Senator Patrick Leahy’s Initial Question

For Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

At The Hearing

By The Senate Appropriations Committee’s

Subcommittee On Defense

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Mr. Secretary, yesterday in Iraq an American citizen was brutally murdered by al Qaeda.  Not long ago, the burned, dismembered corpses of murdered Americans were hung from a bridge by jubilant Iraqis.  Each of these brave Americans was there to help rebuild that country.  These despicable acts graphically illustrate, once again the depravity and determination of the enemy we face. 

The question is how to stop it.

I know you both are sorry about the Iraqi prison scandal.  It is the first time, in this long, protracted, disastrous policy that I have heard any Administration official express regret about ANY mistake.

As disturbing as these prison abuses are, they are part of a much bigger picture.

Here are a few things I am sorry about:

        I am sorry that someone in the Administration “gave currency to a fraud,” to quote George Will, by putting in the President’s 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

        I am sorry that this administration repeatedly, insistently and unrelentingly justified pre-emptive war by insisting that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction but was hell-bent on using them against us and our allies.

        I am sorry about Administration officials, led by Vice President Cheney, repeatedly trying to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11, though there never WAS any link – NONE -- to build public support for the war.

        I am sorry that truth tellers in this administration – like General Shinseki and Lawrence Lindsay – were hounded out of their jobs because they had the temerity to suggest realistic estimates for the number of soldiers and amount of money it would take to do the job right in Iraq.

        I am sorry that there was no real plan, despite a year long, $5 million effort by the State Department, to deal with the widespread looting that greeted our soldiers once Saddam had fallen, setting back reconstruction efforts by months or years, and leaving open the gates to stockpiles of weapons and ammunition that have been used with deadly results against our soldiers. 

        I am sorry about the President flying onto the aircraft carrier and declaring “mission  accomplished” – when in fact, the worst of it was ahead.

        I am sorry that two months later, President Bush  taunted Iraqi resistance fighters to “Bring it on” while our troops were still in harm’s way, fending off ambushes and roadside attacks every day and every night. 

        I am sorry that some of our closest allies and friends, like Mexico and Canada, and yes, even those countries you called “Old Europe,” were belittled and alienated because they disagreed with our strategy of pre-emptive war – countries whose diplomatic and intelligence and military support we so desperately need today.

        And I’m sorry that those who tried to find the truth about allegations of prison abuse – in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo – were ignored or brushed off for more than a year, until, finally, the imminent publication of those lurid photographs made apologists of the whole Administration.

        Last October 13^th, in your memo entitled “Global War on Terrorism,” you asked, “Are we capturing, killing or dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?”

        Mr. Secretary, you and the President have called Iraq the main front in the war against terrorism.  It certainly didn’t used to be, but now al Qaeda is there summarily executing innocent Americans.  Are our mistakes in Iraq sowing the seeds for a whole new crop of terrorists, in Iraq and also in other countries?  How do you answer the question you posed last October, today?

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