Bush Iraq Policy

BUSH IRAQ POLICY

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have seen the television reports and the newspaper articles, and I have spoken with people who recently returned from Iraq. I have seen the escalating violence and the chaos that has engulfed parts of that country.

And like all Americans I have watched the death toll of our young men and women in uniform pass 1000. It is now more than 1050, with many thousands more who have been grievously wounded.

Yet to hear the President and Vice President talk, one would think that everything is going well. The President uses words like "freedom is winning" and "we're making steady progress."

There is no question that all of us here wish that were true, but unfortunately the rosy picture that the President paints on the campaign trail is misleading and wildly off base.

Even worse, the President's statements are contradicted by knowledgeable officials in his Administration, by leading Republicans in the Senate, and by a growing number of national security experts within his own administration.

Here are a few examples: Secretary of State Powell said that the situation in Iraq is "getting worse." General Abizaid, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said "[w]e're going to have to fight our way all the way through elections," he said, "and there'll be a lot of violence between now and then." Senator Hagel said "The fact is, we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble in Iraq." And, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, a lengthening list of career military, intelligence and State Department officials believe that Iraq is a mess and things are getting even worse, raising the specter of civil war.

Faced with mounting evidence that things are going from bad to worse in Iraq, what does the President do?

First, he attacks the messenger of the bad news by calling the National Intelligence Estimate "just guessing." Next, he ignores the problem by repeating the same old platitudes and wildly-optimistic rhetoric. Then he and his political allies accuse those who dare to disagree of giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. When all else fails, the President engages in a time-honored tradition here in Washington: He changes the subject and deflects attention.

This President and Vice-President are masters at changing the subject. They have attacked John Kerry's distinguished military record, even though neither of them saw combat and many others in the administration used family connections or deferments to avoid military service altogether. In fact, when asked about serving in Vietnam Vice President CHENEY said that he "had other priorities in the military service."

Imagine what the President's campaign would be saying if JOHN KERRY had said that.

Why do the President and Vice-President constantly change the subject when asked to explain why things are going so badly in Iraq? The answer is simple. They have been consistently wrong about Iraq, and the results speak for themselves.

The President was wrong about weapons of mass destruction, which cut short the U.N. weapons inspections and got us into Iraq in the first place. The Duelfer report found that Iraq got rid of its weapons of mass destruction more than a decade ago, that Saddam Hussein did not have the means to develop a nuclear weapon, and that the U.N. inspections were working. Yet the White House insists that this devastating report by its own export somehow supports the President's decision to go to war.

The Vice President was wrong about our being greeted as liberators. Think about that statement, and compare it to the daily-actually, hourly-attacks against our troops in Iraq today.

The President was wrong about "mission accomplished." More than 900 Americans have died since that famous photo op on the aircraft carrier.

The President was not only wrong, but it is hard to imagine what he was thinking, when he told the insurgents in Iraq to "bring it on."

The President was wrong about Iraqi oil revenues paying for the reconstruction. It is American taxpayers who are paying most of the costs.

And the President acts as if everything is on track for Iraqi elections in January even as the insurgency grows steadily worse and Secretary Rumsfeld is talking about holding elections in only parts of the country.

Despite being consistently wrong, the President's strategy stays the same-put the best face on it, insist that everything is going according to plan even though there is no plan, and attack the patriotism of anyone who dares to question or to criticize.

They have tried to keep the media from publishing photographs of the planeloads of flag-draped coffins of Americans who
have died in Iraq.

They rarely even mention the casualties-American or Iraqi-since that, of course, would mean having to acknowledge the terrible price that is being paid day after day.

They treated the Abu Ghraib prison scandal as an aberration-the work of a few rogue recruits.

They have done their best to hide the policies to subvert the law that were approved at the highest levels of government, and the fact that Abu Ghraib was only one of several locations where foreign prisoners were humiliated, tortured, denied the most basic human rights, and even murdered.

They shut down distribution of a key security report, issued daily by a U.S. contractor-which U.S. personnel in Iraq have relied on for their own safety-because the news of escalating violence in these reports did not square with the spin being put out by the Pentagon and the White House.

Just as the President ignored those who predicted the widening anti-American insurgency, he has sugar-coated the rebuilding of Iraq.

A year ago, he asked the Congress to appropriate $19 billion immediately, in fact so immediately that he resisted every amendment designed to ensure the aid dollars would be well spent.

The President opposed my amendment to put Secretary Powell in charge of the reconstruction in Iraq, causing the Department of Defense to run the biggest nation-building venture since the Marshall Plan. And they bungled it miserably.

The President opposed an amendment that would have at least required that the aid be paid for out of the President's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans-not left for our children and grandchildren.

The President opposed an amendment that would have created tough criminal penalties for war profiteering in Iraq.

The President refused to consider any alternative approaches. His attitude was "my way or the highway." And look at what a mess it has gotten us into. It has been nearly a year since the Iraq supplemental was signed into law, and only $1 billion of the $19 billion has been spent.

Of those funds, it is estimated that only 27 cents of every dollar has gone to benefit the Iraqi people. The rest has ended up in the pockets of high-priced contractors and consultants, and to pay for insurance and security and other overhead costs.

There are serious consequences resulting from this administration's handling of the chaos in Iraq. One, which all Senators are increasingly hearing about from our constituents, is the possibility of a return to the draft. If Iraq continues on its downward spiral, there is growing concern that it may be necessary at some point to reinstate military conscription. I oppose returning to a military draft, I do not believe it is necessary, and I believe it would lessen our military effectiveness.

Yet the President needs to acknowledge to the American people that our entire military forces, including the active Army, the Reserves, and the National Guard, are stretched very thin right now because of the choices the President has made. The military is finding it difficult to get new recruits and has resorted to a backdoor draft, forcing personnel to remain in the service through so-called stop-loss orders.

The Pentagon at some point might decide that the only way to find new recruits-unless we pursue more sensible policies-would be through a draft. I sincerely hope not. This is only one of the many examples of the life-and-death choices that the Nation faces in prudently allocating our resources to combat terrorism.

A lot has been said about President Bush's consistency. His campaign advertisements boast that he is a strong leader because he 'says what he means and he does what he says.'

What good is consistency when it means sending 140,000 Americans into a guerrilla war in a foreign land fueled by religious and ethnic hatred, without justification?

What good is consistency when it means spending upwards of $200 billion on a policy that has not made us any safer, and that has turned Iraq into a haven for terrorists eager to kill Americans who they see as foreign invaders out to destroy Islam itself?

What good is consistency when it squanders the good will that we need to effectively fight terrorism, to build a real coalition so the United States is not paying 90 percent of the cost and suffering 90 percent of the casualties?

What good is consistency, when all it really amounts to is hollow rhetoric that bears no relationship to the facts?

The President and Vice-President have been consistent alright-consistently wrong. There is no value in that.

The President and Vice President constantly assert that we need to 'stay the course.' My answer to that is that if you are captain of the ship and you are heading for an iceberg, you change course. You want to get to the same destination, but you do not want to plow into the iceberg to get there.

It is this President's rigid adherence to a misguided ideology that has gotten us into deep, deep trouble in Iraq.

The American people deserve better. They deserve competence and they deserve honesty. They deserve leaders who know the difference between a political decision, and the right decision.