[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16222-16223]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE WAR IN IRAQ

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, yesterday the Prime Minister of Iraq 
addressed a joint meeting of Congress. In his speech, he stressed his 
view that great progress has been made in his country in the past 
months and equated the violence in Iraq to the al-Qaida attacks on the 
United States on September 11, 2001. With the Prime Minister's comments 
in mind, it is worth taking stock of how this war began 3 years, 4 
months, and 1 week ago. Let me say that again. It is worth taking stock 
of how this war began 3 years, 4 months, and 1 week ago.
  The war in Iraq, that is what I am talking about. The war in Iraq. 
There is a war going on there, and we are involved in it. Our men and 
women are over there in harm's way. They die every day. The war in Iraq 
was initiated on the false promise of securing our country from the 
threat of weapons of mass destruction. That was a false promise. There 
have been many efforts to try to rewrite history. You can't do it. But 
there have been efforts to try to rewrite history and to try to find a 
new justification for the invasion of Iraq. But one need look no 
further than the use of force authorization passed by the Congress--
when? On October 11, 2002. Look at that use of force resolution.
  That resolution contains 23 ``whereas'' clauses. You can count them. 
Ten of those ``whereas'' clauses pertained to Iraq's efforts to develop 
weapons of mass destruction. The idea that Iraq could threaten our 
country with weapons of mass destruction was the keystone of the 
argument for war. It was the one allegation at the center of nearly all 
the cases that were made for war.
  I didn't fall for that. I didn't fall for that reason because I 
didn't believe it was there. I didn't believe that Iraq was a threat to 
the security of this country. I didn't believe it. I had reasons for 
not believing it, and I have said them many times.
  The agencies that produced the intelligence to build the case for war 
have admitted that they made massive errors. Intelligence was massaged. 
Did you get that? Intelligence was massaged to remove most of the 
dissenting views. Dissenting views were not listened to very well. 
Congress, in 2004, even rushed to reorganize the CIA and the rest of 
our intelligence agencies based upon these massive failures--failures 
that built a flawed and discredited case for U.S. entry into that war.
  I did not buy into the hype and the rush to war. I didn't buy into 
that. I didn't buy into that case. I didn't believe we had that case 
for war. I did not believe Iraq posed an imminent threat to the 
security of this country. I did not believe it. I said so. And 
therefore I voted against turning this whole thing--lock, stock, and 
barrel--over to one man, the President of the United States. Congress 
relegated itself to the sidelines, and it has never gotten itself off 
the sidelines, really. We are still there.
  I did not believe Congress should have passed the resolution to allow 
the President--any President, not just this President, any President--
to decide where, when, and why to launch an attack on Iraq. I did not 
believe then, I do not believe now, that one man, Democratic or 
Republican, or one woman, acting as the chief executive of our country, 
should be handed the authority to decide on his own to shed the 
precious blood of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives--to shed 
their blood.
  The American people at this point should pause and reflect now on 
where our Nation stands in this war. Where does our Nation stand in 
this war in Iraq? As of today, July 27, 2,564--2,564--American men and 
women have been killed--dead. Upwards of $318 billion--that is a lot of 
money--upwards of $318 billion has been drained from our Treasury. Talk 
persists of more than 100,000 of our troops remaining in Iraq for many 
years to come--many years to come. Most ominously, the violence in Iraq 
appears to have entered a new phase. Mr. President, 2\1/2\ months after 
the killing of the terrorist leader Zarqawi, an average of 100 Iraqis 
are being killed every day, according to a new report by the United 
Nations.
  Who is responsible for this violence in Iraq? Is it Osama bin Laden 
or some other nefarious outside force? Is it the same terrorists who 
plotted the attack on the World Trade Center? Is it the same miscreants 
responsible for the train bombings in London and Madrid? The answer is 
no. This wave of violence which has crashed over Iraq is the result of 
Iraqis fighting and killing Iraqis. Militias and death squads are 
carrying out a brutal campaign of violence against fellow Iraqis. 
Shiites are fighting Sunnis. Sunnis are killing Shiites. The Kurds of 
the north are under attack. No one is safe from these indiscriminate 
killings--not doctors, not teachers, not even children. Iraq is being 
ripped apart from the inside out.
  Could there be any doubt that there is a civil war in Iraq? 
Statistics gathered by the Iraqi Government: 2,669 Iraqi civilians were 
killed in May; another 3,149 Iraqi civilians were killed in June. 
Government figures show that 14,338 civilians were killed in Iraq in 
the first 6 months of this year. At least 100,000 Iraqis are refugees 
in their own country. Yes, there is a civil war going on in Iraq. It is 
a civil war that has been brewing, brewing, brewing since we first 
opened this Pandora's box by invading Iraq in March of 2003.
  I didn't vote for that invasion.
  The question is, What are our troops doing in the middle of this 
civil war? What are American troops doing in the middle of this civil 
war? The American people should take notice of what is happening in 
Iraq. The American people--it is their sons and daughters, yes. Our 
troops are increasingly being thrust into this fighting with no plan 
for success. It is time to stop, look, and listen, and time to ask 
questions about where we are headed. Are our troops on the way out of 
Iraq or are they on their way in? Are they being drawn deeper into this 
civil war? Is there any chance for our troops to win a decisive victory 
on the battlefield or is the fate of our soldiers tied to the political 
fortunes of untested Iraqi politicians? Does anyone in this 
administration have a plan for how to deal with this civil war which is 
going on in Iraq?
  These are not inconsequential questions. These are important 
questions. These are important questions for the people of our country. 
But instead of telling the American people how we are going to 
disentangle ourselves from the sectarian violence in Iraq, we learn 
this week that the President plans to send more American troops into 
Baghdad to take sides in the Iraqi-on-Iraqi fighting that is tearing 
that country part. The President announced on Tuesday--yes, he did--
that he is sending thousands more U.S. troops into Baghdad, which is 
the center of the storm of violence.
  So I say to the people out there watching through those electronic 
lenses, is this our plan? Is this our plan for dealing with an Iraqi 
civil war? When I asked Secretary Rumsfeld at an Appropriations 
Committee hearing on March 9 about his plan if civil war were to break 
out in Iraq, he said, ``The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the 
extent one were to occur, to have the . . . Iraqi security forces deal 
with it, to the extent they are able to.''
  Those are quotations. You can look at the Appropriations Committee 
hearings and find these words for yourselves.
  The plan to have Iraqis deal with their own civil war appears to be 
on its way out the window. The Iraqi Prime Minister's attempts to 
pacify Baghdad with Iraqi troops has failed. In fact, the Prime 
Minister, in his speech to Congress, pleaded for more foreign aid and 
urged our troops to stay until Iraqis are ready to take up the fight to 
defend their Government.
  Sending more U.S. troops to deal with domestic strife is not the 
right course. What we are seeing in Iraq is mission creep, mission 
creep, creep, creep, creep of the worst kind. The mission to overthrow 
Saddam Hussein is transforming before our very eyes into

[[Page 16223]]

a mission to take sides between warring ethnic factions. This is a plan 
for disaster.
  Our troops have bravely served in Iraq for more than 3 years. They 
have done everything that has been asked of them. Our troops did not 
ask to be sent to war, but the call to service has gone out and our 
servicemembers have responded. They have fought, they have been 
wounded, they have bled, and they have died for what our country has 
asked them to do. But we owe it to our troops to be judicious in what 
we ask them to do. We owe it to our troops not to send them headlong 
into fighting when there is no plan for victory. We owe it to our 
troops not to send them into the center of a civil war without raising 
so much as a question, without raising so much as a question about 
whether they belong there.
  We cannot allow the escalating war in Lebanon to distract us from the 
deteriorating situation in Iraq. Look at what is going on. Open your 
eyes. The fighting between Israel and Lebanon has dominated our 
attention, but the administration is on the verge of making 
irreversible decisions about how deeply our troops will be involved in 
Iraq's civil war.
  Before more of our troops are sent to Baghdad, the Senate must ask 
tough questions of Secretary Rumsfeld and our military commanders about 
whether they have a plan for dealing with the civil war in Iraq. The 
Armed Services Committee on which I serve must have a chance to 
exercise its oversight responsibilities before more of our troops are 
ordered to take sides in a fight that is pitting Iraqi against Iraqi. 
We have seen before the disastrous consequences of ordering our troops 
into the middle of civil wars. Do we remember the 241 marines who were 
killed in Beirut in 1983? Do we remember that? Let us remember the 
bloody battle in Somalia in 1993.
  Let us have more wisdom, more caution, and a coherent strategy before 
we marshal our forces to send them once more into the breach in 
Baghdad. We owe that much to our brave troops. We owe that much to 
their moms and their dads, their wives and their children anxiously 
awaiting their safe return home.
  I yield the floor.

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