Here's a Real Democrat

This is what Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia had to say on the subject of Dr. Rice's confirmation. Byrd is at least 80 years old, and has repeatedly spoken out against the Bush Administration's abuses of power.

SENATOR ROBERT BYRD: 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 efforts 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 (meaning Saddam) can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." That was Dr. Rice speaking. 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 has been shipments going into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that are really only suited for nuclear weapons programs."
Well, my fellow senators, 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 as follows: “Saddam Hussein 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 abundantly 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 they 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.
Well, Dr. Rice made other statements that helped to build a case for war by implying a link -- 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 contacts 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." Well, 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 ring leader 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 was not supported by intelligence. On March 9, 2003, just 11 days before the invasion of Iraq, Dr. Rice appeared -- where? -- on "Face The Nation." What did she say? She said, "Now, the al Qaeda is an organization that's quite dispersed, and quite widespread in its effects be it clearly has had linked 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 has had enough of dealing with sanctions, enough of dealing with, quote, unquote, containment, enough of dealing with America, and it is 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." Now, how scary is that? 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 -- quote, “low confidence,” close quote -- that Saddam would ever transfer any weapons of mass destruction -- weapons that he did not have, as it turned out -- to anyone outside 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 this reckless doctrine of preemptive war? In the 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 the United States 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 US occupation of their country.