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"I
want you to know when your kid dies, it's not a low-intensity
conflict," said Boxer
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WASHINGTON,
July 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The Bush administration
came Wednesday, July 30, under a barrage of criticisms from members of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who charged the administration
had "shifted justification" of the Iraq war from alleged
weapons of mass destruction to simply the human rights violations of
ousted president Saddam Hussein, a leading U.S. daily reported
Wednesday, July 30.
During
a stormy three-hour hearing, Republican and Democratic senators said the
administration's prewar focus on Iraq's alleged WMDs had now been
replaced by reports on Saddam's human rights violations and arguments by
grilled Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that Iraq has become the
"central battle in the war on terror," the Washington
Post said.
"In
the months leading up to the war, it was a steady drumbeat of weapons of
mass destruction," said Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, a Republican.
"All
the testimony this morning . . . is about what a tyrant Saddam Hussein
is, who brutalizes the people. . . . So I'll ask the question, Secretary
Wolfowitz: What are we doing there (in Iraq)?"
Trying
to water down the harsh criticism, Wolfowitz argued that deposing Saddam
was not only in the interest of the Iraqi people, but it also protected
the U.S. national security and the peoples of the Middle East.
The
U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee agreed in June to
broaden the scope of its probe into Iraq’s alleged WMDs and whether
intelligence had been exaggerated to justify war.
'Gross
Exaggeration'
Senator
Russell D. Feingold, a Democrat, charged that the Bush administration
had "grossly exaggerated" the connection between Iraq and the
global war on terrorism.
"In
my view, the overemphasis on Iraq has caused a serious erosion of our
ability to go after the actual [terrorist] operatives," he
stressed.
Senator
Barbara Boxer, for her part, derided the Pentagon's description of the
current fighting in Iraq as "low-intensity conflict."
"I
want you to know when your kid dies, it's not a low-intensity
conflict," said the Democrat legislator.
A
total of 52 U.S. soldiers have been killed in resistance operations
since May 1, with more than half the deaths coming in July, according to
AFP and Reuters accounts.
President
George W. Bush warned in June that the U.S. forces in Iraq were facing a
future of "danger and sacrifice"
before the country is secure.
Senators
from both the Republican and Democratic parties further demanded the
Bush administration to seriously consider seeking a second U.N. Security
Council resolution authorizing greater U.N. participation in postwar
Iraq, both in peacekeeping and reconstruction.
On
July 10, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved
an amendment to a foreign aid bill containing an appeal to the White
House to "formally and expeditiously" consider requesting a NATO
peacekeeping force for Iraq.
Exorbitant
Costs
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"When
are you guys starting to be honest with us? Come on. I mean, this
is ridiculous," Biden said
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The
Senate committee, in addition, slammed the administration for failing to
account for the cost of rebuilding the war-scarred country, demanding
White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten to give them a specific
cost of the exorbitant task.
Senator
Boxer said her constituents want to know how the administration
allocates $45 billion for Iraq in the current fiscal year with domestic
spending of only $6.7 billion for the National Head Start Association (a
child-care organization), $27 billion for the National Institutes of
Health and $31 billion for highways.
Senator
George V. Voinovich, a Republican, echoed the same critical tone:
"I agree with the rest of the members of this committee that I
think you, Mr. Bolten, should be more forthright in terms of what the
costs are going to be so that we have some idea, and the American people
[know], how long, how much."
But
when Bolten said that the administration did not plan to ask for funds
in the fiscal 2004 budget for sustaining some 150,000 troops in Iraq and
rebuilding the country because it didn't know what the precise costs,
Senator Joseph R. Biden, the committee's ranking Democrat, grilled him.
"Give
me a break, will you? When are you guys starting to be honest with us?
Come on. I mean, this is ridiculous," the Post quoted
the lawmaker as saying.
On
July 16, the White House forecast
the federal budget deficit would explode to a record $455 billion in
2003.
The
Bush administration said the deficit -- 50 percent bigger than that
projected just five months ago -- had been exacerbated by a weak
economy, the Iraq war and tax cuts.
The
hearing marked the second time in three weeks that the administration
faced sharp congressional criticism of its performance in postwar Iraq.
Throughout
the hearing, Democrats echoed the sharp tone adopted
by their colleagues on the Armed Services Committee three weeks ago
as they questioned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the
handling of the Iraqi occupation, the daily added.
