Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
Appropriations Committee Hearing
Fiscal Year 2004 Supplemental Request For Iraq Reconstruction
September 22, 2003

Mr. Chairman, I welcome Ambassador Bremer.  After President Bush, he probably has the hardest job in the Federal Government.  We appreciate the efforts he is making under extremely dangerous and difficult conditions.

Mr. Bremer, I am glad you are here.  I also want to thank your office and OMB for the detailed justification materials you sent up with this Supplemental request.

I don’t know whether, after this bill is written, I will vote for or against this Supplemental, but I want to use my time to make this point:  The President has gotten us into a costly and dangerous situation in Iraq.  We are at a crucial juncture.  American lives, resources, and credibility are on the line.  The next twelve months will have lasting consequences for decades.

We need straight talk and candid answers.

Since the fall of Baghdad, practically everything the White House and the Pentagon predicted about Iraq has turned out to be wrong. 

Yet you would hardly know it from listening to officials in Washington who give evasive and overly-optimistic assessments, or who question the patriotism of those who are not satisfied with empty rhetoric.  We get a very different picture from those who are out working in the field with the Iraqi people.

Vice President Cheney said Saddam Hussein had reconstituted nuclear weapons. 

No weapons of mass destruction have yet been found. 

Last week President Bush conceded there was no link between Saddam and 9/11. 

Vice President Cheney said our troops would be treated as liberators.  I am sure that most Iraqis are grateful that we removed Saddam Hussein.  But it is clear the Iraqi people increasingly don’t want us there.  

A New York Times article last week, entitled “Iraqis’ Bitterness Is Called Bigger Threat Than Terror,” described this growing problem. 

Mr. Ambassador, you may disagree with that. 

But it is hard to overlook such warnings when our soldiers – who have performed so bravely and so admirably – are ambushed and killed.  There also seems to be increasing jubilation in the streets, and apparently not just by the remnants of Saddam’s regime. 

Then, there is the issue of cost.  Five months ago we passed a Wartime Supplemental with $2.5 billion for reconstruction in Iraq.  At the time we were told that was all that U.S. taxpayers would be asked for this year.  That, we have learned, was a gross miscalculation.

Former OMB Director Mitch Daniels said the total cost could be between $50 and $60 billion.  Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said, quote, “We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.  The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years.”

We now know those predictions were wildly off the mark.  When they saw the $87 billion price tag, it gave many Americans sticker shock and awe.  It also has had that effect here in the Congress.  

Counting this Supplemental, we will spend more than $100 billion in the first year to rebuild Iraq.  And it is clear that the Administration will be back for many more tens of billions of dollars before next year is out. 

We don’t have this money in the bank.  It is red ink.  We are headed for a $1 trillion deficit, which will fall squarely on the backs of our children and grandchildren.

Not to mention the harm that fiscal irresponsibility of this magnitude would bring to our current economy, or to our other national priorities – our schools, our health care, or our ability to fix Medicare and Social Security, for instance. 

One of the reasons many of us disagreed with the Administration’s decision to attack Iraq without the support of the United Nations is that it would be far harder to rebuild Iraq on our own. 

It would have been far better if the Administration had not alienated our allies through arrogance, or snubbed Mexico and Canada, only to find ourselves needing their support today.

The President, and other members of his Administration, have not explained how this Supplemental will turn things around, transfer power to the Iraqis, and start bringing our soldiers home.

We are told that the security problems will be solved by rebuilding the Iraqi Army, but that will take years, as we have seen in Afghanistan where crime and violence today are on the rise.

I worry that our soldiers and relief workers will continue to die, attempts to rebuild will continue to be thwarted by saboteurs, and the Iraqi people’s support will continue to erode.

It is a long, long road from the Iraqi Governing Council to a viable democracy.  Even if that is possible – and it is a big if – guess who is going to be there until the job is done.  We are.  Our soldiers.  Our aid workers.  Our diplomats.  Our money.

We need to know when the Iraqis can take control of their country.  We need to know how much it may cost, how long it may take, and how many American troops may be needed in the years to come.  

We cannot continue to drift along, spending more than $1 billion a week, with no plan, no timetable, every week another four or five Americans killed or wounded, and the growing resentment of the Iraqi people.

It is long past time to abandon the same old ‘go it alone’ strategy that has squandered – on wholesale magnitudes – the goodwill and the tangible support of the international community.  We need to get the international community to work with us, so we can bring our soldiers home sooner rather than later.

Ambassador Bremer, I hope you won’t take my criticisms personally.  You inherited a policy without a strategy, and we want to help you succeed. 

# # # # #