National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
June 23, 2004

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Kennedy amendment is little more than an effort to undermine the President and further the myth that our efforts to bring stability and democracy to Iraq are somehow unilateralist.

It is past time for some Senators to stop pretending that we are "going it alone" in Iraq. Neither the liberation of Iraq nor our efforts today could be characterized by anyone with a rudimentary understanding of mathematics as unilateral.

To begin with, the United States was merely a part of a coalition of 19 countries that toppled Saddam Hussein and liberated Iraq. In contrast, the United States joined only 16 other nations during World War II.

Nineteen is more than one. It is more than a couple. It is more than a few. It is a lot. Nineteen countries are more than most Americans will visit during their lifetimes.

The liberation of Iraq was less unilateral than the French opposition to it.

Since liberation, the administration has worked to bring more nations into Iraq to help stabilize and reconstruct that country. Currently, 34 nations are providing military and security forces to assist the Iraqis in defending their newly free country from the insurgents and terrorists.

The international commitment to Iraq has grown. Today the South Korean President announced that his country will push ahead with the deployment of 3,000 soldiers, despite the savage beheading of a South Korean citizen in Iraq this very week.

Although the junior and senior Senators from Massachusetts have both diminished the role that NATO countries are playing in Iraq, it is worth noting that 17 of these countries are members of NATO. NATO is involved in Iraq. It is also involved in Afghanistan. Both efforts are integral to our global war against terrorism.

Currently, 6,000 NATO troops from 25 nations are participating in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. There are over 8,000 foreign troops there, representing over half of the 15,000 non-Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

Now, the President's critics argue that NATO should be more involved, that the international community should be more involved. We all wish we had more help in Iraq. I wish we had more help in Afghanistan. I applaud the President's recent efforts to secure passage of a new Security Council resolution that endorses the new Iraqi government's democratic transition and to encourage NATO to provide greater assistance. Predictably, Jacques Chirac opposed a NATO greater role. Given that NATO operates on the basis of consensus, Chirac's unilateral opposition will likely block NATO authorized deployments.

There are two principle barriers to greater international participation. It is important to focus on this. First, a number of countries, frankly, did not want democracy to take hold in Iraq. They do not like the idea that Iraq may become a democracy. Some nations are threatened by the march of freedom.