Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense and for the Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004, Conference Report

EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR DEFENSE AND FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN, 2004—CONFERENCE REPORT

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I come to the Senate floor this morning with a real sadness in my heart. Yesterday, we learned of the loss of a Chinook helicopter in Iraq. During the course of the day, I was contacted in Chicago, and then again in Springfield, with rumors that it involved the Illinois National Guard. The rumor was confirmed this morning. The pilot of the helicopter that was shot down in Iraq was a member of the Illinois Air Guard and we believe he was assigned out of the Peoria Guard unit. He is one of many who have been lost in this conflict from the beginning.

What we learn every morning as we learn the news of another soldier, or 2, or 3, or in this case yesterday, 16, is the real cost of war. I have tried to call the families of those in my home State of Illinois who have lost a soldier. I have not been able to get through to all of them, and it is understandable that in their sorrow and grief, many of them are not taking phone calls. Those I have reached are families who are proud of the men and women in uniform who volunteered to serve our Nation and then gave their lives. They thank the military, too, for the kind treatment their family received upon the notification of the loss and all of the help and consolation during the funeral ceremonies.

But we have to face reality. These are the real costs of war. We come to the floor of the Senate today to debate an appropriations bill that, in all honesty, is just money. The real cost of war is human lives. Sixteen were lost in the helicopter crash over the weekend, and another soldier was killed in another incident. Now we have lost more American servicemen in Iraq since the President declared that the major military operations were completed than we did during the invasion.

It doesn't tell the whole story, though, to just count those who lost their lives, as tragic as that may be. Many listed as wounded are sometimes forgotten and they never should be. Some of the wounds these soldiers have been exposed to are serious, grievous.

Two weeks ago, I went to Walter Reed Hospital to visit with some of the returning soldiers, to meet one soldier from Ohio who lost the sight in one of his eyes, to meet with another soldier from my State of Illinois, the community of Pleasant Hill, a small farm town, who took a mortar round and survived. They didn't think they could take him from the scene, but he managed to live long enough. He made it to Germany, where they didn't think he would survive, but he did; and he was at Walter Reed with his mother and father dreaming of the day when he could get back to Pike County, IL, to a small farm town, his home.

These are the wounded of war who lose limbs, who face grievous, serious injuries that will haunt them for a lifetime. These are the real costs of war and a reminder, too, that we stand today in Iraq, 6 months after the end of the so-called military success that the President announced, still struggling to bring stability to that country. But understand, I don't think we can cut and leave. Those of us who warned in the beginning that once we made this decision, we had to remember it is easier to get into a war than to get out of a war—we have learned that in the last 6 months.

Our superb military forces went into Iraq and, in a matter of 3 weeks, took down Saddam Hussein, this dictator, and his cruelty ended. We were so proud of the men and women in uniform who did that so quickly.

But then came the second phase. That, unfortunately, has not gone nearly as well. The United States made a serious miscalculation when it entered this war in Iraq, invaded that nation, without the support of its traditional allies. With the exception of Great Britain, the so-called coalition of the willing was a very thin coalition. There were many countries offering some help, a few soldiers; but really when it came down to it, this President decided to embark on a war, with the approval of Congress, that took us into a wartime situation unlike anyone has seen. The President did not follow his father's model of bringing the United Nations behind his effort or true global coalition, but decided he would take the small coalition into the war in Iraq.

We didn't need a massive global coalition to win the military battle. We knew we had the best military in the world. We still do. But after the military battle, it is clear now we need allies more than ever. America needs countries to stand beside us with their soldiers, with their resources, with their commitment to finding stability in Iraq, and every day, when we see these bloody headlines of American soldiers being killed, we are reminded that had this been a global coalition, a broader coalition, had we moved in concert with our traditional allies, what we are facing today could have been so much different.

The burden of Iraq weighs heavy on the shoulders of America, and each day as we wake up to hear the news of more deaths of American soldiers, more wounded service men and women overseas, we understand that burden, but we can never understand it like the families who have suffered the losses. Our heart goes out to them. They are in our thoughts and prayers every single moment of every day, as they should be.

We come to the floor today to talk about the other costs of war, the appropriations necessary to keep this war going. It is a massive emergency supplemental appropriations bill. The total is $87,442,198,000. This, of course, represents one of the largest emergency supplemental bills we have considered. It represents a commitment of at least $1 billion a week to sustain our troops in Iraq, and then a commitment beyond it to an effort to build Iraq. It would be easy to say reconstruct Iraq if we had destroyed it during the element of invasion, but that didn't occur. Most of what we are doing is building a country that had been decimated by a dictator. We are providing things that for 10 or 20 years Saddam Hussein never provided to his people, in the hope that we can prove to them they can move toward democracy; that they can move toward a free-market system; that they can have stability, perhaps be a beacon of hope for the Middle East.

If that is the ultimate outcome, then there is some success to this story, but today, in one of the darkest hours with some of the saddest news, it is difficult to look at this and understand how even money is going to solve our problems.

I voted against this preemptive and precipitous war, but today I face a moral dilemma. I cannot and will not support President Bush's unilateralist, aggressive foreign policy of preemption. It is wrong. It was wrong when we voted on it in October of last year. It is wrong in November of this year. It is based on the false premise that we can somehow identify our enemies even if they haven't threatened the United States, even if they have not created a situation of eminent danger. It relies, of course, on information and information based on intelligence, and what do we have to say today about our intelligence-gathering agencies leading up to our invasion of Iraq?

We said we needed to go to Iraq to stop them from obtaining nuclear weapons and using them against their neighbors and against us. It turns out now that was an empty threat. There is no evidence of nuclear weapons nor program in Iraq.

We said there was an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, which, again, could threaten the region, the people of Iraq, and the United States, and yet Dr. Kay, after more than 6 months and millions of dollars and hundreds of inspectors, has come up emptyhanded, cannot find a shred of evidence of these weapons of mass destruction.

In the President's State of the Union Address they said, oh, we have proof they were moving fissile material from Africa to Iraq to build nuclear weapons, and even the President has had to say that was not accurate.

We said as well, if you remember 9/11, you can understand why we needed to invade Iraq—because al-Qaida of 9/11 and Saddam Hussein of Iraq were linked. Even the President had to come forward and concede a few weeks ago that statement is not true, either. It is true we changed a regime. We have eliminated Saddam Hussein. But the premise of that war has been challenged and has been found faulty.

So today we consider this supplemental appropriations bill to provide the money that our men and women need to sustain the military effort in Iraq and to come home safely. All of these funds are emergency spending. What that means, of course, is that we are not cutting other Government spending nor raising taxes to find the $87 billion. We are adding this money to America's mortgage. This is our second mortgage on America, $87 billion—the greatest deficit in the history of the United States, and it continues to grow as this administration continues to call for more tax cuts for wealthy people. This, unfortunately, is part of our legacy.

One of the most difficult parts of this bill is the fact that this conference committee stripped out the provision the Senate added on a bipartisan rollcall vote. Republicans and Democrats came together and said at least $10 billion of the $20 billion to reconstruct Iraq should come from the Iraqi people, from their oil reserves. Is that an incredible request, that this country with the second largest oil reserve in the world would help to pay for its own infrastructure? The Bush administration said it was unacceptable. No loan provision will be put in this bill. If anyone has to borrow money to build Iraq, it will be America's families, not the people of Iraq. That is a sad outcome.

Frankly, it means that much of what we were told by this administration before the war just was not true. Paul Wolfowitz, on March 27, 2003, testifying before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said as follows:

And on rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next 2 or 3 years. .    .    . We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.

Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz said those words to this Congress 6 months ago. This man, who was urging America to invade Iraq and telling us they could pay for their own reconstruction, and where are we today? The Bush administration has rejected the idea that Iraq would pay for this. No, American taxpayers have to pay for it. It has to come out of the Social Security trust fund. It has to come out of investments in education and health care in America. The Bush administration insists on it.

Listen to what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on the same day:

I don't believe the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense .    .    . and the funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it.

Six months ago, those were the words of the Secretary of Defense to the American people through Congress, and I quote again. He said:

I don't believe the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction. .    .    .

How clear can we be? Yet today, face it, America, taxpayers, and families, we are accepting an $87 billion responsibility. Instead of asking Iraq to borrow against its bountiful oil reserves, we are asking our children and grandchildren to continue to borrow to build Iraq.

I also want to tell you there is one thing that was done in that conference committee which I think was shameful—shameful: the decision of this conference committee to strip out a provision in the bill which I added on the floor of the Senate. Let me explain it.

Across America, men and women serving in the Guard and Reserve have been activated. Usually their activation was only for a few months but now, because of the fact we are stretched thin around the world, these guardsmen and reservists, much like the helicopter pilot who was killed over the weekend from my State of Illinois, have been activated and asked to serve for longer and longer periods of time, causing extraordinary hardship to their family.

Some dismiss it and say they knew what they were getting into. When they signed up for the Guard and Reserve, they knew they were going to be activated. This is true. I won't argue with that.

Frankly, I ask my friends and colleagues in the Senate to at least show some compassion for those and their families who have been activated and, because of that activation, suffer an extraordinary economic hardship.

Across America, dozens of States and local units of government—my own home State of Illinois, the city of Chicago—have decided if their employees are activated in the Guard and Reserve, they will make up the difference in pay so that while they are off serving their country and risking their lives they can at least have peace of mind that their paycheck will be protected. That State government, that city government will make up the difference in pay. Thank God for their charity and compassion. Thank God they care enough for these men and women to make that commitment, as they have repeatedly. It is not just units of government. Private corporations have done the same thing. We applaud them. We call them patriot corporations because they stand behind the men and women in uniform.

I came to the Senate floor and I said to my colleagues, if we applaud those who stand behind the men and women in uniform to make certain they do not lose their pay while they are activated, can we do no less for Federal employees, the employees of the U.S. Government? By a resounding vote of 96 to 3, this bipartisan vote on the Senate floor, we said, yes, we will stand behind the Federal employees who activate.

How many are involved? Of the 1.2 million Guard and Reserve in America today, 10 percent are Federal employees, 120,000. Currently 23,000 are activated. Some do not see a cut in pay, but many see dramatic cuts in pay. What I asked for was the same type of justice and caring from the Federal Government we asked from State and local governments.

We passed that amendment, and I felt good that we made this commitment. Frankly, I sang the praises of the Senate and those who were involved. We went to the conference committee, and on a party-line vote, with every Republican Senator voting no, they removed this provision from the bill. Many of the Senators who just a few days before on this floor had voted for the provision to protect the pay of activated Federal employees turned around, within a few days, and voted no. That does not set a very good example, does it? If we will not provide the same kind of compensation for Federal employees as State and local governments do, how can we in good conscience turn to businesses and say, stand behind your guardsmen, stand behind your reservists; they are serving our country; they deserve your help, when we turn our backs on them in this bill?

It was the first thing we did when we sat down in conference. It was the first vote we took. It was a sad day. Unfortunately, I will have to offer this amendment again in the hopes that the next time around, if it passes on the Senate floor, the Senate conferees will stand up for it. They did not do that this time.

I also want to say we are paying a great amount of money out of our Federal Treasury to search for weapons of mass destruction. I cannot disclose the sum because it is classified. Trust me, it is very large. The Iraq Survey Group is in this so far futile search for weapons of mass destruction. I asked in this bill that they at least give us a quarterly report on what progress was being made. That was stripped out of the bill—no report necessary.

The amendment would require the special adviser to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for the strategy in Iraq, Dr. David Kay, to provide both classified and unclassified written status to Congress on a quarterly basis. That accountability was removed in this bill.

Another provision that was stripped out of this bill relates to profiteering by corporations out to make a buck on a war. During World War II, Harry Truman called war profiteering treason. President Franklin Roosevelt said: I do not want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.

But when the Appropriations Committee considered this bill, they deleted an amendment by Senator Leahy, Senator Feinstein, and myself to criminalize war profiteering, price gouging and fraud. The same law that was passed during World War II was stripped out in conference. I do not understand it. I do not understand how anyone could be opposed to prosecuting those who want to defraud and overcharge the U.S. Government and the American taxpayers in time of war. It is unseemly that this has been stripped out in light of questionable no-bid and secretly bid contracts that have been let for Iraq construction.

Since the late 1980s, the move to privatize just about everything the Government does has led to the granting of billion-dollar contracts to a handful of huge companies. We have heard the names: Halliburton, Bechtel. They go on and on. With no surprise, many of them are politically well connected. This amendment was eliminated. It would not have hurt this conference, it would not have hurt this country to include that provision in the law as fair warning to those who would profiteer during a war that we will come down on them like a ton of bricks. But, no, it was removed.

There are many elements in this bill which trouble me. There are some which deserve praise. Access to TRICARE was enhanced for members of the Guard and Reserve; $100 million was added to secure and destroy conventional munitions in Iraq, the ordnance that is being used to bring down our helicopters and killing our soldiers every single day; $500 million for recent disasters, including the California wildfires and Hurricane Isabel; $100 million to help Liberia recover from its brutal civil war; $60 million for Afghan women and girls; and a modification of language Senator Murray, Senator Landrieu, and I offered on the Senate floor to ensure the assistance provided for Iraq and Afghanistan advances the social, economic, political rights, and opportunities for women and girls.

I want to especially salute Senator Murray and Senator Landrieu. They had to fight to restore this money in the conference committee. Before the conference committee came together, a staffer stripped it out and they restored it. It took a lot of hard work on their part, but I think most of us realize women and girls in Afghanistan have been brutalized by the Taliban and by the previous government. Frankly, we need to stand behind them. I am glad this money was restored.

I voted reluctantly for the Iraq supplemental when the Senate passed it the first time for the same reason I mentioned earlier. As much as I believe this war was begun in a wrong fashion, with a policy that can no longer be defended, I have to say that as long as 120,000 of our best and brightest soldiers are over there risking their lives every single day, we have to stand by them.

I believe the sensible loan provisions which Senator Dorgan from North Dakota, who is now in the Chamber, supported, as well as his effort to say that the Iraqis will pay for the cost of the war with their own oil were just sensible. They are what American families would say, but unfortunately it is not what the Bush administration would say, and those have been removed.

This deletion of the reservist pay provision is one which I hope we can visit again. I hope next time instead of 96 to 3, we will have a 100-to-0 vote in the Senate. Maybe that is what it takes to convince conferees to stay with a provision once we have adopted it in the Senate.

The American people will ultimately be the judge of our work today. Sadly, they are the ones who are not only paying the bills and writing the checks. They understand the costs of war sometimes better than elected officials. The families with soldiers overseas and those who have seen those soldiers injured or killed understand the costs of war far more than anyone on any Appropriations Committee ever could.

I yield the floor.