High Price for a Hollow Victory

A High Price for a Hollow Victory

by US Senator Robert Byrd Senate Floor Remarks November 3, 2003

Published on Monday, November 3, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1103-14.htm

Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate debated
whether to grant final Congressional approval to the President’s $87
billion funding request for the military and Iraqi reconstruction.

The Iraq supplemental conference report before the Senate today has been
widely described as a victory for President Bush. If hardball politics
and lock-step partisanship are the stuff of which victory is made, then
I suppose the assessments are accurate. But if reasoned discourse,
integrity, and accountability are the measures of true victory, then
this package falls far short of the mark.

In the end, the President wrung virtually every important concession he
sought from the House-Senate conference committee. Key provisions that
the Senate had debated extensively, voted on, and included in its
version of the bill - such as providing half of the Iraq reconstruction
funding in the form of loans instead of grants - were thrown overboard
in the conference agreement. Senators who had made compelling arguments
on the Senate floor only days earlier to limit American taxpayers’
liability by providing some of the Iraq reconstruction aid in the form
of loans suddenly reversed their position in conference and bowed to the
power of the presidency.

Before us today is a massive $87 billion supplemental appropriations
package that commits this nation to a long and costly occupation and
reconstruction of Iraq, and yet the collective wisdom of the House and
Senate appropriations conference that produced it was little more than a
shadow play, choreographed to stifle dissent and rubber stamp the
President’s request.

Perhaps this take-no-prisoners approach is how the President and his
advisers define victory, but I fear they are fixated on the muscle of
the politics instead of the wisdom of the policy. The fact of the matter
is, when it comes to policy, the Iraq supplemental is a monument to
failure.

Consider, for example, that before the war, the President’s policy
advisers assured the American people that Iraq would largely be able to
finance its own reconstruction through oil revenues, seized assets, and
increased economic productivity. The $18 billion in this supplemental
earmarked for the reconstruction of Iraq is testament to the fallacy of
that prediction. It is the American taxpayer, not the Iraqi oil
industry, that is being called upon to shoulder the financial burden of
rebuilding Iraq.

The international community, on which the Administration pinned such
hope for helping in the reconstruction of Iraq, has collectively ponied
up only $13 billion, and the bulk of those pledges, $9 billion, is in
the form of loans or credits, not grants. But still, the President
claims victory for arm-twisting Congress into reversing itself on the
question of loans and providing the entire $18 billion in U.S. tax
dollars in the form of outright grants to Iraq. I readily admit that how
this convoluted logic can be construed as a victory for the President is
beyond me.

But reconstruction is only part of the story. On May 1, the President
stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln - - strategically postured
beneath a banner that declared "Mission Accomplished" - - and pronounced
the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

Since that day, however, more American military personnel have been
killed in Iraq than were killed during the major combat phase of the
war. According to the Defense Department, 376 American troops have been
killed to date in Iraq, and nearly two-thirds of those deaths - 238 -
have occurred since May 1. When President Bush uttered the unwise
challenge, "Bring ’em on" on July 2, the enemy did indeed "bring them
on", and with a vengeance! Since the President made that comment, more
than 165 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. And as the death
toll mounts, it has become clear that the enemy intends to keep on
"bringing ’em on."

The $66 billion in this supplemental, required to continue the U.S.
military occupation of Iraq over the next year, and the steadily rising
death toll, are testament to the utter hollowness of the President’s
declaration aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and the careless bravado of
his challenge to "bring ’em on".

It has been said many times on the floor of this Senate that a vote for
this supplemental is a vote for our troops in Iraq. The implication is
that a vote against the supplemental is a vote against our troops. I
find that twisted logic to be both irrational and offensive. To my mind,
backing a flawed policy with a flawed appropriations bill hurts our
troops in Iraq more than it helps them. Endorsing and funding a policy
that does nothing to relieve American troops in Iraq is not, in my
opinion, a "support the troops" measure. Our troops in Iraq and
elsewhere in the world have no stronger advocate than Robert C. Byrd. I
support our troops, I pray for their safety, and I will continue to
fight for a coherent policy that brings real help - not just longer
deployments and empty sloganeering - to American forces in Iraq. The
supplemental package before us does nothing to internationalize the
occupation of Iraq and, therefore, it is not — I say NOT — a vote "for
our troops" in Iraq. We had a chance, in the beginning, to win
international consensus on dealing with Iraq, but the Administration
squandered that opportunity when the President gave the back of his hand
to the United Nations and preemptively invaded Iraq. Under this
Administration’s Iraq policy - endorsed in the President’s so-called
victory on this supplemental - it is American troops who are walking the
mean streets of Baghdad and American troops who are succumbing in
growing numbers to a common and all too deadly cocktail of anti-American
bombs and bullets in Iraq.

The terrible violence in Iraq on Sunday - the deaths of 16 soldiers in
the downing of an American helicopter, the killing of another soldier in
a bomb attack, and the deaths of two American civilian contractors in a
mine explosion - is only the latest evidence that the Administration’s
lack of post-war planning for Iraq is producing an erratic, chaotic
situation on the ground with little hope for a quick turnaround. We
appear to be lurching from one assault on our troops to the next while
making little if any headway in stabilizing or improving security in the
country.

The failure to secure the vast stockpiles of deadly conventional weapons
in Iraq - including shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles such as the
one that may have brought down the U.S. helicopter on Sunday - is one of
many mistakes that the Administration made that is coming back to haunt
us today. But perhaps the biggest mistake, the costliest mistake -
following the colossal mistake of launching a preemptive attack on Iraq
– - is the Administration’s failure to have a clearly defined mission
and exit strategy for Iraq.

The President continues to insist that the United States will persevere
in its mission in Iraq, that our resolve is unshakable. But it is time -
past time - for the President to tell the American people exactly what
that mission is, how he intends to accomplish it, and what his exit
strategy is for American troops in Iraq. It is the American people who
will ultimately decide how long we will stay in Iraq.

It is not enough for the President to maintain that the United States
will not be driven out of Iraq by the increasing violence against
American soldiers. He must also demonstrate leadership by presenting the
American people with a plan to stem the freewheeling violence in Iraq,
return the government of that country to the Iraqi people, and pave the
way for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. We do not now have
such a plan, and the supplemental conference report before us does not
provide such a plan. The $87 billion in this appropriations bill
provides the wherewithal for the United States to stay the course in
Iraq when what we badly need is a course correction. The President owes
the American people an exit strategy for Iraq, and it is time for him to
deliver. I have great respect and affection for my fellow Senators and
my colleagues on the Senate Appropriations Committee. But I have even
greater respect and affection for the institution of the Senate and the
Constitution by which it was established.

Every Senator, upon taking office, swears an oath to support and defend
the Constitution. It is the Constitution - not the President, not a
political party, but the Constitution - to which Senators swear an oath
of loyalty. And I am here to tell you that neither the Constitution nor
the American people are well served by a process and a product that are
based on blind adherence to the will of the President at the expense of
congressional checks and balances. It is as if, in a rush to support the
President’s policy, this White House is prepared to put blinders on the
Congress.

This supplemental spending bill is a case in point. One of the earliest
amendments that was defeated on the Senate floor was one that I offered
to hold back a portion of the reconstruction money and give the Senate a
second vote on whether to release it. Apparently, the President and his
supporters did not want to give the Senate an opportunity to review the
progress - or lack of progress - in Iraq and have a second chance to
debate the wisdom of spending billions of taxpayers’ dollars on the
reconstruction effort.

Time after time, the conference committee was given opportunities to
restore or impose accountability on the administration for the money
being appropriated in the Iraq supplemental. And time after time, the
conference majority beat back those measures. The conferees, for
example, defeated, on a party line vote, an amendment I offered which
would have required that the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority
in Iraq be confirmed by the Senate. Senate confirmation would have
ensured that the person who is managing tens of billions of dollars in
Iraq for the American taxpayers would be accountable to the public. The
current appointee, L. Paul Bremer III, is not. He answers to the
Secretary of Defense and the President, not to Congress or the American
people.

The conferees approved a provision creating an inspector general for the
Coalition Provisional Authority, but I am dismayed that this individual
is not subject to Senate confirmation. I am dismayed that the conferees
defeated my amendment that would have required the inspector general to
testify before Congress when invited. And I am dismayed that the
President can refuse to send Congress the results of the inspector
general’s work. Could it be that the President’s supporters in Congress
are afraid to hear what the inspector general might tell them? Could it
be that the President’s supporters in Congress would rather blindly
follow the President instead of risking reality by opening their eyes to
what could be uncomfortable facts?

The conference also stripped out my amendment to the Senate bill that
would have required the General Accounting Office to conduct ongoing
audits of the expenditure of taxpayer dollars for the reconstruction of
Iraq. On the Senate floor, my amendment requiring such audits was
adopted 97 to 0. In the House-Senate conference, it was defeated by the
Senate conferees on a 15 to 14 straight-line party vote.

Sprinkled throughout the Iraq supplemental conference report, provisions
euphemistically described as "flexibilities" give the President broad
authority to take the money appropriated by Congress in this bill and
spend it however he wishes. I tried to eliminate or limit these
flexibilities - and in a few cases succeeded - but there remain billions
of dollars in this measure that can be spent at the discretion of the
President or the Secretary of Defense. Although the money is
appropriated by Congress, these so-called "flexibilities" effectively
transfer the power of the purse from the Legislative Branch to the
Executive Branch.

The dictionary definition of victory is simple and straightforward:
success, conquest, triumph. Within the constraints of that simplistic
definition, I suppose one could construe this package to be a victory
for the President.

But I believe there is a moral undercurrent to the notion of victory
that is not reflected in the dictionary definition. I believe that most
Americans equate victory more closely with what is right than with
simply winning. It is one thing to win, and the tactics be damned; it is
quite another to be victorious. Victory implies doing what is right;
doing what is right implies morality; morality implies standards of
conduct. I do not include arm-twisting and intimidation in my definition
of exemplary standards of conduct.

Moreover, we should not forget that not all victories are created equal.
In 280 BC, Pyrrhus, the ruler of Epirus in Northern Greece, took his
formidable armies to Italy and defeated the Romans at Heraclea, and
again at Asculum in 279 BC, but suffered unbearably heavy losses. "One
more such victory and I am lost," he said.

It is to Pyrrhus that we owe the term "pyrrhic victory," to describe a
victory so costly as to be ruinous. This supplemental, and the policy
which it supports, unfortunately, may prove to be a pyrrhic victory for
the Bush Administration.

The conference report before the Senate today is a flawed agreement that
was produced by political imperative, not by reasoned policy
considerations. This is not a good bill for our troops in Iraq. This is
not a good bill for American taxpayers. This is not good policy for the
United States.

Victory is not always about winning. Sometimes, victory is simply about
being right. This conference report does not reflect the right policy
for Iraq or the right policy for America. I oppose it and I will vote No
on final passage.