is important because on that date they 
get to ``write the checks.'' I am sure there are competent and 
patriotic Iraqis involved in the Governing Council, but I am deeply 
skeptical of many, like Chalabi, who seem interested only in self-
promotion based on deceit and deception.
  Despite the institutional failings of the CPA, it has acquired some 
hard-

[[Page 8657]]

won experience. That experience disappears on July 1 as our new Embassy 
replaces the CPA. I fear that we will witness once again a lack of 
coordination and direction as a new team tries to organize itself in 
the complicated and unforgiving environment of Iraq. I was hoping to 
hear Ambassador Negroponte describe in detail the organization and 
policies that will guide the new Embassy. I didn't hear much.
  There are numerous questions. What is the status of contracts with 
the CPA, particularly contracts with security firms? Will American 
civilian contractors in Iraq be subject to Iraq law or United States 
jurisdiction? How will the Embassy be organized to avoid being 
``captive'' in the Green Zone in Baghdad? How will responsibilities be 
divided between the Department of State and the Department of Defense? 
I'm still waiting for good answers.
  We are in danger of repeating the mistakes we made a year ago. Once 
again, we are approaching a critical juncture without a plan, just a 
new set of players. And the clock is ticking.
  The administration is pinning most of its hopes for political 
progress in Iraq on the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi entity on 
June 30. In doing so, they confuse the difference between sovereignty 
and legitimacy. The new Iraqi entity--yet to be devised or to be 
fleshed out with Iraqis--may have some formal powers that may qualify 
it as a sovereign for the purposes of international law, but I doubt 
that the vast majority of Iraqi citizens will see it as a legitimate 
government. This new entity lacks the key components that people 
ascribe to legitimate governments. Legitimate governments are created 
by internal political forces, preferably by elections, and legitimate 
governments control their territory.
  This new entity will be a creation of the United States with the 
belated and uncertain participation of the United Nations, and this new 
government will exist because American military forces control the 
territory of Iraq.
  In a sense, the administration has already made June 30 both 
irreversible and irrelevant. Having held out the prospect of a 
transition to Iraqi rule on June 30, it is impossible to turn back. But 
on July 1, a prevailing sentiment in Iraq is likely to be 
disappointment and a sense that the United States has, once again, 
failed to carry out its word. This will further aggravate tensions, not 
diminish them.
  We can hope the participation of the United Nations will give us a 
reprieve from this fate, but the administration's disdain for and 
distrust of the United Nations suggests to me that the current 
arrangement of necessity will not be sufficient to truly give a sense 
of legitimacy despite recent efforts.
  The surest route to legitimacy is through elections, but we are far 
from that day. Indeed, that day may continue to recede. Recent polling 
in Iraq underlines a disturbing fact:

       Seventy-five percent of the Iraqis polled--that's the 
     largest percentage of people agreeing on virtually any 
     issue--say they would never join a political party and oppose 
     the existence of a political party.

  If that is the case, the likelihood of a democratic Iraq is many 
years away.
  The administration's gravest illusion has been and continues to be 
that the United States can do it alone.
  Recent events show the necessity for significant international 
involvement, not unilateral action. The administration has made 
overtures to the United Nations, but, as I have suggested, these 
overtures smack more of political expediency than a new realization of 
the value of broad-based collective action.
  The monetary cost alone to the United States is staggering. We have 
spent $100 billion on the effort in Iraq with no end in sight. More 
importantly, we have lost 767 men and women of our Armed Forces. 
Indeed, according to an article in today's Washington Post, Yale 
economist William D. Nordhaus has estimated that the additional $25 
billion just requested for the war in Iraq will make it more costly 
than the inflation-adjusted expenditures of the Revolutionary War, the 
War of 1812, the Mexican-American war, the Spanish-American War, and 
the Persian Gulf war combined.
  These monetary costs are just a fraction of what we will end up 
paying. Each day we are accruing significant costs to recapitalize the 
equipment and materiel we are using up at alarming rates. The aircraft 
and the tactical and logistical vehicles will require massive overhauls 
and replacement. None of these costs are being adequately addressed in 
or outside the supplemental budgetary process or the regular budgetary 
process.
  Without broad-based international support, we will be unable to 
accomplish our political goals, and we will be hard pressed to sustain 
the billions of dollars necessary to sustain our effort in Iraq. As 
long as we dominate the military and political forces deployed to Iraq, 
we will be seen as occupiers serving our self-interest rather than a 
force to advance the interests of the Iraqi people.
  The administration has long maintained that Iraq is the ``central 
front'' in the war on terrorism. They are badly mistaken. The ``central 
front'' in the war on terrorism is the United States. The ultimate 
objective of our terrorist adversaries is to once again inflict a 
catastrophic attack against the United States. They are not distracted 
in this objective by Iraq. We should not be either.
  Today, al-Qaida and sympathetic terrorist cells throughout the world 
continue to plot to conduct an attack against the United States or the 
homelands of our allies.
  The insurgents that we are engaging in Iraq may hate us with the same 
intensity as an al-Qaida operative, but they have chosen a different 
path--a path of guerrilla war against our military forces and the 
citizens of Iraq. The majority are Iraqis motivated by specific 
grievances involving our presence in Iraq. The ``foreign fighters'' who 
are in Iraq are drawn by the desire to fight the infidel. They are 
temperamentally and technically much different than the plotters who 
attacked us on September 11. In contrast, there are still many al-Qaida 
and associated operatives who continue to plan stealthy attacks against 
Americans rather than seek out a guerilla war against our military 
forces. To assume we will lure these terrorists into Iraq and destroy 
them there is a dangerous misperception.
  Once again, the value of a truly international approach to the war on 
terror becomes more evident. The key element in this struggle is 
intelligence, not simply military might. This intelligence is not the 
province of one country, even a country with the resources of the 
United States. It is the sum of the collective efforts of many 
countries. To the extent we have alienated other countries or made 
their intelligence contributions more difficult, then we have 
diminished the key element in defeating those who continue to plot to 
strike our homeland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time expired.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed an 
additional 5 minutes and that the other side be given an additional 5 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, considering all of this, it is alarming to 
see the inattention that the administration is paying to homeland 
security.
  What is also very disconcerting about the administration's view is 
that they see al-Qaida as an institution rather than an ideology. It is 
an ideology, and it is an ideology that is spreading in the Islamic 
world despite our huge efforts in Iraq, some might say even because of 
our efforts in Iraq.
  This ideological battle will not be won by military means alone. It 
will be won by providing Muslim populations around the world with a 
compelling alternative to the jihad as a means of enhancing their sense 
of empowerment and defusing their sense of frustration.
  Education and economic development spring to mind as ways to begin to 
counter the appeal of the jihad. Once again, our choice of massive 
military involvement in Iraq has constrained the resources that we can 
deploy throughout the Muslim world to directly challenge the ideology 
of al-Qaida through education and economic development. Here also is 
another example of where an international approach would have given us 
much more

[[Page 8658]]

credibility and, potentially, more resources to advance this agenda of 
education and economic development.
  The administration entered Iraq with illusions, and they struggle 
today in Iraq because of these illusions. The unfolding crisis in Iraq 
can no longer tolerate illusion. It demands a realistic assessment of 
the risks and resources, and a pragmatic plan to prevail.
  The administration must develop a true plan for the war's financing 
with realistic numbers in a timely manner.
  The administration must commit more soldiers to the struggle in Iraq. 
This means increasing the overall end strength of the Army through the 
regular budget process.
  The administration must recognize that the struggle in Iraq is 
separate from the war on terrorism and that the war on terrorism 
requires more robust funding at home to protect America.
  The administration must recognize and admit that we are committed to 
a long and dangerous struggle in Iraq that will cover many years and 
cost many billions of dollars. The administration must seek to truly 
institutionalize our efforts in Iraq.
  A government that deceives its people may sustain itself for a while. 
Lincoln reminded us that ``you can fool some of the people some of the 
time,'' but a government that deceives itself is doomed to failure, and 
its policies are doomed to failure.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I know we have a time limitation. I think 
I was allocated some time earlier. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is allocated 20 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I will support John Negroponte to be 
America's first ambassador to Iraq since the gulf war, and I will speak 
about it in more detail in a moment.
  First I want to say a few words about the larger issues of Iraq and 
the enormously important challenge we face at an enormously important 
time for our Nation. The stakes could not be higher for the safety of 
135,000 American soldiers serving in Iraq, for the future of Iraq and 
its 25 million citizens, for America's role in the world in the years 
ahead, and for America's own security in the weeks, let alone the 
years, ahead.
  For the stability of the entire Middle East, America's ambassador 
must convey to the new Iraqi government and the Iraqi people America's 
hopes for Iraq that it soon become a free, stable and prosperous and 
peaceful nation that respects the rights of its own citizens.
  We pray that mission accomplished has not become mission impossible. 
America's respect and reputation in the world have never been lower in 
the entire history of our Nation. Where do we go to get our respect and 
reputation back? Where do we go to bring a respectable end to the 
nightmare for America that Iraq has become?
  I worry that the actions of our Government may no longer keep America 
true to the ideals of the Nation's Founders so long ago.
  I hope the appointment of Ambassador Negroponte, a career diplomat, 
will mark a new beginning of serious American engagement in the real 
problems in Iraq.
  Too often, the Bush administration has been blinded by its arrogance 
on Iraq and refused to recognize the cold, hard truth about its failed 
policies. Time and again, the President has looked at events in Iraq 
through rose-colored glasses, ignored the administration's many 
mistakes in Iraq, and has failed to speak with candor either to the 
American or the Iraqi people.
  Ambassador Negroponte could not be entering this position at a more 
challenging time. The allegations of prisoner abuse have shaken the 
faith of the Iraqi people and the international community in the 
benevolence of the U.S. involvement in Iraq. The new ambassador must 
start to rebuild their trust.
  In his April 20, testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke at length about the 
human rights abuses under Saddam. Seven of the 23 pages of his prepared 
testimony addressed the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein.
  One of the goals of the U.S. occupation of Iraq should have been to 
herald a new day of human rights for the Iraqi people. Instead, many 
Iraqis are equating America's crimes to those committed by Saddam 
Hussein, using the same prison and the same torture rooms.
  There is no question that this is not the case. There is no question 
that Saddam's crimes were crueler and more horrific and more widespread 
by any objective standard.
  But the reports of torture by American soldiers, and the reports that 
these abuses took place at the direction of Army intelligence officers, 
CIA agents, and private contractors, are deeply damaging to our cause 
in Iraq and our reputation and interests in the world.
  Nobody questions the commitment and skill of the vast majority of our 
soldiers. They are performing admirably under extraordinarily difficult 
circumstances. I have no doubt that these despicable incidents are even 
more painful for them than they are for the rest of America. I am 
concerned, however, that allegations of prisoner abuse are not limited 
to this one Baghdad prison. GEN. George Casey has said that this 
military has conducted at least 25 criminal investigations into deaths 
and 10 criminal investigations into other allegations of misconduct 
involving detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Without a question, these reports of abuse strike at the heart of the 
moral argument for the administration's war in Iraq.
  It is clear that we need a full and independent investigation. The 
American people need the truth. Congress needs answers. There must be a 
full investigation and full accountability, including a comprehensive 
review of all detention and interrogation polices used by military and 
intelligence officials abroad, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and 
elsewhere.
  We need to know when the torture started, why was it kept secret for 
so long, and why we had to learn about it from the media. No one should 
be immune to questions, including the President.
  This is President Bush's war. It is the result of his radical 
doctrine of preventive war and American unilateralism run amok.
  President Bush has spoken frequently about the dignity and human 
rights of the Iraqi people, and he made it a major justification for 
the war.
  In the East Room of the White house on March 19, 2004, President Bush 
asked: ``Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be 
open?''
  In the Cabinet room on December 24, 2003, the day Saddam was 
captured, President Bush said:

       For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as 
     free men and women, this event brings further assurance that 
     the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever.

  The President has failed the Iraqi people, and he has failed America. 
He has presided over America's steepest and deepest fall from grace in 
the history of our country.
  The buck stops at the Oval Office. The tragedy unfolding in Iraq is 
the direct result of a colossal failure of leadership. It is a failure 
of calamitous proportions. The President should apologize to the Iraqi 
people and accept full responsibility.
  In the wake of this tragedy, Ambassador Negroponte will face an 
uphill battle regaining the enormous ground we have lost in winning the 
hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
  America's vision to rebuild Iraqi and provide new hope and 
opportunity was

[[Page 8659]]

grand and noble, but we have not delivered on our promise. Far too many 
Iraqis have come to the conclusion that America is able, but unwilling, 
to meet their basic needs. The frustration with our unfulfilled 
promises is feeding into massive hatred for America and our soldiers, 
who are paying with their lives.
  Last fall, President Bush requested $20 billion in emergency 
reconstruction assistance from Congress to provide basic services for 
the Iraqi people. Congress wrote a large check to the Iraqi people, but 
the administration still has not delivered it.
  Ambassador Bremer spoke of the urgent need for this assistance in the 
Senate Appropriations Committee on September 22, 2003:

       This is urgent. . . . Most Iraqis welcomed us as 
     liberators. Now the reality of foreign troops on the streets 
     is starting to chafe. Some Iraqis are beginning to regard us 
     as occupiers and not liberators. This was perhaps inevitable, 
     but faster progress on reconstruction will help.

  Acting in good faith, the Congress approved this funding 3 weeks 
later.
  Despite the desperate need for reconstruction assistance in Iraq, the 
Bush administration has spent only a small portion of these funds. A 
mere 14 percent of the billions provided by Congress last October has 
been obligated for reconstruction projects. The administration has not 
clearly told the Congress how much has actually been spent. It may not 
even know.
  According to the most recent report to the Congress from the Office 
of Management and Budget: Nearly $3.6 billion was intended for public 
works projects, including nearly $3 billion for drinking water, but 
only $32 million has been obligated overall, and only $14 million has 
been obligated on drinking water; $443 million was intended for 
improvements in hospitals and health clinics, but the coalition 
government has obligated nothing.
  Mr. President, $300 million was designated for health care equipment 
and modernization, but nothing has been obligated and $90 million was 
designated to build and repair schools, but less than a quarter of it 
has been obligated.
  Our half-hearted attempt to take the face of America off the 
occupation will inevitably exacerbate Ambassador Negroponte's 
diplomatic challenges.
  Our proposal to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people on June 30th 
and take the face of America off the occupation is nothing more than 
that--a proposal. It's not even a real transfer of sovereignty.
  At the very time we are talking about transferring sovereignty, 
President Bush is developing a grandiose plan to build a super embassy 
in Baghdad, staffed by 1,000 Americans. We will still have 135,000 
American soldiers on the ground in Iraq for the foreseeable future.
  The new embassy's significance is clear. This administration wants 
Baghdad to be America's new colonial beachhead in the Middle East. As 
one American official said it will be just like ``Saigon, circa 1969.''
  By comparison, 147 Americans now work at the American Embassy in 
Afghanistan, a country with 4 million more people than Iraq; 500 
Americans work at the American Embassy in Egypt, a country nearly three 
times the population of Iraq; and 293 Americans work at the American 
Embassy in India, a country of 1.8 billion people.
  In fact, the administration is diverting funds intended for Iraq's 
reconstruction to support this Fortress America Embassy. According to 
an April 30th article in the Washington Post, $184 million has been 
reassigned from drinking water projects to pay for the operations of 
the U.S. embassy. Another $29 million has been reallocated from 
projects such as democracy building to the administrative expenses of 
USAID.
  And we wonder why the Iraqis hate us, why hatred for the American 
occupation continues to grow.
  We all have a stake in Iraq's success--the administration, the 
American people, the Iraqi people. Ambassador Negroponte has an 
enormous responsibility to ensure that our policy toward Iraq is based 
in reality and shaped by the facts on the ground.
  As the Ambassador embarks on this new assignment, he must not gloss 
over the truth, even if it is painful. He must speak with candor to the 
American people and the Iraqi people about America's objectives, our 
strategy, and our successes, and he must be equally candid about our 
failures.
  He would be wise not to follow in the footsteps of so many in the 
Bush administration who may have spoken candidly about the bleak 
situation in Iraq to the President in private, but who constantly 
sought in public to put a positive face on the clear failures.
  The stakes are high and the challenges are many. I wish Ambassador 
Negroponte great success and the best of luck. He will need both if 
America is to succeed in stabilizing Iraq, delivering on our promise of 
freedom and democracy, and bringing our troops home with dignity and 
honor. I urge my colleagues to approve his nomination.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  Mr. REID. I request the time run equally against both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Does the Senator 
from Iowa have a certain amount of time? And if so, what is that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa has been allocated 20 
minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate that.
  Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of John D. 
Negroponte to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. I understand and agree 
America needs a representative there, more so now than ever. We need 
someone in Iraq who has a sterling record, an unassailable record in 
terms of his or her support for fundamental human rights and for the 
rule of law, someone who has no blot on their career record of having 
been involved in the kind of abuses that have come to light recently in 
Iraq under our military jurisdiction.
  After the terrible revelations of the abuses under our watch at the 
prison at Abu Ghraib--more is coming to light in Afghanistan, and we do 
not know what is happening in Guantanamo--I believe nominating 
Ambassador Negroponte to this vital post would send entirely the wrong 
message. He is not the right person for this job at this time.
  Why do I say that? Ambassador Negroponte served as U.S. Ambassador to 
Honduras from October 1981 through May of 1985. During this time, Mr. 
Negroponte showed a callous disregard for human rights abuses through 
his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras. I speak of this from 
firsthand knowledge. I traveled to Honduras during this period and I 
visited one of the Contra camps along the border of Honduras and 
Nicaragua with then Ambassador Negroponte. At that time, there were 
many allegations that a so-called Battalion 316--which was supervised 
and trained by our CIA and by some of our military personnel--had been 
involved in some very egregious human rights abuses, including the 
disappearances of people, including the disappearance and alleged 
torture and murder of a Catholic priest.
  At the time of my visit to the camp with Mr. Negroponte, I asked a 
number of questions about Battalion 316 and the alleged human rights 
abuses. I was told there were no such human rights abuses committed by 
the Honduran military. It became clear to me I was misled, and quite 
frankly I was not given answers to my questions about the human rights 
abuses being committed by Battalion 316. I believe Ambassador 
Negroponte knowingly misinformed me and knowingly misinformed the U.S. 
State Department about gross violations of human rights in Honduras 
during his tenure.
  I refer to a series of articles written in the Baltimore Sun in 1995. 
A June 19, 1995 article was talking about Ambassador Negroponte.


[[Page 8660]]

       An ambassador, someone cynically once said, is sent abroad 
     to lie for his country. U.S. career diplomat John D. 
     Negroponte confused that with lying to his country. As U.S. 
     ambassador to Honduras during the early '80s, Mr. Negroponte 
     systematically suppressed reports to Washington describing 
     kidnappings and murders of political dissidents by a secret 
     unit of the Honduran army. Instead he was responsible for 
     false reports to Washington that portrayed the Honduran 
     regime as committed to democracy and the rule of law.

  I will read further from this article:

       Why should an experienced U.S. diplomat send false reports 
     to the State Department concealing damaging information about 
     the nation he was assigned to? Simple. For one thing, some of 
     his superiors wanted it that way. They weren't fooled. They 
     were part of a conspiracy to mislead Congress and the U.S. 
     public. The Reagan administration, which dispatched Mr. 
     Negroponte to replace an ambassador who was reporting 
     unwelcome facts, had an overriding policy objective in 
     Central America: to stop what it perceived as a threatened 
     communist takeover. Nothing else mattered.
       Mr. Negroponte later told a Senate panel he never saw any 
     ``convincing substantiation'' that the notorious unit was 
     ``involved in death squad type activities.'' If so, he outdid 
     the three monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no 
     evil. The evidence was all around him, including in his own 
     embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful human 
     rights report was ordered to remove the damaging information. 
     More than 300 articles about military abuses appeared in the 
     Honduran newspapers that year alone. Hundreds marched through 
     the capital in protests. A dissident Honduran legislator 
     personally appealed to Mr. Negroponte.

  I ask unanimous consent to have the articles from June 19, 1995, 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, June 19, 1995]

                    Hear No Evil, See No Evil . . .

       An ambassador, someone cynically once said, is sent abroad 
     to lie for his country. U.S. career diplomat John D. 
     Negroponte confused that with lying to his country. As U.S. 
     ambassador to Honduras during the early '80s, Mr. Negroponte 
     systematically suppressed reports to Washington describing 
     kidnappings and murders of political dissidents by a secret 
     unit of the Honduran army. Instead he was responsible for 
     false reports to Washington that portrayed the Honduran 
     regime as committed to democracy and the rule of law.
       Why should an experienced U.S. diplomat send false reports 
     to the State Department concealing damaging information about 
     the nation he was assigned to? Simple. For one thing, some of 
     his superiors wanted it that way. They weren't fooled. They 
     were part of a conspiracy to mislead Congress and the U.S. 
     public. The Reagan administration, which dispatched Mr. 
     Negroponte to replace an ambassador who was reporting 
     unwelcome facts, had an overriding policy objective in 
     Central America: to stop what it perceived as a threatened 
     communist takeover. Nothing else mattered.
       Each year, U.S. embassies report on human rights abuses and 
     the State Department passes the information on to Congress. 
     Nations that consistently violate human rights are barred 
     from receiving U.S. military aid. By ignoring the clear, 
     unavoidable evidence that Hondurans were being kidnapped, 
     tortured, raped and murdered by a special unit under the 
     command of the army chief of staff, the Reagan administration 
     was able to boost military aid to Honduras from $3.9 million 
     in 1980 to $77.4 million four years later.
       Mr. Negroponte later told a Senate panel he never saw any 
     ``convincing substantiation'' that the notorious unit was 
     ``involved in death squad type activities.'' If so, he outdid 
     the three monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no 
     evil. The evidence was all around him, including in his own 
     embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful human 
     rights report was ordered to remove the damaging information. 
     More than 300 articles about military abuses appeared in 
     Honduran newspapers that year. Hundreds marched through the 
     capital in protests. A dissident Honduran legislator 
     personally appealed to Mr. Negroponte.
       In the last of four articles resulting from a 14-month 
     investigation, Sun reporters Ginger Thompson and Gary Cohn 
     quote liberally from the 1982 and 1983 human rights reports 
     on Honduras. Each quotation is matched by persuasive evidence 
     it is a shameless lie. Even the Honduran government has now 
     acknowledged the atrocities. But not Mr. Negroponte, the 
     hard-line cold warrior who considered Henry Kissinger a 
     softie on Vietnam.
       Now ambassador to the Philippines, Mr. Negroponte has 
     refuse to respond to questions repeatedly directed at him by 
     The Sun. But he can't ignore pointed questions from President 
     Clinton, whose personal representative in Manila is Mr. 
     Negroponte. Despite the State Department's support of Mr. 
     Negroponte, the president can't possibly want someone of this 
     ilk representing the U.S. abroad.

  Mr. HARKIN. Ambassador Negroponte's reports to his superiors in the 
State Department resulted in the Congress being misled as to the scope 
and nature of gross human rights violations that were committed by 
Battalion 316, an elite U.S trained unit of the Honduran military 
involved in some of the worst human rights abuses in Central America.
  In a letter to The Economist in 1982, Ambassador Negroponte wrote, it 
is simply untrue that death squads have made appearances in Honduras.
  This is from our Ambassador to Honduras at the very time death squads 
were openly operating in Honduras under Battalion 316. Yet he said it 
is untrue that they have made an appearance in Honduras.
  We now have history. We now know Mr. Negroponte was not telling us 
the truth.
  From 1981 to 1984, over 150 people disappeared in Honduras, including 
an American priest, Father James Carney. His body has never been 
recovered. All indications at that time pointed to Battalion 316. There 
had been reports that they interrogated him and he was severely 
tortured and killed. I am not suggesting Ambassador Negroponte was 
responsible for Father Carney's disappearance. What I am saying, 
however, is Ambassador Negroponte turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to 
the human rights abuses in Honduras during his watch. During that 
period, Ambassador Negroponte was in very close contact, perhaps almost 
on a daily basis, with GEN Gustavo Alvarez, the Commander in Chief of 
the Honduran military, and the architect of Battalion 316.
  For Ambassador Negroponte in 1982 to say it is simply untrue that 
death squads have made appearances in Honduras--this is going to be our 
Ambassador to Iraq at this time?
  In 1989, during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, on his nomination to be Ambassador to Mexico, Ambassador 
Negroponte was questioned about the human rights violations by this 
elite battalion which became known as Battalion 316. His response was 
that he had ``never seen any convincing substantiation they were 
involved in death-squad type activities.'' Yet, as a Baltimore Sun 
article pointed out, the evidence was all around him, including in his 
own embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful human rights 
report was ordered to remove the damaging information, and Mr. 
Negroponte was the Ambassador at that time.
  Mr. President, the Baltimore Sun, in 1995, devoted a series of 
articles on what happened in Honduras and what happened in terms of Mr. 
Negroponte's involvement at that time. For the benefit of those who 
might want to read the Record and catch up on Mr. Negroponte's past and 
what he did while he was Ambassador to Honduras, I commend these 
articles to them.
  Mr. President, I think it should be clear to all of us why human 
rights questions and concerns should be at the forefront of today's 
debate and why someone with the background of Mr. Negroponte is not the 
right person to send to Iraq, because it is going to come out, it will 
come out about Mr. Negroponte's involvement with Battalion 316. It will 
come out about Mr. Negroponte's efforts in Honduras to suppress 
information Congress needed at that time. It will come out that Mr. 
Negroponte was untruthful to his superiors at the State Department. It 
should be clear to us why he should not go there at this time.
  We are shocked and shaken by the pictures of abuse against Iraqis at 
the hands of U.S. personnel. Our image as a country is at stake. But it 
is not just our image, it is the very essence of our Nation, our 
fundamental respect for human rights, our fundamental respect for the 
dignity and worth of each individual, the essence of what we are trying 
to tell the world, that we are for freedom, that we are for individual 
liberties, that we oppose torture in all its forms. There is no reason 
why people should be tortured in prisons, and we should not be involved 
in it.
  The photographs we have seen also have a personal association for me. 
When I first saw these pictures, I was

[[Page 8661]]

taken back in time--34 years to be exact--to 1970, July of 1970, when I 
was a staff person in the House of Representatives, and I was sent with 
a commission to Vietnam.
  We had heard all these reports about these tiger cages in which 
people were brutally tortured, killed. Our State Department denied 
their existence, our military denied the existence of them; these were 
all just Communist conspiracy stories.
  Well, I had heard enough about them and others had heard enough about 
them that I began to look into it, and because of some luck, because of 
the courage of Congressman William Anderson of Tennessee, and 
Congressman Augustus Hawkins of California, a young man by the name of 
Don Luce, and the bravery of a young Vietnamese man who gave us the 
maps on how to find this prison, we were able to uncover the notorious 
tiger cages on Con Son Island.
  Fortunately, I had a camera. Fortunately, I had a hidden tape 
recorder. Because when I came back and we reported on this, we were 
told they were not that bad. Well, then LIFE magazine published my 
pictures and the world saw how bad they really were. North Vietnamese, 
Vietcong, and civilian opponents of the war in South Vietnam were all 
bunched into these tiger cages, in clear violation of human rights, 
fundamental human rights, and in clear violation of the Geneva 
Convention. We had been asking the North Vietnamese to abide by the 
Geneva Convention in terms of their treatment of our prisoners in North 
Vietnam. Yet, here we were condoning, supervising, the very same kind 
of abuses of people, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
  Well, then I was told, well, as to what these people were telling 
me--because the interpreter was pro-Communist--that he was telling me 
the wrong things, because I did not speak Vietnamese, you see. I did 
not speak Vietnamese, and they said the person interpreting for me had 
a bias toward the Communists, so I could not believe what I was being 
told. So they sent another group over to hear all these glowing 
reports. What they did not know at the time is that I had a hidden tape 
recorder. No one knew that except me. I tape recorded everything that 
was said.
  I was fired from my job. I was told I would never again work in the 
U.S. Congress because of my actions in letting these pictures out and 
telling the truth about what was happening on Con Son Island. I was 
brought before a congressional committee and was charged that what I 
was reporting was false because I did not speak Vietnamese, and that my 
interpreter was a well-known ``Communist sympathizer.'' But I had my 
tape recorder and I taped everything that was said.
  I turned it over to the Library of Congress to transcribe, and they 
transcribed every single word. Not only what I had been saying was 
confirmed, but there was even more on the recording that was not 
interpreted for me, more evidence of the cruel, torturous conditions in 
these tiger cages, how people had been tortured and killed, and how we, 
the U.S. Government, had provided not only the funding but the 
supervision for these prisons.
  So when I saw these pictures from Iraq, it brought back Con Son 
Island and the tiger cages. I thought we had learned our lesson. Yes, 
war is not a nice thing. War is terrible. But that is why we have 
Geneva Conventions. That is why we have these international treaties. I 
thought we learned after Con Son and the tiger cages that we ought not 
to be involved in those things, that we ought to make sure whoever runs 
these prisons, whoever has charge of prisoners of war, treats the 
prisoners according to the Geneva Convention. Yet here we are back 
again--34 years later--and we see the same kinds of things happening in 
this prison.
  I do not know who took those pictures. I read in the paper today it 
was a young man and that he may be in some serious trouble. Well, 
whoever took those pictures, I want them to know they have a friend and 
an ally in this Senator from Iowa. I will do whatever I can to ensure 
that no harm in any way comes to them, that they are able to speak out 
without fear of any reprisal about what they saw and what went on in 
those prisons.
  We have to let the sunlight in--the best disinfectant. Let's show it 
for what it was. Let's show what happened there. And let's tell the 
world, once again, that we are going to make sure we have in place 
policies, programs, things that will never let this happen again.
  The lead editorial in this morning's Washington Post made it very 
clear when they said:

       Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to 
     overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in 
     its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon 
     ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the 
     Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the 
     interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that 
     many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any 
     independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in 
     any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create 
     a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and 
     Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured, and 
     murdered--and in which, until recently, no one has been held 
     accountable.

  I agree with those who want a full investigation. I believe we should 
investigate. But I don't want to see this just pinned on a few soldiers 
at the bottom. Yes, they have to be held responsible, too. No military 
person has to follow an illegitimate order of anyone placed in 
authority above him or her. These were illegitimate orders. If they 
were ordered to do such things, who gave those orders? Who supervised 
it? How far up the chain of command did it go?
  The bottom line is, the Constitution of the United States puts a 
civilian in charge of our military. It is that civilian, by his or her 
actions, statements, policies, programs, that filter down to that 
private, that sergeant out in the field. Mr. Rumsfeld, because of his 
actions and his statements and his policies during his tenure as 
Secretary of Defense, is ultimately responsible. That is why I have 
called today for his resignation. If he doesn't resign, the President 
of the United States should dismiss him forthwith.
  Seeing no one else asking for time on the floor, I ask unanimous 
consent that I have an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Because of what has happened, and for our country, we 
speak of patriotism a lot, patriotism of our brave soldiers and airmen 
and seamen in Iraq and around the world, the patriotism of those in our 
country who fight for justice, fight for those less fortunate. 
Patriotism takes on a lot of different forms. I think Mr. Rumsfeld has 
to show some patriotism. He has to put the good of his country above 
his own self-interest and his own self-esteem. It is time for him to 
recognize that we need a new Secretary of Defense to change the 
policies and the programs that Mr. Rumsfeld instituted, that, as the 
Washington Post editorial said, led to this kind of a situation.
  I ask unanimous consent that the editorial in the Washington Post 
this morning, May 6, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, May 6, 2004]

                     Mr. Rumsfeld's Responsibility

       The horrific abuses by American interrogators and guards at 
     the Abu Ghraib prison and at other facilities maintained by 
     the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan can be traced, in 
     part, to policy decisions and public statements of Secretary 
     of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Beginning more than two years 
     ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous 
     practice by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in 
     foreign countries. His Pentagon ruled that the United States 
     would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that Army 
     regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be 
     observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado 
     and without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will 
     take place in any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions 
     helped create a lawless regime in which prisoners in both 
     Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured 
     and murdered--and in which, until recently, no one has been 
     held accountable.
       The lawlessness began in January 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld 
     publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. 
     and allied forces in Afghanistan ``do not have any

[[Page 8662]]

     rights'' under the Geneva Conventions. That was not the case: 
     At a minimum, all those arrested in the war zone were 
     entitled under the conventions to a formal hearing to 
     determine whether they were prisoners of war or unlawful 
     combatants. No such hearings were held, but then Mr. Rumsfeld 
     made clear that U.S. observance of the convention was now 
     optional. Prisoners, he said, would be treated ``for the most 
     part'' in ``a manner that is reasonably consistent'' with the 
     conventions--which, the secretary breezily suggested, was 
     outdated.
       In one important respect, Mr. Rumsfeld was correct: Not 
     only could captured al Qaeda members be legitimately deprived 
     of Geneva Convention guarantees (once the required hearing 
     was held) but such treatment was in many cases necessary to 
     obtain vital intelligence and prevent terrorists from 
     communicating with confederates abroad. But if the United 
     States was to resort to that exceptional practice, Mr. 
     Rumsfeld should have established procedures to ensure that it 
     did so without violating international conventions against 
     torture and that only suspects who truly needed such 
     extraordinary handling were treated that way. Outside 
     controls or independent reviews could have provided such 
     safeguards. Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld allowed detainees to be 
     indiscriminately designated as beyond the law--and made 
     humane treatment dependent on the goodwill of U.S. personnel.
       Much of what has happened at the U.S. detention center in 
     Guantanamo Bay is shrouded in secrecy. But according to an 
     official Army report, a system was established at the camp 
     under which military guards were expected to ``set the 
     conditions'' for intelligence investigations. The report by 
     Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba says the system was later 
     introduced at military facilities at Bagram airbase in 
     Afghanistan and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, even though it 
     violates Army regulations forbidding guards to participate in 
     interrogations.
       The Taguba report and others by human rights groups reveal 
     that the detention system Mr. Rumsfeld oversees has become so 
     grossly distorted that military police have abused or 
     tortured prisoners under the direction of civilian 
     contractors and intelligence officers outside the military 
     chain of command--not in ``exceptional'' cases, as Mr. 
     Rumsfeld said Tuesday, but systematically. Army guards have 
     held ``ghost'' prisoners detained by the CIA and even hidden 
     these prisoners from the International Red Cross. Meanwhile, 
     Mr. Rumsfeld's contempt for the Geneva Conventions has 
     trickled down: The Taguba report says that guards at Abu 
     Ghraib had not been instructed on them and that no copies 
     were posted in the facility.
       The abuses that have done so much harm to the U.S. mission 
     in Iraq might have been prevented had Mr. Rumsfeld been 
     responsive to earlier reports of violations. Instead, he 
     publicly dismissed or minimized such accounts. He and his 
     staff ignored detailed reports by respected human rights 
     groups about criminal activity at U.S.-run prisons in 
     Afghanistan, and they refused to provide access to facilities 
     or respond to most questions. In December 2002, two Afghan 
     detainees died in events that were ruled homicides by medical 
     officials; only when the New York Times obtained the story 
     did the Pentagon confirm that an investigation was underway, 
     and no results have yet been announced. Not until other media 
     obtained the photos from Abu Ghraib did Mr. Rumsfeld fully 
     acknowledge what had happened, and not until Tuesday did his 
     department disclose that 25 prisoners have died in U.S. 
     custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accountability for those 
     deaths has been virtually nonexistent: One soldier was 
     punished with a dishonorable discharge.
       On Monday Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman said that the secretary 
     had not read Mr. Taguba's report, which was completed in 
     early March. Yesterday Mr. Rumsfeld told a television 
     interviewer that he still hadn't finished reading it, and he 
     repeated his view that the Geneva Conventions ``did not 
     precisely apply'' but were only ``basic rules'' for handling 
     prisoners. His message remains the same: that the United 
     States need not be bound by international law and that the 
     crimes Mr. Taguba reported are not, for him, a priority. That 
     attitude has undermined the American military's observance of 
     basic human rights and damaged this country's ability to 
     prevail in the war on terrorism.

  Mr. HARKIN. We are all upset about what happened. Our country was 
founded on the principles of democracy, the inalienable rights of 
individuals. We were right to condemn Saddam Hussein for his state-
sponsored torture in Iraq. We are right to condemn anyone, whether it 
is in Uganda or those who led the Rwandan massacre, the generals who 
now run Burma, or those who set up the Soviet gulags during that long 
cold war where so many were tortured and killed by the Soviets. We have 
always been right to speak out against those and to do what we can to 
uphold the inalienable rights of individuals. We are not perfect. No 
country is; no individual is. But our obligation is to make sure that 
when this country makes a mistake, we right it. We don't try to cover 
it up. We don't try to excuse it. We bring it out, show it for what it 
is, and then institute policies, programs, procedures to make sure that 
human rights abuses under our watch will never happen again.
  The bravery of our men and women in Iraq, under intolerable 
conditions, is a source of pride to all of us. As Senator Kennedy said, 
what has happened with these pictures, these terrible human rights 
abuses, I believe, has to pain our wonderful young men and women in 
uniform more than it pains us. Most of them, I am sure, are as abhorred 
by this as we are. I know they are wondering how something like this 
could have happened. It has to be demoralizing for our military as it 
is demoralizing for us. That is why 34 years ago, when the pictures of 
the tiger cages came out, it led to reforms. I believe it helped lead 
to the end of that terrible conflict in Vietnam and brought our troops 
home.
  I hope these pictures, as awful as they are, about what happened in 
the Abu Ghraib prison, will now provoke us to act, to straighten out 
the system, to make sure this does not happen again.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used his additional 5 minutes.
  Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. I believe that our President has to apologize to the 
Iraqi people. He went on television yesterday. As I understand from all 
the articles I read, he gave a slight slap on the wrist to Secretary 
Rumsfeld and said he still supported him. I am sorry. Sometimes it 
takes a big person to admit wrong and to apologize. I believe that is 
what we need to do for the Iraqi people, to let them know, not by words 
but by deeds, that this does not reflect who we are as a people. We are 
better than that. We are bigger than that.
  Because of what has happened, because of the pall this has cast over 
our involvement in Iraq, for those reasons and for the history of John 
Negroponte and what he did during his tenure in Honduras during a time 
of gross violations of human rights, he should not be the highest 
ranking diplomat in Iraq. I suppose the skids are greased for him to 
get this appointment. But I don't think there are too many here who 
remember Mr. Negroponte and what he did in Honduras, but I don't 
forget. I don't forget what happened there. I don't forget that Mr. 
Negroponte was one of those individuals closely aligned with General 
Gustavo Alvarez and Battalion 316. I don't forget that it was Mr. 
Negroponte who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the human rights 
abuses in Honduras at that time.
  So to send Mr. Negroponte to Iraq would send entirely the wrong 
message at this time.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time 
under the quorum call be charged equally to both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for 5 minutes using the time that Senator Levin had.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, at 5 o'clock we are going to vote on 
whether to confirm Mr. Negroponte to be our

[[Page 8663]]

Ambassador. I want to make clear a couple of points. I voted against 
Mr. Negroponte for the very issues Senator Harkin talked about in his 
history when he was in Latin America, during what I believed to be a 
massive coverup of human rights abuses, which was very troubling. When 
Mr. Negroponte went there, there was a meeting with him and I said: You 
are now in a new job, and although I am not voting for you, I want to 
work with you. We did work together on a treaty banning child soldiers. 
He worked very well with us on that. There were times when I called him 
to talk about issues of concern and he was very accommodating.
  I am going to vote for him today to give him another chance at a job 
that is so dangerous and so worrisome, because we have a policy in Iraq 
that is not working. He is willing to go there. I give him tremendous 
credit for that and I give credit to his family. I also think his ties 
with people in the United Nations, as we try to get more nations 
involved, could be helpful. I am not sure, but it could be helpful.
  I want to express my reservation, now that we see on the agenda of 
the United States of America one of the worst scandals I think we have 
seen in a very long time--this prison scandal, which has such enormous 
ramifications. As one of my colleagues said, it has undone a thousand 
gestures of kindness and goodness our troops have demonstrated to the 
Iraqi people and to the people of Afghanistan.
  People say, Senator, you should not vote for Mr. Negroponte because 
now we have this other human rights scandal. Well, I feel Mr. 
Negroponte knows we are watching everything now. America has a way of 
getting to the truth. The other day I made a speech about making sure 
that truth will not be a casualty of this war. We need to know the 
truth. I can tell you, I have never seen anything uglier.
  When the press came to me and asked how I am going to vote for Mr. 
Negroponte, I said I want to give him this opportunity. I also feel we 
ought to be looking to the Commander in Chief right now.
  It isn't Mr. Negroponte who is responsible for what has gone on here. 
It is, in the end, the Commander in Chief, and I wish this Commander in 
Chief would do what others of both political parties did and step up to 
the plate and admit it. We all make mistakes. God knows I have made 
many. We do not like to admit them because it shows our fallibility, 
perhaps our lack of wisdom or experience. But in the end, you have to 
do that.
  There have been so many mistakes made since this Iraq situation 
turned into the nightmare that it is--and let me put it right on the 
table because I do not come to this table without a certain point of 
view. I did not vote to go it alone in this war. I worried about going 
it alone in this war. Now we have to ask ourselves, whether we voted 
for it or against it, what do we do now? Of course, that is the 
important question. And what mistakes have been made? There are so many 
mistakes.
  The military campaign was brilliant.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask for an additional 2 minutes per side, and I will 
finish up. Excuse me, I ask if I can have an additional 5 minutes from 
leader time, and then I will finish up.
  Mr. McCAIN. Reserving the right to object, 5 minutes?
  Mrs. BOXER. Yes, and I will be done.
  Mr. McCAIN. I do not object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I see Senator McCain here, one of our 
heroes in America. He is my chairman and friend. I went over to him one 
day--I don't know if he remembers this. I was so worried about this 
war, and he said something that turned out to be true. He said: It will 
be over in 2 weeks. He was right, in essence. It was maybe a little 
longer. That first military campaign was brilliant. And I said: But, 
Senator, I am worried about how many we are going to lose.
  He said: It's going to be OK, Barbara.
  He was right. But there wasn't a plan in place after that, and we all 
know that. Yet when the President was asked by the press, Did you ever 
make any mistakes, couldn't he think of that one?
  Dick Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator 
Biden, Senator Hagel, Senator Kerry, Senator Dodd, Senator Chafee, 
myself, and others on the Foreign Relations Committee came together and 
said: Where is the plan? We said that before the first shot was fired. 
So that was a mistake.
  Then when the President landed on the carrier and he said major 
combat was over, ``Mission Accomplished'' behind him, that was a 
mistake.
  Then when the world said--after that moment, we had them in our hands 
that day, the whole world when the President landed on that carrier: 
Can we help you in Iraq? The President said: If you did not go in with 
us, you cannot rebuild; you are not getting anything. So the spoils of 
the war were not going to be shared with anyone except those who went 
into Iraq. It was a mistake in the end. We would have had everyone in 
there with us. It would have been different.
  When the United Nations building was blown up, an opportunity to say 
then and show leadership that this has turned into a war against terror 
and the terrorists are here now--and by the way, they were not before. 
We know that from State Department documents. They are there now. We 
had an opportunity to say: United Nations, you have been attacked; come 
with us. We did not do that.
  Now this horrific vision in these prisons. I heard one commentator 
say: What about the vision of the Americans who were slaughtered and 
hung on the bridges? Yes, sickening, horrifying, hellish. We cannot go 
down that road because this is America.
  When I was growing up, I knew America was different. This editorial 
that ran today in the Washington Post opened up my mind because I did 
not call for anybody's firing. I think the Commander in Chief is 
responsible, and he has to decide who he is holding responsible. This 
is an interesting editorial. It said, When did the trouble start? It is 
when Don Rumsfeld, and I assume with the permission of the President, 
said: We are not going to pay any attention to the Geneva Convention. 
None of these rules are going to apply. And now what has happened?
  We don't know all the details, but if it is true, and we do not know 
that yet, what we see in the paper--and these are real photographs--I 
do not know that for sure, but if it is true, what we are seeing is 
something that has stained this country, that has burdened this country 
and scarred this country, that has undermined everything in which we 
all believe, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Greens. It does not 
matter what party; it is about America.
  I think it is mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake after 
mistake. What do we do now? I think Joe Biden has great ideas on that. 
He says the Iraqi people have to want democracy as much as we want it 
for them. I do believe it is time to test that. We are sending our 
people into a caldron. We cannot keep going down this course. We have 
to modify it and change it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from California be allowed 2 additional minutes to finish up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, as usual, my friend is very generous of 
spirit.
  Stay the course, modify the course, change the course--we need to 
change the dynamics of this. Some have suggested tearing down the 
prison. I think that might be an excellent idea to show our remorse, 
our sorrow, and our outrage. They say a picture is worth a thousand 
words. These pictures say terrible things, and we by our actions have 
to undo those pictures.
  My understanding is that a lot of these people who were conducting 
themselves in this atrocious fashion were kids. They were never 
trained. They did not understand. They were

[[Page 8664]]

told: Just do whatever you have to do to get people to talk.
  I do not know if that is all true. We will get to the bottom of it. 
But one thing I do know is, you do not stay on a course when it is not 
working. We have lost over 700 of our beautiful people, some young, 18, 
19, some 30, 40 years old leaving behind children. Some 3,000 plus have 
been wounded. And why doesn't Paul Wolfowitz know these numbers? What 
is wrong with him that he doesn't know these numbers? It is wrong. 
These are lives. These young people are not just some faceless, 
nameless cutout of a soldier.
  Mr. President, I am so filled with sadness. Every time I come to the 
Senate floor to read the name of Californians who have died--I know 
they are the best.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. BOXER. My word to them is: You are the best, and we will get to 
the bottom of this.
  Mr. President, I thank Senator McCain for his generosity.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from California. I do 
remember our conversation. I also remember she and I discussed the fact 
that the post-conflict era was going to be extremely difficult. She 
made a very balanced statement today, and I thank her for that as we 
all go through this very difficult time in the history of our country.
  Mr. President, we will be having a hearing tomorrow with Secretary 
Rumsfeld, and after that hearing, a lot of us, I hope, will be better 
informed, not just members of the committee, but others will be better 
informed as to the dimensions of this terrible situation which we have 
seen so graphically demonstrated on the abuse of human rights.
  I also am convinced again that the sooner we get this issue resolved 
and move forward and make sure it never happens again, it is very 
important because we have to go about the business of winning this 
conflict. We cannot let this terrible situation, as tragic as it is, 
divert us from our purpose of winning this conflict which we cannot 
afford to lose. We have plenty of time to debate and discuss that in 
the future.
  I also would like to comment on my friend John Negroponte. I have 
known John Negroponte ever since he was ambassador to Mexico, where he 
did an outstanding job. He has held a broad variety of positions in 
both Republican and Democrat administrations. I believe he will perform 
admirably in the position for which the President of the United States 
has nominated him.
  There probably would have been a lot less discussion about Mr. 
Negroponte's qualifications if it had not been for the difficulties we 
are experiencing in Iraq at the moment, but I would also point out it 
also lends some urgency to getting this highly qualified, patriotic 
American in position as we prepare to turn over the government of Iraq 
to the Iraqi people, which I think all of us are in agreement should be 
done as quickly as possible.


                                 Sudan

  Mr. President, I rise to speak about the situation in Sudan. Before I 
do, often citizens, opinion leaders, and people who are viewed with 
some respect by the American people have, unfortunately, the 
opportunity or the obligation to say: Never again. We said ``never 
again'' after the Holocaust. We said ``never again'' after the 
slaughter of 800,000 innocent people in Rwanda, and we have said 
``never again'' on a number of occasions where acts of genocide have 
taken place.
  We are seeing a situation in the Sudan where I do not want us as a 
nation or as individuals to look back and say some years from now, 
after these innocent people are being ethnically cleansed and victims 
of a genocidal plan of orchestrated atrocities, that we would say never 
again without us attempting to do what we can to stop what is happening 
in the Sudan as we speak.
  Our thoughts and prayers are with the brave Americans serving in Iraq 
and with the Iraqi people we have liberated, but at the same time the 
situation in Sudan is dire and it is getting worse.
  I applaud Senator Brownback and Senator Feingold for introducing a 
resolution on this situation, and I am proud to consponsor it. I would 
like to take a few moments to describe what the world faces today in 
Sudan.
  The region of Darfur, in western Sudan, is one of the most strife-
ridden places on Earth. The largely Arab Sudanese government has teamed 
with the janjaweed, a group of allied militias, to crush an insurgency 
in Darfur. This is not the same as the conflict between the Sudanese 
government and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement in the south, 
but rather a separate, brutal conflict. The methods that the government 
and the janjaweed have employed to put down the insurgents are nothing 
short of horrific. they are not only targeting rebels, but civilians as 
well.
  Reports emerging from Darfur indicate that the government and the 
militias are killing civilians, engaging in widespread rape, abducting 
children and adults, looting civilian property, deliberately destroying 
homes and water sources, and forcing villagers into government-run 
concentration camps. The government continues to block access to the 
region for international humanitarian organizations and ceasefire 
monitors.
  I urge my colleagues to listen to the words of a student from the 
town of Jorboke. He told Human Rights Watch:

       I was at the well with my animals, about half a kilometer 
     from the village, when the planes came. . . . The Antonovs 
     came first, they were very high, like small birds, and they 
     dropped eight bombs around Jorboke. We have two wells and 
     both were hit, the others landed outside the village. . . . 
     The MiGs came about fifteen minutes later and they bombed two 
     of the houses in the village. I heard later that the 
     janjaweed came and looted and burned the rest of the village, 
     but I had left by then; my family put me on a camel to come 
     out to Chad.

  A recent article in the New York Times reported an Antonov pilot 
ordering a ground commander: ``Any village you pass through you must 
burn. That way, when the villagers come back they'll have a surprise 
waiting for them.''
  My colleagues heard correctly. The government of Sudan is actually 
using Russian made Antonov bombers and MiG fighters to kill the 
civilian population. They are not simply attacking military targets but 
are focusing on civilian targets such as water wells, granaries, 
houses, and crops.
  Jan England, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs 
describes the situation in Darfur as a ``scorched-earth'' policy of 
ethnic cleansing in Darfur, and Andrew Natsios, Administrator of USAID 
described it last week as ``the worst humanitarian disaster in the 
world right now.'' The cost to the local population has been enormous. 
In the last year alone, possibly up to 30,000 people have been killed 
and another million people have been displaced. Many of the displaced 
are farmers, who have been unable to plant their crops. Famine looms.
  As we stand here today, a nominal cease fire is in place, but there 
is little evidence that the government and its allied militias are 
honoring the agreement. Refugees continue to pour across the border 
into Chad, fleeing for their lives.
  If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Just weeks ago we 
commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Just weeks 
ago we wrung our hands and said, ``If only we knew what was to come, we 
would have acted.'' We should have acted. But the international 
community remained silent and idle, and 800,000 Rwandans lost their 
lives, under the most horrible circumstances.
  This cannot happen again. We do not yet face a Rwanda-type situation 
in Sudan, and must ensure that we never do. The situation in Darfur 
offends America's values, and threatens our interests. The continued 
flight of refugees into Chad, the tenuous peace between Eritrea and 
Ethiopia, as well as the ongoing conflicts in Somalia could further 
escalate if we allow Sudan to go up in flames.
  Now is the time to act to stop the killing in Sudan before it becomes 
genocide. I am encouraged that President Bush has spoken out against

[[Page 8665]]

atrocities in Sudan, and that the State Department and USAID have been 
very engaged. But we must do more. As the rainy season approaches and 
threatens to hinder the delivery of aid and medicine, we are running 
out of time.
  The United States must first make clear to the Government of Sudan 
that its behavior and the actions of its allied militias are totally 
unacceptable. If the government believes that it will get a free pass 
in Darfur in exchange for brokering peace with rebels in the south of 
the country, it is sorely mistaken, as the administration has rightly 
made clear. We must maintain all sanctions related to human rights 
violations until real progress is made in Darfur, and consider other 
ways we can increase pressure on the government.
  The international community must also join with us in pressuring the 
regime. The situation in Darfur should be no more acceptable to 
responsible European and African governments than it is to the American 
people. The United Nations Security Council must condemn, in the 
strongest terms, the gross abuses of international humanitarian law and 
human rights in Darfur. It should further demand that the Sudanese 
government immediately disarm and disband its militias, allow full and 
unhindered access to Darfur by humanitarian agencies and ceasefire 
monitors, and allow all displaced persons safe passage back to their 
homes. The Secretary General should report back to the Security Council 
within weeks, noting the degree to which the Government of Sudan is 
complying with these demands. At that point, if necessary, the Security 
Council should consider stronger action under Chapter VII authority.
  In the meantime, we must examine whether and what size international 
contingent it would take to stop this disaster. If troops are required, 
we should figure out how to get troops, possibly African troops, on the 
ground. If we need financial and logistical support, the United States 
and others should provide it.
  Some will say that this is going too far, that we face other, more 
important crises around the world. Dealing with ethnic strife is never 
easy, and it is all the more tempting to turn our heads when Sudan 
seems a far-off, obscure place in Africa. Yet 10 years ago, we looked 
the other way when the public was unaware of the war between the Hutu 
and the Tutsi in Rwanda. In 1998, President Clinton apologized for our 
lack of action. I do not want to stand on the Senate floor 10 years 
from now and remark about the hundreds of thousands of innocent 
Sudanese who perished under our watch.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the critical 
importance of moving ahead on many of the pending nominations for the 
ambassadorial and foreign affairs post, and to speak to John 
Negroponte, who has become a good friend, someone whom I admire 
tremendously.
  I do commend the Senator from Arizona for his statement on the Sudan. 
I opened this morning earlier today with the resolution at the time it 
was approved. The Sudan is a country I am in every year, and throughout 
the southern Sudan. I have had the opportunity to be there at least 
once a year for the last 6 years. Again, the atrocities that are going 
on in Sudan must be condemned, and the Senate is speaking loudly, 
through the voice of Senator McCain and so many others over the course 
of today. I commend the leaders, both of the sponsors of the bill, and 
the bipartisan support for that resolution.
  I mentioned the ambassadorial and foreign affairs posts because we 
need to pay attention not just to the future of Ambassador Negroponte, 
but also the many others today because we do have a whole range of 
qualified individuals who are going to be in very important posts--
except there is one little block, and the block ends up being a huge 
one, right here in the Senate. They are ready. They have been fully 
vetted and approved, with strong support of the Foreign Relations 
Committee. There have been bipartisan votes. There have been unanimous 
votes. It is now time to act on a whole range of these ambassadorial 
posts.
  Chairman Lugar, on the Senate floor just a few hours ago, eloquently 
noted that foreign governments take notice when the American Embassy 
post remains vacant. They basically look at the post and they see back 
in America that nominees have been put forward, but the fact the Senate 
has not said yes, which we ultimately will do, sends a strong signal to 
those countries as if the United States doesn't put the emphasis or 
care quite as much about that country. It might be interpreted as a 
feeling of declining interest in that country. We should not allow it 
to happen. Really, we must not allow that to happen. It takes action 
here in the Senate.
  I am very hopeful we can open up this whole gate that is blocking so 
many of these nominees. We absolutely must have strong diplomatic 
representation and support for our policies in order to fight global 
terror, to defeat global terror, to further our economic interests 
around the world, to advance our interests and bring freedom and 
democracy to the millions of people who yearn for it. Like our 
military, our diplomatic corps is a part of a national security team.
  I know most of my colleagues, indeed, all of my colleagues would not 
deny our military the leadership they need in the time of war. I ask my 
colleagues to remember the similar and very important role that our 
ambassadors play. That important role is advancing our national 
security and foreign policy interests. Our embassy teams serve on the 
front line of the United States of America. Our Foreign Service 
officers and embassy personnel literally put their lives at risk each 
and every day.
  It was just in 1998, in Tanzania, in Kenya, that a number of our 
embassy staff were killed in the al-Qaida attack. They paid the 
ultimate price for freedom.
  The Constitution gives us responsibility, it gives us a critical role 
in the appointment of ambassadors. But the advise and consent power is 
not only a right of this body but it is a responsibility of this body. 
As I have said many times before, I take that responsibility very 
seriously. In this time of war, America needs to have full diplomatic 
representation abroad. We are at war. We need to be represented fully 
abroad.
  The nomination of John Negroponte is pending today, and hopefully 
shortly, we will be voting on his nomination. I have had the 
opportunity to visit with him recently and to grow to know him over the 
last several years. I think there is no individual more qualified to 
take on that difficult task--and we all know it is going to be 
difficult--as Ambassador to Iraq. Ambassador Negroponte has served this 
country for over three decades. He is one of the most qualified 
diplomats to ever serve this Nation. He has been confirmed by this body 
seven times before.
  On June 30, as we all know, the Coalition Provisional Authority turns 
over Iraqi sovereignty to the Iraqi people. We have seen it play out in 
the last several days, the last several weeks. It is a difficult time 
in Iraq. It is perhaps the most critical moment in the fight to bring 
freedom to that war-torn nation.
  As we all know, Ambassador Negroponte will be charged with 
implementing those policies in Iraq. He will be responsible for leading 
and protecting a team of over 1,700 embassy personnel.
  It is a critical time of conflict in Iraq and indeed throughout the 
Middle East. It is in this critical time that we need Ambassador 
Negroponte at his post as soon as possible. The future of Iraq depends 
on our ability to make good decisions right now.
  As Chairman Lugar pointed out, we have a number of other nominations, 
30 nominations pending on other important posts, right now pending 
throughout Europe, throughout the Middle East, in Africa and throughout 
the world. I hope with the final confirmation today of Ambassador 
Negroponte we can open up what would be a floodgate to these other 30 
nominations.
  It is not the time to make political statements on either side of the 
aisle

[[Page 8666]]

as an excuse for holding up these nominations. The risks are too great 
at this moment in history. I strongly urge my colleagues to approve 
Ambassador Negroponte shortly, and all of the other pending nominations 
as soon as possible.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak to the issue of the 
confirmation of the nomination of John D. Negroponte to be ambassador 
to Iraq.
  I serve on the Foreign Relations Committee. During my short time in 
this esteemed body, I have had the opportunity to listen to, to engage 
in conversation, and to question Ambassador Negroponte on a number of 
occasions. He is an extraordinary man to whom this Nation owes a debt 
of gratitude for his service in the past and whose confirmation should 
swiftly be approved so he can continue with the distinguished career he 
has in Government.
  His Government career started in 1960 at the age of 21 when he 
entered the Foreign Service. He has 37 years of experience at the 
Department of State. He has clearly played a leadership role in 
American foreign affairs. That leadership is needed today and certainly 
he can bring that skilled leadership to the challenges he will face as 
Ambassador to Iraq.
  He has served on four continents at the highest levels. Of course, he 
is serving as Ambassador presently to the U.N., Permanent 
Representative of the United States to the United Nations. He served 
this country five times in ambassadorial positions, including 
Ambassador to the Philippines, Ambassador to Mexico, Ambassador to 
Honduras in 1977, in 1979 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for 
Oceans and Fishery Affairs, with the rank of Ambassador. His service to 
this country covers an extraordinarily wide spectrum of regions and 
functions. He has received numerous commendations, including two 
President's Meritorious Service Awards, an honorary doctorate from 
Adamson University in the Philippines, the Homeric Award from the Chian 
Federation, and on and on.
  He truly is an extraordinary man. He brings the right vision for what 
America needs in Iraq. His vision of the role of ambassador is 
different from what we have now with Ambassador Bremer. Whereas the CPA 
today is the ultimate political authority in Iraq, the Embassy will be 
in a supportive, as opposed to a commanding, role. He understands and 
believes a U.S. mission will support democratization and rule of law, 
economic reconstruction and security and counterterrorism.
  He believes the U.N. role does not come at the expense of United 
States influence or interests but, rather, the efforts will be 
coordinated and complementary. That is what we need in an ambassador. 
That is the nomination we have before the Senate. I hope there is a 
resounding voice of support from this body. It sends out the right 
message to the world as to the kind of individual we want working with 
the government of Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty on June 30.
  I am thrilled Ambassador Negroponte is willing to continue his 
service, a difficult service. He brings the right skills to the task. 
The skills certainly are needed.
  These are challenging times in Iraq. There is no question about that. 
In those times of challenge, oftentimes in this great free land of 
ours, folks have different opinions and different perspectives. Those 
are often played out in the Senate or in the House Chamber on the other 
side of this magnificent Capitol Building.
  With dissent come tough, probing questions that make our Nation 
stronger, make it freer, and democracy more durable. I have great 
respect for those who dissent, to offer a different perspective than 
me. Certainly the challenge in Iraq, the war in Iraq is evoking a great 
deal of concern in different perspectives. There is a lot of 20/20 
hindsight. It is easier to be a critic. But dissent is not a validation 
of one's position. On the contrary, one can be just as easily wrong in 
their dissent as they may be right.
  I will say while American lives are on the line, those who dissent 
must choose the moments to determine whether their dissent will help 
make this Nation stronger or freer or if it will undermine the very 
foundation of what holds us together.
  I said it before and I will say it again, these days we are observing 
a mixture of Monday-morning quarterbacking, in some cases, political 
opportunism, exaggeration, which threatens to deprive us of perspective 
and resolve when we need it the most.
  There are challenges in Iraq. We are all reeling over the photographs 
we saw of the treatment of some prisoners in an Iraqi prison. It is not 
what America is about. We rejected that. The President rejected it. The 
military has rejected it and will hold those responsible.
  At the same time, as we speak today, men and women are still in 
uniform fighting for freedom, fighting against terrorism. This 
President, our President, did not ask for a war on terror. September 11 
happened. We have come to understand that no longer could we escape 
terrorism, that our shores did not protect us, that we had to be 
vigilant. We had to resolve and take the battle to the enemy. We have 
done that.
  War is never pretty. War is never something clean and concise. At 
times, bad things happen. Lives are lost. But in this case, we should 
never forget the underlying purpose. The underlying purpose is America 
is in a war on terrorism.
  There are people who hate us because we enjoy freedom, because we 
respect freedom, because of who we are, because of what democracy is 
all about. There are folks who will go to great ends to make sure 
democracy never takes hold in Iraq, who will do everything they can to 
destabilize what we are trying to accomplish, to make it not happen.
  But Americans have understood--even if we disagreed on the original 
purpose of going in, et cetera--that when our men and women in uniform 
are in battle, we stand with them.
  I have grown fond of Teddy Roosevelt, for many reasons, because of 
this, one of my favorite quotations:

       It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out 
     how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could 
     have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is 
     actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat 
     and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short 
     again and again, because there is no effort without error or 
     shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great 
     devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause. . . .
       Let me reiterate the worthiness of the cause we have 
     undertaken.

  This morning, like many of my colleagues, I awoke to an article in 
Roll Call in which one of the Members of the Democratic minority in the 
House has decided that comments he made in private should be trotted 
out to be heard by the entire world.
  His comments were that the war in Iraq is ``unwinnable.'' In private 
conversation those words are troublesome enough, but his willingness to 
allow those comments to be put in the public domain for partisan 
political purposes is not only outrageous but it is indecent.
  Over the course of the last several days, we all have been horrified 
by the images of prisoners being tortured in Iraqi prisons. They are 
shameful, they are reprehensible, and they should make all of us who 
are fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters say this is not what 
America is about. And we have said that. There are not enough apologies 
today to be given to the Iraqi people for that, but we have done that.
  But today, as American blood is shed in the cause of freedom and 
liberty across the world, a Member of Congress' utterances of a war as 
``unwin-
nable'' does not just demoralize American soldiers, I fear it emboldens 
America's enemies.

[[Page 8667]]

  Imagine being on a sports team that is losing badly to their opponent 
and hearing one of the leaders of the winning team all of a sudden say 
the game is unwinnable for them, even though they control almost every 
aspect of the game.
  To those thugs and monsters who killed with Saddam and now kill 
without Saddam, the ``unwinnable'' jersey on their back has just been 
put on ours by a Member of Congress. I find that so troublesome.
  Every day in Iraq, and in most of the country in Iraq, things are 
going on in which people are getting their lives together. Their 
schools are operating and their hospitals are operating. The city is 
operating, with a city council. Twenty-some million people are going 
about their lives. There are areas in which there is conflict, but the 
country is operating, is moving forward. Oil production is back to the 
way it was, just about at prewar levels.
  There are 130,000 American soldiers there, and they are doing great 
things. When you talk to them, when you talk to the folks who come 
back, they tell you morale is high. They believe in the mission. When 
an elected Member of the Congress stands up and says, ``I don't believe 
in the mission. We can't win the mission,'' something is wrong--not 
with the mission, not with those who are putting their lives on the 
line, who believe in the mission. Something is wrong with uttering that 
kind of statement.
  Shameful. Outrageous. It demands the collective condemnation of all 
of us that we should give comfort to the enemy because of those seeking 
to score partisan political points.
  There is an election coming up on November 2. We all know that. There 
is no way to avoid it. But because of that, it does not mean we put 
good common sense behind us. It does not mean that everything that goes 
on gets caught up in a political perspective and a political battle to 
make points for those who are for or those who are against.
  There is one thing about this country that I have always believed and 
I have always seen: that in times of difficulty, America comes 
together. I think what has been so uplifting about what we have seen in 
regard to the situation in Iraq is that, though there may be debate 
over the nature of the policy, there may be debate over a range of 
issues, there has been little or no debate about what our young men and 
women are doing in Iraq and how well they are doing it and how proud we 
all are of their courage, of their fortitude, of their commitment. To 
undermine that in any way, to talk about it being unwinnable, is 
something that I find difficult or impossible to fathom.
  It is time this awful language of defeatism in our Nation's Capitol 
comes to an end. It is time America comes together, as we do in times 
of war, to stand with our men and women on the front line, to stand 
with those who are willing to give the ultimate sacrifice--and many 
have--and to say to them: We appreciate what you are doing. We 
appreciate your commitment. We appreciate your service. We appreciate 
your courage. And we know that America will prevail. We know that 
justice will prevail. We have faith. We have faith in what you are 
doing and your ability to get it done. Shame on those who would say 
otherwise.
  Mr. President, 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. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, we are here this afternoon debating the 
nomination for the position of Ambassador to Iraq, the nomination of 
Ambassador-nominee Negroponte, a career diplomat who probably has as 
long and good a record in the United States as any person who has 
served in our Foreign Service.
  He started in 1960 representing the United States. He has had an 
amazing array of important posts, including being Ambassador to the 
Philippines and Honduras and Mexico, and serving in a variety of other 
international organizations.
  I hope, at the conclusion of our debate today, the Senate will, in 
fact, confirm the nomination of Ambassador-designate Negroponte.
  We need the very best in Iraq. It is a challenging situation. There 
is no doubt about that. We need somebody of his caliber there. I am 
delighted the President has found it possible to find such a good 
person to be the first ambassador to this newly freed country. I hope, 
as I said, we will be able to confirm him quickly and that he will be 
able to assume his post.
  I think a lot of the Members have found this as an opportunity to 
discuss the larger issue of the war in Iraq and how it is going and 
particularly in light of the events of the recent days regarding the 
revelations of the treatment of certain prisoners in Iraq. I think it 
is appropriate we all reflect on that, but I also think it is important 
we keep it in perspective.
  I just gave a radio interview in which the questioner asked questions 
that suggested maybe the wheels were coming off the wagon, that the 
entire effort might not be worth it; that one of our colleagues in the 
House had indicated that maybe we are losing the war and we ought to 
recognize that right now.
  I want to focus a little bit on that because, as we have a new 
ambassador about to assume the position there, he might rightly ask the 
question, What am I getting into here if we are about to lose a war? 
And the question is, Are we? And, of course, the answer is, No, we are 
not. I think it would be well for Americans to stop and think before 
they talk in those terms because the mere discussion of the issue in 
those terms gives solace and encouragement to our opponents.
  Unlike a war that we fought in the past--you could choose your 
examples--this war on terrorism includes components that have a lot to 
do with psychology, with what the enemy believes he can accomplish 
using asymmetric force against far superior forces of the allied 
coalition. Therefore, it is important what the enemy reads into what we 
are saying about the war ourselves. That is why, in effect, the floor 
of the Senate and the media are other fronts in the war.
  When we ask what we can do to help our troops, one thing we can do is 
think clearly about this and speak in a constructive, positive way, 
which is not to say we should never express disagreement with each 
other or with the administration or offer constructive suggestions 
about what to do better. All of that is fair game in a democracy and 
makes us what we are and makes for a better conduct of any kind of 
operation, including a military one. But there is a way to do it that 
does not give encouragement to the enemy.
  When you begin to suggest that because of what a very small handful 
of Americans did to some Iraqi prisoners, that it somehow suggests we 
are losing the war, we have gone way off track. I realize most people 
are not saying that. I hope they don't. That is the kind of expression 
that will be the beginning of the end of our effort to conduct the 
hearts and minds part of this war on terror which is almost in some 
respects as big a part of it as is the military conquest we were so 
successful in achieving in Iraq.
  How should we be conducting ourselves? We are part of this war 
effort. We are not carrying a gun. But people listen to what we have to 
say. The terrorists take away from what we say either encouragement or 
discouragement.
  I return to the memo we intercepted from a fellow by the name of 
Zarqawi. He was sending a memo to his fellow terrorists connected with 
al-Qaida saying: We have a real problem here. The Americans are winning 
in Iraq. They are defeating our brothers, and we need more allies. We 
need people to pour into Iraq to assist us. I fear we are losing the 
battle because we can't get enough help and the Americans are too 
tough. They are winning the country over, and before long they are 
going to have a new government set up here and we will have lost this 
effort.
  That was this terrorist's assessment of the situation. I like that 
assessment. What it shows is the planning and execution of our military 
effort and the

[[Page 8668]]

followup of the military effort after we took Baghdad and had conquered 
the country, that that has largely succeeded. For most of the country 
we know it has.
  We have two pockets of significant resistance with which we are 
dealing. There the tension is between going in and doing collateral 
damage or trying to negotiate, which is what we are being urged to do 
by people on the ground, Iraqis who, after all, are making a point that 
they might have some idea about how to do this since they know the 
folks involved and it is their country. They are going to have to take 
care of this in the future. So we are paying attention to what they 
suggest. We are trying to walk a careful line in dealing with these two 
situations.
  But by and large, the point is, the country has been pacified. There 
has been so much constructive accomplished there in terms of getting 
the country's infrastructure back to work, getting oil production 
going, getting the schools and hospitals back up to speed, all of the 
other aspects that have begun to return the country to normalcy, that 
we tend to forget all of the good and tend to forget that the security 
of the country has largely been obtained when we see on the nightly 
news only one thing and that is the latest explosion that killed either 
an American soldier, perhaps, or innocent Iraqis, because a lot of the 
people who are being killed are Iraqis themselves. That is the bad 
news.
  Notwithstanding the news that we get all of the time, the terrorists 
are saying: We are about to be beat here because the Americans and the 
other allies have been able to marshal the military power to subdue our 
brothers. Without new reinforcements, we are likely to lose this 
battle.
  That is a nice assessment. It gives us encouragement that if we 
continue on this path, we will prevail. We have a strategy laid out to 
turn authority over to the Iraqis to govern themselves on June 30 and 
proceed to have elections in the country next January. Hopefully, we 
will continue to consolidate the security and so on. We are aware of 
those things.
  Therefore, it is especially distressing when people who are important 
people in America, perhaps elected officials, speak out on television 
and suggest that, because of these most recent events, somehow we can't 
win this battle; We can't win this war; We can't continue to 
consolidate the gains we have made, continue to provide security, 
continue to help in the reconstruction of the country, and continue on 
the path of turning it over to the Iraqis so they can freely govern 
themselves.
  Let's take each of those points. First, no one in America condones or 
in any way expresses anything but disgust for what we have seen on 
television and what we have been reading about. It is un-American to 
treat people the way these Iraqi prisoners were treated. It doesn't 
make any difference what they might have done. Americans don't do that.
  The President today, in meeting with King Abdullah, publicly said he 
was sorry for this. He was also sorry that a lot of people in the world 
would take this incident as manifesting what Americans and America are 
all about. He said that bothers him, and it obviously bothers all of us 
because we know that is not what we are about. The question is, This 
aberration, as it has been described, should that in any way suggest to 
us that we can't win this conflict? I fail to see a connection.
  I understand that among a lot of Arabs and, frankly, the rest of the 
world, including in the United States, people are appalled. But anyone 
with an open mind who has any understanding of the United States and of 
Americans understands that this is not the way Americans act and, in 
point of fact, that we have a system which encourages reporting of such 
incidents and which immediately ensures that the perpetrators will be 
dealt with in an appropriate way.
  It is my understanding--and we will find out a lot more about this as 
time goes on--that the day after the report of the incident the inquiry 
began which resulted in military action, court-martial action being 
taken against several of these perpetrators, and subsequent to that, 
action has been taken against several people and that there are some 
that are still pending to be resolved. It is also my understanding that 
within the same month of January, a command had already been set up to 
investigate whether this was endemic or widespread, whether it really 
was an aberration and, to the extent that it demonstrated that there 
were flaws in our system that permitted this to occur, that they be 
fixed, and that things have been implemented to ensure this will not 
happen again.
  I suspect as we are briefed on all of this we will learn a lot more 
of the detail, and we might be more comfortable with the way the 
military has handled this. This is what America is all about.
  There is some fault, not only for the people who actually did what we 
have seen but also for the way it was handled. What I regret is that 
many in the political world have tended to focus on this. I would hope 
that opponents of the President would not seize upon this to try to 
gain partisan advantage. It is something that reflects on the entire 
country. It is not a Democratic or Republican kind of issue.
  There have already been calls for the resignation of Secretary 
Rumsfeld. This, obviously, would not help the President politically, 
but is it appropriate? The Secretary will be presenting open testimony 
tomorrow before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He will tell his 
story. Until he does, I think it would be wise for people to withhold 
their judgment. Since we have not even been briefed on the issue--and 
that is one thing people complain about--would we have a right to call 
for somebody's resignation before we have even heard what they had to 
say or been briefed? Is that an American way to do things or is it an 
expression of partisanship?
  I suggest to the extent it might be the latter, people should hold 
their fire and wait until the facts come in, and we can discuss this in 
a nonpartisan and a constructive way rather than a way that might be 
misread by our enemies, because the more this kind of criticism occurs, 
the more the enemy may take from it that America is divided and we no 
longer have the commitment or the will to see this conflict to an end; 
that therefore if they continue to try to nip away at us the way they 
have been, they will be able to drive us out, and they will have the 
country left to them to resume the kind of rule that Saddam Hussein 
exerted in that country for decades.
  We cannot allow that to happen. I think there is a legitimate 
question about when the people in the policymaking part of the 
Government--and that includes the Assistant Secretary, Secretary of 
Defense, National Security Council, the President, and Vice President--
became aware of things like the existence of photographs and other 
things which, if made public, would certainly significantly detract 
from our effort. These policymakers would clearly have understood that 
is the kind of thing that can undo countless hours of good work by 
thousands of military and non-military personnel in the country. Just 
one incident like this can undo all of the good that literally hundreds 
of people do.
  We have all seen the acts of kindness as well as bravery by our 
troops. We have seen soldiers helping kids in school--saving a little 
child in one case and a woman in another case--from being in the line 
of fire, one of whom had been wounded. There are countless Americans 
acting unselfishly and, frankly, selflessly, putting themselves in 
danger to help Iraqi people. That is a message that obviously needs to 
be conveyed, but all of that is, in a sense, forgotten the minute you 
have an incident like this, especially with the photographs showing 
this.
  I can understand how someone who committed these atrocities, unthink-
ingly, would have no idea about how this might affect the entire war 
effort when it becomes known, but people higher up certainly would have 
that sense. It was important that they get this information so they 
could then decide what to do with it. Undoubtedly, in America, 
ordinarily, we understand

[[Page 8669]]

that the best way to deal with bad news like this is to deal with it in 
an open, honest fashion. I suspect that had we been able to do that, a 
lot of the outcry here might have been averted. That might have been 
included in briefing Members of Congress. But if the Secretary of 
Defense didn't even know of the existence of the photographs, it is 
kind of hard to brief Congress about it.
  I suggest that the bottom line on this point is that we find out what 
the facts are by asking the people directly. Let's stop condemning them 
publicly and calling for their resignation and stop assuming facts we 
don't know.
  During a radio interview that I just had, the questioner asked me 
about a certain situation. I said: I don't know that to be true. Do 
you? He said: No, but that is what we have heard. Let's see what the 
truth is, and we can act in a calm, compassionate, and firm way with 
those who did wrong.
  My final point is that in the fog of war a lot goes wrong. Individual 
people make bad judgments. Americans are just as prone to that as 
anybody else. There is a lot of pressure and emotions run high, and it 
is certainly possible for people to do wrong. One of the candidates for 
President this year talked about atrocities he committed, or saw 
committed, in another war in our history. It happens. It is not right, 
and people should be called to account for it when it happens.
  But let's remember, too, that everything in war is not coming up 
roses every day, and that there will be days of bad news. If you stop 
to think about World War II, for example, or about Korea, or any other 
wars we have fought in, you can find some very bleak days, days when 
Americans were being pushed off the Korean peninsula, days when we were 
being pushed off Omaha Beach, or times when we were making no progress 
and were taking thousands of casualties on the Pacific islands. Our own 
prisoners were horribly mistreated, and there must have been a sense 
that this may not be worth the effort.
  Americans understood the stakes and we persevered. In war there are 
going to be times that are bad. We understood that. Sometimes they are 
caused by enemy action and sometimes by mistakes we ourselves might 
have made. This is one of those times when we have a real problem 
because of mistakes that Americans made. But we have the capacity as a 
Nation to correct those mistakes if we will do that in a constructive 
way. That is the key. But if we do it in a partisan way, in a 
destructive way, we will only play into the hands of our enemies, who 
are looking for that kind of signal so they can succeed in their 
effort.
  As we conclude debate on the nomination of a critical position at 
this time in our history, the ambassadorship to Iraq, it is good to 
reflect on these issues. The Ambassador will have a very difficult job. 
I hope as we consider his nomination and how to support him when he 
assumes this role, we will all agree it is important to do so in a 
constructive way, always giving him our best judgment, but not 
undercutting him with premature judgments or actions that might be 
construed as political and might be misunderstood by our enemy.
  If we conduct ourselves in that way, I am confident that, despite the 
fact there will be days we feel very challenged in this country and, as 
the President said, things we are very sorry for, nonetheless, because 
of the kind of people and Nation we are and the values and principles 
for which we are fighting, we will in the end prevail, and we will 
prevail not only to the benefit of Americans and our national security, 
but for the cause of freedom of people throughout this world.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak regarding the 
nomination of Mr. Negroponte to be the Ambassador to Iraq.


                        The Republic of Georgia

  Before I speak on that, I want to draw the attention of my colleagues 
to something that happened, on a very positive note, in the Republic of 
Georgia, one of the former Soviet Union countries. It was reported 
today that one of the breakaway regions, Ajaria, has voluntarily come 
back into Georgia. The people have thrown out, vanquished kind of a 
local thuggish dictator, Aslan Abashidze, who had ruled this region for 
about 10 years. Thousands of Ajaris are now out in the streets, 
bringing Georgia back together, throwing out this guy who had been 
really a ruthless local, small-scale dictator in the region, and 
bringing the people back together of Georgia.
  This doesn't get the publicity of Georgia's ``rose revolution'' of 
last November, but the people are rising up and saying they want 
democracy, they want to be part of this country. We need a change in 
leadership. They have done it by nonviolent means. It is inspiring to 
read about and to see that has taken place and that the Georgians who 
we are working with and supporting are getting this done. A number of 
people celebrating this victory are waving Georgian flags and American 
flags. A number of places in the world would not be standing free if it 
weren't for us, and they appreciate that.
  Mr. President, now speaking on Iraq and Mr. Negroponte's nomination 
to the position of Ambassador of the United States to Iraq, he is an 
eminently qualified individual. I have worked with him in the Foreign 
Relations Committee. He worked in Central America, and he has been our 
representative in the U.N. He is the exact type of person we need to 
have in the region. He will take us from being the occupying power to a 
supporting role and not a governing role in Iraq. He understands that 
in a great way. Mr. Negroponte has great relationships around the world 
and he is a very wise man. I think he will do an excellent job for us.
  We all lament what has taken place in the Iraqi prisons and the 
problems and images that created. But more than the moral outrage this 
has generated, these terrible acts by a few do a great disservice to 
the men and women who have already lost their lives in the effort to 
free Iraq and help the people of Iraq to govern themselves.
  I had a closed town hall meeting with soldiers at Fort Reilly. They 
had recently returned from Iraq--about 300 Army men and women who had 
come back and served for an extended stay in Iraq. To a person, they 
were positive about the events that have taken place overall in Iraq. 
Yes, there have been problems and, yes, this is war. But they would 
talk about helping the children; they would talk about opening schools; 
they would talk about power services being brought back to levels 
higher, to pre-Saddam levels in that country. They would talk in 
glowing terms about what they are getting done on building a free, 
open, democratic Iraq.
  Yes, problems, yes, difficulties, and, yes, lost American lives. We 
have had 37 people stationed at Fort Reilly killed in this conflict.
  We have had a number of Kansans, as there have been people from all 
over the Nation, who have given their lives for the freedom of the 
people of Iraq and security for the people of American. We should not 
let the actions of a few do disservice to so many who have given their 
lives in this great and worthy cause.
  The damage done to our credibility in Iraq and the Middle East is 
going to be difficult to rebuild, but we must do that in earnest. 
People must be held accountable, especially those in the chain of 
command with direct control over the prison system. Perhaps it is time 
this prison that has such a terrible legacy in Iraq in the Saddam era 
simply be closed, torn down, and never used as a prison again.
  Let's keep in mind why we are in Iraq. I met with Jalal Talabani. He 
is one of the key leaders of the Iraqi Governing Council. He is a 
gentleman with whom I worked over the years as we moved forward in this 
country to confront the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
  Let me give a very brief history lesson. He was involved in the Iraqi 
coalition, the diaspora. Actually, he is from the Kurdish part of the 
country, so he was in country. He has been involved in that group for 
some period of time

[[Page 8670]]

seeking the United States to come forward and support the liberation of 
Iraq.
  I remind my colleagues, in 1998, we passed the Iraq Liberation Act 
which called for regime change in Iraq. That was signed into law by 
President Bill Clinton who supported it. Mr. Talabani was involved in 
that effort from the outset. The Kurdish region has self-governance and 
has had it for the past 10 years and is doing remarkably well. He 
reminded me of a poll recently taken by CNN that had the Kurdish people 
supporting America and George Bush by over 95 percent and thankful for 
what is taking place, the liberating of their country and their region.
  He also said this to me: It is shameful to us that we as Iraqis are 
sitting down and not taking on the role of governing and security 
within our country while American soldiers are being killed.
  He said: It is our duty--the Iraqis' duty--to fight the terrorists, 
and we must do this as soon as possible.
  I agree, exclamation mark, and we have to move in that direction. For 
years, the people of Iraq suffered under the brutal dictatorship of 
Saddam Hussein. There will be a trial sometime soon, hopefully this 
year, of Saddam Hussein. The world will see the atrocities, the 
hundreds of thousands of people buried in mass graves as a result of 
this man's rule.
  Yet few--except for some countries in the region, Kuwait and Israel--
dare to denounce Hussein for what he did to his own people. Especially 
those countries we call our allies in the Middle East, Egypt and Saudi 
Arabia, have failed to assume the moral leadership to tell about the 
Saddam Hussein regime. We stepped into this void to do what others were 
unwilling to do. We did so grudgingly because going to war is never an 
easy decision for any country, particularly for America.
  Even before the Iraqi war resolution in 2002, we spent years 
supporting the passage of one resolution after another at the U.N. to 
make clear that the Iraqi regime was an outlaw regime condemned by the 
international community. We engaged the American people. After a 
thorough debate in the Senate regarding the risk, this Congress 
overwhelmingly voted to give the President the legal authority to go to 
war in Iraq. We decided as a nation we did not want America to 
compromise its moral authority by avoiding the demands of leadership. 
We sought freedom for the Iraqis and for that freedom to spread 
throughout the Arab world, and we desired security for Americans.
  It is a heavy burden. At critical moments in world history, we have 
not hesitated to carry this burden places far from home. Wherever we 
went, our men and women in uniform inspired others, bringing hope and 
freedom to millions.
  I can quote a young man from Union Town, KS, who died in Afghanistan. 
I talked with his mother about his death and his service. He died at 21 
years of age. His mother said: He e-mailed me home, and he said:

       I would rather die for a cause than of one.

  How better do we summarize it than that? He put his life on the line 
so others in Afghanistan, on the other side of the world, can be free.
  On the interrogations, I understand interrogations are necessary in a 
war against a merciless enemy. But we have a long and honorable 
military tradition that is certainly not reflected in the photos from 
the Iraqi prison. Let's be guided by the moral courage to acknowledge 
our mistakes and to change what needs to be changed, and we will, and 
that is our pledge to the world. We need to behave better, be more 
humble, and understand that the war in Iraq, and the broader war on 
terrorism, is also a war of ideas and values.
  Those who threaten our soldiers, our diplomats, and even ordinary 
Americans, as happened on 9/11, believe in hateful ideas. We do not 
agree with those ideas. We need to help the people of Iraq and others 
in the Middle East understand this war of ideas; that it is not 
something we can do for them, they must do it for themselves. Only the 
people of Iraq and the millions of Arabs who yearn for freedom can do 
that.
  We must continue in our effort to give the Iraqis self-rule and free 
elections. These are our aspirations for the Iraqi people, and they are 
their aspirations as well. It is up to them to have the courage to move 
on, to realize these aspirations in a free nation that will bring 
democracy to their country and to the Middle East.
  We have in Ambassador Negroponte the chance to start a new chapter. 
On July 1, sovereignty will pass to the Iraqis. Ambassador Negroponte 
has enormous responsibility, and judging by his background, I cannot 
think of anybody better qualified to do this.
  In his capacity as the Ambassador to Iraq, I know he understands his 
role to be fundamentally different from that of Ambassador Bremer. 
Whereas the CPA is the ultimate political authority in Iraq, the 
Embassy will be in a supportive, not commanding, role. His role is to 
provide support in democratization and rule of law, religious freedom 
and tolerance, economic reconstruction, and security and 
counterterrorism. His mission will be to further cooperation with the 
U.N., the international community, and independent Iraqi electoral 
authorities, and all aspects of election preparation, which is critical 
for elections for a transitional national assembly, no later than the 
end of January 2005.
  He will need to assist the U.N. in establishing an independent 
electoral commission, an electoral law, and a political parties' law, 
encourage Iraqis to establish effective governing institutions in 
Baghdad and the provinces, as well as a myriad reconstruction efforts. 
This will be a critically important area because he will be responsible 
for holding these projects to the highest standards of financial 
accountability. He has the responsibility to the American people that 
the money for Iraq will be spent without waste and fraud, and in this 
context, he will need to encourage Iraq's new leaders to choose sound 
economic policies and enforce high standards of integrity in public 
administration.
  Ambassador Negroponte will also need to play a key role in building 
and strengthening the capacity of Iraqi security services to deal with 
both domestic extremists and foreign terrorists so that they patrol and 
deal with terrorists in their country and our troops are garrisoned. He 
should continue to bolster the role of a robust multinational force, 
but mostly build up the Iraqi force.
  Finally, he should make sure the role of the U.N. does not come at 
the expense of U.S. influence or interest, but rather the efforts be 
well coordinated and complementary.
  Ambassador Negroponte has a big job. He is up to it, and I support 
his nomination to be Ambassador for the United States in Iraq.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority side has 80 minutes.
  Mr. HATCH. We are on the Negroponte nomination?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I stand today in full support of the 
President's nominee to be our first ambassador to the new Iraq, 
Ambassador John D. Negroponte. This is the most important nomination 
for an ambassador that we have considered in several decades.
  This moment is historic.
  We are asked to approve the President's choice for an ambassador to a 
country whose previous leadership was an enemy to America, to its 
neighbors and to its own people. That dictatorship, the brutal and 
bloody regime of Saddam Hussein, was removed by force, by a coalition 
of nations led by this country, in a military campaign where we still 
face, every day, bloody resistance from the remnants of Saddam's 
Ba'athis regime, his criminal associates, and the international 
jihadists who have joined forces with the tattered remnants of the Arab 
world's bloodiest regime.
  We are engaged in a conflict we cannot, and will not, lose and the 
President has shown that our military determination is matched by our 
political determination to return this country to its people, beginning 
with the

[[Page 8671]]

opening of an American embassy on July 1 of this year.
  That we are providing our advice and consent on this ambassadorial 
nomination demonstrates that this President is dedicated to returning 
sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Under the President's direction, 
Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, working with 
the international community, now represented by U.N. Special Envoy 
Lakhdar Brahimi, have listened to Iraqi leaders and are holding to the 
deadline of June 30 for the transfer of authority.
  That transfer of authority and the return of sovereignty require that 
the U.S. political presence be transferred from the office of the 
administrator, held by Ambassador Bremer, to a U.S. embassy, to be led, 
if this Senate approves, by Ambassador Negroponte.
  Jerry Bremer and John Negroponte are two of the finest diplomats ever 
to serve this country. Their contributions throughout their careers 
reveal skill and dedication that will set the standards for our 
diplomatic corps for generations to come.
  I truly hope that Ambassador Bremer, when his historic mission is 
over with the CPA, will continue to play a leading role representing 
our country to the world.
  Ambassador Negroponte has represented our country to the world on 
many fronts, serving as ambassador in the Philippines, Mexico and 
Honduras. Most recently he has served as permanent representative to 
the United Nations, where he has been as our ambassador since September 
18, 2001.
  There are those who charge that this administration has been unduly 
unilateral, caustic to coalition-building, and dismissive of the 
diplomacy necessary to winning the war on terrorism that erupted on our 
land on September 11, 2001.
  Frankly, that charge, now becoming a theme in a campaign year, leaves 
me baffled.
  It reveals deeply flawed thinking, and deeply flawed perception.
  Diplomacy cannot be measured by outcomes as expected by the 
multilateralists. This is a definition of diplomatic success that 
becomes a euphemism for subjugating national interest to international 
veto.
  The citizens of Utah reject this thinking, and they are correct. And 
I believe the rest of the country does as well.
  If diplomacy cannot be measured by multilateral consensus, it should 
not be shunted by unilateral arrogance. To suggest, as many on the left 
seem to do these days, that this administration has ignored diplomacy 
is to, in my opinion, ignore the facts.
  This administration has been, in my opinion, extraordinarily engaged 
in the international community.
  No President since the founding of the United Nations has been as 
respectful, solicitous and encouraging of the United Nations as has 
President Bush. That he has done so without ever sacrificing the 
fundamental sovereignty that rests in our Constitution makes him no 
less remarkable for the very public appeals he has made directly to the 
United Nations.
  On November 10, 2001, fewer than 2 months after the most catastrophic 
terrorist attacks on our homeland in the history of the Republic, 
President Bush traveled from Washington to speak before the U.N., where 
he recognized:

       The United Nations has risen to this responsibility. On the 
     12th of September, these buildings opened for emergency 
     meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council. 
     Before the sun had set, these attacks on the world stood 
     condemned by the world. And I want to thank you for this 
     strong and principled stand.

  Less than a year later, on the day after the first anniversary of 
September 11, President Bush traveled from the White House to address 
the General Assembly again, where he declared:

       The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the 
     authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq 
     has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of 
     defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United 
     Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council 
     resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without 
     consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its 
     founding, or will it be irrelevant?

  The President answered the question:

       The United States helped found the United Nations. We want 
     the United Nations to be effective, and respectful, and 
     successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most 
     important multilateral body to be enforced.

  Critics of this administration have declared that our doctrine of 
preemption, not a doctrine new to this administration, is incompatible 
with a desire for international consensus.
  This is simply not true.
  For a nuanced perspective, may I recommend a review of none other 
than Secretary General Kofi Annan's words, in his address of October, 
2003 before the General Assembly? In that speech, he was expected to 
denounce the doctrine of preemption. But while he stood by the 
principle of collective action enshrined in article 51 of the U.N. 
Charter, he recognized, as the honest man he is, that states which were 
threatened had to respond, and that if the United Nations were to 
retain its legitimacy in the 21st century, it would have to develop 
mechanisms to promptly address the threats of this new century.
  In my view, this was a recognition, by the Secretary General of the 
United Nations no less, that in dealing with Iraq, 12 years and 14 
resolutions without resolve could not be the way the United Nations 
retained its relevancy in addressing the security challenges we face 
today.
  In that same week, President Bush addressed the General Assembly yet 
a third time. And I note that no President of the United States has 
addressed the General Assembly three times in one term. He declared:

       The Security Council was right to be alarmed about Iraq. 
     The Security Council was right to declare that Iraq destroy 
     its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so. The 
     Security Council was right to vow serious consequences if 
     Iraq refused to comply. And because there were consequences, 
     because a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace, and 
     the credibility of the United Nations, Iraq is free and today 
     we are joined in the General Assembly by representatives of a 
     liberated country.

  John Negroponte, as ambassador to the United Nations, stood by the 
President during those three historic addresses to the international 
community.
  Today, the President has chosen our current ambassador to the United 
Nations, John Negroponte, to be the first U.S. ambassador to an Iraq 
liberated from tyranny.
  Ambassador Negroponte has worked with the United Nations through this 
most historic of times. During this time, he worked closely with U.N. 
Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on supporting Afghanistan after our 
forces deposed the Taliban. Ambassador Brahimi's efforts to guide the 
transition in Iraq from the Coalition Provisional Authority to 
sovereignty under an interim government has, as my colleagues know, the 
support of President Bush and his administration.
  Ambassador Negroponte understands this. In his statement before the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said:

       The prospect of legitimacy that the United Nations can 
     bring to the process of political reconciliation is a point 
     of crucial interest in both the region and the broader 
     international community. With an expanded United Nations role 
     in the political arena, I believe that it will be easier to 
     generate the international support that the successful 
     rehabilitation of Iraq requires. Secretary General Annan's 
     and Ambassador Brahimi's contributions may well open the door 
     to creative thinking about ways in which the international 
     community, as well as the Coalition, can further contribute 
     to the process of rehabilitating Iraq, both politically and 
     economically.

  I want to be clear that a vital United Nations role does not come at 
the expense of the United States' influence or interests. Our efforts 
can be well coordinated and complementary; there is ample evidence 
across a broad range of situations that a strong partnership with the 
international community, including the United Nations organization, is 
in our strategic interest.
  I hope my colleagues recognize that in supporting this nominee, we 
are supporting a man of exceptional experience, a man who represents 
the best thinking by this administration on the challenges we still 
face in Iraq. He is

[[Page 8672]]

also a very good man, a good father, a good husband. He is an example 
to us all.
  Let us be honest: The challenges in Iraq remain large.
  Our engagement there is historic, and our commitment to support this 
engagement until we achieve success must remain strong.
  As all of my colleagues, I have been shocked by the reports out of 
Abu Ghraib prison in the past weeks.
  I have been shocked and I have been disgusted.
  I join the people of Utah, and the good citizens throughout this 
country, in expressing how appalled we all are at the barbarous acts we 
have witnessed. In the prison that Saddam Hussein used to torture 
Iraqis, a few Americans have engaged in acts that demean Iraqis and 
besmirch the honor of Americans in uniform.
  Every day, members of the American military are risking their lives 
in Iraq, in order to bring about a better society for the Iraqi people.
  In combat, American military, the best trained in the world, have, 
time and again, exercised restraint of force in order to minimize 
civilian casualties. Sometimes that restraint has resulted in 
increasing the risk to our soldiers. That a handful of American 
soldiers committing brutalities in one of Saddam's reclaimed prisons 
could occur is worthy of all of our outrage--not least because we are 
proud of the honor and decency and sacrifice offered by the vast 
majority of our military in Iraq everyday.
  We must expose what went on in Abu Ghraib prison. We must conduct 
full investigations, and follow those investigations wherever they 
lead. Those who committed crimes must and will be held accountable. 
Respect for the Iraqi people demands this, as does respect for the 
honor of all Americans in uniform, and all Americans who support them.
  The security situation in Iraq is still hostile. We face enormous 
challenges, challenges we will meet. We have learned in recent days 
about the President's request for appropriations to fund our historic 
mission. This will lead to further debate, as it should.
  Our duty as legislators is to render democratic scrutiny to the most 
important issues before this government.
  If you want to support the transition to the first stage of Iraqi 
sovereignty, as the President has committed to do by the end of June, 
if you want to support continuing our appeal to the international 
community to join in the historic cause of rebuilding Iraq, and if you 
want to support this President, as he asserts his constitutional 
prerogative to conduct diplomacy at this most critical time in the 
history of our foreign policy, you must support his superb selection of 
John D. Negroponte to be the first Ambassador to an Iraq free of 
despotism.
  He is certainly going to have my vote. I have met him in various 
nations around the world. I have seen him in action in diplomacy. I 
know what a brilliant man he is, I know what a good man he is, I know 
what a fine man he is, I know what a good family man he is, and I know 
what he has meant to the diplomatic corps in this country, and I know 
what he has meant at the United Nations.
  I support him fully, and I hope every other Senator in this body will 
support him as well. There may be some who do not, but if they don't, 
they just plain do not know the man.
  This is not an easy position. This is a position which will take a 
great deal of courage, a great deal of diplomacy, a great deal of 
common sense, a great deal of genius. This is the fellow who can 
provide all that.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President. I do appreciate the opportunity to 
discuss my very good friend, John Negroponte, in support of his 
nomination to be the United States Ambassador to Iraq. John and I have 
known each other since 1977 with his appointment as Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of State for Oceans and Fisheries Affairs with the rank of 
Ambassador. Because he handled several fisheries negotiations of vital 
interest to my state, John was a frequent visitor to Alaska. In 1978, 
John negotiated a breakthrough agreement with the Government of Japan 
which provided crucial protection for Alaskan salmon stocks from 
Japanese high seas fishing fleets. This agreement provided countless 
benefits to the Alaskan fishing community which endure to this day.
  I have also had the pleasure of working with John in his subsequent 
assignments: as Ambassador to Honduras; as Assistant Secretary for 
Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, as 
Ambassador to the Philippines and more recently as U.S. Ambassador to 
the United Nations. In each situation, I was able to witness first hand 
his ability to manage large and complex diplomatic missions and to 
observe his effectiveness and sensitivity in dealing with his foreign 
counterparts.
  Educated at Yale, he speaks five languages fluently--something that I 
consider a true asset for this position.
  I believe President Bush, on the recommendation of Secretary of State 
Powell, has chosen extremely wisely and well in his selection of John 
to be our Nation's representative in Iraq. I also believe that at this 
point in time in our Nation's history, it is vital to have John at the 
helm in Iraq--we will need his expertise to help guide us through the 
next few months. I can tell you without any question, this man is one 
of the most distinguished public servants that I have had the honor of 
knowing and serving with. I know his family and I know this man.
  With the unfortunate development we have recently had in terms of the 
conduct of some of the people involved in the prisons in Iraq, I am 
confident that John Negroponte is the man necessary to be there, in 
Iraq, to represent our Government. He will represent us well, and we 
will be very well served by his confirmation.
  I urge the Senate to quickly confirm John Negroponte as our 
Ambassador to Iraq. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, may I inquire of the time allocation for 
each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 10 minutes remaining.
  Mr. CORZINE. I request permission to use 5 of those minutes and be 
informed when 4 minutes have been used of the time allocated.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, like you, I sit on the Foreign Relations 
Committee and I reviewed the nomination of this experienced diplomat, 
our U.N. Ambassador, John Negroponte. I, too, both in the Foreign 
Relations Committee and on the floor, will have voted for his 
confirmation.
  I do that, acknowledging, however, there are legitimate questions 
that can be raised about previous concerns in his tenure as an 
ambassador in Honduras, and human rights violations which are so 
important in the context of some of the things that are of great 
concern to us today.
  But more troubling to me is the context in which this confirmation is 
actually being considered.
  The reality is, once again we are doing something on the fly. We are 
rushing to confirm an ambassador to maybe the most important choice and 
role we have. In and of itself, it is indicative of the crisis we have 
in Iraq--frankly, the mess Ambassador Negroponte will be walking into.
  If the administration--I am very troubled about this--sticks with an 
arbitrary, artificial June 30 deadline, Ambassador Negroponte's job 
will begin in less than 2 weeks with little or no definition about what 
he will be doing. There are no secure or thoughtful political or 
security plans in place. We do not know who will be making those 
judgments, how those people will be chosen, their role, or what the 
true definition of sovereignty in the context

[[Page 8673]]

of this June 30 transfer will be all about. We do not know how they 
will be selected. We do not know what the role of the Ambassador will 
be with regard to those individuals. It is very unclear what 
sovereignty means.
  By the way, put into the most dramatic terms today, what is the role 
of the new ambassador with regard to what is happening to the prison 
guards? Who will be responsible for that? Sovereignty questions are 
totally unclear. We still do not have a structure for our forces and 
how they fit in and what we do going forward and what is the 
relationship with the United Nations.
  This is a real problem. We continue with failed and confusing 
policies. They are true with regard to the U.S. Ambassador. But they 
reflect the basic incompetence we have seen with regard to our crippled 
occupation from the start, some might even say our crippled war from 
the start, because we executed this with real questions about what the 
justification was with regard to weapons of mass destruction in 
relation to al-Qaida. We have continued it with poor planning, or no 
planning, with regard to the occupation that has been in place.
  Right from the start, there were questions about what the force 
structure needed to be on the ground. We have heard over and over again 
the warnings General Shinseki gave us, several hundred thousand troops, 
dismissed out of hand by the Pentagon. The administration has refused 
to talk about the cost of this occupation and what the cost to the 
American people will be, aside from the tragedy of the loss of life. 
When there have been predictions, they have been so far off base it has 
made no sense in the context of reality.
  The administration promised or thought we would be greeted as 
liberators. We have been anything but that. Seventy percent of the 
Iraqi people believe we are occupiers. There has been serious 
resistance with the insurgency. By the way, history would have shown 
that would be the indication that would occur in the Middle East. But 
we dismissed every single outside expert, Member of Congress, who might 
have raised any questions about it and emphasized we had a coalition of 
the willing that was anything but a serious coalition.
  Ninety percent of the cost, 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of 
the effort, or more, were all American. It is an American occupation. 
The administration continues with these failed policies. As we go 
forward, I certainly think we see it very clearly in the lack of 
clarity with regard to this tragic situation we see now with regard to 
the administration of prisons and detainees. The fact is, no matter 
what we do, every time the administration executes one of these 
policies, there is a flip-flop.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute remaining.
  Mr. CORZINE. The idea that we were not going to have the U.N. 
involved; now we have the U.N. involved. We were going to have de-
Baathification; and then we have reentry of Baaths. The issue of 
deployment of troops.
  I am supportive of this Ambassador, but it is high time we get a 
consistent, thoughtful policy that is vetted with more than a few, 
narrow interests inside the Pentagon and maybe inside the White House. 
We need to have a real discussion about the direction of our policies 
on occupation and transition of political power and sovereignty. It is 
too costly.
  In the context of this series of events that all Americans are 
repulsed by, we need to stand back and say it is time to be thoughtful 
and fully vet the kinds of policies we are going to put in place 
because this is a long-term project.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I want to talk briefly about Ambassador 
John Negroponte and support his confirmation to be the United States' 
first ambassador to the free and democratic Iraq. Not only will he be 
the first ambassador to the free and democratic Iraq, but he will be 
the first ambassador to Iraq since the first Gulf War in 1991.
  Ambassador Negroponte is one of the most experienced diplomats in the 
State Department. His experience is necessary for this job because he 
will be assuming one of the most challenging and important positions 
the State Department has ever had.
  Throughout his career in the State Department, Ambassador Negroponte 
has been stationed at eight different posts covering most parts of the 
world. While he has not been previously stationed in the Middle East, I 
have no doubt in his ability to handle the task ahead. His experience 
representing the United States at the United Nations since September 11 
and serving in nations like Vietnam and Honduras during periods of 
turmoil will guide him during Iraq's transition to democratic self-
government.
  Many challenges lie ahead for Iraq, including holding orderly 
elections, establishing government bodies, reconstructing 
infrastructure and the economy, and securing the country. The United 
States will be a partner for Iraqis throughout the coming challenges.
  Critical to the successful transition to a sovereign Iraq is the 
participation of the international community. Ambassador Negroponte has 
earned respect among his colleagues while representing the United 
States at the United Nations. He will do a fine job working with other 
nations to help Iraq flourish under the rule of Iraqis.
  In summary, I believe President Bush has made a fine choice in 
nominating Ambassador Negroponte. I support his nomination and 
encourage my colleagues to swiftly confirm him to this vital position.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the nomination 
of John Negroponte to be our U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. When he takes his 
oath of office, Ambassador Negroponte will be our first ambassador to 
Iraq since the Gulf War of 1991.
  I have had the pleasure of meeting with the ambassador many times 
over the last 3 years. He was a member of the Foreign Service from 1960 
to 1997 and he is currently serving as the U.S. Permanent 
Representative to the United Nations. His leadership there has been 
exemplary as he has provided our country with a strong voice and a 
presence at the United Nations that has been vital during these 
extremely difficult times. His experience at the United Nations gives 
him a great deal of insight into the thinking of the international 
community that will be invaluable in his new role in Iraq.
  Soon Iraq will be welcomed back into the family of nations and the 
rights and freedom so cherished by the people of our nation will become 
a part of daily life in Iraq. Given our history in the region, I am 
certain my colleagues understand the wisdom of appointing an 
experienced diplomat with an informed opinion and a vision for the 
installation of a new government and the birth of a new nation of Iraq.
  During our consideration of Ambassador Negroponte's nomination, I 
have heard some of my colleagues express their concerns about recent 
events in Iraq. That is understandable, because these are concerns we 
all share about this sensitive region of the world. We must not, 
however, allow those legitimate concerns to be politicized and used as 
a club against the President and his efforts to stabilize Iraq and 
introduce democracy there. Our soldiers' lives are on the line and we 
owe them every consideration while they are in harm's way.
  Before anyone says I am being overly sensitive to the rhetoric of a 
campaign year, let me share with you a few of the details about what 
happened during a trip I took in April when I was able to visit wounded 
U.S. soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Before 
we met them, I was anticipating they would need some encouragement and 
we should try to lift their spirits after all they'd been through. The 
opposite turned out to be the case. They encouraged me and strengthened 
my spirit and resolve to see this through to the end. Every one of 
them, these brave men and women, said to me--``We are making a 
difference in Iraq. We know the people there. We know our job. We are 
doing our job and the people are responding to what we are doing. We 
are making a difference and we want to go back

[[Page 8674]]

there with our comrades so we can finish the job.''
  I don't believe anyone knows better than those who are serving on the 
front lines--those actually doing the work and living the dangers of 
life in a war zone every day. We have made a difference in Iraq. We 
have removed a brutal dictator from power and we are working with the 
Iraqi people to build a nation based on democracy and freedom. We are 
continuing to make a difference every day in the schools we help to 
build and operate, in the infrastructure we continue to improve and 
repair, and in the sovereignty of the people of Iraq which continues to 
command our deepest respect. We will continue to make a difference 
through democratization and the rule of law, economic reconstruction, 
and security and counterterrorism. By supporting all these areas, our 
diplomatic, civilian, and military personnel will make a lasting 
difference in the lives of the Iraqi people and they will, through 
their efforts have literally changed the world.
  I hope my colleagues will remember that when we speak here on the 
Senate floor, our words are heard by those brave men and women 
overseas. Our words are heard by their families and their friends who 
make it possible for them to serve our Nation so well. They are also 
heard by our enemies who look to twist and distort our open discussions 
to make it appear that we have lost our will to see this through to the 
end. We must remember that fact each time we speak. If you wonder how I 
know if what I say is true, I can share my sources with you--our U.S. 
soldiers. They have asked me more than once: How come everything sounds 
so bad back home when it is improving in Iraq? We keep hearing this 
rhetoric which is based on the fight to win a presidential election, 
and it has nothing to do with what is happening in Iraq. Nonetheless, 
it has an impact on the morale and safety of our troops.
  I have spoken here on the Senate floor about the importance of 
supporting our troops. I noted that we must remember to pray for our 
troops. When we do, I think we should also be praying for the 
opposition as well. We should pray that the hearts of those we fight 
will soften, and they will realize the role they are playing in the 
world and in Iraq. It is not too late for them to join us in the effort 
to build a better Iraq for all its people. Praying can make a 
difference, and it is up to all of us to do that every day. It is 
something we can do that is real and it has real power. With our faith, 
and our belief in our cause because it is just, we will continue to 
provide the brave men and women who serve in our armed forces, their 
spouses and their families with the support and encouragement they need 
and deserve by keeping them in our thoughts and in our prayers.
  We also need to pray for those few soldiers at Abu Ghraib whose 
actions were severely misguided as well as those who suffered the shame 
and humiliation of those acts. I have heard many speak today about 
tearing down this prison facility, and that is a good idea. Let's rid 
the world of this terrible prison and do it completely so that it will 
never house or harm another Iraqi.
  I hope that people in the United States and throughout the world will 
remember that these deeds do not represent the character of any but a 
few misguided American soldiers. This should not be the image that the 
world has of our troops because it is not the truth. I am pleased that 
action is being taken immediately to address this situation. Charges 
are being levied, investigations are continuing, and changes are being 
made to the prison administration. We are blessed to have a truly 
exceptional military force whose image should not be tarnished by the 
actions of a few.
  We have a job to finish in Iraq and we must not shy away from 
completing it. The more rapidly the people of Iraq are able to stand on 
their own, the sooner our troops will be able to come home. We have 
undertaken a job, and we cannot afford to fail to complete the task at 
hand.
  I have often heard it said that exceptional times call for 
exceptional people to lead us through them. We must have someone in 
Iraq who is able to fully represent the United States at the time the 
Coalition Provisional Authority transitions out of the country. As the 
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee stated this morning, we 
cannot expect to wake up the morning on July 1 and have a fully 
functioning U.S. Embassy. The time to plan for that day is upon us and 
I encourage my colleagues to join me in taking the first vital step by 
supporting Ambassador Negroponte's nomination. With the confirmation of 
this exceptional individual, we will ensure that we have a strong U.S. 
voice on the ground and the right person in charge who will show the 
world the level of our commitment to Iraq. It will also underscore our 
determination to make life better for Iraqis for generations to come. 
It is a dream we share with the Iraqi people and, with the right people 
in charge, it is a dream that will come true.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise to express my great admiration of 
our brave Montana servicemen and women in Iraq, Afghanistan and 
elsewhere in the world. These brave men and women have put their lives 
on hold and on the line. Their families and their communities--our 
communities--support them. These Montanans and all American soldiers 
are in our thoughts and prayers. We want them to come home quickly and 
safely.
  We need a plan to bring their mission in Iraq to conclusion. And we 
need the administration to communicate that strategy clearly to the 
world, and to our brave troops.
  I am deeply troubled by the allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners. 
I was horrified by the images we have seen over the last week. Our 
nation, which our men and women are serving with such honor, must lead 
by example if we want to win the global ``war of ideas''.
  Although we know the vast majority of our men and women in uniform 
are serving honorably, these allegations of abuse demonstrate that we 
are not giving our troops all of the support that they need.
  These images of prisoner abuse are not at all consistent with the 
principles I know our men and women in the Armed Forces hold clear. Our 
men and women went to Iraq to protect this Nation, to make the world a 
safer place. They have performed admirably under harsh conditions, 
sometimes with insufficient equipment, because they believe in their 
mission. I believe in them and I will continue to make sure that they 
get the support they need.
  What our troops need now more than ever is visionary leadership. They 
Need to know what their mission is and when that mission has changed. 
They must be trained for that mission and given all of the resources 
they need for it, be it body armor or bottled water.
  In order to win the war of ideas and make the world safer, we must 
share our vision of how to win the global war on terrorism. Sharing the 
vision to win means building effective, lasting partnerships with not 
just other countries and governments, but international institutions. 
The whole world benefits from a stable Iraq. The U.S. needs to work 
together with other nations to share the risk and responsibility U.S. 
forces face today.
  Sharing our vision of how to win the war on terrorism also means 
ensuring exemplary leadership for every private first class in the 
United States armed services. We want to ensure that the unconscionable 
actions of a few misguided soldiers do not endanger the mission of the 
thousands who work day in and day out to fulfill that vision.
  This is why I supported the President's nomination of Ambassador 
Negroponte to be Ambassador to Iraq. This administration must 
demonstrate that it has not only the determination but also the vision 
to win the war on ideas that the war on terror truly has become.
  Now is the time when we must share our vision with the troops who 
serve with dignity and honor, with the American people and with the 
world.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I inquire of the Chair how much time 
remains on both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority has 5 minutes and the majority 
has 60 minutes.

[[Page 8675]]


  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, in a moment I will ask for a quorum call 
and then shortly after that, ask unanimous consent all time be yielded 
back and we proceed to the question on Ambassador Negroponte.
  For the moment, having given a clear signal, I suggest the absence of 
a quorum and ask the time be charged equally to both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, we are about to vote. I had an opportunity 
to speak earlier today. Let me conclude and then yield back whatever 
time remains by saying Mr. Negroponte is a serious diplomat with 
significant experience. When he appeared before our committee, he 
impressed me that he was more likely to be straightforward and 
unequivocal in answering our questions.
  I will end where I began. I quite frankly think we owe him and his 
wife a debt of gratitude for being willing to take on what, without 
exception, in my view, is the most difficult and, at this moment, most 
dangerous job in U.S. diplomacy.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for Mr. Negroponte, notwithstanding that 
they may feel, as I do, that this administration's policy on how to 
handle the circumstance in Iraq has been seriously wanting.
  Do not confuse the lack of a coherent policy, from my perspective, 
anyway, with a lack of competence and ability of Ambassador Negroponte. 
I urge a yes vote on Ambassador Negroponte.
  Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I appreciate again the assistance of the 
distinguished ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, 
Senator Biden, and, for that matter, all members. Many of the members 
of our committee, of which the distinguished Chair is a member, have 
spoken today, and have indicated they plan to support John Negroponte, 
as I will.
  I think one reason why the committee has this feeling is that we 
appreciate the fact he has been forthcoming in response to our 
questions. He understands the gravity of the situation and its 
complexity. He does not have a doctrinaire point of view, but clearly 
recognizes the political realities in Iraq, in this country, and in our 
international relations.
  As a part of his responsibilities at the United Nations, even as we 
speak, he is working with other nations on behalf of the best ideals of 
our country, and is attempting to bring to the people in Iraq the full 
possibilities that might come from much more intense and favorable and 
constructive relations with the United States and its allies.
  I was impressed in our hearing with Ambassador Negroponte, that he 
has been there many times before, in the sense of very difficult 
situations, tortuous circumstances, dangerous predicaments, ways in 
which he had to work with the elements of whatever administration he 
served, that may or may not have agreed with his point of view, but at 
the same time, through his experience and the gravity he brought to the 
issue, he was persuasive and effective.
  Finally, I conclude by saying John Negroponte is not any more certain 
than Senator Biden or I am of precisely what is going to happen day by 
day in Iraq. It is a day-by-day story. And that is not all bad, in the 
sense that sometimes we make improvements day by day. Sometimes we are 
able to listen to the evidence, try to take a look at the rest of the 
world, talk to other people, consult more broadly.
  But the fact is, I believe Ambassador Negroponte is prepared to 
consult. He is prepared to talk. He is prepared to open up. He is 
responsive to our committee, to the Senate and, I believe, to the 
Congress and, therefore, through us, to the American people, the people 
we serve.
  The final point I want to make in this debate is I believe Members of 
the Senate are not unreasonable, I believe members of our committee are 
not unreasonable, in asking for discussion and consultation during 
these very difficult times, because the support of all of us--Democrats 
and Republicans, Americans--is going to be required.
  I appreciate, on very short notice, the preparation for the hearing 
of the Ambassador. But I had the feeling he did not need much notice; 
that, as a matter of fact, he has been thinking about these issues for 
a long time. His responses indicated a degree of both maturity but, 
likewise, willingness to listen that I found very appealing and 
reassuring.
  I encourage Members to vote for him so he might proceed to his 
duties.
  Having said that, Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of the 
time available on our side and ask that the Chair pose the question.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination 
of John D. Negroponte, of New York, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and 
Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Iraq.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) 
is necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 95, nays 3, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 85 Exe.]

                                YEAS--95

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Corzine
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Edwards
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham (FL)
     Graham (SC)
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--3

     Dayton
     Durbin
     Harkin

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Kerry
     Thomas
      
  The nomination was confirmed.
  Mr. LUGAR. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. CRAIG. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the President shall 
be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

                          ____________________