- By US Senator Robert Byrd
- Senate Floor Remarks
- November 3, 2003
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- Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate
debated whether to grant final Congressional approval to the President's
$87 billion funding request for the military and Iraqi reconstruction:
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- The Iraq supplemental conference report before the Senate
today has been widely described as a victory for President Bush. If hardball
politics and lock-step partisanship are the stuff of which victory is made,
then I suppose the assessments are accurate. But if reasoned discourse,
integrity, and accountability are the measures of true victory, then this
package falls far short of the mark.
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- In the end, the President wrung virtually every important
concession he sought from the House-Senate conference committee. Key provisions
that the Senate had debated extensively, voted on, and included in its
version of the bill - such as providing half of the Iraq reconstruction
funding in the form of loans instead of grants - were thrown overboard
in the conference agreement. Senators who had made compelling arguments
on the Senate floor only days earlier to limit American taxpayers' liability
by providing some of the Iraq reconstruction aid in the form of loans suddenly
reversed their position in conference and bowed to the power of the presidency.
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- Before us today is a massive $87 billion supplemental
appropriations package that commits this nation to a long and costly occupation
and reconstruction of Iraq, and yet the collective wisdom of the House
and Senate appropriations conference that produced it was little more than
a shadow play, choreographed to stifle dissent and rubber stamp the President's
request.
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- Perhaps this take-no-prisoners approach is how the President
and his advisers define victory, but I fear they are fixated on the muscle
of the politics instead of the wisdom of the policy. The fact of the matter
is, when it comes to policy, the Iraq supplemental is a monument to failure.
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- Consider, for example, that before the war, the President's
policy advisers assured the American people that Iraq would largely be
able to finance its own reconstruction through oil revenues, seized assets,
and increased economic productivity. The $18 billion in this supplemental
earmarked for the reconstruction of Iraq is testament to the fallacy of
that prediction. It is the American taxpayer, not the Iraqi oil industry,
that is being called upon to shoulder the financial burden of rebuilding
Iraq.
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- The international community, on which the Administration
pinned such hope for helping in the reconstruction of Iraq, has collectively
ponied up only $13 billion, and the bulk of those pledges, $9 billion,
is in the form of loans or credits, not grants. But still, the President
claims victory for arm-twisting Congress into reversing itself on the question
of loans and providing the entire $18 billion in U.S. tax dollars in the
form of outright grants to Iraq. I readily admit that how this convoluted
logic can be construed as a victory for the President is beyond me.
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- But reconstruction is only part of the story. On May
1, the President stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln - - strategically
postured beneath a banner that declared "Mission Accomplished"
- - and pronounced the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
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- Since that day, however, more American military personnel
have been killed in Iraq than were killed during the major combat phase
of the war. According to the Defense Department, 376 American troops have
been killed to date in Iraq, and nearly two-thirds of those deaths - 238
- have occurred since May 1. When President Bush uttered the unwise challenge,
"Bring 'em on" on July 2, the enemy did indeed "bring them
on", and with a vengeance! Since the President made that comment,
more than 165 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. And as the death
toll mounts, it has become clear that the enemy intends to keep on "bringing
'em on."
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- The $66 billion in this supplemental, required to continue
the U.S. military occupation of Iraq over the next year, and the steadily
rising death toll, are testament to the utter hollowness of the President's
declaration aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and the careless bravado of
his challenge to "bring 'em on".
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- It has been said many times on the floor of this Senate
that a vote for this supplemental is a vote for our troops in Iraq. The
implication is that a vote against the supplemental is a vote against our
troops. I find that twisted logic to be both irrational and offensive.
To my mind, backing a flawed policy with a flawed appropriations bill hurts
our troops in Iraq more than it helps them. Endorsing and funding a policy
that does nothing to relieve American troops in Iraq is not, in my opinion,
a "support the troops" measure. Our troops in Iraq and elsewhere
in the world have no stronger advocate than Robert C. Byrd. I support our
troops, I pray for their safety, and I will continue to fight for a coherent
policy that brings real help - not just longer deployments and empty sloganeering
- to American forces in Iraq. The supplemental package before us does nothing
to internationalize the occupation of Iraq and, therefore, it is not --
I say NOT -- a vote "for our troops" in Iraq
- . We had a chance, in the beginning, to win international
consensus on dealing with Iraq, but the Administration squandered that
opportunity when the President gave the back of his hand to the United
Nations and preemptively invaded Iraq. Under this Administration's Iraq
policy - endorsed in the President's so-called victory on this supplemental
- it is American troops who are walking the mean streets of Baghdad and
American troops who are succumbing in growing numbers to a common and all
too deadly cocktail of anti-American bombs and bullets in Iraq.
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- The terrible violence in Iraq on Sunday - the deaths
of 16 soldiers in the downing of an American helicopter, the killing of
another soldier in a bomb attack, and the deaths of two American civilian
contractors in a mine explosion - is only the latest evidence that the
Administration's lack of post-war planning for Iraq is producing an erratic,
chaotic situation on the ground with little hope for a quick turnaround.
We appear to be lurching from one assault on our troops to the next while
making little if any headway in stabilizing or improving security in the
country.
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- The failure to secure the vast stockpiles of deadly conventional
weapons in Iraq - including shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles such
as the one that may have brought down the U.S. helicopter on Sunday - is
one of many mistakes that the Administration made that is coming back to
haunt us today. But perhaps the biggest mistake, the costliest mistake
- following the colossal mistake of launching a preemptive attack on Iraq
- - is the Administration's failure to have a clearly defined mission and
exit strategy for Iraq.
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- The President continues to insist that the United States
will persevere in its mission in Iraq, that our resolve is unshakable.
But it is time - past time - for the President to tell the American people
exactly what that mission is, how he intends to accomplish it, and what
his exit strategy is for American troops in Iraq. It is the American people
who will ultimately decide how long we will stay in Iraq.
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- It is not enough for the President to maintain that the
United States will not be driven out of Iraq by the increasing violence
against American soldiers. He must also demonstrate leadership by presenting
the American people with a plan to stem the freewheeling violence in Iraq,
return the government of that country to the Iraqi people, and pave the
way for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. We do not now have
such a plan, and the supplemental conference report before us does not
provide such a plan. The $87 billion in this appropriations bill provides
the wherewithal for the United States to stay the course in Iraq when what
we badly need is a course correction. The President owes the American people
an exit strategy for Iraq, and it is time for him to deliver. I have great
respect and affection for my fellow Senators and my colleagues on the Senate
Appropriations Committee. But I have even greater respect and affection
for the institution of the Senate and the Const
- itution by which it was established.
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- Every Senator, upon taking office, swears an oath to
support and defend the Constitution. It is the Constitution - not the President,
not a political party, but the Constitution - to which Senators swear an
oath of loyalty. And I am here to tell you that neither the Constitution
nor the American people are well served by a process and a product that
are based on blind adherence to the will of the President at the expense
of congressional checks and balances. It is as if, in a rush to support
the President's policy, this White House is prepared to put blinders on
the Congress.
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- This supplemental spending bill is a case in point. One
of the earliest amendments that was defeated on the Senate floor was one
that I offered to hold back a portion of the reconstruction money and give
the Senate a second vote on whether to release it. Apparently, the President
and his supporters did not want to give the Senate an opportunity to review
the progress - or lack of progress - in Iraq and have a second chance to
debate the wisdom of spending billions of taxpayers' dollars on the reconstruction
effort.
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- Time after time, the conference committee was given opportunities
to restore or impose accountability on the administration for the money
being appropriated in the Iraq supplemental. And time after time, the conference
majority beat back those measures. The conferees, for example, defeated,
on a party line vote, an amendment I offered which would have required
that the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq be confirmed
by the Senate. Senate confirmation would have ensured that the person who
is managing tens of billions of dollars in Iraq for the American taxpayers
would be accountable to the public. The current appointee, L. Paul Bremer
III, is not. He answers to the Secretary of Defense and the President,
not to Congress or the American people.
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- The conferees approved a provision creating an inspector
general for the Coalition Provisional Authority, but I am dismayed that
this individual is not subject to Senate confirmation. I am dismayed that
the conferees defeated my amendment that would have required the inspector
general to testify before Congress when invited. And I am dismayed that
the President can refuse to send Congress the results of the inspector
general's work. Could it be that the President's supporters in Congress
are afraid to hear what the inspector general might tell them? Could it
be that the President's supporters in Congress would rather blindly follow
the President instead of risking reality by opening their eyes to what
could be uncomfortable facts?
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- The conference also stripped out my amendment to the
Senate bill that would have required the General Accounting Office to conduct
ongoing audits of the expenditure of taxpayer dollars for the reconstruction
of Iraq. On the Senate floor, my amendment requiring such audits was adopted
97 to 0. In the House-Senate conference, it was defeated by the Senate
conferees on a 15 to 14 straight-line party vote.
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- Sprinkled throughout the Iraq supplemental conference
report, provisions euphemistically described as "flexibilities"
give the President broad authority to take the money appropriated by Congress
in this bill and spend it however he wishes. I tried to eliminate or limit
these flexibilities - and in a few cases succeeded - but there remain billions
of dollars in this measure that can be spent at the discretion of the President
or the Secretary of Defense. Although the money is appropriated by Congress,
these so-called "flexibilities" effectively transfer the power
of the purse from the Legislative Branch to the Executive Branch.
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- The dictionary definition of victory is simple and straightforward:
success, conquest, triumph. Within the constraints of that simplistic definition,
I suppose one could construe this package to be a victory for the President.
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- But I believe there is a moral undercurrent to the notion
of victory that is not reflected in the dictionary definition. I believe
that most Americans equate victory more closely with what is right than
with simply winning. It is one thing to win, and the tactics be damned;
it is quite another to be victorious. Victory implies doing what is right;
doing what is right implies morality; morality implies standards of conduct.
I do not include arm-twisting and intimidation in my definition of exemplary
standards of conduct.
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- Moreover, we should not forget that not all victories
are created equal. In 280 BC, Pyrrhus, the ruler of Epirus in Northern
Greece, took his formidable armies to Italy and defeated the Romans at
Heraclea, and again at Asculum in 279 BC, but suffered unbearably heavy
losses. "One more such victory and I am lost," he said.
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- It is to Pyrrhus that we owe the term "pyrrhic victory,"
to describe a victory so costly as to be ruinous. This supplemental, and
the policy which it supports, unfortunately, may prove to be a pyrrhic
victory for the Bush Administration.
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- The conference report before the Senate today is a flawed
agreement that was produced by political imperative, not by reasoned policy
considerations. This is not a good bill for our troops in Iraq. This is
not a good bill for American taxpayers. This is not good policy for the
United States.
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- Victory is not always about winning. Sometimes, victory
is simply about being right. This conference report does not reflect the
right policy for Iraq or the right policy for America. I oppose it and
I will vote No on final passage.
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