National Security

Floor Speech

NATIONAL SECURITY

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me talk for a moment about the issue of what is our national security. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I saw another television advertisement put together by people who have accumulated some money and put ads on television. The advertisement is one that says: We have to stay in Iraq. We can't surrender in Iraq. We have to finish the job in Iraq. It says they attacked us on 9/11. The whole implication of the ad is, we are in Iraq because we are fighting the people who attacked us on 9/11. It is the same dishonesty we have heard for a long time.

Let me describe again our national security interests and who attacked us on 9/11. We know who did because they bragged about it. They boasted about attacking America. It was Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others, the leadership of al-Qaida. And where are they? Are they in Iraq? No, they are in Pakistan, we believe, somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let me describe the connection of all of this and our national security interests.

This morning in the newspaper we see that in Copenhagen, Denmark, the police have arrested some terrorists engaged in a terrorist plot with links to al-Qaida. They say these terrorists had traveled to Pakistan for training, and the case against them involves links to militants in Pakistan. Separately, last night a German Federal prosecutor had three suspects picked up and arrested late Tuesday. The suspects were members of a terrorist organization, presumably with connections to al-Qaida. There is evidence the men had trained in camps in Pakistan.

So let's understand, whether this is a surprise to any of us. Here is what we learned in February of this year. Senior leaders of al-Qaida operating from Pakistan over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal region near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials. There was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, al-Zawahiri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of northern Waziristan. That is from the New York Times, quoting top intelligence sources.

In June: Al-Qaida regroups in new sanctuary on Pakistan border. While the U.S. presses its war against an insurgency linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, Osama bin Laden's group is recruiting, regrouping, and rebuilding in a sanctuary along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to senior U.S. military and intelligence officials. The threat from the radical Islamic enclave in Waziristan is more dangerous than from Iraq, which President Bush and his aides call the ``central front'' of the war on terrorism, according to some current and former U.S. officials and experts.

The National Intelligence Estimate from July of this year says: Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to our homeland. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in Pakistan's federally administrated tribal areas.

Is it a surprise that we pick up the newspaper this morning and see terrorists picked up in Germany, threatening to launch attacks against the largest U.S. base in Europe, and that we read that they trained in Pakistan, likely at an al-Qaida reconstituted training camp? Is that a surprise to us?

We are engaged in a war in Iraq. The television commercial this morning, my colleague this morning, and others, continue to say that is the central fight of the war against terrorism. It is not. It is a civil war. There is widespread sectarian violence. Yes, there are some terrorists there. Yes, al-Qaida is there. But that is not the central part of what al-Qaida has been about.

Al-Qaida did not have a presence in Iraq prior to 9/11. The television commercial this morning says they attacked us on 9/11. Implying that this is why we are in Iraq fighting that war ignores a whole body of truth, the body of truth I have just described. Those who attacked us and boasted of killing innocent Americans on 9/11 are now in a secure hideaway or a safe haven somewhere in Pakistan, not in Iraq.

I ask this question of the President and the Congress: Why should there be any square inch on the face of this planet that is safe or secure for the leaders of the organization that boasted about attacking America? Why should there be any place on this Earth that is safe or secure for those who the intelligence estimate now tells us are plotting new attacks against our country? Why are they safe and secure? Because this country is engaging door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war. That is a fact.

We have people say: You can't surrender. If you try to redeploy, you are surrendering. I say this: What we ought to do is redeploy and understand that our policy is to fight the terrorists first. When we talk about redeploying, we are not talking about not being able to fight terrorists, even in Iraq, to the extent they exist there. We are talking about leaving enough troops for training of Iraqi forces, about fighting terrorists who exist in Iraq, and about force protection. But you redeploy the troops to fight the terrorists first. Why on Earth should we be debating in the Senate, and the President be in Australia today talking to his counterpart in that country about continuing the fight in Iraq, when Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others are planning additional attacks against this country? While, at the same time, bin Laden and his henchmen are ``safe'' and ``secure'' in or near Pakistan? That is unbelievable.

We need to change tactics. We need a change in course. When we pick up the paper this morning and read about terrorists being picked up in Germany, plotting attacks against the largest American military base in Europe, and they are trained in Pakistan, likely at an al-Qaida training camp, we are experiencing the fruits of bad policy and dishonest representation about where the fight exists. The central fight against terrorism, it seems to me, is to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaida, the very leadership who boasted about killing innocent Americans on 9/11 and the very leadership who our National Intelligence Estimate now tells us are planning additional attacks against our homeland.

We need a change in course. If we stand here and debate this question about, well, if you redeploy, change course here or there, you are surrendering, that is not looking truth in the eye at all. The television commercial I saw this morning--put together, I am sure, by some big money interests that are suggesting somehow we are in Iraq because they attacked us on 9/11--is the perpetration of the same dishonesty we have seen for years.

We have had soldiers in Iraq longer than we were fighting in the Second World War. I want Iraqis to be free. Saddam Hussein is gone. He is dead. He was executed. They now have a new Constitution and a new Government. Now the question is, Will the Iraqi people have the will to provide for their own security?

We are going to leave Iraq. The question is not whether; it is when. We cannot keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war in Iraq for any lengthy period of time, especially while Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are in the mountains training additional terrorists whom they then send to Germany and perhaps to our country. We have to change course. That is a fact. I am not giving you my opinion. I am telling you what the National Intelligence Estimate tells us about the greatest threat to our country.

The greatest threat to our homeland, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, is the leadership of al-Qaida, and they are in a safe and secure haven, and they are planning additional attacks against our country. If one does not understand that by reading that which we should read, go back to just prior to 2001 and take a look at the headline on the PDF briefing given to the President in August 2001: ``Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.'' It is time we read and it is time we understand. Regrettably, that has not been the case recently. I hope it will as we turn to this debate in a serious way.

The change in course has to be, in my judgment: Fight the terrorists first. That ought to be this country's policy.

That was not why I came to the floor of the Senate today, but I was inspired to remember the television commercial I saw the first thing this morning and then inspired by my colleague's statement about Iraq, once again.

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