The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Colorado.
Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise today in relation to the nomination of Dr. Rice to be Secretary of State. Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution obligates the Senate to advise and consent on the President's nominees for his cabinet.
That is a solemn duty, to be sure. So let me be clear up front that I will give my consent to Dr. Rice's nomination. I believe she is qualified for this important post and I am hopeful she will do an outstanding job advancing the interests and ideals of this great country.
As a U.S. Senator, given the gravity of the situation facing the United States in Iraq, I also want to take this moment to meet my obligation to advise Dr. Rice and the President.
I do this for one reason. We all serve here at the pleasure of the citizens of our States. Our efforts fail or succeed based on the informed consent of those citizens. Nowhere is that more clear than in the areas of war and peace. The consequences of war are clear. Like so many American families, my family knows the pain and sacrifice of war. My relatives have been killed on the soils of Europe and other places.
In World War II, we lost nearly half a million Americans. In the war in Iraq, we have lost 1,371 soldiers and more than 10,000 have been wounded. I visited some of our young brave men and women at Walter Reed Army Medical Center a few weeks ago and saw the struggles and pains of them and their families as they suffered from the wounds of war.
I support our troops and I pray and hope that their efforts in Iraq will have not been in vain and that the elections next week will usher in a new and free democracy in that nation.
Nor do I rise today out of some partisan spirit. In fact, over the last 3 weeks I have very publicly and very clearly spoken in favor of two other cabinet nominees. This is a patriotic obligation, not a partisan exercise.
As we look to the future, I believe strongly we must reflect on the past and constantly review and assess our performance for lessons learned for the American people. In fact, no one does a better job of this than the United States military. It invests great manpower and hours in after-action reviews to ensure that its doctrine, planning and execution were as good as it could have and should have been.
Such an after-action review for the aministration would, I think, reveal clear concerns. There has been a general lack of candor--to our troops and their families, to our taxpayers and even, to some extent, to ourselves. Only by addressing this failure can we hope to ensure the continued informed consent of the American people for this historic undertaking in Iraq.
This morning's paper reports that the Army is preparing to keep the level of U.S. troops in Iraq unchanged through the next 2 years. It is troubling because our troops have been told so many different things so many times that I fear they no longer know what lies ahead in their future.
I have to believe that was a troubling headline to read for the 150,000 families--including the more than 2,000 in Colorado--who have loved ones deployed to Iraq and the thousands of others who know that their loved ones will be redeploying to Iraq for a second or even a third tour.
This morning's newspaper also reports that the administration will seek an additional $80 billion for ongoing operations in Iraq. This is over and above the more than $149 billion already appropriated for this effort. Compare that with what the aministration told the American people on January 19, 2003, when it said that this entire effort would cost less than $50 billion.
I remind my colleagues that each and every dollar of this operation is money added to the deficit. That is money borrowed from foreign governments that will have to be paid for by our children.
GPO's PDF
As troubling as that deficit is, we will soon be faced with the challenge of deciding how to pay for many domestic issues, including most importantly, the health care our veterans have earned, and some are arguing we should tell the American people and our veterans that we simply cannot afford a level of care they have come to expect.
Lastly, I am concerned about what can only be called a lack of candor--and urgency--with ourselves and our decisions.
What else could explain the massive intelligence failures that precededÐ 9/11--the failure to see what was coming from al-Qaida, despite the years of its hateful rhetoric and despicable actions. And what else can explain the slowness in creating the Department on Homeland Security, or the lack of support for the 9/11 Commission and its clarion call for intelligence reform in the face of this hateful enemy. And what else--unless it was that, counter to all warnings from our military, we convinced ourselves that this effort in Iraq would be over in weeks, not years--can account for the fact that now, nearly 2 years since the start of this operation, our troops do not have the armor they need?
I end where I began, Mr. President. My advice is simple. To succeed in Iraq and elsewhere in the world, we need to heed the lessons learned over the past years. We need to be sure our intelligence is sound before we commit our troops, ensure our troops are prepared, and ensure our citizens are informed.
Educated, as she was, in Denver, I am confident Dr. Rice took to heart the candor and straight talk that we value in the West and in Colorado. Those will be important attributes for her to employ as she becomes Secretary of State.
I yield the floor.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
