WASHINGTON, 31 July 2003 — Senate Republicans and Democrats lambasted Bush administration officials Tuesday for refusing to provide cost estimates for rebuilding Iraq, and for ignoring other threats while insisting that Saddam Hussein’s regime played a central role in fomenting worldwide terrorism.
In aggressive, sometimes hostile, questioning of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also accused the administration of misleading Americans on its justifications for going to war in Iraq, and on how long US troops will be needed in the country.
“Because of a combination of bureaucratic inertia, political caution, and unrealistic expectations left over from before the war, we do not appear to be confident about our course in Iraq,” said committee chairman Richard Lugar, R-Indiana.
Almost three months after President Bush declared that major combat operations in the country had ended, Lugar added, “We still lack a comprehensive plan for how to acquire sufficient resources for the operations in Iraq and how to use them to maximum effect.”
Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the committee, twice got into heated exchanges with Wolfowitz over the question of how much the Iraq operation is costing.
“I think you’re going to lose the American people if you don’t come forward now and tell them what you know, that (the reconstruction effort is) going to cost tens of billions of American taxpayers’ dollars and tens of thousands of American troops for an extended period of time,” Biden said, his voice just below a shout.
Referring to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s penchant for saying certain things are “unknowable,” Biden admonished Wolfowitz: “Please don’t waste our time or yours by saying the future is simply unknowable. Pick a number. Pick an idea.”
In more muted tones, Lugar said the administration should supply “at least some idea of what is likely to be required of the American taxpayer.”
But Wolfowitz and White House budget director Joshua Bolten held firmly to the administration’s position that it is impossible to estimate costs because the situation in Iraq is changing so rapidly.
Bolten said “for the next couple of months” he expected costs of maintaining troops in Iraq to stay at about $4 billion per month.
However, he said he would not estimate the tab after that. He predicted the administration would ask for more Iraq funds in a supplemental budget request later this year.
Wolfowitz criticized the Senate for refusing to provide $200 million the Pentagon had requested earlier this year to train Iraqi security forces. He suggested this has led directly to the deaths of US soldiers.
Wolfowitz said Iraqis instead of Americans could have been guarding a hospital in Baqubah, where an attacker dropped a grenade onto soldiers last Saturday, killing three soldiers.
The money, intended for training Iraqis for such security jobs, was “dropped, apparently because the Congress in its wisdom did not believe that it was necessary,” Wolfowitz said.
“I hope that it is clear now why it is necessary,” Wolfowitz said. “It is much better to have Iraqis fighting and dying for their country than to have Americans doing the job all by themselves.”
The assertion by Wolfowitz was part of his lengthy opening remarks, which focused on atrocities committed by Saddam’s regime. He cited progress being made by US troops in gaining the respect of the Iraqi people, in restoring basic services and in putting in place nascent democratic structures.
But the statement appeared to backfire in drawing lawmakers’ sympathy.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., told Wolfowitz that the evidence of state-sponsored torture under Saddam, while tragic, was just the latest in a series of “shifting justifications” by the administration for going to war against Iraq.
