Robert Byrd

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. The Senator gave me this amendment, a 4-page amendment but page 3 is missing. I thank the Senator. The third page which was missing is the page that had on it the provision: Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the results of the examination and analysis under subsection (c). So that is 120 days, so that is 4 months, not later than 4 months, by the time this commission is created, is established and has its first meeting and then reports back to the appropriate committees. I hope surely our young men and women will be home by then without any such report. This is going to be a long time. That is what I see with this. We need to act. We can study this to death. This is kind of like questioning Secretary Rumsfeld. When I asked him a question in the Armed Services Committee the other day, my question was, How much has our country been spending on the average per month in Iraq? And he says to me: Well, I'm sorry, Senator, we don't have that information at hand. We will get it for you. We don't have that information at hand. I asked, How much have we been spending per month in Afghanistan? I got the same answer. Senator, we don't have that information. We will be glad to get it for you.

Mr. BYRD. In a moment, if I may. I am referring to the cavalier treatment that we peons on the Armed Services Committee get from this great Secretary of Defense that we have downtown. He says, Well, Senator, we don't have that information. Here we are with the top man--the man at the Pentagon, the greatest defense department in the world, the most expensive one, the one that handles more money than any other defense department in the world. As a matter of fact, we are spending more money each year than all of the other 18 NATO nations combined, plus the six remaining rogue nations, plus China, plus Russia. That is almost half of the total moneys that the world spends for defense. We are treated like children by this Secretary of Defense: Well, Senator we don't have that information. It would seem to me that would be elemental. It would seem to me that a Secretary of Defense would know how much money we spend on national defense; that he would know how much money we are spending on average in Iraq per month. He would know that. He should know that would be one of the first questions he would be asked by the Armed Services Committee when he comes before it. I would think so. You are the Secretary of Defense. How much are we spending in Iraq monthly? Then to have to turn and say, Well, Senator, I don't have that information. It would take us a while to assemble it. That is the way it is here. It is going to take quite a while. It is going to take quite a while to get this commission started, if we follow the recommendations of the distinguished Senator from Alaska. I ascribe to him a far greater degree of appreciation for what we are doing and a far greater degree of understanding of the need for us to act than I do some of the people downtown. But here we are being asked for a study. What I am saying is that way of dealing with Members of Congress and committees, saying, Well, we don't have that information; we will get it for you--by the time we get that information, the time is long past for the committee to ask the next question, if we need the answer to the first question in order to ask the second question. We are going to have to wait to be able to ask the second question. That is a cavalier way of handling people. I have been around here 50 years. I am on to that kind of game.

Mr. BYRD. Not yet. I am not talking about the Senator. I am talking about our distinguished Secretary of Defense and the way he handles us children on the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. BYRD. The Senator can wait a minute. Mr. President, I have the floor. I have the floor.

Mr. BYRD. Now I yield to the Senator for whatever he wishes to say.

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his statement in support of the amendment and also for his overly gracious and charitable statement at the beginning of his remarks concerning my previous efforts in regard to the whole question of Iraq. I am hoping other Senators will speak on the amendment, but in the meantime I say that soldiers whom we are using in our National Guard and Reserve are entitled to fairness. They are entitled to know how long their tour of duty will extend. After all, we were told that our men and women would be welcomed not as occupiers but as liberators. We were told that our men and women would be welcomed with flowers and smiles. Our men and women in the Reserve components are beginning to wonder if they were misled. We are using our National Guard and Reserve in a way which is unfair to them and to their families. We cannot ask them to wait for some study now while they bide their time. It is not their fault that the White House decided to wage a war without considering the aftermath in Iraq. It is not their fault that a policy of preemption may demand many more troops than we can muster. We need to give our Guard and Reserve some relief from the turmoil of being constantly deployed. We owe them more than a study. We owe them action. If this amendment were accepted, it would push the administration to internationalize the peacekeeping in Iraq. I hope other nations will join in keeping the peace in Iraq so that our own guardsmen and reservists will be relieved and will be able to come home. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BYRD. That is right. What the Senator has been quoting isn't included either. They don't include the cost of the war.

Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRD. Yes.

Mr. BYRD. Well, it suggests we are going down the wrong path when the President of the United States leads our country into war, leads our men and women into war, based on evidence that is supposed to have been developed by another country's agencies, that evidence not being substantiated by our own intelligence agencies. So it is very evident we were just grasping for a straw to hang our hats on. I happen to believe that this administration intended from the beginning to go to war in Iraq, that this administration intended from the beginning to invade Iraq. How many times has the Senator from Florida heard the President say, with reference to the U.N., ``If you don't do it, we will. If you don't do it, we will''? They were not waiting on the U.N. to come along. We already had our minds made up to go into Iraq. And anybody who heard Karl Rove or read about Karl Rove's statement to the National Republican Committee--in January of last year, I believe it was, yes--when he indicated to the National Republican Committee that: this homeland security horse was the one we could ride to victory politically on, and that the national Republican efforts should make, as its center strategy, the subject of homeland security-- it was evident to me they were going to ride that horse to the utmost until the horse dropped or got across the victory goal line in the election.

Mr. BYRD. And I think it was a misuse. It is a misuse. It is just an effort now, as they look back, to cover their skirts because it is clear, so far as the evidence thus far is concerned, that there was no such uranium coming from Africa. That was virtually a fictitious thing, and our people knew it. They knew it in October of last year, as the Senator has pointed out.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, my thanks to the senior Senator from Illinois who has added his voice and his vote in support of his conscience on this matter.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished leader. Amendment No. 1174

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, on August 22, 1920, an article written by former LTC Thomas Edward Lawrence appeared in one of the great newspapers of London, the Sunday Times. This legendary British military officer--better known as Lawrence of Arabia--began his commentary with a sharp warning about his country's occupation of ancient lands in the Middle East: The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Colonel Lawrence concluded with an equally sharp question: How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators? Mr. President, it seems that history does have a way of repeating itself. These were the observations some 83 years ago of a British soldier who had studied the history of the Middle East, fought alongside Arabs in the Great War, and understood the anger of those who lived under the administration of a distant power. How prescient were those words--then and now. His observations, which might have been considered academic in the months before U.S. and British troops began their recent advance into Iraq, now appear, as I say, prescient. As violence in the streets of Baghdad increases, as our troops are being killed and wounded by guerrilla attacks, as progress toward creating a new Iraqi Government stagnates, the American public is only just now beginning to come to grips with the enormity of the task that we have before us in Iraq. A clear picture had never been painted for the American public by the ``powers that be.'' Oh, we heard rosy scenarios about instant liberty and flowers to the troops. The Vice President talked about flowers that would be bestowed upon our troops by those people in Iraq who would be liberated by us, the liberators. That was the talk of the day. But now reality has emerged and it is harsh. And seeing the enormity--the enormity, I say--of the task before us and the increasing dangers to the loved ones who serve in uniform, the American people out there who are watching this Senate forum are beginning to ask, How long must our troops remain in those distant hot sands? How long? They are asking that in the mail I receive from the people back home. How long must they patrol the dangerous streets of Najaf and Fallujah? When will our troops be coming home? Weeks ago, the President gave vague assurances about the timely withdrawal of our troops. He said: We will stay as long as necessary to get the job done, and then we will leave. Those were his remarks at Santa Clara, CA, on May 2 of this year. But I say, Mr. President, such words are without substance; they are ``doublespeak.'' They do nothing but feed the hopes of the American people, as well as the people of Iraq, that our troops will soon return from Iraq, while avoiding any real indication of when that might happen. The fact is, the Bush administration has carefully avoided telling the American people when it expects our occupation of Iraq to conclude. So far, this administration has yet to even estimate how soon it will be able to hand over Iraq to the Iraqi people. In short, it appears that we have no exit strategy, and we have had none from the beginning. The word ``quagmire'' is starting to be used by the media. Clearly, many people are very worried about our situation in Iraq. The death toll keeps mounting. Last week, the President actually taunted those forces who are murdering our troops in the streets of Iraq. He dared the violent militants by saying: ``Bring 'em on.'' One can hardly think of a more inappropriate comment for a President to make when Americans are under siege in Iraq and being asked to deal with the treacheries of urban guerrilla warfare with no end in sight. Chest thumping should have no place in such a situation. This was the same President who went to the trouble to put on a flight suit, land on an aircraft carrier, and with great fanfare tell the American people that major combat operations in Iraq have ended, while overhead there was a banner stream which said: ``Mission accomplished.'' But British and American soldiers are still dying in Iraq. Now the President is saying: ``Bring 'em on.'' What are we to believe? The President has backed away from earlier suggestions of a foreseeable end to U.S. peacekeeping efforts in Iraq. He warns of the return of tyranny if our troops begin returning home. Judging by the President's statements, our armed forces have become the thumb in the dike--the only obstacle that prevents the return of a repressive dictatorship in Iraq. How did it come to this? Members of Congress were told that our forces would be greeted as liberators. We will be going in not as occupiers but as liberators. Iraqi citizens were supposed to eagerly embrace democracy and serve up Saddam Hussein on a silver platter the moment they sipped from the cup of freedom. We should have known that the burden of democratizing Iraq would be no easy task. The Administration should have been more forthcoming about the difficulty of that task, about the time it would take to execute it, and about the cost to the taxpayer. To be sure, the Defense Department is now scrambling to scrape up as many as 20,000 foreign troops to join our forces in occupying Iraq by the end of September. I applaud these efforts. But it would be folly to believe that a deployment of 10,000, 20,000, or even 30,000 foreign troops would significantly reduce the dangers to the scores of thousands of Americans who are now in Iraq. The failure of this Administration to adequately plan for postwar Iraq has become painfully evident. Before the war, I said: Where is the plan? What is the plan? At yesterday's Armed Services Committee hearing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he did not know if the United States had made any formal request for assistance from NATO or the United Nations since the beginning of the war in Iraq. The deployment of experienced peacekeepers from our friends and allies would go a long way to relieving the strain on our troops. And, Mr. President, it is simply shocking that our Secretary of Defense would be unaware of efforts by the administration, if there are any, to make a formal request to NATO and the United Nations to provide these troops. The tragic failure of the Administration's efforts to build international support before launching its impatient rush towards war against Iraq is now bearing its bitter, bitter fruit. The Secretary of Defense tells the Senate Armed Services Committee to be patient. Well, the administration was not all that patient before launching its rush toward war against Iraq. The difficulty in finding just 20,000 peacekeepers to patrol Iraq is evidence that White House efforts to assemble 49 nations into a ``coalition of the willing'' was merely an exercise in rhetoric, meant to cover the lack of significant military or financial contributions from dozens of nations, save for those of Britain, Australia, and Poland. Has the lack of a plan for postwar Iraq needlessly cost American lives? If we had not been so convinced that Iraqis would greet our armies with flowers and smiles, could we have better anticipated the chaos and lawlessness that broke out in the days after the war? If we had not been so cocksure about our ability to neatly decapitate the leadership of the Iraqi regime, could we have fashioned a better plan to deal with the collapse of civil order as our tanks rolled into Baghdad? Perhaps this White House should have listened to the advice of some senior military leaders who foresaw the need for several hundred thousand troops to stabilize postwar Iraq. Perhaps it should have contemplated the consequences of a Saddam Hussein driven into hiding but still potent and dangerous. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. The Administration appears quite ready now to dedicate our military to a long-term occupation of Iraq. War-weary soldiers will continue to patrol the areas around Baghdad. The citizen-soldiers of the National Guard and the Reserves will be kept from returning to their homes, their jobs, and their families. Senators, read your correspondence from back home. See what those families of guardsmen are saying. Read your letters. You are receiving them. My office is not unique in that respect. The citizen-soldiers of the National Guard and the Reserves will be kept from returning to their homes, their jobs, and their families. Thousands of American families will continue to worry about the fate of their loved ones. Ah, the sleepless nights that are spent by mothers, by wives, by husbands of guardsmen who have already been in Iraq for weeks and weeks and who are not told when they will be coming home but were told we will be there for a long time. Think of the tears that are spilled by mothers and wives and children for the husbands, the sons, the fathers who are away and who are not told when they will be coming home. And in spite of the heavy commitment that this Administration has made to the most ambitious policy of nation-building in more than half a century, it appears to be on the verge of sending unknown numbers of U.S. troops to yet another peacekeeping mission in Liberia. In my home state, there is a growing sense of disenchantment with these foreign adventures. Every day, more letters come to my office from West Virginians asking when their family members will be coming home. How long will it be? How long must we wait? When will they be coming home? My letters contain details about National Guard and Army Reserve units with unclear missions and open-ended deployments. I have received word that some units are without mail service--we are not told that by this administration--others must wait weeks between phone calls home to their families. One unit had to ration water to just 20 ounces per day because of supply shortages. I suspect that other Senators are experiencing a similar phenomenon in the content of their mail from families of the Guard and Reserve. These part-time soldiers are proud to serve in our nation's military, but they know that they are also full-time members of their communities. Our nation's reservists have important duties in their civilian lives, serving their cities and towns as police officers, business men and women, doctors, teachers, and laborers. Members of the Guard and Reserves proudly joined to serve their country in times of crisis, and they have demonstrated that pride and done well, but not to be a permanent constabulary force in the Middle East. Nobody told them that. Our brave and professional fighting men and women are awesome on the battlefield, but they must not be expected to carry out the role of peacekeepers or nation-builders in an open-ended mission, whether it take place in Lebanon, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Liberia, or Iraq. Our American soldiers are not Iraqi bureaucrats. Our Armed Forces are trained to win wars, not run countries. Putting our men and women in such an untenable situation is a misuse of our military and a disservice to our military personnel. This Administration should think hard about whether we have the manpower--do we?--to sustain a large commitment of troops in Iraq for the long term. They better think about it. We currently have overseas commitments in South Korea, Japan, the Balkans, and Afghanistan. I have heard we have our military forces spread so thinly around the world, in 136 countries, I recently saw. Keeping tens or hundred of thousands of troops in Iraq for as many as ten years may demand more troops than our voluntary armed forces can muster. Think about it. This Administration should think hard about whether we have the money to single-handedly pay for the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. The Department of Defense has reported that we are spending $3.9 billion each month to occupy Iraq. That is a billion dollars a week. How much is a billion dollars? A billion dollars is $1 for every minute that has passed since Jesus Christ turned the water into wine in the city of Caanan. So the Department of Defense has reported that we are spending $3.9 billion a week. They had not said that until yesterday. Pulling that information from the Secretary of Defense was like pulling teeth. It was hard to do. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. President?

Mr. BYRD. My time has expired.

Mr. BYRD. Will the Senator yield briefly for an inquiry?

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. BYRD. I ask unanimous consent that upon the conclusion of the remarks by Mr. Leahy I be recognized out of order, without the time being charged against either side, on another matter.

Mr. BYRD. Not to exceed 20 minutes.

Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair and I thank the Senator.

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, earlier today I spoke about the serious threat to U.S. forces that remain engaged in a volatile situation in Iraq. The same troops that fought and won the war against Iraq are now performing a peacemaking mission with no end in sight. The United States entered this war virtually alone. But the United States, alone, cannot be expected to carry the burden of providing the vast majority of troops and the nearly endless amounts of funds that will be required to get Iraq back on its feet. We need the help of the international community, and we need it now. The administration has the obligation to look out for the welfare of our troops by engaging NATO and the United Nations in order to raise a large peacekeeping force that will share the burdens of occupation with the other nations of the world. There are many countries that have the capability to assist in a peacekeeping mission in Iraq, but first the President must make the unambiguous call to NATO and the U.N. to appeal for foreign troops and financial contributions. I compliment Senator Biden for his efforts in introducing the amendment, but the amendment only calls for the President to ``consider'' the issue of whether to appeal to NATO and the U.N. to raise an international peacekeeping force. I have very strong reservations about another provision in this amendment. The amendment states the sense of Congress that ``it is the national security interests of the United States to remain engaged in Iraq in order to ensure a peaceful, stable, unified Iraq with a representative government.'' Engaged for how long? Surely it is not in the national security interests of the United States to retain a permanent presence as a peacekeeping force in Iraq. This particular statement could well lead us down the path to mission creep. Moreover, contrary to the assertions by the President of the United States and others in his administration, I have never believed that it was in the ``national security interests'' to go to war with Iraq to begin with. Subsequent events thus far have not shown that Iraq constituted an imminent threat to the security of our country. Tragically, the American people were deceived into believing otherwise. I voted for this sense of Congress amendment because it draws attention to a critical issue, but the Senate must not wash its hands of internationalizing the occupation of Iraq by passing a nonbinding resolution which does not actually call on the President to do anything. Amendments Nos. 1193 through 1196, En Bloc, to Amendment No. 1136

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. I have none.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. In West Virginia, torrential flooding is becoming an annual event--since 1993, the State has had 11 federally declared disasters. In this year alone, the State has had two federally declared disasters. In the latest round of devastating flooding in the State last month, 12 counties were declared Federal disaster areas. Homes were damaged or destroyed, and the severe impact on the infrastructure in the southern part of the State--from roads, bridges, water and sewer, to power sources--has brought a normal way of life to a screeching halt once again.

Mr. BYRD. It is our hope that you and Senator Domenici, when drafting the Fiscal Year 04 Energy Water Development Act will be able to address these emergencies in these two States, as well as others that have experienced massive flooding in this exceptionally wet spring.

Mr. BYRD

Mr. BYRD. Madam President, on March 6, 2003, the Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the Moscow Treaty on strategic nuclear arms reductions. The 97 to 0 vote belied significant weaknesses in the treaty: it contains no verification procedures, it does not require the destruction of any warheads or missiles, and it expires on the same day that it goes into effect. Those weaknesses should not be ignored. I joined with my colleagues in voting to approve a formal treaty on U.S. and Russian arms reductions in order to send a message that more work is needed to reduce, control, and secure the most dangerous weapons that mankind has created. The Moscow Treaty is a modest step away from the Cold War threat of nuclear holocaust, but more steps need to be taken. The resolution that I offer represents the Senate's next step in pushing for more action in the control of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. I am grateful to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar, for his support of the resolution as its principal cosponsor. The Byrd-Lugar resolution urges the administration and the Russian Federation to do more to implement nonproliferation programs. The United States has a good record in working with the countries of the former Soviet Union on nonproliferation programs. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program, conceived by former Senator Sam Nunn and of Senator Richard Lugar, has an astounding record of success. That program has destroyed more than 6,000 Soviet-era nuclear weapons and more than 800 ballistic missiles. The program helped to remove all nuclear warheads from Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakstan. It has made significant progress in securing nuclear materials, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. The Byrd-Lugar resolution states the sense of the Senate on three important issues relating to U.S. non-proliferation programs. First, the resolution states clearly the strong support of the Senate for non-proliferation programs that ``are intended to reduce the threat posed by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that remain unsecured in the Russian Federation and elsewhere.'' Second, the resolution urges the Russian Federation to increase access to key weapons facilities and to share more information about its weapons programs. According to General Accounting Office testimony delivered to the House Armed Services Committee on March 5: Russia will not allow DOD [Department of Defense] and DOE [Department of Energy] the level of access they require to design security improvements [at weapons storage sites], verify their installation, and ensure their proper operation. As a result, agencies have been unable to help protect substantial portions of Russia's nuclear weapons. . . In addition, many Russian biological sites that store dangerous biological pathogens remain off-limits. (GAO testimony, 3/5/ 03, GAO-03-526T) Third, the resolution urges our country to redouble efforts to achieve full implementation of nonproliferation programs, under effective management, and with full use of the funds that Congress may appropriate for nonproliferation activities. Critics have been active in pointing out that poor management of some nonproliferation projects has resulted in wasted money and lost time. Most recently, some have leveled criticism at two projects that were intended to eliminate Russian rocket fuel. The United States spent $200 million to build two facilities to eliminate fuel that was left over from destroyed Russian missiles, only to find that the fuel was diverted into the Russian civil space program. As a result, these facilities are left with no rocket fuel to destroy. It is a very serious issue when such a great amount of money is devoted to an unsuccessful program. There is no excuse for poor planning and management. We should not lose sight of the importance of nonproliferation programs, and to ensure their success we must not ignore such examples of mismanagement. That is why the Byrd-Lugar resolution makes a point about the need for effective management in our nonproliferation programs. But just as management improvements are needed, the Executive Branch has been slow to implement nonproliferation programs. There has been delay after delay in spending funds that Congress appropriates for these projects. According to the administration's fiscal year 2004 budget, $543 million in DOD nonproliferation funds will remain unexpended this year. To put that figure in perspective, the White House has requested $439 million for these programs in its fiscal year 2004 budget. I support that request, but that money--like the half a billion dollars that remains in our coffers--will do nothing to improve our security unless it is spent by the administration. Whatever funds that Congress appropriates to nonproliferation programs should be used in a timely manner that recognizes the serious nature of the threat posed by loose nuclear weapons in Russia. The Byrd-Lugar resolution underscores the important nonproliferation tasks ahead of us by spotlighting problems that need to be addressed by the United States and Russia. Just as this resolution follows up on the Moscow Treaty, there is much more work to do after this resolution. These are matters on which the Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member, and the Foreign Relations Committee, of which Senator Lugar is chairman, should continue to work together. One issue that is particularly deserving of increased attention is expansion of non-proliferation programs to countries outside of the former Soviet Union. The supplemental appropriations bill passed by the Senate on April 3, 2003, included temporary authority for the President to spend up to $50 million in nonproliferation funds outside of the former Soviet Union during this fiscal year. Unfortunately, this provision was not included in the final version of that bill that was signed into law by the President on April 16, 2003. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency warned the Armed Services Committee on February 11 of a new nuclear arms race among smaller countries. Let us look beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union to address the heart of the growing menace of nuclear proliferation, and start thinking about how to leverage the success in Russia of the Nunn-Lugar programs into results in other countries. The Nunn-Lugar programs have greatly reduced the chance that a poorly secured Russian military facility may serve as a one-stop shop for terrorists seeking a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon. I count myself as a consistent and strong supporter of these programs. But there is much more work to do. The Moscow Treaty, which requires that thousands of nuclear warheads be removed from deployment, but not necessarily destroyed, renews the need for a cooperative program to keep these weapons out of the hands of terrorists. The Byrd-Lugar resolution sends a message to the White House and to the Kremlin that we need to fix the problems that have surfaced in the nonproliferation programs between our countries and accelerate our work to secure and destroy unneeded and unwanted weapons of mass destruction.