Iraq Watch
War Fever
October 4, 2004

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Garrett of New Jersey). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is recognized until midnight.

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

   Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank my friend for yielding. Here we are once more this evening for the next half hour to talk about the situation in the Middle East. It seems that we have been doing this now for, I think, 15 or 16 months. We describe it as the Iraq Watch. I understand, also, that tomorrow night we will be back here shortly before the conclusion of the legislative business for the day prior to the Vice Presidential debate which is scheduled for tomorrow night between Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards.

   Speaking of the Vice President, I remember being somewhat taken aback by the continued allegation by the Vice President relative to the relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Of course, just recently I read again where the Vice President makes allusions to some sort of link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

   Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Will my friend yield for just 10 seconds on that issue and then I will leave you alone?

   Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, I will. Of course.

   Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I will be happy to provide the 9/11 report. The committee graphically details from 1990 to 2000, to when Saddam Hussein was captured, his linkage with al Qaeda and it is in the 9/11 report.

   Mr. DELAHUNT. With all due respect to my good friend from California, I have read the report. I have read it in considerable detail. I agree with the chairman of the 9/11 Commission after my review of that report that was done by an independent commission comprised of five Republicans and five Democrats. In fact, this past June the chairman of the commission, a former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, had this to say in an interview that was broadcast over one of the networks. The report concluded that there was no operational link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, that it was absolutely not borne out by any of the evidence that was available to them. In fact, the former Governor, and let me underscore the fact that he is a highly respected member of the Republican Party, had this to say. These are his words, not my words:

   ``We believe that there were a lot more active contacts frankly with Iran and Pakistan than there were with Iraq. Al Qaeda did not like to get involved with states unless they were living there. They got involved with Sudan. They got involved where they lived. But otherwise, no,'' he said on ABC's ``This Week.'' I think it is rather clear from the 9/11 report that there were no links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. But again that does not seem to deter the Vice President from continuing that fiction. But again that does not appear to be unusual for the Vice President, because it is clear that the Vice President was one of the more significant influences in the determination to seek the military intervention with Iraq.

   In a review of the book by Bob Woodward that was posted, by the way, on the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site, there was a particular excerpt that I thought was very informative about the role of the Vice President in the effort to convince the American people about the need to go to war in Iraq. Again, I am reading from an excerpt from that book by Bob Woodward. It describes the differences between the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and his observations and that of the Vice President. I am now reading:

   ``Powell thought that Cheney had the fever. The Vice President and Wolfowitz kept looking for the connection between Hussein and September 11. It was a separate little government that was out there, Wolfowitz, Libby, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Feith's `gestapo office,' as Secretary Powell privately referred to it. Cheney now had an unhealthy fixation. Nearly every conversation or reference came back to al Qaeda and trying to nail the connection with Iraq. He would often have an obscure piece of intelligence. Secretary Powell thought that Cheney,'' he is referring to the Vice President obviously, ``took intelligence and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact. Cheney would take an intercept and say it showed something was happening. `No, no, no,' Powell or another would say. `It shows that somebody talked to somebody else who said something might be happening.' A conversation would suggest something might be happening and the Vice President would convert that into a `we know.' Secretary Powell concluded we didn't know and no one knew.''

   I think it is unfortunate that, to use the words of Secretary Powell, that the Vice President had the fever, had a fixation about Iraq and some sort of operational link with al Qaeda when none existed.

   And unfortunately, it has been repeated over and over and over again so that many Americans accept it, despite the conclusion reached by the 9/11 Commission. It simply did not exist.

   My friend from California talks about 1990 and Iraq, and I would remind my friend from California that, back in 1990, the President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, made every effort to forestall sanctions that were passed by this House prior to the Gulf War that would have been imposed on Iraq and the Saddam Hussein regime. Not only is there inconsistency here, but please do not talk about 1990 and prior to the Gulf War when this government, the United States Government, under the President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, had what only can be described as a special relationship with Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was taken off the terrorist list in 1984. It was that administration that installed an embassy in Baghdad in 1986. It was that administration that provided, if you will, the dual-use technologies that could be utilized in the development of a nuclear weapons program to be shipped to Iraq. I mean inconsistency is not a strong enough word. But maybe this is what prompted RICHARD CHENEY, the Vice President, to be so obsessed and fixated with Iraq.

   The last time we were here, we discussed the need to be forthright and to acknowledge mistakes and not paint a picture that is simply not matched by the reality on the ground in Iraq. It is important to heed the advice of a former member of the administration, David Kay, who was responsible for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, who was appointed by the Bush-Cheney administration to do so, and came back and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we were all wrong. Well, we were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. We were wrong about links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. And it is dangerous, let me suggest, to continue to attempt, for whatever purpose, and I am not impugning the motives or suggesting that there is a political reason that the Vice President continues to try to maintain that link because far be it from me to question his motives, but, again, to quote David Kay, former member of that administration, when told that the Vice President continued to suggest that weapons of mass destruction might still be found in Iraq, said the following, ``what worries me about Cheney's statements is, I think people who hold out for a hail Mary pass delay the inevitable looking back at what went wrong.'' I believe we have enough evidence now to say that the intelligence process and the policy process that used that information did not work.

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Inslee).

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is abundantly clear that the Vice President has some explaining to do to the American people about what happened and what his participation was in starting a war based on false information. And there are two people I have met in the last 24 hours who I think are deserving of an explanation. One was a mother whose son-in-law fortunately just got back from serving proudly in the Army in Iraq, and she told me she is just incredibly happy that her son-in-law came back healthy to the arms of his family and his wife, but she is not happy that others have not and that the Federal Government has not been candid about what happened in Iraq that got us into this war with such devastating consequences. That mother-in-law is entitled to an explanation from the Vice President of the United States about why he made repeated statements that are inaccurate that started a war that has cost over 1,000 American lives.

   Today, on the plane flying out here from Seattle, which I go home every weekend to Seattle, this morning sitting next to me was a major heading for Iraq to do an inspection tour. And I just tell my colleague that I feel so strongly that he and all of the 100,000-plus troops in Iraq deserve an explanation from their Federal Government of what happened here, and there are three questions I would like the Vice President to answer.

   Question number one, why on September 14, 2003, did the Vice President say this: ``If we're successful in Iraq, then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault for many years but most especially on 9/11''? Vice President Cheney went to the American people and told them that Iraq was responsible for the attack on 9/11, and he wanted the Americans to believe that. And there was no evidence to that then, as we have seen the intelligence. There was no evidence at the time we took the vote, and there is no evidence today that that statement was true. And a war was started based on a statement that this Vice President made to Americans. They deserve an explanation why this Vice President sold a bill of goods to the American people, specifically saying that the folks had us under assault but most especially 9/11?

   And we know exactly what he was trying to do, which was create an impression that we were going to attack the people who attacked us, which we did in Afghanistan, and that is why we supported it with a huge consensus in this body. The people who attacked us were based in Afghanistan. But why did this Vice President then gild the lilly and stretch the evidence and try to create this misimpression? We deserve an answer to that question in this debate tomorrow night.

   Second question for the Vice President: Why on August 26, 2002, did the Vice President say, ``simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction''? We know now, and many of us knew then from reading the intelligence, that there was massive doubt about this issue, that the Vice President again gilded the lilly, tried to say there was no doubt about this issue, and that simply was not an accurate statement, and a war occurred as a result. And the people serving then and our sons and daughters who might have to serve, goodness knows how many years if this administration continues in authority in Iraq, they deserve an answer why the Vice President said that when it was false.

   Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I just think there is a certain level of embarrassment because the Vice President has been proven conclusively to be wrong, not simply out of an investigation conducted by media, by outside parties, but by an independent commission established as a result of action in this body here and in the body across the hall that, if the gentleman remembers, the administration resisted.

   But to continue to try to justify the rationale for the war, he simply refuses to acknowledge the reality. If only, if only he and others in the administration would accept the admonition of David Kay, who was appointed by the President and the Vice President to search for weapons of mass destruction, if he would just simply concur with David Kay's statement that we were all wrong, we could then hopefully make some progress. But we are not going to get that, and we know that.

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, let me suggest why that is important. It is not a matter of culpability. That is not the issue. But the fact of the matter is if we are going to have a success, we have to have people in the administration, when you have a failed policy, who are willing to evaluate it and change and decide they had said some things that were not true and admit it and change.

   But this administration refuses to accept failure. We continue to have simply more of the same, and they want to say, well, we are at least certain, we are at least sure, we are at least resolute.

   The best description I had of that is resolution is a good thing, certainty is a good thing, but it is not a good thing to have a firm grip on the wheel if the car is heading over the cliff, and this administration refuses repeatedly to recognize their errors so they can change their policy.

   I have a third question the Vice President owes Americans an answer to. Why did the Vice President on March 16, 2003, say, and this is a long quote, but I will get to the summation, ``And we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.''

   Why did this Vice President want to create this massive cloud of fear in America about reconstituted nuclear weapons, when even the intelligence reports at that time, and they are now in the public domain, did not support that conclusion? I hate to think it was just to sort of support their predetermined effort to start a war, but it is very difficult to reach a different conclusion, when no one else was saying that except the Vice President. And why, if we now find that is inaccurate, why does the Vice President not just come clean and be candid with the American people, so that we can show some willingness to start a new policy in Iraq?

   But they keep clinging to these falsehoods, clinging to these misimpressions, clinging to this false information that they have spewed out across America.

   And they have been successful in fooling some Americans about the connection of Saddam with al Qaeda. Something like 40 percent of Americans believe that, because they want to believe their Vice President.

   We all want to believe our Vice President, but the fact of the matter is, as long as they cling to this, it will make it more difficult to be a successful policy in Iraq.

   Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, it is either a deception to mislead or it could be incompetence. But I do not believe it to be incompetence, because no one has ever accused the Vice President of being an individual who does not thoughtfully analyze information. But, again, as Secretary of State Powell concluded, if you have the fever, and he thought that the Vice President had the fever, then you are detached from reality.

   For the Secretary of State to use the term ``gestapo office'' as an appropriate description of the separate little government that was established in the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, I think says something about the inability of some people to see the world as it really is, as opposed to what you have decided it to be.

   We hear so much about these rosy scenarios that the President and other members of the administration paint regarding Iraq and what is transpiring there, and yet when we hear the truth as it is reported by individuals who do not have a particular ax to grind, such as a reporter from the Wall Street Journal.

   The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is, I am sure, an avid reader of the Wall Street Journal. That is a publication that clearly is pro-administration, is very conservative.

   But here is what a reporter by the name of Farnaz Fassihi says in e-mails as recently as the 29th of September. ``Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. I leave when I have very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes, and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping anymore. I can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in anything but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints. There have been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near my house that it blew out all the windows. I am now a security personnel first, a reporter second.

   ``It is hard to pinpoint when the turning point actually began. Was it April when Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Muqtada al-Sadr declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to 10 percent of Iraqi's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni Triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessment, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a potential threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to an imminent and active threat.''

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further , I just wanted to make one point in response to the statement of our friend the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).

   One of the most telling things in the debate of the two presidential candidates last night was where the President said that we had to attack Iraq because the enemy attacked us, and his opponent challenged that and said, ``Well, no, Osama bin Laden attacked us, not Iraq.'' The President said, ``Of course, I know Osama bin Laden attacked us.''

   But the problem is this administration and the Vice President has been trying to create a misimpression from day one to tie Saddam Hussein to the attacks of 9/11. I want to respond to the assertion of the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) to the contrary, to read from the Commission report that says, and the language they used was as categoric as you can get, there is ``no credible evidence,'' no credible evidence, ``of a link between Iraq and the al Qaeda attacks against the United States.''

   They did not say that the evidence was suspect, they did not say the evidence is de minimis, they did not say the evidence is debatable. They said there is no, zero, zilch, nada, credible evidence of a connection that this Vice President for the last 2 years has been telling about, trying to create the impression that exists.

   He needs to get up in that debate tomorrow, and the first thing he needs to say is, ``You know what? We were wrong. Saddam Hussein for all his faults and his terrible heinous, terrible things he did to Iraqis, Iraq did not attack us on 9/11.'' He owes that statement to Americans. I will be surprised if we hear it, but I think it would be healthy if we did.

   Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I can assure the gentleman we will not hear it. Right now it is all about trying to paint a rosy scenario that is absolutely without any foundation, when the reality is it is a disaster.