Through the wonders of TiVo, I was able to back up and transcribe the last part of Mark Dayton's excellent speech on the Senate floor today opposing the nomination of Condoleeza Rice.
The point where I started in comes immediately after Dayton described how the Senate was given an intelligence assessment stating without qualification that Saddam had an active nuclear weapons program.
Now, of course, we've been told after an exhaustive search for 18 months by over 1,400 United States weapons inspectors, that Saddam Hussein did
not have an active nuclear weapons development program underway, and that he apparently did not possess weapons of mass destruction of any kind. We've also been told that in the fall of 2002, right at the time of my meeting in the White House, right at the time of the Senate and House's votes on the Iraq war resolution, that top nuclear experts at the US Dept of Energy and officials in other Federal agencies were disagreeing strongly with Dr. Rice's claim that those aluminum tubes could only have been intended for use in developing nuclear weapons materials.
That expert dissent, an honest disagreement, a different point of view, was not communicated to me then, nor was it brought to me later, if it was not known at the time. I received no phone call or letter saying "Oh Senator Dayton, I want to correct a misapprehension that I intentionally gave you at that meeting, I now have information that contradicts what you were told then. I still believe in my own views, but I want you to be aware of others before you cast the most important vote of your Senate career", or even a call or communication after that vote was cast. There was nothing.
When Senator Boxer properly pressed Dr. Rice on this point in the Foreign Relations confirmation hearing, there was no admission even then of any mistake. In fact she replied, "Senator, I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity. Thank you very much."
Well, there's a saying that we judge ourself by our intentions; others judge us by our actions. I don't know what Dr. Rice's intentions were, but I do have direct experience with her actions. This was no slight misunderstanding, or slip, or even a mistake that was limited to one meeting. This was a public statement made repeatedly by Dr. Rice, in similar words by Vice-President Cheney, and even by President Bush, as part of an all-out campaign which continues even to today to mobilize public support and to maintain public support for the invasion of Iraq and for the continuing war there, regardless of what the facts were then or are now, and it's been done by misrepresenting those facts, by distorting the facts, by withholding the facts, by hiding the truth. By hiding the truth in matters of life and death, of war and peace, that profoundly affect our national security, our international reputation, and our future well-being, and will for many years to come.
I don't like to impugn anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to - repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally. It's wrong, it's unDemocratic, it's unAmerican, and it's dangerous. It is very, very dangerous. And it is occuring far too frequently in this administration. And this Congress, this Senate, must demand that it stop now. My vote against this nomination is my statement that this administration's lying must stop now. I urge my colleagues to join me in this demand. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, we are all, all of us, first and foremost, Americans. We must be told the truth if we're to govern our country and to preserve our world, and this is why we must vote against this nomination.