[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5744-5746]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, there has been almost a raging debate 
around here these last couple of days on evaluations of what is taking 
place in Iraq, where do we stand in this war--almost a war of 
attrition, as I see it.
  And included in the reports on deaths, killings, this morning we 
heard about an explosion, with suicide bombers detonating a bomb in a 
mosque that killed around 40 people. It is almost a daily thing that we 
hear and see, the horror of families being torn apart by the loss of a 
loved one. Children, men, women, it does not matter. It is just 
universal killing and demolition. It is a terrible act to witness.
  Now we have some different news that has come about to accompany 
those stories of horror from Iraq. Everybody now knows that the Vice 
President's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, has been indicted as 
part of the investigation into the leak of classified material from the 
White House.
  I remember when this controversy broke. President Bush acted 
incredulous that anyone would leak classified national security 
information. In fact, in September 2003, the President said:

       There's just too many leaks, and if there is a leak out of 
     my administration, I want to know who it is.

  But now we find out--I think embarrassingly for the President, 
embarrassingly for the United States--we now find out that the 
President himself was ordering a leak of classified material. And he 
leaked that classified information for political reasons. He was trying 
to undo some of the political damage caused by the disclosure that the 
intelligence community did not believe Iraq was trying to purchase 
uranium. There it was: the reason we went to Iraq in the first place, 
and substantial doubts.
  People who supported that view are now challenging the intelligence 
that led us there, or at least the intelligence reports we got. Now, 
here we are, still bogged down in Iraq, with no hope in sight to fix 
the mess we have caused there.
  Yesterday, there was debate between two of our colleagues. One was 
Senator Kerry, who served in Vietnam, decorated for that service, the 
other was the Senator from Colorado, who was harsh in his criticism of 
Senator Kerry's speech on Iraq.
  Now, Senator Kerry and I are both veterans. I am a veteran of World 
War II, and I served in Europe during the war. His, again, 
distinguished service in Vietnam is well known. So we are both 
veterans, and we are very interested in the military analysis of the 
Senator from Colorado.
  The speech of the Senator from Colorado sounded much like White House 
talking points: short on facts, long on innuendo and fantasy.
  While politicians in Washington sometimes wear rose-colored glasses

[[Page 5745]]

and fantasize about the situation in Iraq, American troops are dying, 
American troops are wounded. One need only visit Walter Reed Hospital 
to see how serious some of those wounds are. People have lost limbs. 
People lose their sight. People suffer very severely from post-
traumatic stress, invisible wounds that penetrate, nevertheless, very 
deeply.
  I have gone to many memorial services and funerals for young people 
from New Jersey who died in Iraq. Seventy-three soldiers from my home 
State of New Jersey have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I mentioned, 
I have visited Walter Reed Army Hospital here in Washington several 
times, and I have been struck by the incredible resilience and 
dedication to our country of those young Americans, those who want to 
be able to pick up arms again so they can do their duty. And while 
these brave men and women put their lives on the line, the 
administration is simply ignoring reality.
  Paul Eaton, a former commanding general of the Coalition Military 
Assistance and Training Team, wrote in the New York Times on March 19, 
recently, that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is--and here I 
quote the Times--``not competent to lead our armed forces.''
  Eaton further said that Rumsfeld ``has shown himself incompetent 
strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than 
anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission 
in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.''
  This past Sunday on ``Meet The Press,'' retired General Anthony 
Zinni, who just published a book, repeated the call for Mr. Rumsfeld to 
resign. General Zinni of the U.S. Marine Corps is a former Commander of 
the Central Command. He said Secretary Rumsfeld should be held 
accountable for tactical mistakes in Iraq.
  I had the opportunity the other night to go to a testimonial for 
General Shalikashvili and saw films of him done with former Secretary 
of State Colin Powell, President Clinton--all kinds of testimonials. As 
I looked at General Shalikashvili, I recalled how splendidly he handled 
his assignment as the Chief of the joint members of the senior staff 
and recalled that he said that in Iraq we would need perhaps 300,000 
troops or more. He was right. And we never delivered on that 
commitment. As a consequence, in many military circles it is believed 
that lack of force is responsible for some of the problems we currently 
see.
  Several days after General Zinni spoke, President Bush dismissed 
calls for Rumsfeld to step down, saying he was ``satisfied'' with his 
performance.
  How in the world can the Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, be 
satisfied with the situation in Iraq? It is chaotic. It is near a civil 
war. The definition of a ``civil war'' is that people within the same 
country are fighting one another. My gosh, it could not be clearer.
  So how can he be satisfied with Secretary Rumsfeld's miscalculations, 
with his profound errors in judgment, with his stubborn unwillingness 
to admit mistakes?
  These mistakes have had tragic consequences--tragic for the nearly 
2,400 American men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
tragic for the families they have left behind.
  To examine the incompetence a little bit further--I have not been in 
Iraq in the last couple of years. I was there then, and I met with 
troops, and they were asking for better body armor. They were asking 
for better Humvee armor. And it took 2 years to loosen up those 
products to protect our troops. How incompetent must one be for the 
President not to be up in arms?
  After my visit, I said I was going to the Defense Department, and 
did, requesting expedited treatment for these articles that our troops 
needed to protect themselves and to fight the war fully.
  We know that most of the claims of the Bush administration in the 
leadup to war were simply false. The administration claimed there was a 
connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Not true.
  The Bush administration claimed that there were weapons of mass 
destruction there. Not true.
  The Bush administration claimed that the war would cost ``in the 
range of 50 to 60 billion dollars.'' Not true. The wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, including the next supplemental to be brought before the 
Congress in coming weeks, will total a half a trillion dollars, nearly 
$7 billion a month spent just in Iraq.
  The Bush administration said before the war the oil revenues from 
Iraq could bring ``between 50 and 100 billion [dollars] over the course 
of the next two to three years.'' Not true again.
  President Bush announced, ``Mission accomplished,'' on May 1, 2003. 
He lulled the Nation into believing that it was all settled: Families, 
look forward to your kids coming home. Look forward to families 
restored. Look forward to fathers and mothers coming back to their 
children. He told the Nation that major combat in Iraq was over. Not 
true. Ninety percent of the Americans who have died in Iraq have died 
since combat operations had supposedly ``ended.''
  The Bush administration claimed that the Iraq insurgency was in its 
``last throes.'' Not true. We know the insurgency has gained strength. 
General Abizaid recently said the number of foreign terrorists 
infiltrating Iraq has increased.
  Since the last week of February, sectarian violence and death have 
reached new heights, while electricity production has dropped below 
prewar levels. Unemployment ranges from 30 to 60 percent.
  The American people do not want their leader to deny reality. They 
want to hear the truth.
  People on the floor of the Senate have heard me say it time and time 
again: I will never understand why the President of the United States 
refuses to let journalists, photographers, journalists who do 
photography, come in and take pictures of flag-draped coffins--flag-
draped coffins. It is the country's last sign of honoring its dead. 
They are unable to take pictures of that because they do not want to 
tell the American people the truth about what is happening. It is, in 
my view, insulting to those families whose loved ones sacrificed their 
lives on the battlefield. Outrageous.
  They do not want to tell us the truth. What they want to do is tell 
us untruths. Leaking information is inexcusable, when the penalties for 
anyone who leaks that information could be jail time.
  The President of the United States, President Bush, under the guise 
of releasing the classification of sensitive material, had passed 
information, with Vice President Cheney apparently being the person who 
furnished it, according to Libby, who is now fighting for his freedom. 
So he is saying things that he can prove, I would imagine; otherwise, 
he would not dare say it.
  We are sick and tired of this war. I am not saying what the date is 
that we have to leave there, but I am saying that the date has passed 
for the truth, for knowing what is really happening there, for knowing 
what our troops and their families can expect.
  Last week, I went to a return-home function in New Jersey, people who 
have come back. They were away, some of them, 18 months--little kids 
running around who haven't seen their fathers or mothers for that 
period of time. It is outrageous. We are in a state of confusion that 
defies imagination, that we, this country, with all of its might and 
all of its wealth, can't figure out some way to deal with this problem, 
after having made empty promises about how easy it was going to be--
``treats and sweets'' was one of the expressions used--totally 
misunderstanding, not thinking about what it was going to take, not 
only to fight this war but how do you win it. And winning it means that 
you go home triumphant. Not so.
  We see in front of us a situation that reminds us of the sad days of 
Vietnam, when we wanted to extricate ourselves and couldn't quite do it 
until the pain was so excruciating that the population could no longer 
stand it. We need a leader who sees clearly what is really happening 
and who speaks candidly--we can take bad news; we don't

[[Page 5746]]

like it, but we can take it--about what is taking place in front of our 
eyes on television and newspapers in our homes. We can take the news. 
We will accept it and fight on to rebuild our strength and our moral 
conviction about what we are doing. But we need to know the truth on 
how to do that.
  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. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, before I speak on the subject of 
immigration, I would like to make a couple of brief remarks, having 
noted the comments of the distinguished Senator from New Jersey about 
the difficult military struggle we are in today in Iraq. I wanted to 
make the observation that the distinguished Senator talked about his 
very honorable and distinguished service at another time and in another 
struggle during World War II. He speaks with shock and dismay--and it 
is a subject of great dismay--about the fact that there has been death 
and there are family separations and there are injuries as a result of 
the great sacrifice our men and women are making today in Iraq with 
great valor and distinction which we highly honor, just like he and 
others did in World War II.
  The question is, Is it worth it? Are we in this matter of a war over 
there with a choice to do anything other than success?
  What I didn't hear from the Senator was a solution, a plan, an idea 
of how he might extricate us from this effort differently. I believe 
the only way is to pursue it until its conclusion, when it is 
ultimately a peaceful and democratic Iraq. To do otherwise would do 
great harm to the honor of those who serve and those who have 
sacrificed.

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