Senator Byrd delivered the
following remarks Tuesday as the Senate debated the nomination of Dr.
Condoleezza Rice to be Secretary of State. The Senate is
scheduled to vote on the nomination on Wednesday.
The Constitution, in Article
Two, Section Two, states that the President "shall nominate, and by and
with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors,
other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and
all other Officers of the United States..." Recognizing that the
Senate's role of advice and consent is one of the few legislative
powers explicitly cited in the Constitution, Senator Byrd believes that
it is a power that Senators of both parties must rigorously
protect. It is not a ceremonial exercise.
With regard to this
nomination, Senator Byrd has been particularly concerned about Dr.
Rice's role in crafting the Bush doctrine of preemption, or the
first-strike war. No one denies that the President has the
inherent authority to repel attacks against our country, but Senator
Byrd believes that the doctrine of first-strike war against another
country which does not pose an imminent threat to the United States is
unconstitutional.
In Federalist Number 76,
Alexander Hamilton wrote:
"It will readily be
comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of
offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and
interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice
to the discussion and determination of a different and independent
body, and that body an entire branch of the legislature. The
possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in
proposing."
Although
Hamilton explains the importance of the role of the Senate in the
appointment of officers of the United States, neither he, nor the
Constitution, is specific about what criteria Senators must use to
judge the qualifications of a nominee. The Constitution only
requires that the Senate give its advice and consent. It is
therefore left to Senators to use their own judgment in considering
their vote. The factors involved in such judgments may vary among
Senators, among nominees, and may even change in response to the needs
of the times.
The position of Secretary of
State is among the most important offices for which the Constitution
requires the advice and consent of the Senate. It is the Secretary of
State that sits at the right hand of the President during meetings of
the Cabinet. The Secretary of State is all the more important
today, considering the enormous diplomatic challenges our country will
face in the next four years.
I must commend the Foreign
Relations Committee for its work in bringing the nomination of Dr.
Condoleezza Rice to the Floor of the Senate. Chairman Richard
Lugar conducted two days of hearings for this nominee, and the debate
that began in the committee on this nomination is now being continued
here on the Floor of the Senate. Senator Biden also provided a
voice of great foreign policy experience during those hearings. I
was particularly impressed by Senator Boxer, who tackled her role on
the committee with passion and forthrightness, as did Senator
Kerry.
There is no doubt that Dr.
Rice has a remarkable record of personal achievement. She
obtained her bachelor's degree at the tender age of 19. Speaking
as someone who did not earn a bachelor's degree until I had reached 77
years of age, I have a special appreciation for Dr. Rice's impressive
academic achievement. She then obtained a doctorate in
international studies, and quickly rose through the academic ranks to
become Provost of Stanford University.
Dr. Rice has also gathered
extensive experience in foreign policy matters. She is a
recognized expert on matters relating to Russia and the former Soviet
Union. She has twice worked on the National Security Council,
once as the senior advisor on Soviet issues, and most recently, for
four years as National Security Advisor. Dr. Rice has had ample
exposure to the nuances of international politics, and by that measure,
she is certainly qualified for the position of Secretary of State.
The next Secretary of State
will have large shoes to fill. I have closely watched the career
of Colin Powell since he served as National Security Advisor to
President Reagan, and we worked together during the Senate
consideration of the INF Treaty of 1988. He distinguished himself
in his service as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, particularly
during the 1991 Gulf War. When his nomination came before the Senate in
2001, I supported his confirmation based upon the strength of his
record.
The vote that the Senate will
conduct tomorrow, however, is not simply a formality to approve of a
nominee's educational achievement or level of expertise. I do not
subscribe to the notion that the Senate must confirm a President's
nominees, barring criminality or lack of experience. The
Constitution enjoins Senators to use their judgment in considering
nominations.
I am particularly dismayed by
accusations I have read that Senate Democrats, by insisting on having
an opportunity to debate the nomination of Dr. Rice, have somehow been
engaged in nothing more substantial than "petty politics" or partisan
delaying tactics. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Senate's role of advice and consent to presidential nominations is
not a ceremonial exercise.
I have stood on this
Senate floor more times than I can count to defend the prerogatives of
this institution and the separate but equal – with emphasis on the word
"equal" – powers of the three branches of government. A unique
power of the Legislative Branch is the Senate's role in providing
advice and consent on the matter of nominations. That power is
not vested in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or any other
committee; nor does it repose in a handful of Senate leaders. It is not
a function of pomp and circumstance, and it was never intended by the
Framers to be used to burnish the image of a President on inauguration
day.
And yet that is exactly what
Senators were being pressured to do last week – to acquiesce mutely to
the nomination of one of the most important members of the President's
Cabinet without the merest hiccup of debate or the smallest
inconvenience of a roll call vote.
And so we are here today to
fulfill our constitutional duty to consider the nomination of Dr. Rice
to be Secretary of State. Mr. President, I have carefully considered
Dr. Rice's record as National Security Advisor in the two months that
have passed since the President announced her nomination to be
Secretary of State. That record, I am afraid, is one of intimate
involvement in a number of Administration foreign policies which I
strongly oppose. These policies have fostered enormous opposition
-- both at home and abroad -- to the White House's view of America's
place in the world.
That view of America is one
which encourages our Nation to flex its muscles without being bound by
any calls for restraint. The most forceful explanation of this
idea can be found in "The National Security Strategy of the United
States," a report which was issued by the White House in September
2002. Under this strategy, the President lays claim to an
expansive power to use our military to strike other nations first, even
if we have not been threatened or provoked.
There is no question that the
President has the inherent authority to repel attacks against our
country, but this National Security Strategy is unconstitutional on its
face. It takes the checks and balances established in the
Constitution that limit the President's ability to use our military at
his pleasure, and throws them out the window.
This doctrine of preemptive
strikes places the sole decision of war and peace in the hands of the
President and undermines the Constitutional power of Congress to
declare war. The Founding Fathers required that such an important
issue of war be debated by the elected representatives of the people in
the Legislative Branch precisely because no single man could be trusted
with such an awesome power as bringing a nation to war by his decision
alone. And yet, that it exactly what the National Security
Strategy proposes.
Not only does this pernicious
doctrine of preemptive war contradict the Constitution, it barely
acknowledges its existence. The National Security Strategy makes
only one passing reference to the Constitution: it states that
"America's constitution" -- that is "constitution" with a small C --
"has served us well." As if the Constitution does not still serve
this country well! One might ask if that reference to the
Constitution was intended to be a compliment or an obituary?
As National Security Advisor,
Dr. Rice was in charge of developing the National Security
Strategy. She also spoke out forcefully in support of the
dangerous doctrine of preemptive war. In one speech, she argues
that there need not be an imminent threat before the United States
attacks another nation: "So as a matter of common sense," said Dr. Rice
on October 1, 2002, "the United States must be prepared to take action,
when necessary, before threats have fully materialized."
But that "matter of common
sense" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. For that
matter, isn't it possible to disagree with this "matter of common
sense?" What is common sense to one might not be shared by
another. What's more, matters of common sense can lead people to
the wrong conclusions. John Dickinson, the chief author of the
Articles of Confederation, said in 1787, "Experience must be our only
guide; reason may mislead us." As for me, I will heed the
experience of Founding Fathers, as enshrined in the Constitution, over
the reason and "common sense" of the Administration's National Security
Strategy.
We can all agree that the
President, any President, has the inherent duty and power to repel an
attack on the United States. But where in the Constitution can
the President claim the right to strike at another nation before it has
even threatened our country, as Dr. Rice asserted in that speech?
To put it plainly, Dr. Rice has asserted that the President holds far
more of the war power than the Constitution grants him.
This doctrine of attacking
countries before a threat has "fully materialized" was put into motion
as soon as the National Security Strategy was released. Beginning
in September 2002, Dr. Rice also took a position on the front lines of
the Administration's effort to hype the danger of Saddam's weapons of
mass destruction.
Dr. Rice is responsible for
some of the most overblown rhetoric that the Administration used to
scare the American people into believing that there was an imminent
threat from Iraq. On September 8, 2002, Dr. Rice conjured visions
of American cities being consumed by mushroom clouds. On an appearance
on CNN, she warned: "The problem here is that there will always be some
uncertainty about how quickly he [Saddam] can acquire nuclear weapons.
But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
Dr. Rice also claimed that
she had conclusive evidence about Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons
program. During that same interview, she also said: "We do know that he
is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know that there have been
shipments going into… Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes… that are
really only suited for nuclear weapons programs."
We now know that Iraq's
nuclear program was a fiction. Charles Duelfer, the chief arms
inspector of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group, reported on September 30,
2004: "Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the
Gulf war. [The Iraq Survey Group] found no evidence to suggest
concerted efforts to restart the program."
But Dr. Rice's statements in
2002 were not only wrong, they also did not accurately reflect the
intelligence reports of the time. Declassified portions of the
CIA's National Intelligence Estimate from October 2002 make it clear
that there were disagreements among our intelligence analysts about the
state of Iraq's nuclear program. But Dr. Rice seriously
misrepresented their disputes when she categorically stated, "We do
know that [Saddam] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon."
Her allegation also
misrepresented to the American people the controversy in those same
intelligence reports about the aluminum tubes. Again, Dr. Rice
said that these tubes were "really only suited for nuclear weapons
programs." But intelligence experts at the State Department and
the Department of Energy believed that those tubes had nothing to do
with building a nuclear weapon, and made their dissent known in the
October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. This view, which was
at odds with Dr. Rice's representations, was later confirmed by the
International Atomic Energy Agency and our own CIA arms inspectors.
Dr. Rice made other
statements that helped to build a case for war by implying a link
between Iraq and September 11. On multiple occasions, Dr. Rice
spoke about the supposed evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were in
league with each other. For example, on September 25, 2002, Dr. Rice
said on the PBS NewsHour:
"No one is trying to make an
argument at this point that Saddam Hussein somehow had operational
control of what happened on September 11, so we don't want to push this
too far, but this is a story that is unfolding, and it is getting
clear, and we're learning more…. But yes, there clearly are contact[s]
between Al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is
testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts
and that there is a relationship there."
What Dr. Rice did not say was
that some of those supposed links were being called into question by
our intelligence agencies, such as the alleged meeting between a 9-11
ringleader and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague that has now been
debunked. These attempts to connect Iraq and Al Qaeda appear to
be a prime example of cherry-picking intelligence to hype the supposed
threat of Iraq, while keeping contrary evidence away from the American
people, wrapped up in the red tape of top secret reports.
Dr. Rice pressed the point
even further, creating scenarios that threatened tens of thousands of
American lives, even when that threat wasn't supported by
intelligence. On March 9, 2003, just eleven days before the
invasion of Iraq, Dr. Rice appeared on "Face the Nation" and said:
"Now the al-Qaida is an
organization that's quite dispersed and --and quite widespread in its
effects, but it clearly has had links to the Iraqis, not to mention
Iraqi links to all kinds of other terrorists. And what we do not want
is the day when Saddam Hussein decides that he's had enough of dealing
with sanctions, enough of dealing with, quote, unquote, "containment,"
enough of dealing with America, and it's time to end it on his terms,
by transferring one of these weapons, just a little vial of something,
to a terrorist for blackmail or for worse."
But the intelligence
community had already addressed this scenario with great skepticism. In
fact, the CIA's National Intelligence Estimate from October 2002
concluded that it had "low confidence" that Saddam would ever transfer
any weapons of mass destruction – weapons that he did not have, as it
turned out – to anyone outside of his control. This is yet more
evidence of an abuse of intelligence in order to build the case for an
unprovoked war with Iraq.
And what has been the effect
of the first use of the reckless doctrine of preemptive war? In a most
ironic and deadly twist, the false situation described by the
Administration before the war -- namely, that Iraq was a training
ground for terrorists poised to attack us -- is exactly the situation
that our war in Iraq has created.
But it was this unjustified
war that created the situation that the President claimed he was trying
to prevent. Violent extremists have flooded into Iraq from all
corners of the world. Iraqis have taken up arms themselves to
fight against the continuing U.S. occupation of their country.
According to a CIA report released in December 2004, intelligence
analysts now see Iraq, destabilized by the Administration's
ill-conceived war, as the training ground for a new generation of
terrorists. [Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National
Intelligence Council's 2020 Project, pp. 94] It should be profoundly
disturbing to all Americans if the most dangerous breeding ground for
terrorism shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq, simply because of the
Administration's ill-advised rush to war in March 2003.
Dr. Rice's role in the war
against Iraq was not limited to building the case for an unprecedented,
preemptive invasion of a country that had not attacked us first.
Her role also extends to the Administration's failed efforts to
establish peace in Iraq. In October 2003, five months after he
declared "Mission Accomplished," the President created the Iraq
Stabilization Group, headed by Dr. Rice. The task of the Iraq
Stabilization Group was to coordinate efforts to speed reconstruction
aid to help bring the violence in Iraq to an end.
But what has the Iraq
Stabilization Group accomplished under the leadership of Dr. Rice? When
she took the helm of the stabilization efforts, 319 U.S. troops had
been killed in Iraq. That number now stands at 1,368 as of today
(Tuesday 1/25). More than 10,600 troops have been wounded. The
cost of the war has spiraled to $149 billion, and the White House is on
the verge of asking Congress for another $80 billion. Despite the
mandate of the Iraq Stabilization Group, the situation in Iraq has gone
from bad to worse. More ominously, the level of violence only
keeps growing, week after week, month after month, and no
Administration official, whether from the White House, the Pentagon, or
Foggy Bottom, has made any predictions about when the violence will
finally subside.
Furthermore, of the $18.4
billion in Iraqi reconstruction aid appropriated by Congress in October
2003, the Administration has spent only $2.7 billion. With these funds
moving so slowly, it is hard to believe that the Iraq Stabilization
Group has had any success at all in speeding the reconstruction efforts
in Iraq. For all the hue and cry about the need to speed up aid
to Iraq, one wonders if there should be more tough questions asked of
Dr. Rice about what she has accomplished as the head of this group.
There are also many
unanswered questions about Dr. Rice's record as National Security
Advisor. Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism
advisor, has leveled scathing criticism against Dr. Rice and the
National Security Council for failing to recognize the threat from Al
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in the months leading up to the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks. In particular, Mr. Clarke states that he
submitted a request on January 25, 2001, for an urgent meeting of the
National Security Council on the threat of al Qaeda.
However, due to decisions
made by Dr. Rice and her staff, that urgent meeting did not occur until
too late: the meeting was not actually called until September 4,
2001. Mr. Clarke, who is widely acknowledged as one of the
leading authorities on terrorism in government at that time, told the
9-11 Commission that he was so frustrated with those decisions that he
asked to be reassigned to different issues, and the Bush White House
approved that request.
Dr. Rice appeared before the
9-11 Commission on April 8, 2004, but if anything, her testimony raised
only more questions about what the President and others knew about the
threats to New York City and Washington, D.C. in the weeks before the
attacks, and whether more could have been done to prevent them.
Why wasn't any action taken
when she and the President received an intelligence report on August 6,
2001, entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United
States?" Why did Dr. Rice and President Bush reassign Richard
Clarke, the leading terrorism expert in the White House, soon after
taking office in 2001? Why did it take nine months for Dr. Rice
to call the first high-level National Security Council meeting on the
threat of Osama bin Laden? As the Senate debates her nomination
today, we still have not heard full answers to these questions.
In addition to Mr. Clarke's
criticism, Dr. David Kay, the former CIA weapons inspector in Iraq,
also has strong words for the National Security Council and its role in
the run up to the war in Iraq. When Dr. Kay appeared before the
Senate Intelligence Committee on August 18, 2004, to analyze why the
Administration's pre-war intelligence was so wrong about weapons of
mass destruction, he described the National Security Council as the
"dog that didn't bark" to warn the President about the weakness of
those intelligence reports. Dr. Kay continued: "Every president
who has been successful, at least that I know of, in the history of
this republic, has developed both informal and formal means of getting
checks on whether people who tell him things are in fact telling him
the whole truth.… The recent history has been a reliance on the NSC
system to do it. I quite frankly think that has not served this
president very well."
What Dr. Kay appears to state
was his view that the National Security Council, under the leadership
of Dr. Rice, did not do a sufficient job of raising doubts about the
quality of the intelligence about Iraq. On the contrary, based
upon Dr. Rice's statements that I quoted earlier, her rhetoric even
went beyond the questionable intelligence that the CIA had available on
Iraq, in order to hype the threats of aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds,
and connections between Iraq and September 11.
In light of the massive
reorganization of our intelligence agencies enacted by Congress last
year, shouldn't this nomination spur the Senate to stop, look, and
listen about what has been going on in the National Security Council
for the last four years? Don't these serious questions about the
failings of the National Security Council under Dr. Rice deserve a more
through examination before the Senate votes to confirm her as the next
Secretary of State?
Accountability has become an
old-fashioned notion in some circles these days, but accountability is
not a negotiable commodity when it comes to the highest circles of our
nation's government. The accountability of government
officials is an obligation, not a luxury. And yet, accountability is an
obligation that this President and his administration appear loath to
fulfill.
Instead of being held
to account for their actions, the architects of the policies that led
our nation into war with Iraq, policies based on faulty intelligence
and phantom weapons of mass destruction, have been rewarded by the
President with accolades and promotions. Instead of admitting to
mistakes in the war on Iraq and its disastrous aftermath, the President
and his inner circle of advisers continue to cling to myths and
misconceptions. The only notion of accountability that this
President is willing to acknowledge is the November elections, which he
has described as a moment of accountability and an endorsement of his
policies. Unfortunately, after-the-fact validation of victory is
hardly the standard of accountability that the American people have the
right to expect from their elected officials. It is one thing to accept
responsibility for success; it is quite another to accept
accountability for failure.
Sadly, failure has
tainted far too many aspects of our nation's international policies
over the past four years, culminating in the deadly insurgency that has
resulted from the invasion of Iraq. With respect to this
particular nomination, I believe that there needs to be accountability
for the mistakes and missteps that have led the United States into the
dilemma in which it finds itself today, besieged by increasing violence
in Iraq, battling an unprecedented decline in world opinion, and
increasingly isolated from our allies due to our provocative,
belligerent, bellicose, and unilateralist foreign policy.
Whether the Administration
will continue to pursue these policies cannot be known to Senators
today, as we prepare to cast our votes. At her confirmation
hearing on January 18, Dr. Rice proclaimed that "Our interaction with
the rest of the world must be a conversation, not a monologue."
But two days later, President Bush gave an inaugural address that
seemed to rattle sabers at any nation that he does not consider to be
free. Before Senators cast their vote, we must wonder whether we
are casting our lot for more diplomacy or more belligerence?
Reconciliation or more confrontation? Which face of this Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde foreign policy will be revealed in the next four
years?
Although I do not question
her credentials, I do oppose many of the critical decisions that Dr.
Rice has made during her four years as National Security Advisor.
She has a record, and the record is there for us to judge. There
remain too many unanswered questions about Dr. Rice's failure to
protect our country before the tragic attacks of September 11, her
public efforts to politicize intelligence, and her often stated
allegiance to the doctrine of preemption.
To confirm Dr. Rice to be the
next Secretary of State is to say to the American people, and the
world, that the answers to those questions are no longer
important. Her confirmation will most certainly be viewed as
another endorsement of the Administration's unconstitutional doctrine
of preemptive war, its bullying policies of unilateralism, and its
callous rejection of our long-standing allies.
The stakes for the United
States are too high. I cannot endorse higher responsibilities for
those who helped set our great country down the path of increasing
isolation, enmity in the world, and a war that has no end. For
these reasons, I shall cast my vote in opposition to the confirmation
of Condoleezza Rice to be the next Secretary of State.
###
|