[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13712-13718]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 WHY ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SO ANGRY?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McCaul of Texas). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Paul) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am going to make an attempt to answer a 
question: Why are the American people so angry? I have been involved in 
politics for over 30 years and have never seen the American people so 
angry. It is not unusual to sense a modest amount of outrage, but it 
seems the anger today is unusually intense and quite possibly worse 
than ever. It is not easily explained, but I have some thoughts on this 
matter.
  Generally, anger and frustration among people are related to economic 
conditions, bread and butter issues. Yet, today, according to 
government statistics, things are going well. We have low unemployment, 
low inflation, more homeowners than ever before, and abundant leisure 
and abundant luxuries. Even the poor have cell phones, televisions, and 
computers. Public school is free and anyone can get free medical care 
at any emergency room in the country. Almost all taxes are paid for by 
the top 50 percent of income earners.

                              {time}  2115

  The lower 50 percent pay essentially no income tax. Yet general 
dissatisfaction and anger are commonplace. The old slogan ``It's the 
economy, stupid'' just does not seem to explain things.
  Some say it is the war. Yet we have lived with war throughout the 
20th century. The bigger they were, the more we pulled together. And 
the current war, by comparison, has fewer American casualties than the 
rest, so it can't be just the war itself.
  People complain about corruption, but what is new about government 
corruption? In the 19th century, we had railroad scandals. In the 20th 
century, we endured the Teapot Dome scandal, Watergate, Koreagate, and 
many others without too much anger and resentment. Yet today, it seems, 
anger is pervasive and worse than we have experienced in the past.
  Could it be that war, vague yet persistent economic uncertainty, 
corruption, and the immigration problem all contribute to the anger we 
feel in America? Perhaps. But it is almost as though people are not 
exactly sure why they are so uneasy. They only know that they have had 
it and are not going to put up with it anymore.
  High gasoline prices make a lot of people angry, though there is 
little understanding of how deficits, inflation, and the war in the 
Middle East all contribute to these higher prices.
  Generally speaking, there are two controlling forces that determine 
the nature of government: the people's concern for their economic self-
interest and the philosophy of those who hold positions of power and 
influence in any particular government.
  Under Soviet communism, the workers believed their economic best 
interests would be served while a few dedicated theoreticians placed 
themselves in positions of power. Likewise, the intellectual leaders of 
the American Revolution were few but rallied the colonists who risked 
all to overthrow a tyrannical king.
  Since there is never a perfect understanding between these two 
forces, the people and the philosophical leaders, and because the 
motivations of the intellectual leaders vary greatly, any transition 
from one system of government to another is unpredictable. The 
Communist takeover by Lenin was violent and costly. The demise of 
communism and the acceptance of a relatively open system in the former 
Soviet Union occurred in a miraculous manner. Both systems had 
intellectual underpinnings.
  In the United States over the last century, we have witnessed the 
coming and going of various intellectual influences by proponents of 
the free market, Keynesian welfarism, varieties of socialism, and 
supply-side economics. In foreign policy, we have seen a transition 
from the Founders' vision of nonintervention in the affairs of others 
to internationalism, unilateral nation building, and policing the 
world. We now have in place a policy driven by determined 
neoconservatives to promote American goodness and democracy throughout 
the world by military force, with particular emphasis on remaking the 
entire Middle East.
  We all know that ideas do have consequences. Bad ideas, even when 
supported naively by the people, will have bad results. Could it be 
that the people

[[Page 13713]]

sense in a profound way that the policies of recent decades are 
unworkable and thus they have instinctively lost confidence in their 
government leaders? This certainly happened in the final years of the 
Soviet system. Though not fully understood, this sense of frustration 
may well be the source of anger we hear expressed on a daily basis by 
so many. No matter how noble the motivations of political leaders are, 
when they achieve positions of power, the power itself inevitably 
becomes their driving force. Government officials too often yield to 
the temptations and corrupting influences of power.
  But there are many others who are not bashful about using government 
power to do good. They truly believe they can make the economy fair 
through a redistributive tax and spending system, make the people moral 
by regulating personal behavior and choices, and remake the world in 
our image using armies. They argue that the use of force to achieve 
good is legitimate and a proper function of government, always speaking 
of the noble goals while ignoring the inevitable failures and evils 
caused by coercion. Not only do they justify government force, they 
believe they have a moral obligation to do so.
  Once we concede government has this legitimate function and can be 
manipulated by a majority vote, the various special interests move in 
quickly. They gain control to direct government largesse for their own 
benefit. Too often, it is corporate interests who learn how to 
manipulate every contract, regulation, and tax policy. Likewise, 
promoters of the progressive agenda, always hostile to property rights, 
compete for government power through safety, health, and environmental 
initiatives. Both groups resort to using government power and abuse 
this power in an effort to serve their narrow interests. In the 
meantime, constitutional limits on power and its mandate to protect 
liberty are totally forgotten.
  Since the use of power to achieve political ends is accepted, 
pervasive, and ever expanding, popular support for various programs is 
achieved by creating fear. Sometimes the fear is concocted out of thin 
air, but usually it is created by wildly exaggerating a problem or 
incident that does not warrant the proposed government so-called 
``solution.'' Often government caused the problem in the first place.
  The irony, of course, is that government action rarely solves any 
problem but rather worsens existing problems or creates altogether new 
ones. Fear is generated to garner popular support for the proposed 
government action even when some liberty has to be sacrificed. This 
leads to a society that is systematically driven toward fear, fear that 
gives the monstrous government more and more authority and control over 
our lives and property.
  Fear is constantly generated by politicians to rally the support of 
the people. Environmentalists go back and forth from warning about a 
coming ice age to arguing the grave dangers of global warming. It is 
said that without an economic safety net for everyone from cradle to 
grave people would starve and many would become homeless. It is said 
that without government health care, the poor would not receive 
treatment, and medical care would be available only to the rich. 
Without government insuring pensions, all private pension funds would 
be threatened. Without Federal assistance, there would be no funds for 
public education, and the quality of our public schools would be 
diminished, ignoring, of course, recent history to the contrary.
  It is argued that without government surveillance of every American 
even without search warrants, security cannot be achieved. The 
sacrifice of some liberty is required for security of our citizens, 
they claim. We are constantly told that the next terrorist attack could 
come at any moment. Rather than questioning why we might be attacked, 
this atmosphere of fear, instead, prompts giving up liberty and 
privacy. 9/11 has been conveniently used to generate the fear necessary 
to expand both our foreign intervention and domestic surveillance.
  Fear of nuclear power is used to assure shortages and highly 
expensive energy.
  In all instances where fear is generated and used to expand 
government control, it is safe to say the problems behind the fears 
were not caused by the free market economy or too much privacy or 
excessive liberty. It is easy to generate fear, fear that too often 
becomes excessive, unrealistic, and difficult to curb. This is 
important. It leads to even more demands for government action than the 
perpetrators of the fear actually anticipated. Once people look to 
government to alleviate their fears and make them safe, expectations 
exceed reality.
  FEMA originally had a small role, but its current mission is to 
centrally manage every natural disaster that befalls us. This mission 
was exposed as a fraud during last year's hurricanes. Incompetence and 
corruption are now FEMA's legacy. This generates anger among those who 
have to pay the bills and among those who did not receive the handouts 
promised to them quickly enough.
  Generating exaggerated fear to justify and promote attacks on private 
property is commonplace. It serves to inflame resentment between the 
producers in society and the so-called victims, whose demands grow 
exponentially.
  The economic impossibility of this system guarantees that the harder 
government tries to satisfy the unlimited demands, the worse the 
problems become. We will not be able to pay the bills forever, and 
eventually our ability to borrow and print new money must end. This 
dependency on government will guarantee anger when the money runs out. 
Today, we are still able to borrow and inflate, but budgets are getting 
tighter and people sense serious problems lurking in the future. This 
fear is legitimate. No easy solution to our fiscal problems is readily 
apparent, and this ignites anger and apprehension. Disenchantment is 
directed at the politicians and their false promises made in order to 
secure reelection and exert power that so many of them enjoy.
  It is, however, in foreign affairs that governments have most abused 
fear to generate support for an agenda that, under normal 
circumstances, would have been rejected. For decades, our 
administrations have targeted one supposed Hitler after another to gain 
support for military action against a particular country. Today, we 
have three choices termed the axis of evil: Iran, Iraq, or North Korea.
  We recently witnessed how unfounded fear was generated concerning 
Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to justify our first-ever 
preemptive war. It is now universally known the fear was based on 
falsehoods, and yet the war goes on and the death and destruction 
continues.
  This is not a new phenomenon. General Douglas MacArthur understood 
the political use of fear when he made this famous statement: ``Always 
there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign 
power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind 
it.''
  We should be ever vigilant when we hear the fear mongers preparing us 
for the next military conflict our young men and women will be expected 
to fight. We are being told of the great danger posed by Ahmadinejad in 
Iran and Kim Jong-il in North Korea. Even Russia and China bashing is 
in vogue again, and we are still not able to trade with or travel to 
Cuba. A constant enemy is required to expand the state. We are hearing 
more and more news stories blaming Iran for the bad results in Iraq. 
Does this mean Iran is next on the hit list?
  The world is much too dangerous, we are told, and therefore we must 
be prepared to fight at a moment's notice, regardless of the cost. If 
the public could not be manipulated by the politicians' efforts to 
instill needless fear, fewer wars would be fought and far fewer lives 
would be lost.
  Though the American people are fed up for a lot of legitimate 
reasons, almost all polls show the mess in Iraq leads the list of why 
the anger is so intense. Short wars with well-defined victories are 
tolerated by the American people even when they are misled as to

[[Page 13714]]

the reasons for the war. Wars entered into without a proper declaration 
tend to be politically motivated and not for national security reasons. 
These wars by their very nature are prolonged, costly, and usually 
require a new administration to finally end them. This certainly was 
true with the Korean and the Vietnam Wars. The lack of a quick military 
victory, the loss of life and limb, and the huge economic costs of 
lengthy wars precipitate anger. This is overwhelmingly true when the 
war propaganda that stirred up the illegitimate fears is exposed as a 
fraud. Most soon come to realize the promise of guns and butter is an 
illusion. They come to understand that inflation, a weak economy, and a 
prolonged war without real success are the reality.
  The anger over the Iraq War is multifaceted. Some are angry believing 
they were lied to in order to gain their support at the beginning. 
Others are angry that the $40 billion we spend every year on 
intelligence gathering fail to provide good information. Proponents of 
the war too often are unable to admit the truth. They become frustrated 
with the progress of the war and then turn on those wanting to change 
course, angrily denouncing them as unpatriotic and unAmerican.

                              {time}  2130

  Those accused are quick to respond to the insulting charges made by 
those who want to fight on forever without regard to casualties. 
Proponents of the war do not hesitate to challenge the manhood of war 
critics, accusing them of wanting to cut and run. Some war supporters 
duck military service themselves while others fought and died, only 
adding to the anger of those who have seen battle up close and now 
question our campaign in Iraq.
  When people see a $600 million embassy being built in Baghdad while 
funding for services here in the United States is hard to obtain, they 
become angry. They can't understand why the money is being spent, 
especially when they are told by our government that we have no 
intention of remaining permanently in Iraq.
  The bickering and anger will not soon subside since victory in Iraq 
is not on the horizon and a change in policy is not likely to occur.
  The neoconservative instigators of war are angry at everyone, at the 
people who want to get out of Iraq and especially at those prosecuting 
the war for not bombing more aggressively, sending in more troops and 
expanding the war into Iran. As our country becomes poorer due to the 
cost of the war, anger surely will escalate. Much of it will be 
justified.
  It seems bizarre that it is so unthinkable to change course if the 
current policy is failing. Our leaders are like a physician who makes a 
wrong diagnosis and prescribes the wrong medicine, but because of his 
ego can't tell the patient he has made a mistake. Instead, he hopes the 
patient will get better on his own. But instead of improving, the 
patient gets worse from the medication wrongly prescribed. This would 
be abhorrent behavior in medicine, but tragically it is commonplace in 
politics.
  If the truth is admitted, it would appear that the lives lost and the 
money spent have been in vain. Instead, more casualties must be 
sustained to prove a false premise. What a tragedy. If the truth is 
admitted, imagine the anger of all the families that already have 
suffered such a burden. That burden is softened when the families and 
the wounded are told their great sacrifice was worthy and required to 
preserve our freedoms and our Constitution.
  But no one is allowed to ask the obvious: How have the 2,500 plus 
deaths and the 18,500 wounded made us more free? What in the world does 
Iraq have to do with protecting our civil liberties here at home? What 
national security threat prompted America's first preemptive war? How 
does our unilateral enforcement of U.N. resolutions enhance our 
freedoms?
  These questions aren't permitted. They are not politically correct. I 
agree that the truth hurts and these questions are terribly hurtful to 
the families that have suffered so much. What a horrible thought it 
would be to find out the cause for which we fight is not quite so 
noble. I don't believe those who hide from the truth and refuse to face 
the reality of the war do so deliberately. The pain is too great. Deep 
down psychologically many are incapable of admitting such a costly and 
emotionally damaging error. They instead become even greater and more 
determined supporters of the failed policy.
  I would concede that there are some, though, especially the diehard 
neoconservatives who believe it is our moral duty to spread American 
goodness through force and remake the Middle East who neither suffer 
regrets nor are bothered by the casualties. They continue to argue for 
more war without remorse as long as they themselves do not have to 
fight. Criticism is reserved for the wimps who want to ``cut and run.''
  Due to the psychological need to persist with the failed policy, the 
war proponents must remain in denial of many facts staring them in the 
face. They refuse to accept that the real reason for our invasion and 
occupation of Iraq was not related to terrorism. They deny that our 
military is weaker as a consequence of this war. They won't admit that 
our invasion has served the interests of Osama bin Laden.
  They continue to blame our image problems around the world on a few 
bad apples. They won't admit that our invasion has served the interests 
of Iran's radical regime. The cost in lives lost and dollars spent is 
glossed over and the deficit spirals up without concern. They ridicule 
those who point out that our relationship with our allies have been 
significantly damaged.
  We have provided a tremendous incentive for Russia and China and 
others like Iran to organize through the Shanghai Cooperation 
Organization. They entertain future challenges to our plans to dominate 
Southeast Asia and the Middle East and all its oil. Radicalizing the 
Middle East will in the long term jeopardize Israel's security and 
increase the odds of this war spreading.
  War supporters cannot see that for every Iraqi killed, another family 
turns on us, regardless of who did the killing. We are and will 
continue to be blamed for every wrong done in Iraq, all deaths, 
illness, water problems, food shortages and electricity outages. As 
long as our political leaders persist in these denials, the war won't 
end. The problem is that this is the source of the anger, because the 
American people are not in denial and want a change in policy.
  Policy changes in wartime are difficult, for it is almost impossible 
for the administration to change course since so much emotional energy 
has been invested in the effort. That is why Eisenhower ended the 
Korean War, not Truman. That is why Nixon ended the Vietnam War, not 
LBJ. Even in the case of Vietnam, the end was too slow and costly as 
more than 30,000 military deaths came after Nixon's election in 1968.
  It makes a lot more sense to avoid unnecessary wars than to overcome 
the politics involved in stopping them once they have started. I 
personally am convinced that many of our wars could be prevented by 
paying stricter attention to the method whereby our troops are 
committed to battle. I also am convinced that when Congress does not 
declare war, victory is unlikely. The most important thing Congress can 
do to prevent needless and foolish wars is for every Member to take 
seriously his or her oath to obey the Constitution. Wars should be 
entered into only after great deliberation and caution. Wars that are 
declared by Congress should reflect the support of the people and the 
goal should be a quick and successful resolution.
  Our undeclared wars of the past 65 years have dragged on without 
precise victories. We fight to spread American values, to enforce U.N. 
resolutions, and to slay supposed Hitlers. We forget that once we 
spread American values by persuasion and setting an example, not by 
bombs and preemptive invasions. Nowhere in the Constitution are we 
permitted to go to war on behalf of the United Nations at the sacrifice 
of our national sovereignty. We repeatedly use military force against 
former allies, thugs we helped empower, like

[[Page 13715]]

Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, even when they pose no danger to 
us.
  The 2002 resolution allowing the President to decide when and if to 
invade Iraq is an embarrassment. The Constitution authorizes only 
Congress to declare war. Our refusal to declare war transferred power 
to the President illegally, without a constitutional amendment. 
Congress did this with a simple resolution, passed by majority vote. 
This means Congress reneged on its responsibility as a separate branch 
of government and should be held accountable for the bad policy in Iraq 
that the majority of Americans are now upset about. Congress is every 
bit as much at fault as the President.
  Constitutional questions aside, the American people should have 
demanded more answers from their government before they supported the 
invasion and occupation of a foreign country. Some of the strongest 
supporters of the war declare that we are a Christian Nation, yet use 
their religious beliefs to justify the war. They claim it is our 
Christian duty to remake the Middle East and attack the Muslim 
infidels. Evidently I have been reading from a different Bible. I 
remember something about ``blessed are the peacemakers.''
  My beliefs aside, Christian teaching of nearly a thousand years 
reinforces the concept of the ``Just War Theory.'' This Christian 
theory emphasizes six criteria needed to justify Christian 
participation in war. Briefly, the six points are as follows:
  War should be fought only in self-defense.
  War should be undertaken only as a last resort.
  A decision to enter war should be made only by a legitimate 
authority.
  All military responses must be proportional to the threat.
  There must be a reasonable chance of success.
  And a public declaration notifying all parties concerned is required.
  The war in Iraq fails to meet almost all of these requirements. This 
discrepancy has generated anger and division within the Christian 
community. Some are angry because the war is being fought out of 
Christian duty, yet does not have uniform support from all Christians. 
Others are angry because they see Christianity as a religion of peace 
and forgiveness, not war and annihilation of enemies. Constitutional 
and moral restraints on wars should be strictly followed. It is 
understandable when kings, dictators and tyrants take their people into 
war since it serves their selfish interest and those sent to fight have 
no say in the matter. It is more difficult to understand why 
democracies and democratic legislative bodies, which have a say over 
the issue of war, so readily submit to the executive branch of 
government. The determined effort of the authors of our Constitution to 
firmly place the power to declare war in the legislative branch has 
been ignored in the decades following World War II.
  Many Members have confided in me that they are quite comfortable with 
this arrangement. They flatly do not expect in this modern age to 
formally declare war ever again. Yet no one predicts there will be 
fewer wars fought. It is instead assumed that they will be ordered by 
the executive branch or the United Nations, a rather sad commentary.
  What about the practical arguments against war, since no one seems 
interested in exerting constitutional or moral restraints? Why do we 
continue to fight prolonged, political wars when the practical results 
are so bad? Our undeclared wars since 1945 have been very costly, to 
put it mildly. We have suffered over 100,000 military deaths and even 
more serious casualties. Tens of thousands have suffered from serious 
war-related illnesses. Sadly, we as a nation express essentially no 
concern for the millions of civilian casualties in the countries where 
we fought.
  The cost of war since 1945 and our military presence in over 100 
countries since exceeds $2 trillion in today's dollars. The cost in 
higher taxes, debt and persistent inflation is immeasurable. Likewise, 
the economic opportunities lost by diverting trillions of dollars into 
war is impossible to measure, but it is huge. Yet our Presidents 
persist in picking fights with countries that pose no threat to us, 
refusing to participate in true diplomacy to resolve differences. 
Congress over the decades has never resisted the political pressures to 
send our troops abroad on missions that defy imagination.
  When the people object to a new adventure, the propaganda machine 
goes into action to make sure critics are seen as unpatriotic Americans 
or even traitors. The military-industrial complex we were warned about 
has been transformed into a military-media-industrial-government 
complex that is capable of silencing the dissenters and cheerleading 
for the war. It is only after years of failure that people are able to 
overcome the propaganda for war and pressure their representatives in 
Congress to stop the needless killing. Many times the economic costs of 
war stir people to demand an end.
  This time around, the war might be brought to a halt by our actual 
inability to pay the bills due to a dollar crisis. A dollar crisis will 
make borrowing $2.5 billion per day from foreign powers like China and 
Japan virtually impossible, at least at affordable interest rates. That 
is when we will be forced to reassess the spending spree, both at home 
and abroad.
  The solution to this mess is not complicated, but the changes needed 
are nearly impossible for political reasons. Sound free market 
economics, sound money and a sensible foreign policy would all result 
from a strict adherence to the Constitution. If the people desired it, 
and the Congress was filled with responsible Members, a smooth although 
challenging transition could be achieved. Since this is unlikely, we 
can only hope that the rule of law and the goal of liberty can be 
reestablished without chaos. We must move quickly toward a more 
traditional American foreign policy of peace, friendship and trade with 
all nations, entangling alliances with none. We must reject the notion 
that we can or should make the world safe for democracy.
  We must forget about being the world's policeman. We should disengage 
from the unworkable and unforgiving task of nation building. We must 
reject the notion that our military should be used to protect natural 
resources, private investments, or serve the interests of any foreign 
government or the United Nations. Our military should be designed for 
one purpose, defending our national security. It is time to come home 
now, before financial conditions or military weakness dictates it.
  The major obstacle to a sensible foreign policy is the fiction about 
what patriotism means. Today, patriotism has come to mean blind support 
for the government and its policies. In earlier times, patriotism meant 
having the willingness and courage to challenge government policies 
regardless of popular perceptions. Today, we constantly hear innuendoes 
and direct insults aimed at those who dare to challenge current foreign 
policy, no matter how flawed that policy may be. I would suggest it 
takes more courage to admit the truth, to admit mistakes, than to 
attack others as unpatriotic for disagreeing with the war in Iraq.

                              {time}  2145

  Remember the original American patriots challenged the abuses of King 
George and wrote and carried out the Declaration of Independence. Yes, 
Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of anger in this country. Much of it is 
justified, some of it is totally unnecessary and misdirected. The only 
thing that can lessen this anger is an informed public.
  A better understanding of economic principles, a rejection of foreign 
intervention, and a strict adherence to the Constitutional rule of law. 
This will be difficult to achieve. But it is not impossible and well 
worth the effort.
  Mr. Speaker, I now would like to defer to one of our colleagues who 
has arrived on the floor and is going to participate in this special 
order, that is the gentleman from North Carolina. I alluded to the fact 
that looking for the truth was very important. And there is nobody in 
the Congress that surpasses this gentleman's effort to pursue the 
truth, and his willingness to take personal responsibility for what he 
has said, voted for in the past.

[[Page 13716]]

  And this to me is so important, because his pursuit of truth I think 
is key. And the efforts that he has made here in the last couple of 
years I think is just critical, because he has been concerned 
specifically about information that we in the Congress were given in 
order to make our decision to deliver this authority to the President.
  It is this pursuit of truth that I think is so critical, and I have 
such high regards for gentleman for doing this. At this time I would 
like to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and the 
gentleman from Texas. I would like to say about the gentleman from 
Texas that he has been on the floor so many times talking about the 
economic future of this country and also taking about unjust wars.
  I would like to tonight, in the few minutes I have, I would like to 
quote from Rudyard Kipling. It is called the Epitaphs of the War, 1914 
to 1918.
  Mr. Kipling at one time was a proponent of aggressive actions, but 
once his son was killed he seemed to change his thought, which is 
understandable. And I quote very quickly before I make my brief 
comments. ``If any question why we died, tell them because our fathers 
lied''.
  I will leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. I think that speaks for itself. 
And that again was Rudyard Kipling, not me, Congressman Walter Jones 
from North Carolina.
  Along with my friend from Texas, I can tell you that I seek the 
truth. I came to this floor 3\1/2\ years ago, I cast my votes to give 
the President the authority to commit troops to Iraq.
  I came to this floor. I was not sure that I was doing the right 
thing, but I hoped and prayed that I was. But since that time, because 
I do seek the truth, as my friend from Texas said, that I want to 
mention to you tonight just a few facts that I have uncovered.
  Let me base some of this comment tonight on people I have met with in 
my office person to person, such as - Carl Ford, former CIA, Paul 
Pillar, former CIA for 31 years, Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to 
Colin Powell, General Anthony Zinni, CENTCOM Commander for 3 years, 
General Gregory Newbold, General John Batiste, former Colonel Karen 
Kwiatowski, Ray McGovern, CIA, and former Colonel Sam Gardiner, Jim 
Bamford, author of Pretext for War, and John Landay and Warren Strobel, 
writers for Knight Ridder.
  Tonight I want to start my brief comments with an article written by 
Gregory Newbold. General Newbold is a Marine General. He was part of J-
3 at the Department of Defense prior to our going into war in Iraq. 
General Newbold is a very impressive man. He was a 2-star Marine 
General on the way to being a 3-star.
  But I would like, with unanimous consent, to submit the whole 
article, it is a 3-page article in Time Magazine written by General 
Newbold, not by a writer at Time.
  This is what he said in this article. ``I was a witness and therefore 
a party to the actions that led to the invasion of Iraq, an unnecessary 
war. Inside the military family I made no secret of my view that the 
zealots rationale for war made no sense. I think I was outspoken enough 
to make those senior to me uncomfortable.
  But I now regret that I did not do more, openly challenge those who 
were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to 
the real threat, al-Qaeda. I retired from the military 4 months before 
the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/
11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now I have resisted 
speaking out in public. I have been silent long enough''.
  Mr. Speaker, I could quote more from General Newbold's article, but 
the Record will show this. I do not need to read more.
  It is so sad to me that so many in our military and also our CIA saw 
what was happening in those who wanted to go to war in Iraq, but 
truthfully did not have the credibility or could prove what they were 
saying was a fact.
  Just today, as a matter of fact, my good friend and Mr. Paul's good 
friend from Missouri, Ike Skelton is on the floor. I assume he will 
speak when we finish. We held hearings today on the Armed Services 
Committee. He is the ranking member.
  This was to, if you will, to rally about the fact that we found 500 
weapons known as munitions that Senator Santorum and Representative 
Hoekstra were saying, oh, this shows us that there was weapons of mass 
destruction. It just was not true. I do not mean to discredit them, but 
it was not true.
  These weapons, according to the experts were probably in existence 
from 1984 to 1991. And as a matter of fact, today at our hearing, we 
had a former UN inspector, David Kay, Dr. David Kay. And I quoted this 
during the hearing today. Mr. Kay has said, when this announcement was 
made 2 weeks ago, and nobody at the administration was excited about 
it, and said, oh, this is the secret. This is what happened. This is 
why we went to war.
  None of that was said. And certainly I have not heard a peep, if you 
will from Secretary Rumsfeld. But Dr. Kay said, well, I questioned this 
as far as being the weapons of mass destruction. And this is what he 
said, and I brought this out today, later on this afternoon.
  I will quote this. He said, ``They probably would have been intended 
for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq war'', said Dr. Kay who 
headed the U.S. weapons hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until 2004.
  He said, ``experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in almost 100 
percent agreement that Sarin nerve agents produced from the 1980s would 
no longer be dangerous''.
  And I quote, and a quote Dr. David Kay, and I asked him about this 
today. And he said, yes, sir, this is what I said. ``It is less toxic 
than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this 
point''. That is what he said.
  And yet we have got those in the Congress who are just beating the 
drums of, this is what we are saying, this is the reason we went to 
war. We should never, under any circumstances, send American boys to 
die for this country unless we know the intelligence has been verified, 
verified, verified.
  And I regret, and I said this Monday. I was invited by Senator Dorgan 
to sit on the Democratic Policy Committee's investigation of the Iraq 
war where they had three or four CIA agents there to testify.
  And the Senator very kindly allowed me to sit at the dais. And I 
apologized that I did not ask the questions before we went into Iraq. I 
know knew better, but I did not at the time. I am not smarter, Mr. 
Speaker, but I am wiser, much wiser.
  But I said today, as Frank Gaffney who was on the panel with Dr. 
Taylor, former UN inspector, and also Dr. David Kay. And Mr. Gaffney 
was saying, well, you know what we need to do is we need to get the 
President to speak more about the potential threat and this and that.
  And I said, well, the problem is trust. The American people have to 
trust the Congress. They have to trust the administration, be it 
Democrat or Republican. I said to Mr. Gaffney, I said, I assume that an 
article in the London Times and the New York Times must be accurate, 
because I have heard no one dispute it, because if it is true, I would 
want to demand that I get 8 o'clock national TV to say this is not 
right, I will not accept it.
  But this is what was said, just two quick points. This is by David 
Manning, who was Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy advisor at the time. 
Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush were meeting. This is about 6 months before we 
went into Iraq. And this is what Mr. Manning says, ``our diplomatic 
strategy had to be arranged around the military planning''.
  He further stated, ``that at one point during this discussion between 
Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush, that it was said that Mr. Bush suggested that 
the U.S. might be able to have a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, colored 
in the UN colors, followed by American fighters and fly it over Iraq 
and maybe Saddam Hussein would shoot it down. And if Saddam Hussein 
fired on them it would be a breach''.

[[Page 13717]]

  He further stated that, ``maybe it would be possible to get someone 
to come in and testify that, yes, he has got weapons of mass 
destruction''.
  Mr. Speaker, I bring this forward, I do not delight in challenging 
the administration. But I will tell you that when I go to Walter Reed, 
like many of my colleagues, both sides, and I never will forget a 
soldier 4 weeks ago, I was there with Wayne Gilchrest, Mr. Gilchrest, a 
Member of Congress, was a Vietnam veteran. And he was wounded in 
Vietnam and spent 4 months at Walter Reed.
  And we went to Walter Reed, and it was kind of nice to me, I am not a 
veteran, and for me to be able to say to the wounded, this is a Member 
of Congress, who like yourself spent 4 months in Walter Reed. He was 
wounded in Vietnam fighting for his country. He is a Marine.
  But I never will forget the fellow, Luke, and then I will yield back 
to the gentleman from Texas before we close. We were standing there and 
Luke's mom, Luke is from Florida, I do not have permission to use his 
last name so I will not use it.
  Luke's mom and dad were there. We met them and shook hands. And 
Luke's mom never stopped crying. And she would not--it was just tears. 
It was not boo-hoo. But tears. So we talked to Luke. And Luke said, 
when we got ready to finish, and his girlfriend by the way, he is 
engaged now with a ring on her hand, he introduced us.
  We got ready to leave. He said, Congressman, can I ask you a 
question? And we said certainly. He said, who is responsible for the 
stop loss program, where our men and women in uniform who have served 
their time in Iraq and Afghanistan are extended because of the fact 
that we are really short on replacements, to be honest about it.
  And we said, the Department of Defense. They have the authority. He 
said, will you do me a favor when you go back to Congress? He said, I 
am just a sergeant. He said, tell them two or three things for me. We 
said, certainly. He said, first of all, my very best friend was killed 
3 months after he was extended.
  He said I was on my third tour of duty. He pulled the sheets down. 
His legs are gone, both legs are gone. He said, Congressman, my humble 
opinion is whether you are there 10 days or 10 years, you are not going 
to change the people of Iraq. It is a different culture. It is a 
different country.
  Whether Luke will be right on that or wrong, I do not know. But why I 
am here tonight with my friend from Texas is that I have always 
regretted, since I voted for the resolution, because I should have 
asked more questions. I should have been more inquisitive. But I was 
not.
  And I do have a pain. I have signed over 8,000 pieces of paper to 
families in this country. There have been over 2,500 killed. And when 
you factor in their extended families, we have signed over 8,000 pages. 
It requires, it is a two-page letter. It requires my signature on one 
page and the second page also.
  I have done that because my heart aches, the fact that I did not 
question. And yet, I want this Congress, both Democrat and Republican, 
as my friend from Texas said just a few minutes ago, we have an 
oversight responsibility to say how and why were we given information 
that was not credible?
  Why were we given intelligence that had not been verified three times 
before we sent American kids to give their life and their limbs for 
this country.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield back to the gentleman from 
Texas and thank him for giving me a few minutes to share my thoughts 
with the American people, and to say that I will continue, Congressman 
Paul, to seek the truth. Because this democracy will not survive unless 
the American people know the truth. Whether it is good or bad, we must 
know the truth. Thank you, sir.

                   [From Time Magazine, Apr. 9, 2006]

                         Why Iraq Was a Mistake

                (By Lieut. General Greg Newbold (Ret.))

       Two senior military officers are known to have challenged 
     Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfe1d on the planning of the Iraq 
     war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found 
     himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the 
     Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections 
     internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the 
     war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a 
     full-throated critique:
       In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem 
     ``Won't Get Fooled Again.'' To most in my generation, the 
     song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders, 
     who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in 
     Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture--who 
     became career members of the military during those rough 
     times--the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its 
     lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by 
     quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us 
     into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never 
     again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain 
     silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-
     considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment 
     is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again.
       From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps 
     lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint 
     Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a 
     party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq--an 
     unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret 
     of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense. 
     And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me 
     uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly 
     challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose 
     actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda. I 
     retired from the military four months before the invasion, in 
     part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's 
     tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have 
     resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long 
     enough.
       I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments 
     of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful 
     visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have 
     been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but 
     unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning 
     from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to be 
     paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to shoulder such 
     a load should make it a sacred obligation for civilian and 
     military leaders to get our defense policy right. They must 
     be absolutely sure that the commitment is for a cause as 
     honorable as the sacrifice.
       With the encouragement of some still in positions of 
     military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in 
     uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those 
     who can't--or don't--have the opportunity to speak. Enlisted 
     members of the armed forces swear their oath to those 
     appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a 
     person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.
       Before the antiwar banners start to unfurl, however, let me 
     make clear--I am not opposed to war. I would gladly have 
     traded my general's stars for a captain's bars to lead our 
     troops into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. 
     And while I don't accept the stated rationale for invading 
     Iraq, my view--at the moment--is that a precipitous 
     withdrawal would be a mistake. It would send a signal, heard 
     around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists' message 
     that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances 
     of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to 
     govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to 
     change my position.
       I will admit my own prejudice: my deep affection and 
     respect are for those who volunteer to serve our nation and 
     therefore shoulder, in those thin ranks, the nation's most 
     sacred obligation of citizenship. To those of you who don't 
     know, our country has never been served by a more competent 
     and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of 
     State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that ``we'' made 
     the ``right strategic decisions'' but made thousands of 
     ``tactical errors'' is an outrage. It reflects an effort to 
     obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for 
     failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The 
     truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic 
     guidance they receive, not because of it.
       What we are living with now is the consequences of 
     successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the 
     distortion of intelligence in the buidup to the war, 
     McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from 
     having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain 
     and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell 
     civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the 
     heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies 
     who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, 
     and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our 
     government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense 
     Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our 
     forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger 
     that are the special province of those who have never had to 
     execute these missions--or bury the results.
       Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the 
     Pentagon's military leaders is

[[Page 13718]]

     quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences 
     of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their 
     voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan 
     was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale 
     for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times 
     crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore 
     the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers 
     actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply 
     intimidated, while still others must have believed that the 
     principle of obedience does not allow for respectful dissent. 
     The consequence of the military's quiescence was that a 
     fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, 
     while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary 
     effort.
       There have been exceptions, albeit uncommon, to the rule of 
     silence among military leaders. Former Army Chief of Staff 
     General Shinseki, when challenged to offer his professional 
     opinion during prewar congressional testimony, suggested that 
     more troops might be needed for the invasion's aftermath. The 
     Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense castigated him in 
     public and marginalized him in his remaining months in his 
     post. Army GEN John Abizaid, head of Central Command, has 
     been forceful in his views with appointed officials on 
     strategy and micromanagement of the fight in Iraq--often with 
     success. Marine Commandant GEN Mike Hagee steadfastly 
     challenged plans to underfund, understaff and underequip his 
     service as the Corps has struggled to sustain its fighting 
     capability.
       To be sure, the Bush Administration and senior military 
     officials are not alone in their culpability. Members of 
     Congress--from both parties--defaulted in fulfilling their 
     constitutional responsibility for oversight. Many in the 
     media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before 
     the invasion from wise observers like former Central Command 
     chiefs Joe Hoar and Tony Zinni but gave insufficient weight 
     to their views. These are the same news organizations that 
     now downplay both the heroic and the constructive in Iraq.
       So what is to be done? We need fresh ideas and fresh faces. 
     That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many 
     others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach. The 
     troops in the Middle East have performed their duty. Now we 
     need people in Washington who can construct a unified 
     strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our 
     Nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising 
     on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve 
     it. It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution 
     in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears 
     them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman, and I certainly appreciate your 
contribution. And I certainly appreciate your character, because you 
have been willing to admit something and change your position, which is 
sometimes very, very difficult for most people.
  I have, of course, great concern, as I expressed earlier, about the 
war that is going on. But war in general is so dangerous to the cause 
of liberty, because it is in time of war that people are more willing 
to sacrifice their liberties. Today, we are told constantly that we 
have to do such-and-such here in this country because we are at war. 
Yet, we haven't declared a war. The war has not been declared.
  We went to war without a declaration. And instead of being precise on 
just who the enemy is, we have a war against terrorism, yet terrorism 
is nothing more than a technique. There are all kinds of terror, 
terrorist acts, and all kinds of different people. So you really can't 
have a war against terrorism. So we should be much more precise.
  But why I have, for as long as I can remember, been preaching the 
doctrine of the Founding Fathers on foreign policy is because I think 
it would be so much better for us. We would fight fewer wars, we would 
be a lot wealthier, there would be a lot less killing, and it would be 
so much better for us, and that is simply a policy of nonintervention. 
And as I stated in my prepared remarks, this is a good moral position, 
it is a good constitutional position, and it is a good practical 
position.
  Wars that are fought indiscriminately and without declaration and 
without everybody being together and fighting for a quick victory, they 
linger and they just never have good resolve. And that is essentially 
what has happened since World War II. So I will continue to talk about 
nonintervention. I believe my allies, the Founding Fathers of this 
country, and the Constitution, should be enough reason for everybody to 
at least give consideration to nonintervention.
  And I am convinced that our liberties would be better protected, our 
financial circumstances would be so much better off, and certainly we 
wouldn't have the burden and the heavy heart that Mr. Jones certainly 
bears about seeing so many young people needlessly losing their legs 
and dying in a battle that is so difficult to understand and has not 
come to resolve.

                          ____________________