We live in very dark times. We have a president who has taken complete leave of his senses and seems to have no qualms whatsoever sending more troops to their deaths on a mission that will surely fail. Sometimes, you just feel like the whole world has gone mad. And then . . . I tuned into C-SPAN this week and got to see another part of our government -- the Senate, newly in Democratic hands. In particular, the Iraq hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Senator Joseph Biden, was a tonic full of sanity, and that made a difference. It counteracted the irrational administration, if for a few hours, and this is a diary in tribute to those senators.
I'm going to choose a few senators who I think had some very meaningful things to say (and I'm even going to feature one Republican), but nearly every senator did their job yesterday in grilling Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Bush's failed policies in Iraq. This is how government should work, and what we did in 2006 to make this happen means that this wasn't just their day in the sun, but ours, too.
And now to the hearing.
Having been born and raised in Connecticut, I've always been impressed with Christopher Dodd, and this has grown exponentially as I've seen him speak the truth more and more. Here he minces no words:
DODD: Madam Secretary, I'm sorry to say today, and I think many hold this view, that a fool's paradise describes nothing as aptly as our Iraq policy today. I think most Americans know it. Painfully, the Iraq people, of course, know this in compelling numbers.
If the president did grasp, I think, the sad extent of that failure, I sincerely doubt he would have ordered yet more troops into Iraq. The president's plan simply strikes me as a continuation of Operation Together Forward, which has been described already, which far from improving Iraq's security climate, produced the unintended consequences of heightened sectarian violence.
I failed to see, and I think many others share this view, how the outcome will be different this time. And that is a true disservice, I think, to the American troops, who have shown nothing but professionalism and courage and should not be asked to risk their lives for an unsound strategy and an unsure purpose.
Madam Secretary, this is going to be a long, long morning for you. But suck it up, because you're in part responsible for this mess.
And now to our next featured senator, I go to none other than Republican Senator Chuck Hagel who's been critical of the war for a long time, but now that he is no longer under the tyranny of Dick Cheney's Republican controlled Senate, can really let loose. Oh wait, one of our private citizens has something to say to the Madam Secretary:
PROTESTER: Lies! It's all lies! More lies! Still lying! Stop lying! Stop the war!
Not much protest from the Senators in the committee room about this verbal outburst. Maybe they're in agreement. Okay, Senator Hagel?
HAGEL: When you were engaging Chairman Biden on this issue on the specific question of, "Will our troops go into Iran or Syria in pursuit, based on what the president said last night?," you cannot sit here today -- not because you're dishonest or you don't understand -- but no one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border.
HAGEL: Some of us remember 1970, Madam Secretary. And that was Cambodia. And when our government lied to the American people and said, "We didn't cross the border going into Cambodia," in fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.
Let us pause for a moment to digest whom Senator Hagel was referring to. His fellow Vietnam vets Senators Kerry and Webb. Also notice, how all those bogus Swift Boat Vet "charges" about Kerry being or not being in Cambodia fall away in a split second of historical remembrance of the truth of what happened so many years ago. You may continue, Senator:
So, Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous. As a matter of fact, I have to say, Madam Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam -- if it's carried out.
I will resist it.
(APPLAUSE)
HAGEL: Putting 22,000 new troops, more troops in, is not an escalation?
RICE: Well, I think, Senator, escalation is not just a matter of how many numbers you put in. Escalation is also a question of, are you changing the strategic goal of what you're trying to do? Are you escalating...
HAGEL: Would you call it a decrease, and billions of dollars more that you need...
It seems that Senator Hagel is not afraid of a little snark, Senatese style. Okay, Madam Secretary, go get the thesaurus.
RICE: I would call it, Senator, an augmentation that allows the Iraqis to deal with this very serious problem that they have in Baghdad.
This is not a change in what we are trying to achieve. The Iraqi government needs to establish population security. What this argumentation does is to help them carry out their plan to get population security.
I just want to note, though, of course, that most of -- many of the American casualties actually are taken in places like Anbar. They're also taken really because convoys are moving back and forth in the city. They're deliberately by people who are trying to get us out of the country. They're not because we are caught in the middle of crossfire between Sunni and Shia.
I think it is important, again, to use the chairman's word, to have an image of what's really going on in Baghdad. It is absolutely the case that Iraqi...
HAGEL: Madam Secretary, your intelligence and mine is a lot different.
And I know my time is up here.
But to sit there and say that, Madam Secretary, that's just not true.
RICE: Well, Senator...
HAGEL: That is not true.
Stop the presses! Senator Hagel, a Republican, just called Condi Rice a liar. Seems to me he's not much different from that protester, now is he?
Next up, Senator Kerry. Get prepared, Condi, this is not going to be easy. Set your bullshitometer to stun!
KERRY: But what does it mean to say it's not open-ended? What is the accountability measure here? Are you saying, if it's not open-ended, that you're prepared to terminate it? Do you agree that it's not open-ended, first of all?
RICE: Of course, it is not open-ended.
KERRY: If it's not open-ended, does that mean you're prepared if they fail to pull out, to terminate? What is the accountability mechanism?
RICE: Senator, I think it's best to leave the president's words as the president's words.
Oh, please, Madam. That's your answer? Believe a liar's words? Seems to me that in your dancing around the issues, you've acquired two left feet. Watch out, but please, continue with your blather for a minute before Kerry, the prosecutor, trips you up again:
I do think that the accountability rests in two places. First of all, I think the Iraqis now know that if they don't succeeding returning security to their population, then their population is not going to support them. And...
KERRY: And what are we going to do? That's the big issue to the United States Congress.
RICE: ... it's a democratic process.
And, secondly, we will have an opportunity as this policy unfolds -- it's not going to happen overnight -- as it unfolds to see whether or not, in fact, the Iraqis are living up to the assurances that they gave us.
KERRY: And what if they don't?
RICE: Senator, I don't think you go to plan B. You work with plan A.
KERRY: But that's not a plan B. That's a very critical issue.
RICE: You work with plan A and you give it the possibility of success, the best possibility of success.
And I want to emphasize, it's not just about Baghdad. There are other elements to this policy, and I really think it's important not to underestimate the importance of relying, of course, on the Maliki government in terms Baghdad, but also relying on the local councils and the local leaders of Baghdad through the expansion of PRTs there, relaying on the local leaders in places like Anbar to do the kinds of things that they've started to do...
KERRY: But, Madam Secretary, with all due respect, all of that is good. I think those PRT teams are terrific, and I think the effort of those folks out there is courageous, unbelievable.
But they can't do this. If Abdel Aziz Hakim and SCIRI have a grand design for a nine-province state that is Shia in the south, to the exclusion of adequate support to the Sunni and Baghdad and the central government -- you know that -- they can't do it.
If Muqtada al-Sadr has ambitions with respect to the country and the Sunni aren't brought to the table with a sufficient stake that they feel they're sharing -- that's the fundamental struggle here.
Oh, Senator, we love it when you start rattling off Arabic names as if you're talking about Mr. Smith down the street. But we shouldn't get Ms. Rice too distracted, listening to a real thinker as opposed to that joker boss of hers, so you might want to tone that down in the future.
RICE: I agree...
KERRY: The president didn't address it.
RICE: No, the president did address it. He talked about the need for the national oil law. And...
KERRY: The need for it, but now how it's going to happen. And why do we have to wait three years to have that?
RICE: We are very much -- well, because it's actually a very difficult thing, Senator ....
Where have we heard that before? "It's hard work", you know, doing the job of the president. Or rather, maybe nobody feels like doing the work, the real diplomatic work, and what is hard work is being stuck in a room debating Senator Kerry, what with all those facts, insights, policy knowledge, and oh, the Arabic names he speaks so fluently, and no right wing noise machine to edit out his brilliance.
That was so sweet, MSNBC put it out in the form of a video called "Kerry spars with Rice". Well done, Senator. Also, scroll down, and you will find the Hagel Q & A there, too.
Finally, I want you to read a few words from my new senator James Webb. In my years in Virginia, I felt distinctly disenfranchised as on the federal level I only had Republican elected officials. Taxation without representation came to mind. But in 2006 Virginia became a purple state, and I hope that the small part I played locally made a difference in getting a patriot like Jim Webb elected to the Senate. Needless to say, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that the collective IQ of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee doubled when Geoge Allen left and James Webb came in. How about a little history lesson for the Madam Secretary, Senator:
WEBB: ... when I'm looking at this, one of the things that sticks in my mind is the situation that we had with China in 1971.
This was a rogue nation that had nuclear weapons, it had an American war on its border. The parallels are not exact, but we went forward, without giving up any of our ideals or our national objectives, and we did a very aggressive engagement process that, over a period of time, has arguably brought China into the international community.
And I just hope you will pass on to the president: A, my best regards; and, B, that if he were to move in that direction, he certainly would have the strong support of me and perhaps other people.
And now to the "elephant in the room", Iran:
The question that I have for you goes back to the presidential finding on the resolution that authorized force in '02.
And there is a sentence in here which basically says that this resolution does not constitute any change in the position of the executive branch with regard to its authority to use force to deter, prevent or respond to aggression or other threats to United States interests outside of Iraq.
This phrase went to situations outside of Iraq.
And this is a question that can be answered either very briefly or through written testimony, but my question is: Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the authority to take unilateral action against Iran in the absence of a direct threat without congressional approval?
Of course, she refused to answer the question, which was very disturbing indeed. At the end, Sen. Webb threw down a challenge, which I am sure will be ignored by this administration, but it is important that our good Dems have alternative ideas of how the world should be, and I'm glad Sen. Webb said it:
WEBB: Right. Well, I think that it's important, as the Baker commission was saying, a lot of people have been saying, and I've been saying, that when you have a situation with a nation that constitutes this kind of threat, it's very important to confront as well as to engage.
And I personally think it would be a bold act for George W. Bush to get on an airplane and go to Tehran in the same manner that President Nixon did, take a gamble, and not give up one thing that we believe in, in terms of its moving toward weapons of mass destruction, our belief that Israel needs to be recognized and interests need to be protected, but to maybe start changing the formula here.
The Democrats are about hope, about thinking about things differently, about telling the truth, and demanding the truth. This is the new world of 2007. Where the lies will no longer be tolerated in our Congress. And for that, we can thank ourselves for making this happen and to our elected officials for remembering why they were elected.