WASHINGTON– U.S. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) today made the following statement on the floor of the U.S. Senate regarding a Democratic attempt to issue a no-confidence vote in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in a political posturing move against the War on Terrorism.

Mr. Gregg: Mr. President, I've listened to the Senator from Massachusetts's (Kerry) discussion, and in many ways I find it a bit disingenuous. I had planned to speak specifically about other points relative to this resolution, but I do think it is appropriate to respond in some manner to what he has said because of course he is the former standard-bearer of the party in the prior election and, therefore, a voice of considerable import on policy in this nation relative to the positions of the Democratic Party.

He gave the litany of what he deemed to be errors, some of which I believe were errors actually, but have occurred relative to the way we have pursued this battle in Iraq. The litany as if he is a Monday morning quarterback and had the answer now to what would have been the correct process. Sort of makes you think that if he were giving a discussion about the Red Sox he would have said that he wouldn't have put Bill Buckner at first, he wouldn't have pitched to Bucky Dent, and definitely wouldn't have traded Babe Ruth. I mean the concept that you come to the floor and pick out a series of events as unique items which flowed within the context of a major effort to confront the terrorist threat in this nation, confronting this nation, is truly -- well, he uses the term hubris and mismanagement. I would say it is a bit of hubris, to take that position on this floor.

He failed to mention, for example, that as a result of the initiatives of this Administration led by this President and by this Secretary of Defense that over 50 million people today are free who were not free, that women in Afghanistan are no longer closeted in their homes and threatened with death if they wear the wrong garment on the street and shot in soccer stadiums in Afghanistan, but women have the right to move about as they wish, that there have been elections in Afghanistan that have brought to power a democratic government, which is under pressure today, yes, because those forces which represent our enemies and are our enemies seek to undermine that democracy. He failed to mention that Iraq, which had suffered for 20 years from a genocide executed by a homicidal leadership is now free and that the people of Iraq no longer have to fear mass murder of the proportions which occurred under Saddam Hussein, that a government which was and had produced chemical and biological weapons and had used chemical weapons against their own people -- specifically the Kurds -- was no longer in power. And that we have had a series of democratic actions in Iraq which have led to a freely elected government which involves a coalition of very disparate groups -- Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and subdivisions within those various plans of political purpose -- and that that government is moving forward and that it has stood up an army, which is a responsible army, not an army of threat to its people but an army of defense to its people and is in the process of taking responsibility for defending those people from forces in that nation who wish to return to chaos, to genocide, and to a government which is lawless in the name of fanaticism.

He failed to mention any of that as a results of the efforts of this Administration. Those are pretty big things. Instead, he picks out the event -- the little event -- fairly big in some instances -- of error, and yes, there have been some. Nobody denies that for a second. But the purpose is to defeat our enemies, and we have set as a goal in that process setting up a government in Iraq and a nation of Iraq which will speak to the basic values which are fundamentally Western, of individual liberty, of democracy, of rights for women, of a marketplace economy, and we have had considerable success in that effort.

We are not there. And we do not know if we will accomplish the final goal because obviously there are forces at work who do not wish to have us accomplish that goal. But to dismiss this as a failure and to point to a series of incidences as the example of failure and never acknowledge the 50 million people who are free, the fact that an entire half of the population which had been written out of the ability to participate in civilized life -- specifically women -- are now brought into the process of having a decent lifestyle, the fact that we have had elections, the fact that we have an army in place, which is not our army but is their army, the fact that we are moving towards a nation based on democracy and law– we have a long way to go but we're moving that way– to dismiss that and to say that because of a series of errors, which he deems to be errors and in some instances I've said that I agree with that, to dismiss that progress and call for this removal of the Secretary of Defense because of those events is just -- well, it's ignoring reality. It's -- in fact, he used the terms innumerable instances saying that he did not want to see a partisan fight, that he thought the Secretary of Defense should be above politics.

You know, I mean, how can you then come to the floor and make the speech that was just made, which was overtly political, to use his terms, which was for the purpose of executing a political strategy, the strategy being that if you attack the Secretary of Defense, you weaken the presidency and you do better in the election, which was, to use his terms, viciously partisan in its attack. I mean, there is an inconsistency here that cannot go uncalled and so let me point it out. This is not an attack, this proposal, on Donald Rumsfeld. That's not the purpose of this attack that's the politics of this attack. It generates a good press release and it is a sound bite event, to call for the Secretary of Defense's resignation. But that's not what this is about. We all know that.
This is about the policy of fighting people who have determined that America should be extinguished from the face of the earth and that Americans should be killed and that our culture should be destroyed. And whether or not the efforts in Iraq are a legitimate part of that effort as we confront that threat. It is the position of the other side, it appears, that Iraq is not part of the battle or essential to the battle against Islamic fundamentalists. I find that position to be untenable. That is hardly the position taken by our enemies. The words of Al-Zarqawi, the words of Bin Laden have been very specific. Iraq is where they see the war being waged.

Their purpose is to use Iraq as a bootstrap to pursue their goals of basically undermining and destroying Western culture and killing Americans. You need to believe their words. If your enemy tells you what they're going to do and your enemy then does what they tell you they're going to do, you’ve got to start taking them seriously when he tells you something else. And when Osama Bin Laden and Al-Zarqawi said, Iraq is where the war is being fought, is where Islamic Fundamentalism is being pursued and aggressively undertaken, then you have to take that seriously. But it appears the other side feels that Iraq is a distraction to our efforts. Well, the track record doesn't show that.

Have we been attacked in the United States since 9/11? The reason we haven't been attacked in some measure is just good luck, good fortune. But it's also the fact that this Administration has put in place an aggressive effort to fight terrorism, Islamic Fundamentalism-- not in America, not on our soil, but to take the fight to their soil and to meet them where they are. And that policy appears to be working. We can't take great solace obviously because, obviously, who knows when they will attack us again and when they will reach our capacity to be secure.

I don't claim that we are anywhere near secure. In fact, I've made it very clear that I have serious reservations about things we need to do to make ourselves secure. But the fact is that the concept, the basic philosophy of pursuing the terrorists, the Islamic Fundamentalists, on their territory not wait for them to attack us and hoping to get them through our intelligence capability before they do that is a policy that is the correct policy. And yet, the other side of the aisle has had enough of it. They've had enough of it. And so they want to use the stalking horse of attacking the Secretary of Defense as a process for basically undermining the policies and efforts which have led us at least to this point to some level of security as a nation. They don't appear, from what I heard here so far, to really even have an offer of an alternative that is specific enough that it could be said to be a real alternative.

The letter was sent to the President outlining their alternative. Four initiatives they outlined pursuing aggressively. The response from the Administration was put in the record earlier today by the Senator from Arizona. Diplomatic process is going forward; I heard the Senator from Massachusetts talk extensively about a diplomatic need. This should be resolved diplomatically. And I believe his words were that there is no military solution, that there is only a diplomatic solution. I would just point out the obvious. You can't get to a diplomatic solution without having a military on the ground that makes things stable enough so that diplomacy can go forward. You withdraw in the military, you have chaos, and there is no diplomacy that's going to straighten that out. So that argument is a little disingenuous, to say the least. Sure, there isn't a military solution in the sense that this is a war involving nationhood, nation against nation in the tradition of the wars of the 20th century. But there are military actions that can be taken and need to be taken which involve finding those people who wish to do us harm and eliminating them before they can do us harm. And a big part of that involves the intelligence and the on-the-ground capability which we gained by being in Iraq and having an influence on that nation which is leading towards a form of democracy.

Another big part of that, which is again military-based, is allowing Iraq to evolve to the point where it can actually show the rest of the Islamic world that democracy is not an enemy, that democracy gives people good options. That giving people rights, especially women, is not bad for them, but actually is good for them. That a culture that is open, that is market-oriented, that has a reasonable level of freedom is a better way of life than a culture that is closed and that denies people the rights to participate other than through some sort of extremist control such as the Taliban had. It becomes a beacon of opportunity to look to. We aren't there yet, but you're never going to get there if you don't make the effort. And so you look at their proposals. And as I said, three of them have already been met. And what's the fourth one? The fourth one is to begin what they refer to as -- and I'll quote this. It is actually not their fourth one. It is the second one, although the other three have been met in their letter to the President. "Beginning the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq before the end of this year," this year. The Senator from Massachusetts kept saying a year from now is a reasonable time to begin the redeployment. Their position is not a year from now. Their position is this year to begin redeployment.

What does this mean, this term phased redeployment? I wonder how many focus groups they ran that one through before they decided to use that terminology -- "phased redeployment." I'll tell you what it means. It's a phrase, the purpose of which is to give political cover to those who wish to be able to stand in opposition to the Administration relative to what is happening in the war against the Islamic Fascists. And in practice, were it ever to be executed -- in other words, if you were to actually start to pull down troops before the end of this year, you would have set an arbitrary date and you would start removing American troops. And what would happen to the troops who were left there?
We all know that Iraq is not yet ready to defend itself. Would that not put at even greater risk American soldiers left on the ground? How would you look the people in the face who are in the divisions and who are in the brigades who have been left behind as you start to pull people out prematurely and said oh, good luck, you're now a bigger target because we aren't there to give you the cover you need.

Phased redeployment before the end of this year, arbitrary date set for the purposes of making a political statement as we head into an election. And it's not very good policy to say the least, even if it is policy, it isn't policy. It's just politics, a political statement.

And who are they going to replace Donald Rumsfeld with? Howard Dean? Ned Lamont? These are the standard bearers of the position of their policy. They want to take out Donald Rumsfeld. I presume they want to put in Howard Dean and Ned Lamont, two people who speak for the party, to immediately withdraw, take our troops out of there now and to let happen what happens. You know, I'm not going to use the pejorative to describe that. I think the American people are sophisticated enough to recognize that policy makes no sense. Howard Dean as Secretary of Defense? Maybe we should amend this and say "and we shall replace him with Howard Dean."

Howard Dean was a pretty good Governor of Vermont. I enjoyed working with him when I was Governor of New Hampshire. He wouldn't be a very good person in the Defense Department. He is not a very good person on foreign policy, and he clearly does not understand the threat, in my opinion, that the Islamic Fundamentalists reflect. Howard Dean, Ned Lamont policy is a policy based on naivete it is a policy that rejects the reality of the situation, which is there are people out there who wish to kill us and destroy our culture -- and there are a lot of them, unfortunately. And they feed off of weakness. And they believe we are weak and believe we are truly weak to be able to make that case.

Should we begin a phased withdrawal this year, when we have no military capability of covering that withdrawal and protecting our troops who are left behind. It is a policy that is firmly grounded in Birkenstocks and clearly not grounded in the reality of the world as it is, but the world as they wish it was.

We have a truly extraordinary military. I recognize that everybody on both sides of the aisle understands that. And there isn't a member in this chamber who hasn't been to a funeral and tried to console the member of a family of someone who has been lost in this war in, this battle. These are exceptional people who defend us and who carry forward our flag. And they need to understand that their purpose is good and their purpose is right. And it is. Their cause is to find the people who wish to do America harm and who have said they intend to do America harm, and to eliminate them before they can attack us and do us further harm.

Iraq is an integral part of that cause. Have there been mistakes there? Absolutely. Absolutely. And it is terribly unfortunate, and we all recognize that. But have there been successes there, and very significant successes there? Yes, there have been. As I said before, 50 million people between Iraq and Afghanistan are now free. Women brought from behind the closeted doors of their houses into society. Press availability. Elections. Governments formed. Security forces who report to a government. We have a long way to go, but these soldiers have served extraordinarily well, and they have accomplished a great deal. And to use this attack on Donald Rumsfeld as a stalking horse for an attack on the policies of Iraq, I don't believe does anybody any good.

If the other side of the aisle wishes to debate the Iraq issue in context of the policy, fine. But to personalize it this way in such a manner which -- to quote the Senator from Massachusetts -- is viciously partisan and overtly political is not constructive to our ability to pursue this war or to our need to assure our soldiers in the field that they fight for a right and just cause.

Under the leadership of this President and the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld, the military has received the largest increases in resources in its history at any time since World War II. We have taken an approach to the military which has been essentially to get them whatever they need to do the job and do it right and make sure that our soldiers are safe. Errors have been made along the way in accomplishing that, but the intention and the commitment of resources have been there. And this President and this Secretary of Defense take a second seat to no one in our history relative to their commitment to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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