Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and the gentleman from Texas. I would like to say about the gentleman from Texas that he has been on the floor so many times talking about the economic future of this country and also taking about unjust…
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and the gentleman from Texas. I would like to say about the gentleman from Texas that he has been on the floor so many times talking about the economic future of this country and also taking about unjust wars.
I would like to tonight, in the few minutes I have, I would like to quote from Rudyard Kipling. It is called the Epitaphs of the War, 1914 to 1918.
Mr. Kipling at one time was a proponent of aggressive actions, but once his son was killed he seemed to change his thought, which is understandable. And I quote very quickly before I make my brief comments. ``If any question why we died, tell them because our fathers lied''.
I will leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. I think that speaks for itself. And that again was Rudyard Kipling, not me, Congressman Walter Jones from North Carolina.
Along with my friend from Texas, I can tell you that I seek the truth. I came to this floor 3\1/2\ years ago, I cast my votes to give the President the authority to commit troops to Iraq.
I came to this floor. I was not sure that I was doing the right thing, but I hoped and prayed that I was. But since that time, because I do seek the truth, as my friend from Texas said, that I want to mention to you tonight just a few facts that I have uncovered.
Let me base some of this comment tonight on people I have met with in my office person to person, such as - Carl Ford, former CIA, Paul Pillar, former CIA for 31 years, Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, General Anthony Zinni, CENTCOM Commander for 3 years, General Gregory Newbold, General John Batiste, former Colonel Karen Kwiatowski, Ray McGovern, CIA, and former Colonel Sam Gardiner, Jim Bamford, author of Pretext for War, and John Landay and Warren Strobel, writers for Knight Ridder.
Tonight I want to start my brief comments with an article written by Gregory Newbold. General Newbold is a Marine General. He was part of J- 3 at the Department of Defense prior to our going into war in Iraq. General Newbold is a very impressive man. He was a 2-star Marine General on the way to being a 3-star.
But I would like, with unanimous consent, to submit the whole article, it is a 3-page article in Time Magazine written by General Newbold, not by a writer at Time.
This is what he said in this article. ``I was a witness and therefore a party to the actions that led to the invasion of Iraq, an unnecessary war. Inside the military family I made no secret of my view that the zealots rationale for war made no sense. I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable.
But I now regret that I did not do more, openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat, al-Qaeda. I retired from the military 4 months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/ 11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now I have resisted speaking out in public. I have been silent long enough''.
Mr. Speaker, I could quote more from General Newbold's article, but the Record will show this. I do not need to read more.
It is so sad to me that so many in our military and also our CIA saw what was happening in those who wanted to go to war in Iraq, but truthfully did not have the credibility or could prove what they were saying was a fact.
Just today, as a matter of fact, my good friend and Mr. Paul's good friend from Missouri, Ike Skelton is on the floor. I assume he will speak when we finish. We held hearings today on the Armed Services Committee. He is the ranking member.
This was to, if you will, to rally about the fact that we found 500 weapons known as munitions that Senator Santorum and Representative Hoekstra were saying, oh, this shows us that there was weapons of mass destruction. It just was not true. I do not mean to discredit them, but it was not true.
These weapons, according to the experts were probably in existence from 1984 to 1991. And as a matter of fact, today at our hearing, we had a former UN inspector, David Kay, Dr. David Kay. And I quoted this during the hearing today. Mr. Kay has said, when this announcement was made 2 weeks ago, and nobody at the administration was excited about it, and said, oh, this is the secret. This is what happened. This is why we went to war.
None of that was said. And certainly I have not heard a peep, if you will from Secretary Rumsfeld. But Dr. Kay said, well, I questioned this as far as being the weapons of mass destruction. And this is what he said, and I brought this out today, later on this afternoon.
I will quote this. He said, ``They probably would have been intended for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq war'', said Dr. Kay who headed the U.S. weapons hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until 2004.
He said, ``experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in almost 100 percent agreement that Sarin nerve agents produced from the 1980s would no longer be dangerous''.
And I quote, and a quote Dr. David Kay, and I asked him about this today. And he said, yes, sir, this is what I said. ``It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point''. That is what he said.
And yet we have got those in the Congress who are just beating the drums of, this is what we are saying, this is the reason we went to war. We should never, under any circumstances, send American boys to die for this country unless we know the intelligence has been verified, verified, verified.
And I regret, and I said this Monday. I was invited by Senator Dorgan to sit on the Democratic Policy Committee's investigation of the Iraq war where they had three or four CIA agents there to testify.
And the Senator very kindly allowed me to sit at the dais. And I apologized that I did not ask the questions before we went into Iraq. I know knew better, but I did not at the time. I am not smarter, Mr. Speaker, but I am wiser, much wiser.
But I said today, as Frank Gaffney who was on the panel with Dr. Taylor, former UN inspector, and also Dr. David Kay. And Mr. Gaffney was saying, well, you know what we need to do is we need to get the President to speak more about the potential threat and this and that.
And I said, well, the problem is trust. The American people have to trust the Congress. They have to trust the administration, be it Democrat or Republican. I said to Mr. Gaffney, I said, I assume that an article in the London Times and the New York Times must be accurate, because I have heard no one dispute it, because if it is true, I would want to demand that I get 8 o'clock national TV to say this is not right, I will not accept it.
But this is what was said, just two quick points. This is by David Manning, who was Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy advisor at the time. Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush were meeting. This is about 6 months before we went into Iraq. And this is what Mr. Manning says, ``our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning''.
He further stated, ``that at one point during this discussion between Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush, that it was said that Mr. Bush suggested that the U.S. might be able to have a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, colored in the UN colors, followed by American fighters and fly it over Iraq and maybe Saddam Hussein would shoot it down. And if Saddam Hussein fired on them it would be a breach''.
He further stated that, ``maybe it would be possible to get someone to come in and testify that, yes, he has got weapons of mass destruction''.
Mr. Speaker, I bring this forward, I do not delight in challenging the administration. But I will tell you that when I go to Walter Reed, like many of my colleagues, both sides, and I never will forget a soldier 4 weeks ago, I was there with Wayne Gilchrest, Mr. Gilchrest, a Member of Congress, was a Vietnam veteran. And he was wounded in Vietnam and spent 4 months at Walter Reed.
And we went to Walter Reed, and it was kind of nice to me, I am not a veteran, and for me to be able to say to the wounded, this is a Member of Congress, who like yourself spent 4 months in Walter Reed. He was wounded in
Vietnam fighting for his country. He is a Marine.
But I never will forget the fellow, Luke, and then I will yield back to the gentleman from Texas before we close. We were standing there and Luke's mom, Luke is from Florida, I do not have permission to use his last name so I will not use it.
Luke's mom and dad were there. We met them and shook hands. And Luke's mom never stopped crying. And she would not--it was just tears. It was not boo-hoo. But tears. So we talked to Luke. And Luke said, when we got ready to finish, and his girlfriend by the way, he is engaged now with a ring on her hand, he introduced us.
We got ready to leave. He said, Congressman, can I ask you a question? And we said certainly. He said, who is responsible for the stop loss program, where our men and women in uniform who have served their time in Iraq and Afghanistan are extended because of the fact that we are really short on replacements, to be honest about it.
And we said, the Department of Defense. They have the authority. He said, will you do me a favor when you go back to Congress? He said, I am just a sergeant. He said, tell them two or three things for me. We said, certainly. He said, first of all, my very best friend was killed 3 months after he was extended.
He said I was on my third tour of duty. He pulled the sheets down. His legs are gone, both legs are gone. He said, Congressman, my humble opinion is whether you are there 10 days or 10 years, you are not going to change the people of Iraq. It is a different culture. It is a different country.
Whether Luke will be right on that or wrong, I do not know. But why I am here tonight with my friend from Texas is that I have always regretted, since I voted for the resolution, because I should have asked more questions. I should have been more inquisitive. But I was not.
And I do have a pain. I have signed over 8,000 pieces of paper to families in this country. There have been over 2,500 killed. And when you factor in their extended families, we have signed over 8,000 pages. It requires, it is a two-page letter. It requires my signature on one page and the second page also.
I have done that because my heart aches, the fact that I did not question. And yet, I want this Congress, both Democrat and Republican, as my friend from Texas said just a few minutes ago, we have an oversight responsibility to say how and why were we given information that was not credible?
Why were we given intelligence that had not been verified three times before we sent American kids to give their life and their limbs for this country.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield back to the gentleman from Texas and thank him for giving me a few minutes to share my thoughts with the American people, and to say that I will continue, Congressman Paul, to seek the truth. Because this democracy will not survive unless the American people know the truth. Whether it is good or bad, we must know the truth. Thank you, sir.
[From Time Magazine, Apr. 9, 2006]
Why Iraq Was a Mistake
(By Lieut. General Greg Newbold (Ret.))
Two senior military officers are known to have challenged
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfe1d on the planning of the Iraq
war. Army General Eric Shinseki publicly dissented and found
himself marginalized. Marine Lieut. General Greg Newbold, the
Pentagon's top operations officer, voiced his objections
internally and then retired, in part out of opposition to the
war. Here, for the first time, Newbold goes public with a
full-throated critique:
In 1971, the rock group The Who released the antiwar anthem
``Won't Get Fooled Again.'' To most in my generation, the
song conveyed a sense of betrayal by the nation's leaders,
who had led our country into a costly and unnecessary war in
Vietnam. To those of us who were truly counterculture--who
became career members of the military during those rough
times--the song conveyed a very different message. To us, its
lyrics evoked a feeling that we must never again stand by
quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us
into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it. Never
again, we thought, would our military's senior leaders remain
silent as American troops were marched off to an ill-
considered engagement. It's 35 years later, and the judgment
is in: the Who had it wrong. We have been fooled again.
From 2000 until October 2002, I was a Marine Corps
lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. After 9/11, I was a witness and therefore a
party to the actions that led us to the invasion of Iraq--an
unnecessary war. Inside the military family, I made no secret
of my view that the zealots' rationale for war made no sense.
And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me
uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly
challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose
actions were peripheral to the real threat--al-Qaeda. I
retired from the military four months before the invasion, in
part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's
tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have
resisted speaking out in public. I've been silent long
enough.
I am driven to action now by the missteps and misjudgments
of the White House and the Pentagon, and by my many painful
visits to our military hospitals. In those places, I have
been both inspired and shaken by the broken bodies but
unbroken spirits of soldiers, Marines and corpsmen returning
from this war. The cost of flawed leadership continues to
be paid in blood. The willingness of our forces to
shoulder such a load should make it a sacred obligation
for civilian and military leaders to get our defense
policy right. They must be absolutely sure that the
commitment is for a cause as honorable as the sacrifice.
With the encouragement of some still in positions of
military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in
uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those
who can't--or don't--have the opportunity to speak. Enlisted
members of the armed forces swear their oath to those
appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a
person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important.
Before the antiwar banners start to unfurl, however, let me
make clear--I am not opposed to war. I would gladly have
traded my general's stars for a captain's bars to lead our
troops into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
And while I don't accept the stated rationale for invading
Iraq, my view--at the moment--is that a precipitous
withdrawal would be a mistake. It would send a signal, heard
around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists' message
that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances
of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to
govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to
change my position.
I will admit my own prejudice: my deep affection and
respect are for those who volunteer to serve our nation and
therefore shoulder, in those thin ranks, the nation's most
sacred obligation of citizenship. To those of you who don't
know, our country has never been served by a more competent
and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that ``we'' made
the ``right strategic decisions'' but made thousands of
``tactical errors'' is an outrage. It reflects an effort to
obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for
failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The
truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic
guidance they receive, not because of it.
What we are living with now is the consequences of
successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the
distortion of intelligence in the buidup to the war,
McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from
having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain
and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell
civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the
heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies
who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq,
and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our
government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense
Department. My sincere view is that the commitment of our
forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger
that are the special province of those who have never had to
execute these missions--or bury the results.
Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the
Pentagon's military leaders is quite another. Those are men
who know the hard consequences of war but, with few
exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently
needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed,
saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war,
or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times
crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who
wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior
officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were
simply intimidated, while still others must have believed
that the principle of obedience does not allow for
respectful dissent. The consequence of the military's
quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was
executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real
enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.
There have been exceptions, albeit uncommon, to the rule of
silence among military leaders. Former Army Chief of Staff
General Shinseki, when challenged to offer his professional
opinion during prewar congressional testimony, suggested that
more troops might be needed for the invasion's aftermath. The
Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense castigated him in
public and marginalized him in his remaining months in his
post. Army GEN John Abizaid, head of Central Command, has
been forceful in his views with appointed officials on
strategy and micromanagement of the fight in
Iraq--often with success. Marine Commandant GEN Mike Hagee
steadfastly challenged plans to underfund, understaff and
underequip his service as the Corps has struggled to sustain
its fighting capability.
To be sure, the Bush Administration and senior military
officials are not alone in their culpability. Members of
Congress--from both parties--defaulted in fulfilling their
constitutional responsibility for oversight. Many in the
media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before
the invasion from wise observers like former Central Command
chiefs Joe Hoar and Tony Zinni but gave insufficient weight
to their views. These are the same news organizations that
now downplay both the heroic and the constructive in Iraq.
So what is to be done? We need fresh ideas and fresh faces.
That means, as a first step, replacing Rumsfeld and many
others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach. The
troops in the Middle East have performed their duty. Now we
need people in Washington who can construct a unified
strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our
Nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising
on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve
it. It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution
in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears
them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.