Challenges Facing America

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Sept. 28, 2004

CHALLENGES FACING AMERICA

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for this opportunity to speak on issues that go to the heart of the challenges facing America and the challenge we face in the upcoming election. Is there one of us who can forget 9/11, where we were, how our lives were changed, how America was changed?

I was in this building, evacuated in panic as the White House was being evacuated, wondering what would happen next. Senators, Congressmen were dispersing in every direction, trying to find some safe place with all the visitors in the Capitol.

I remember, as well, what happened during the course of that day. By the evening time, after the President had spoken to our country, Members of the Senate and House, Democrats and Republicans, in a remarkable, unprecedented move, stood together singing "God Bless America" on the steps of our Capitol-a sense of unity, a sense of purpose, a determination to avenge those who had attacked the United States and to protect Americans here and abroad.

Recall how the world reacted. Countries that had been barely friendly to the United States stood up and said they would be on our side in the war against terrorism, stood up and said they would help us to make sure such an attack never occurred again, a broad coalition of countries standing behind the United States, many of these same countries we had helped in years gone by. Now they were prepared to help us.

We came here on Capitol Hill and in a matter of hours did two very important things. First, we declared war on the clear enemy of the United States, al-Qaida. Of course, the Taliban in Afghanistan became the focus of our military effort. It was a bipartisan vote, an overwhelming vote. There were no partisan speeches. We were together. We had identified the enemy. We were moving forward. We were not going to forget what happened on 9/11 even as we buried our dead and honored the wounded and the heroes of America.

And then think what happened next. We said to our Government: We are going to give you the tools and resources you need to fight this war against terrorism, to wage this war in Afghanistan. Again, we stood in a bipartisan fashion.

It is hard to believe that was only 3 years ago. It seems like so much longer. What has happened in the meantime? Take a look around at the United States and the world community. Countries that stood with us after 9/11, determined to help us, have walked away from us. Americans who were determined to work together are divided. We find ourselves with scarce resources to really attack the enemies of the United States. We find ourselves counting the dead and wounded on a daily basis, with no end in sight.

What has happened to make the difference? What has happened is a decision by this administration to lose focus, to stop this intensive effort against the enemies of 9/11 and instead to wage a war in Iraq-a war which sadly goes on and on every single day, with no end in sight. For some in the administration, it was an answer to a prayer; 9/11 was the reason and the excuse that was needed to attack Iraq. This irrational passion to go after Saddam Hussein in Iraq, whatever the threat against the United States, has led us to a point where we find so many of our best and brightest and bravest Americans dying and facing severe injuries and wounds in Iraq every single day.

When the war began in Iraq, I said I wanted to call every family in Illinois who loses a soldier. I have not been able to do that. Some I could not get through to. I have to tell you, there is a stack of six names on my desk. Over 50 Illinoisans have been killed in this war and there is no end in sight.

I spoke to another family yesterday, the family of a 28-year-old marine from Pana, IL, a wonderful young man who was dedicated to this country. He lost his life a few days ago. How many times that story has been played out over and over again-over a thousand times American soldiers killed, over 7,000 gravely wounded.

I have been to Walter Reed and I have seen them with arms blown off, legs blown off, loss of both hands, head injuries, blinded, paraplegics. These are the wounded who come back from Iraq.

What do we know today? We know the case made by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq was wrong. We know the information given to the American people to justify the invasion of this country was wrong. How do we know that? The Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, came up with the clear conclusion that our intelligence was just plain wrong.

When the President told us we would find an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, over a year and a half later we have found none. When the President told us we would find a stockpile of nuclear weapons threatening the Middle East and the United States, we have found none. When the President told us there was a linkage between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, the attackers of 9/11, we have found none. The list goes on and on.

The President has come back and retracted statements he made in the State of the Union Address, incorrectly saying that fissile materials, nuclear materials, were sent from Africa to Iraq. So the information given to the American people to justify the war turned out to be wrong.

Now, the question is, How were the American people misled? Was it deliberate? I personally believe that unless there is clear, credible, and convincing evidence that the President and his administration knew the information was wrong, you cannot say it was a deliberate deception of the American people. But this much you can say: People within this administration who continue to parrot these lines they know are false are, frankly, not only doing a great disservice to the American people, they have a wanton, reckless disregard for the truth.

Let me give you some quotes to back that up, so you understand what we are talking about. This is a statement made by President Bush at a press conference a few months ago:

The reason that I keep insisting there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida is because there is a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Look what Secretary of State Colin Powell said a few days ago:

I have seen nothing that makes a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and that awful regime and what happened on 9/11.

That is his own Secretary of State who says the President is not telling the American people the facts.

Look at the 9/11 Commission report. This is a report prepared on a bipartisan basis, which has been lauded by everybody in Congress. This is what they say:

We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States.

Yet if you ask the American people, they will make the following argument: It is far better for us to be fighting terrorism in al-Qaida over there than to be fighting it here in the United States. These conclusions by the 9/11 Commission and Secretary of State Colin Powell tell you that statement is just plain wrong.

We are not fighting al-Qaida in Iraq. The al-Qaida forces, as Senator Kennedy said earlier, have metastasized around the world. They are a threat to all of us.

Let us tell you what we know for sure. We have lost international cooperation in Iraq; the same cooperation that was there to help us fight terrorism is gone. Our coalition continues to dwindle and the losses are to American troops; 95 percent of those killed and wounded are American soldiers. If you want to know who is waging the war, how much commitment is being made by this coalition, that statistic tells it all.

Secondly, we were unprepared, we were not prepared, our troops did not have the necessary equipment and even training for what they faced after the initial military victory in Iraq.

Over the weekend, back home, officers in the Illinois National Guard told us their units are being asked to do things far beyond their training capability. We know our troops went into battle in the aftermath without the necessary body armor and that the Humvees were not properly equipped for what happened in Iraq. We know our helicopters didn't have the necessary defense equipment-this from an administration that received every penny it asked for from Congress to wage this war.

This Commander in Chief did not stand up for our troops, was not prepared to defend our troops, and we have seen what resulted: over 1,000 dead, over 7,000 wounded.

There is no end in sight.

There is a litany of quotes from Senator Hagel, Senator McCain, Senator Lugar, and so many others on the Republican side who have joined on the Democratic side to say that, clearly, we are not winning the war in Iraq. This Commander in Chief cannot crow and brag about the great job in Iraq. We are there with no end in sight.

We have found now that we have been misled in going into Iraq, and we continue to be misled by statements from this administration about the reason for the war and what we can expect its outcome to be.

There are many who argue that John Kerry should not be elected President because he cannot come up with a plan to extricate us from this complicated mess in Iraq. That, to me, is a curious position. This President, President Bush, drove our national bus into a cul-de-sac and now he can't turn it around, and he blames John Kerry because he cannot explain how President Bush can get us out of this mess in Iraq.

What is wrong with that picture? This is a decision by President Bush to invade before the inspections were completed, before the U.N. had an opportunity to join us, to invade before the facts were in. The invasion took place and our military did its best. They are the best in the world. They conquered Saddam Hussein, but they left us in a position of vulnerability, with no end in sight. That is the choice facing American voters on November 2.

I yield the floor.