Providing for Consideration of H. Res. 627, Deploring Abuse of Persons in the United States Custody in Iraq
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, we are here this morning to carry out a very grave duty. We are here to express the horror felt by the American people upon seeing the graphic images and learning of the torture, abuse, brutalization, and humiliation of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison.
We are here to condemn such acts.
But we are also here to do much more. We need to make clear that this Congress not only condemns these actions, but demands a full investigation and accountability for those who perpetrated these acts, those who ordered these acts, those who turned a blind eye to these acts, and those in the chain of command who failed to act upon repeated warnings and reports of abuse of Iraqi detainees.
Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that the overwhelming majority of our uniformed men and women currently on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere carry out their duties in an exemplary manner. They have represented the United States in perilous times with great distinction and great honor. And it is critical that Congress not blindly accept the scapegoating of a few enlisted men and women when there is a much more serious, troubling, high-ranking, and systemic problem that needs our most serious attention.
In December last year, Human Rights Watch issued a searing report on inhumane conditions and abuses of detainees under U.S. authority in Afghanistan.
We now know from the media that the International Committee for the Red Cross has also been urging U.S. military authorities to make substantial changes on how detainees are treated at prison facilities throughout Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, this is a grave and serious crisis, and I do not use the word "crisis" lightly. It is a crisis for our relations with the people of Iraq. It is a crisis for our relations with our allies. It is a crisis for our intentions to create a stable and more democratic Middle East. It is a crisis for our Armed Forces, whose honor has been stained by these revelations. It is a crisis for our Nation whose honor, intentions, reputation, and moral authority are now suspect throughout the world. It is a crisis for the safety of our troops in the field and the safety of our homeland.
Mr. Speaker, I fear for every American, military and civilian, who is now held captive in Iraq. For how can we demand standards for the humane treatment of our own citizens when it appears to many that we have turned our backs on those very standards and international law in our treatment of foreign detainees?
Mr. Speaker, Congress needs to carry out its own thorough investigation, not just about what happened at one isolated prison in Iraq, but in the breakdown in chain of command and the context within the Armed Forces that created such a climate for these crimes to take place.
I believe the conditions that led to abuse were created at the very top when our Secretary of Defense announced early in the war against terrorism that the Geneva Conventions would not apply to many of our actions, especially those concerning detainees.
I believe the conditions that led to abuse were created at the very top when independent monitors were denied access to prisons and detention facilities.
I believe the conditions that led to abuse were created at the very top when decisions were made to assign troops, many of whom were inexperienced in prisoner treatment and the rights of prisoners, rather than to troops who have been trained for such duty.
I believe the conditions that led to abuse were created at the very top when information and reports were withheld from the relevant intelligence, defense, and foreign policy Congressional committees regarding these abuses.
Mr. Speaker, I also believe that this Congress needs to take a hard and serious look at the use of private contractors engaged in interrogation of prisoners and ensure that their role in these abuses is fully investigated and punished.
But even more importantly, I believe the President of the United States must act. The President must demonstrate exactly how serious the United States is about changing the conditions that led to these abuses.
The President prides himself on being a plain-spoken, straight-shooting man of action. This moment desperately calls for some plain speaking and accountability. Anonymous leaks to the news media about the President of the United States "privately chiding" the Secretary of Defense simply will not do.
Mr. Speaker, Donald Rumsfeld needs to resign as Secretary of Defense, and if he does not do so, President Bush should fire him. No other action, no other words would send as strong a signal to the world that the United States is serious about fixing what is wrong in Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, I regret that this resolution required a rule for debate. I regret that unanimous consent could not be obtained. But I firmly believe that this resolution needs to assert the oversight responsibilities, our own accountability, and investigate these abuses and the systems that created a climate of abuse. We cannot call for accountability by others and then shirk our own responsibilities. I firmly believe that we must investigate the roles of both our uniformed personnel and private contractors in these abuses, and I would have hoped that the majority would believe the same.
Mr. Speaker, at the conclusion of this debate, I will move the previous question. If defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule allowing for the consideration of an amendment to be offered by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the House Committee on Armed Services, affirming the need for a bipartisan congressional investigation to be conducted immediately into these allegations of abuse, including those by civilian contractor personnel and into systemic chain of command and other systemic deficiencies that contributed to such abuse.
I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in this effort to affirm the need for the Congress to carry out its constitutional duties of oversight.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), a member of the Committee on Rules and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 ½ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 ½ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 ½ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, all Americans have been horrified by the pictures and accounts of inhumane treatment of detainees in Iraq. The conduct in those pictures is absolutely intolerable, and the United States must take swift and decisive action to investigation and resolve this terrible incident and make sure it never happens again.
While this resolution calls on the Secretary of the Army to conduct a full and thorough investigation into the allegations of mistreatment, take corrective action against those responsible and ensure that it never happens again, I believe Congress must also do its job and conduct its own investigation.
Mr. Speaker, Congress was never notified about the problems at Abu Ghraib prison, even though the Department of Defense had a report outlining the conditions there 3 months ago. As a partner in the War on Terror, Congress absolutely has not only the right, but the responsibility to investigate what went wrong up and down the chain of command.
So today, Mr. Speaker, I urge a "no" vote on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I will offer an amendment to the rule allowing for the consideration of an amendment offered by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) affirming the need for bipartisan congressional investigations into these allegations are of abuse, including those by U.S. civilian contractor personnel or other U.S. civilians, and into the chain of command and other deficiencies that contributed to such abuse.
Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker, voting "no" on the previous question will not prevent this House from voting on the underlying resolution, it will simply allow for the consideration of the Skelton amendment and allow the House to conduct a bipartisan investigation. It will allow us to do our job, what the people we represent expect us to do.
Congress is a full partner in the war on terror. We need to do our job. We cannot call for accountability by others and then shirk our own responsibility. Let us do our part to resolve this awful situation and restore confidence and trust in our Nation and in our military.
I urge a "no" vote on the previous question.
Mr. Speaker, I include the following material for the RECORD.
[From the New York Times, May 6, 2004]
Restoring Our Honor
(By Thomas L. Friedman)
We are in danger of losing something much more important that just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world. I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today. I was just in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us. It's no wonder that so many Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right now. They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving.
This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all.
That overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld-today, not tomorrow or next month, today. What happened in Abu Ghraib prison was, at best, a fundamental breakdown in the chain of command under Mr. Rumsfeld's authority, or, at worst, part of a deliberate policy somewhere in the military-intelligence command of sexually humiliating prisoners to soften them up for interrogation, a policy that ran amok.
Either way, the secretary of defense is ultimately responsible, and if we are going to rebuild our credibility as instruments of humanitarian values, the rule of law and democratization, in Iraq or elsewhere, Mr. Bush must hold his own defense secretary accountable. Words matter, but deeds matter more. If the Pentagon leadership ran any U.S. company with the kind of abysmal planning in this war, it would have been fired by shareholders months ago.
I know that tough interrogations are vital in a war against a merciless enemy, but outright torture, or this sexual-humiliation-for-entertainment, is abhorrent. I also know the sort of abuse that went on in Abu Ghraib prison goes on in prisons all over the Arab world every day, as it did under Saddam-without the Arab League or Al Jazeera ever saying a word about it. I know they are shameful hypocrites, but I want my country to behave better-not only because it is America, but also because the war on terrorism is a war of ideas, and to have any chance of winning we must maintain the credibility of our ideas.
We were hit on 9/11 by people who believed hateful ideas-ideas too often endorsed by some of their own spiritual leaders and educators back home. We cannot win a war of ideas against such people by ourselves. Only Arabs and Muslims can. What we could do-and this was the only legitimate rationale for this war-was try to help Iraqis create a progressive context in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world where that war of ideas could be fought out.
But it is hard to partner with someone when you become so radioactive no one wants to stand next to you. We have to restore some sense of partnership with the world if we are going to successfully partner with Iraqis.
Mr. Bush needs to invite to Camp David the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the heads of both NATO and the U.N., and the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. There, he needs to eat crow, apologize for his mistakes and make clear that he is turning a new page. Second, he needs to explain that we are losing in Iraq, and if we continue to lose the U.S. public will eventually demand that we quit Iraq, and it will then become Afghanistan-on-steroids, which will threaten everyone. Third, he needs to say he will be guided by the U.N. in forming the new caretaker government in Baghdad. And fourth, he needs to explain that he is ready to listen to everyone's ideas about how to expand our force in Iraq, and have it work under a new U.N. mandate, so it will have the legitimacy it needs to crush any uprisings against the interim Iraqi government and oversee elections-and then leave when appropriate. And he needs to urge them all to join in.
Let's not lose sight of something-as bad as things look in Iraq it is not yet lost, for one big reason: America's aspirations for Iraq and those of the Iraqi silent majority, particularly Shiites and Kurds, are still aligned. We both want Iraqi self-rule and then free elections. That overlap of interests, however clouded, can still salvage something decent from this war-if the Bush team can finally screw up the courage to admit its failures and dramatically change course.
Yes, the hour is late, but as long as there's a glimmer of hope that this Bush team will do the right thing, we must insist on it, because America's role in the world is too precious-to America and to the rest of the world-to be squandered like this.
[From the Washington Post, May 6, 2004]
Who Should Have Known?
(By Richard Cohen)
This week the United States Army did the oddest thing in this Age of Bush: It reprimanded six soldiers in connection with the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal-not for what they did but for not knowing what others were doing. An Army spokesman put it this way: "They should have known......" If that's the standard, then half the Bush administration will soon be gone.
Maybe first to get the accountability ax will be Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He certainly should have known that a scandal was brewing in Iraqi prisons, and he should have bothered to read the Pentagon report detailing what went wrong. Instead, the Pentagon tried to delay CBS's "60 Minutes II" from showing pictures of prisoner abuse and then, in an amazing public relations offensive, sent the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Richard B. Myers, on three Sunday talk shows to announce-a little bugle call here-that he had not read the report either. It has been available since March.
As is almost always the case, the Pentagon did not tell the State Department that a wee spot of trouble was coming its way because, as we know, the Pentagon doesn't tell the State Department anything. Who cares if a billion or so people in the Islamic world have a snit? The Bushies hardly do diplomacy anyway. It's for sissies. At a certain level-a very high one-the Bush administration is as dysfunctional as it is cocky.
But if accountability is going to be the new order of the day, there's no telling where things will wind up. What will happen to CIA chief George Tenet, who assured the president that Iraq was a virtual storehouse of weapons of mass destruction? It was "a slam dunk," the spy chief said. He should have known otherwise, but he did not. No matter. Instead of a reprimand, Bush always expresses confidence in him and probably has given him a nickname, Slam Dunk George.
Or take Condoleezza Rice. Should she have known that Bush was blowing smoke when he told the Nation that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger? Yes, indeed. There was no such nuclear program in Iraq, and it hadn't attempted to make that uranium purchase. The CIA knew that, yet Bush said otherwise. Once again, no reprimand. Instead, she was rewarded with more sleepovers at Camp David.
What about Dick Cheney? He was the leading hawk in the White House, so anxious to go to war with Iraq that Secretary of State Colin Powell characterized him as feverish. The vice president repeatedly insisted that Iraq had "reconstituted" its nuclear weapons program. Should he have known better? To revert to Cheney talk, you betcha.
Should Rumsfeld have known that stabilizing Iraq would require more troops than he allotted? Gen. Eric K. Shinseki had said so, but the Army chief of staff was brushed aside and treated as an eccentric.
Should Rummy and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, have known that U.S. troops might not be universally greeted with flowers, kisses and donations to the Bush reelection campaign? It would have been prudent planning.
Should they have known that Iraqi oil might not cover the cost of the occupation? Probably. Should they have had enough troops on the ground to prevent looting and a general breakdown of law and order? Well, some might think so-but not, apparently, the president.
You and I can argue the wisdom of going into Iraq some other time. What is not arguable, I think, is that the invasion and occupation were marked every step of the way by incompetence, smugness and repeated mistakes. Yet the only people to feel the opprobrium of the White House are those, such as Richard Clarke or Joseph Wilson, who had the nerve, the gall, the immense chutzpah to question administration policy.
The new accountability could be a wonderful thing. It comes a bit late in the game, maybe, and will almost surely be limited to expendable underlings, but a supine Congress just might get the idea and start asking some hard questions about how things went so bad in Iraq. It might begin with Rumsfeld and ask him a more pertinent version of that famous question-not what did you know and when did you know it but why, damn it, didn't you know it in the first place?
[From USA Today]
Why Was Pattern of Abuse Ignored for so Long?
The Bush administration swung into full damage-control mode Wednesday, trying to quell a rising furor at home and abroad over the shocking abuse of prisoners in Iraq by U.S. military personnel.
The general in charge of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq apologized to the Iraqi people. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the rounds of TV shows, claiming that the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was an aberration and pledging that those involved would be dealt with swiftly and firmly. President Bush gave interviews to two Arabic-language TV stations, calling the behavior depicted in the photos broadcast on TV last week "abhorrent" and counter to American values.
The question none answered: What took so long?
Documented complaints of mistreated prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, date back two years, including the cases of two Afghans whose deaths in 2002 were recently ruled homicides.
Unlike the Abu Ghraib mistreatment, those incidents were not caught on film. The abuse was further obscured by the still-lingering horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the nation now risks paying a mighty price for its failure to stand firmly in favor of international law and human dignity.
Otherwise-neutral Muslims are enraged, aiding terrorists and turning Iraqis against Americans. International support for the war on terrorism has been undercut. At home, support for Bush's attempt to bring peace and democracy to Iraq has eroded. A Gallup Poll today shows the public's disapproval of Bush's handling of Iraq has risen to 55%, the highest since the war began.
Ebbing support for the mission comes as the scandal keeps expanding. U.S. officials reported Wednesday that the number of prisoner deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan under investigation or already blamed on U.S. captors has risen to 14. The deaths of two Iraqi prisoners are now considered homicides, and 20 investigations are underway.
Warning signs about abuses of Iraqi detainees had been flashing for months:
The Pentagon acknowledged this week that enough concerns were raised last fall to prompt a "top-level review" of how its Iraqi detection centers were being run.
Abuses at Abu Ghraib were brought to the attention of commanders in Iraq by a tip from an unidentified soldier in January.
A damning report by a general assigned to investigate the charges has been lying around the Pentagon since March 3, apparently without getting the attention of any top decision-maker. The report documented "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses."
The military brass could no longer ignore the problem last week, when photos of U.S. soldiers gloating over naked prisoners forced into degrading acts surfaced on CBS' 60 Minutes II. More details about the abuses, based on leaks from the then-secret military report, appeared in The New Yorker this week. Even then, the Pentagon shrugged off the story as a case of a few renegade soldiers who already had been punished. Worldwide outrage forced the Bush administration to address the matter seriously.
Some military personnel down the chain of command did the right thing, notably the troops who blew the whistle at Abu Ghraib and leaked photos to the media when superiors failed to take stern action. But top commanders seemed more concerned with keeping the scandal quiet than ensuring that those who committed abuses would be punished and the attitudes that allowed such behavior would not be tolerated.
Defenders of the military say the abuse was the work of a few sadistic prison officers and overzealous intelligence agents in Iraq, and some already are being disciplined.
Perhaps so. But their arguments do not explain a climate that resulted in abuses from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay.
Now that the Pentagon has finally acknowledged the problem, it needs to investigate thoroughly, punish those who committed or tolerated abuses and implement safeguards to prevent a recurrence.
Those steps could begin to repair the enormous damage the scandal has caused.
[From the Los Angeles Times, May 4, 2004]
When We're the Evildoers in Iraq: With Immoral U.S. Leadership, Is It so Shocking To Find Torturers in the Ranks?
(By Robert Scheer)
President Bush is again refusing to take responsibility for any of the horrors happening on his watch. This time it is the abuse of Iraqi prisoners carried out by low-ranking military police working under the direct guidance of military intelligence officers and shadowy civilian mercenaries. Our president launched this war with the promise to the Iraqi people of "no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone." What went wrong?
The president has called the now-exposed pattern of violence an isolated crime performed by "a few people." Yet the Pentagon's own investigation of the incident shows that not only was the entire Abu Ghraib prison out of control, it was the MPs' immediate military superiors who "directly or indirectly" authorized "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" of the prisoners as a way to break them in advance of formal interrogations.
"Military intelligence interrogators and other U.S. government agency interrogators actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses," says the report. The report, completed in March and kept secret until it was revealed on the New Yorker website Friday, also stated that a civilian contractor employed by a Virginia company called CACI "clearly knew his instructions" to the MPs called for physical abuse.
Furthermore, in a statement released Friday, Amnesty International reported that in its extensive investigations into human rights in post-invasion Iraq, it "has received frequent reports of torture or other ill treatment by coalition forces during the past year," including during interrogations, and that "virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill treatment has been adequately investigated by the authorities."
Recall that a key excuse for the U.S. invasion was to ensure the safety of Iraqi scientists and others in the know so that they might feel free to reveal the location of weapons of mass destruction or evidence of Saddam Hussein's potential ties to Al Qaeda. Shockingly, some of those scientists are now in coalition prisons, even though the weapons clearly don't exist.
In this context, of course, it makes sense that U.S. interrogators would feel enormous pressure to use any means necessary to verify the absurd claims made so aggressively by the president and his Cabinet before the war. Far from the jurisdiction of the U.S. legal system, they apparently felt quite free to approve techniques clearly banned by war crimes statutes.
Yet, astonishingly, weeks after the Pentagon's own damning internal report on the torture at Abu Ghraib, and several days after CBS' "60 Minutes II" broke open the story worldwide by showing those horrific photos, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld still had not been briefed on the report, a spokesman said Sunday. Similarly, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, admitted Sunday that he hadn't yet bothered to read the 53-page report filed by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, even though he had successfully requested that CBS delay its "inflammatory" broadcast. This shows far more concern for public relations than for finding out the truth.
How could it be that the top officials responsible for the military were not themselves interested in keeping abreast of the investigation-even after the story had exploded into a global scandal?
After all, an ambitious promise to bring democracy and the rule of law to Iraq became the ex post facto rationale for the invasion, once it became clear that the earlier claims of weapons of mass destruction and Hussein ties to Al Qaeda were a fraud.
So it should have been a clear and high priority to make certain that Iraqi prisoners incarcerated in Hussein's most infamous prison did not receive the same brand of "justice" the dictator had been doling out for decades. That they did is now a deep and dirty stain on the reputation of this nation.
Yes, it's great that we are still worlds away from being Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia or Hussein's Iraq.
We are a free society in which, it is hoped, truth eventually comes out, and thanks to what seems to be one brave whistle-blowing soldier and a responsible officer to whom he reported the torture, these crimes have come to light. Those are the acts of true heroes, and we should be proud of them.
Yet, before we go overboard in celebrating our virtues, let's admit that Americans too can be "evildoers," especially when we embrace, as the president consistently has done, the terribly dangerous idea that the ends justify the means.
The ultimate cost of a foreign policy based on blatant lies, and that equates military might with what is right, is that the brute in all of us will not inevitably lie dormant.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment be printed in the Congressional Record immediately before the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
There was no objection.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out a couple of things.
First of all, hearings are not investigations, and a lot of us feel that what we are doing here is just kind of shirking our responsibility. So a vote for the previous question means a vote against bipartisan congressional investigations. No one on the other side has yet explained to us why, in fact, a bipartisan investigation is a bad idea, why we should not be allowed to do our job. That is what we are asking for here.
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