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U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, West
Virginia
Floor Remarks to U.S. Senate, June 24, 2003
"The Road To Coverup Is The Road To Ruin"
"Mr. President, last fall, the White House released a
national security strategy that called for an end to the doctrines of
deterrence and containment that have been a hallmark of American foreign
policy for more than half a century.
This new national security strategy is based upon pre-emptive war against
those who might threaten our security.
Such a strategy of striking first against possible dangers is heavily
reliant upon interpretation of accurate and timely intelligence. If we are
going to hit first, based on perceived dangers, the perceptions had better
be accurate. If our intelligence is faulty, we may launch pre-emptive wars
against countries that do not pose a real threat against us. Or we may
overlook countries that do pose real threats to our security, allowing us no
chance to pursue diplomatic solutions to stop a crisis before it escalates
to war. In either case lives could be needlessly lost. In other words, we
had better be certain that we can discern the imminent threats from the
false alarms.
Ninety-six days ago [as of June 24], President Bush announced that he had
initiated a war to "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world
from grave danger." The President told the world: "Our nation enters this
conflict reluctantly – yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United
States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw
regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." [Address to
the Nation, 3/19/03]
The President has since announced that major combat operations concluded on
May 1. He said: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle
of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." Since then, the
United States has been recognized by the international community as the
occupying power in Iraq. And yet, we have not found any evidence that would
confirm the officially stated reason that our country was sent to war;
namely, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction constituted a grave threat
to the United States.
We have heard a lot about revisionist history from the White House of late
in answer to those who question whether there was a real threat from Iraq.
But, it is the President who appears to me to be intent on revising history.
There is an abundance of clear and unmistakable evidence that the
Administration sought to portray Iraq as a direct and deadly threat to the
American people. But there is a great difference between the hand-picked
intelligence that was presented by the Administration to Congress and the
American people when compared against what we have actually discovered in
Iraq. This Congress and the people who sent us here are entitled to an
explanation from the Administration.
On January 28, 2003, President Bush said in his State of the Union Address:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa." [State of the Union,
1/28/03, pg. 7] Yet, according to news reports, the CIA knew that this claim
was false as early as March 2002. In addition, the International Atomic
Energy Agency has since discredited this allegation.
On February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations
Security Council: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a
stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is
enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." [Remarks to UN Security Council,
2/5/03, pg. 12] The truth is, to date we have not found any of this
material, nor those thousands of rockets loaded with chemical weapons.
On February 8, President Bush told the nation: "We have sources that tell us
that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use
chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
[Radio Address, 2/8/03] Mr. President, we are all relieved that such weapons
were not used, but it has not yet been explained why the Iraqi army did not
use them. Did the Iraqi army flee their positions before chemical weapons
could be used? If so, why were the weapons not left behind? Or is it that
the army was never issued chemical weapons? We need answers.
On March 16, the Sunday before the war began, in an interview with Tim
Russert, Vice President Cheney said that Iraqis want "to get rid of Saddam
Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come
to do that." He added, "...the vast majority of them would turn [Saddam
Hussein] in in a minute if, in fact, they thought they could do so safely."
[Meet the Press, 3/16/03, pg. 6] But in fact, Mr. President, today Iraqi
cities remain in disorder, our troops are under attack, our occupation
government lives and works in fortified compounds, and we are still trying
to determine the fate of the ousted, murderous dictator.
On March 30, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, during the height of the
war, said of the search for weapons of mass destruction: "We know where they
are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south,
and north somewhat." [This Week, 3/30/03, pg. 8] But Baghdad fell to our
troops on April 9, and Tikrit on April 14, and the intelligence Secretary
Rumsfeld spoke about has not led us to any weapons of mass destruction.
Whether or not intelligence reports were bent, stretched, or massaged to
make Iraq look like an imminent threat to the United States, it is clear
that the Administration's rhetoric played upon the well-founded fear of the
American public about future acts of terrorism. But, upon close examination,
many of these statements have nothing to do with intelligence, because they
are at root just sound bites based on conjecture. They are designed to prey
on public fear.
The face of Osama bin Laden morphed into that of Saddam Hussein. President
Bush carefully blurred these images in his State of the Union Address.
Listen to this quote from his State of the Union Address: "Imagine those 19
hijackers with other weapons and other plans - this time armed by Saddam
Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this
country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." [State of
the Union, 1/28/03, pg 7] Judging by this speech, not only is the President
confusing al Qaeda and Iraq, but he also appears to give a vote of
no-confidence to our homeland security efforts. Isn't the White House, the
brains behind the Department of Homeland Security? Isn't the Administration
supposed to be stopping those vials, canisters, and crates from entering our
country, rather than trying to scare our fellow citizens half to death about
them?
Not only did the Administration warn about more hijackers carrying deadly
chemicals, the White House even went so far as to suggest that the time it
would take for U.N. inspectors to find solid, 'smoking gun' evidence of
Saddam's illegal weapons would put the U.S. at greater risk of a nuclear
attack from Iraq. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was quoted as
saying on September 9, 2002, by the Los Angeles Times, "We don't want the
'smoking gun' to be a mushroom cloud." [Los Angeles Times, "Threat by Iraq
Grows, U.S. Says," 9/9/02] Talk about hype! Mushroom clouds? Where is the
evidence for this? There isn't any.
On September 26, 2002, just two weeks before Congress voted on a resolution
to allow the President to invade Iraq, and six weeks before the mid-term
elections, President Bush himself built the case that Iraq was plotting to
attack the United States. After meeting with members of Congress on that
date, the President said: "The danger to our country is grave. The danger to
our country is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical
weapons.... The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material,
could build one within a year."
These are the President's words. He said that Saddam Hussein is "seeking a
nuclear bomb." Have we found any evidence to date of this chilling
allegation? No.
But, President Bush continued on that autumn day: "The dangers we face will
only worsen from month to month and from year to year. To ignore these
threats is to encourage them. And when they have fully materialized it may
be too late to protect ourselves and our friends and our allies. By then the
Iraqi dictator would have the means to terrorize and dominate the region.
Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or
VX - nerve gas - or some day a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally." [Rose
Garden Remarks, 9/26/02]
And yet, seven weeks after declaring victory in the war against Iraq, we
have seen nary a shred of evidence to support his claims of grave dangers,
chemical weapons, links to al Qaeda, or nuclear weapons.
Just days before a vote on a resolution that handed the President
unprecedented war powers, President Bush stepped up the scare tactics. On
October 7, just four days before the October 11 vote in the Senate on the
war resolution, the President stated: "We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda
terrorist network share a common enemy – the United States of America. We
know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a
decade." President Bush continued: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al
Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.... Alliance with
terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving
any fingerprints."
President Bush also elaborated on claims of Iraq's nuclear program when he
said: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi
nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen' – his nuclear
holy warriors.... If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an
amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it
could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." [Cincinnati Museum Center,
10/7/02, pg. 3-4]
This is the kind of pumped up intelligence and outrageous rhetoric that were
given to the American people to justify war with Iraq. This is the same kind
of hyped evidence that was given to Congress to sway its vote for war on
October 11, 2002.
We hear some voices say, but why should we care? After all, the United
States won the war, didn't it? Saddam Hussein is no more; he is either dead
or on the run. What does it matter if reality does not reveal the same grim
picture that was so carefully painted before the war? So what if the
menacing characterizations that conjured up visions of mushroom clouds and
American cities threatened with deadly germs and chemicals were overdone? So
what?
Mr. President, our sons and daughters who serve in uniform answered a call
to duty. They were sent to the hot sands of the Middle East to fight in a
war that has already cost the lives of 194 Americans, thousands of innocent
civilians, and unknown numbers of Iraqi soldiers. Our troops are still at
risk. Hardly a day goes by that there is not another attack on the troops
who are trying to restore order to a country teetering on the brink of
anarchy. When are they coming home?
The President told the American people that we were compelled to go to war
to secure our country from a grave threat. Are we any safer today than we
were on March 18, 2003? Our nation has been committed to rebuilding a
country ravaged by war and tyranny, and the cost of that task is being paid
in blood and treasure every day.
It is in the compelling national interest to examine what we were told about
the threat from Iraq. It is in the compelling national interest to know if
the intelligence was faulty. It is in the compelling national interest to
know if the intelligence was distorted.
Mr. President, Congress must face this issue squarely. Congress should begin
immediately an investigation into the intelligence that was presented to the
American people about the pre-war estimates of Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction and the way in which that intelligence might have been misused.
This is no time for a timid Congress. We have a responsibility to act in the
national interest and protect the American people. We must get to the bottom
of this matter.
Although some timorous steps have been taken in the past few days to begin a
review of this intelligence – I must watch my terms carefully, for I may be
tempted to use the words "investigation" or "inquiry" to describe this
review, and those are terms which I am told are not supposed to be used –
the proposed measures appear to fall short of what the situation requires.
We are already shading our terms about how to describe the proposed review
of intelligence: cherry-picking words to give the American people the
impression that the government is fully in control of the situation, and
that there is no reason to ask tough questions. This is the same problem
that got us into this controversy about slanted intelligence reports. Word
games. Lots and lots of word games.
Well, Mr. President, this is no game. For the first time in our history, the
United States has gone to war because of intelligence reports claiming that
a country posed a threat to our nation. Congress should not be content to
use standard operating procedures to look into this extraordinary matter. We
should accept no substitute for a full, bipartisan investigation by Congress
into the issue of our pre-war intelligence on the threat from Iraq and its
use.
The purpose of such an investigation is not to play pre-election year
politics, nor is it to engage in what some might call "revisionist history."
Rather it is to get at the truth. The longer questions are allowed to fester
about what our intelligence knew about Iraq, and when they knew it, the
greater the risk that the people – the American people whom we are elected
to serve – will lose confidence in our government.
This looming crisis of trust is not limited to the public. Many of my
colleagues were willing to trust the Administration and vote to authorize
war against Iraq. Many members of this body trusted so much that they gave
the President sweeping authority to commence war. As President Reagan
famously said, "Trust, but verify." Despite my opposition, the Senate voted
to blindly trust the President with unprecedented power to declare war.
While the reconstruction continues, so do the questions, and it is time to
verify.
I have served the people of West Virginia in Congress for half a century. I
have witnessed deceit and scandal, cover up and aftermath. I have seen
Presidents of both parties who once enjoyed great popularity among the
people leave office in disgrace because they misled the American people. I
say to this Administration: Do not circle the wagons. Do not discourage the
seeking of truth in these matters.
Mr. President, the American people have questions that need to be answered
about why we went to war with Iraq. To attempt to deny the relevance of
these questions is to trivialize the people's trust.
The business of intelligence is secretive by necessity, but our government
is open by design. We must be straight with the American people. Congress
has the obligation to investigate the use of intelligence information by the
Administration, in the open, so that the American people can see that those
who exercise power, especially the awesome power of preemptive war, must be
held accountable. We must not go down the road of cover-up. That is the road
to ruin."
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