[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 24288-24290]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, yesterday was 9/11. I think all of us 
recall that fateful day. I certainly do. Earlier that morning, I had 
spoken to an education conference south of the Pentagon. I had driven 
by the Pentagon right before it was struck. I came and parked on the 
Mall in front of the Capitol. I came up the steps to a leadership 
meeting. Security people were coming down the steps ordering people out 
of the building, saying they were concerned about an attack on the 
Capitol itself. I left here and my military aide met me as I walked 
back to my offices--I guess, more accurately, I jogged back to my 
offices because we were being urged to leave quickly. I could hear a 
fighter plane overhead. My military aide turned to me and said: You 
know, Senator, those are our guys. Those are the Happy Hooligans from 
Fargo, ND. The first planes in the air to protect the Capitol were the 
Happy Hooligans of Fargo, ND. You may be asking yourselves: How can it 
be that a National Guard unit from Fargo, ND, are the first planes in 
the sky to protect the Nation's Capital?

[[Page 24289]]

The reason is they are given that responsibility and they are aircraft 
flown by North Dakota pilots who are based at a base close by the 
Nation's Capital. They fly what is called the CAP over the Capitol to 
protect us, and they were the first planes in the air to provide 
fighter protection to this Capitol complex. It made me proud at the 
time to know those were the Happy Hooligans of Fargo, ND.
  When I went back to my office, I was doing a national radio interview 
with a man named Ed Schultz who has a national radio show. We were 
watching in horror as the Twin Towers started to collapse. Security 
people ran in again and ushered us out, telling us there was a plane 8 
minutes out and they were afraid it was headed for the Capitol complex. 
That is the plane that ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania. I don't 
think anyone knows for certain where that plane was headed. Most assume 
it was either the Capitol or the White House that was the intended 
target of that plane. I think we will always be forever grateful for 
the men and women who were on that plane who fought back. You think of 
the incredible bravery of those people, to know they were hijacked, to 
have learned through cell phone contact that the World Trade Center had 
been attacked, the Pentagon had been attacked, and they did not just 
sit. They got out of their chairs and fought back. By doing so, they 
may have saved either the White House or this Capitol. That was an act 
of extraordinary heroism and courage.
  Later that day, Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, 
joined on the Capitol steps, and I will forever remember how 
spontaneously at the end of the remarks of the leadership we sang ``God 
Bless America.'' I remember that feeling at that moment: That we are 
not Republicans, we are not Democrats; we are all Americans, and we 
stand together and will defend this Nation and we will hold those to 
account who did this dastardly deed. I hope we all think of ourselves 
as Americans first.
  I also think we have to remember that it has now been 2,192 days 
since that attack. The President promised we would hold those 
responsible to account. The President said very clearly that this act 
would not stand. It is especially painful then to see Osama bin Laden 
and Zawahiri and the other leadership of al-Qaida go on the air, 
threatening to attack us again.
  This is what the President said then:

       There's no question about it, this act will not stand; we 
     will find those who did it; we will smoke them out of their 
     holes; we will get them running and we'll bring them to 
     justice.

  The President was right in making that statement. That is precisely 
what our focus should have been.
  Then you see this Newsweek headline: ``He Is Still Out There. The 
Hunt For Bin Laden.''
  Somehow, we got confused about who attacked us. I just saw an ad 
being run about Iraq saying they attacked us on September 11. That is 
not true. Iraq did not attack us on September 11; al-Qaida attacked us. 
In fact, there wasn't a single Iraqi on any of the planes that hit the 
World Trade Center or the Pentagon--not 1. We know from the 9/11 
Commission that the attack was not directed by Saddam Hussein, as evil 
and dreadful a man as he was.
  No, that attack was directed by Osama bin Laden and was carried out 
by al-Qaida, not Iraq. In fact, the 9/11 Commission tells us and our 
intelligence tells us that al-Qaida was not active in Iraq at the time. 
They have become active. Now we have al-Qaida in Iraq, but they were 
not there at the time.
  It is so important that we get these facts right. Al-Qaida attacked 
us. Osama bin Laden led that attack. He is still on the loose and so is 
his chief aide, Mr. Zawahiri. It is critically important that we get it 
right who attacked us and whom we need to hold to account. I hope we 
will never give up our efforts to hunt down Osama bin Laden and 
Zawahiri and the rest of the al-Qaida leadership cadre because they are 
plotting to attack us again.
  I have always believed that Iraq was a fateful mistake, a diversion 
of going in the wrong place, after the wrong enemy, at the wrong time, 
instead of pursuing the people who did attack us, who did kill 
Americans, who are plotting to attack us again.
  We had, yesterday, very important testimony from General Petraeus and 
Ambassador Crocker. Let me say I have high regard for General Petraeus. 
I thought the ad that was run by some the other day was unfortunate and 
wrong. General Petraeus is a patriot. General Petraeus is somebody who 
deserves our respect. That doesn't mean you have to agree with every 
position he takes. That is not the point. But he is somebody who is 
among our finest. We should never in this country start turning on our 
own, those who serve us bravely and well in the military. That is not 
right. Ambassador Crocker is one of our finest diplomats. I don't agree 
with every policy prescription they propose, but they don't deserve to 
be personally attacked. That is not right. We have to remember and we 
have to keep perspective somehow about how we advance our national 
interest.
  Let me say that yesterday the Washington Post ran a series of polls 
reporting on what the Iraqi people think is going on. You know, there 
is a cultural chasm here, I am afraid, between those of us raised in 
the Western culture and the people we are dealing with in that part of 
the world. I went to school and graduated from a high school at Wheelus 
Air Force Base High School in Tripoli, Libya, North Africa. I lived in 
the Arab world for 2 years. I have some sense of the enormous 
difference in the way they see things and the way we see things. It is 
instructive to ask what do the Iraqi people think is happening in their 
country. After all, it is their country, and what they think has a lot 
to say about what the outcome is going to be.
  The Washington Post reported in depth a poll yesterday. The question 
was:

       Do you think this increase in U.S. forces in Baghdad and 
     surrounding provinces in the past six months has made 
     security better, worse, or had no effect?

  In the deployment areas, the areas where we deployed the additional 
troops, here is what the Iraqi people think. They think, by 70 percent, 
that the surge has made things worse; 18 percent think it has made 
things better; 11 percent think it has had no effect. In the areas 
outside the deployment, elsewhere in Iraq, 68 percent think it has made 
things worse.
  Now, is anybody paying any attention here? We have gone, 
theoretically, first of all, from eliminating weapons of mass 
destruction that didn't exist, to eliminating a nuclear program that 
didn't exist, to deposing Saddam Hussein, who did exist and has been 
deposed; then we are told we are supposed to be making things better 
for the Iraqi people. But the Iraqi people overwhelmingly think we have 
made things worse. Now a substantial majority of the people in Iraq 
think it is OK to attack American forces. We are caught in what is 
primarily--not solely or exclusively but primarily--a sectarian 
conflict, a civil war between the Sunni and Shia. This is a battle that 
has been going on for over 1,300 years. Why we would want our young men 
and women to be refereeing a fight between Shia and Sunni, at enormous 
cost in lives and treasure, absolutely eludes me.
  We have so much else to do--first of all, in terms of our own 
security, going after the people who did attack us--al-Qaida and going 
after the leadership of al-Qaida, bin Laden and Zawahiri, who are still 
on the loose and still plotting to attack us. We are in Iraq being told 
the idea is now that we are to give breathing room for the Iraqi 
Government to make political progress to reduce the sectarian violence. 
Yet the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people say this expanded 
deployment has made things worse; 70 percent in the deployment areas 
say we have made things worse, and only 18 percent say we have made 
things better.
  Who has a better idea of what is going on in Iraq? I think we ought 
to be paying some attention to what the Iraqi people think is going on 
there. When a majority of the Iraqi people say it is OK to attack 
American forces, and

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we are there, theoretically, to help them, there is an enormous 
disconnect here. There is an enormous disconnect between what we 
apparently think we are doing and what we are actually accomplishing.
  I am one who does not favor setting a strict deadline for leaving. I 
don't think that it is militarily wise to say to your opponents that we 
are leaving by a specific date. But we have to change course in Iraq. 
We have now lost thousands of brave men and women, with tens of 
thousands badly wounded. We have committed over a half trillion 
dollars, and we are told the President is now going to come and ask for 
another $195 billion. But the President is telling us we don't have the 
money, for example, for the Transportation bill we passed. The 
President says we don't have the money for that. How many more bridges 
have to collapse in this country before we have the money to take care 
of our own citizens' safety?
  The President says we don't have the money to maintain the COPS 
program, which put 100,000 police officers on the street. The President 
said we should cut that 90 percent at a time when crime is rising in 
America. We have, apparently, $195 billion to spend in Iraq, but we 
don't have the several hundred million dollars we need to keep those 
police on the street in our country.
  As I look at this, I am increasingly convinced we need to redeploy 
our forces; we need to, as a matter of our national security, refocus 
our effort on going after the people who did attack us on 9/11 and 
fully intend to attack us again, and that is al-Qaida, not Iraq.
  I hope we will think very carefully in the coming days, as the debate 
intensifies, on what our future policy should be.

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