Opening a week of hearings before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said future generations will pay for President Bush’s latest request for $87 billion in supplemental funds, $71 billion of which will be spent in Iraq.

If Bush’s request is approved, the federal deficit would be expected to reach $535 billion. That means the average family of four in the United States would have to pay almost $10,000 in federal taxes to cover this year’s deficit alone.

The Iraqi war was the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, against the wrong enemy. It is a tragedy of American foreign policy that the sympathy which most of the world had for the United States after 9/11 has been squandered by the Bush administration’s headlong pursuit of an unnecessary pre-emptive war.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd

The new deficits continue the reversing of a government spending trend that would have eliminated the national debt by 2008.

“By refusing to pay for this war today,” Byrd said, “President Bush is forcing those young Americans who are now in kindergarten to pick up the tab for his war in Iraq. ...

“The people who are most affected can’t be here to ask questions. Our children and our grandchildren cannot be here. The American people cannot be here to ask questions,” Byrd said.

Byrd’s criticisms followed a statement by Ambassador Paul Bremer, presidential envoy to Iraq. Bremer defended Bush’s policies to replace a “Soviet-style command economy” in Iraq, filled with “cronyisms, theft and chronic self-indulgence by Saddam Hussein.”

Bremer argued Iraq’s economy was “not ruined by our attacks, but from decades of theft and mismanagement” and “ill-conceived and clumsily executed policies” that left Iraq’s oil, electrical and water systems in terrible shape.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said new funds are “necessary to protect the lives of our people who are there now — our troops as well as Americans working there. You will have my full support.”

Byrd said Bush’s “eye-popping ... request comes at a time when the American people are expressing serious reservations about the president’s go-it-alone occupation of Iraq ... that has our soldiers serving as sitting ducks in an Iraqi shooting gallery.”

Stevens said he hopes the Senate approves Bush’s proposals as early as Sept. 30.

“I hope that we will not be in such a rush,” Byrd countered. “This is a complicated, controversial and incredibly costly request that has enormous long-range funding and policy implications.”

Several Democrats believe the Senate Appropriations Committee should review the latest supplemental request carefully, using help from independent analysts.

Byrd again charged the Bush administration was wrong to claim Iraq had “broad-scale, advanced weapons of mass destruction capability” and that Iraqi people would welcome our soldiers “with open arms as liberators.”

Byrd again referred to the Vietnam War, which he supported at the time. “Many of us on this panel have seen what a loss of public confidence and trust can do to a war effort, to a government, and, indeed, to the fabric of a nation. I saw it in Vietnam. Have we not learned the lessons of our own past?”

The Vietnam War escalated after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964 and ended in May 1975, after years of direct and guerrilla warfare killed 54,000 American soldiers.

Byrd warns that the same thing will happen again.

“We have begun to realize the worst fears of occupation: hit-and-run murders of American soldiers, guerrilla tactics, sabotage. We have forged a cauldron of contempt for America that may poison the efforts of peace throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the world. ...

“We had the weapons to win the war, but we have not shown the wisdom to win the peace.”

Byrd added that the nation is now fighting two different wars — “the war brought against us with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war that we brought to Iraq on March 19, 2003.

“The Iraqi war was the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, against the wrong enemy. It is a tragedy of American foreign policy that the sympathy which most of the world had for the United States after 9/11 has been squandered by the Bush administration’s headlong pursuit of an unnecessary pre-emptive war,” Byrd said.

Bremer will testify before five other congressional hearings this week.

Criticizing Bush’s flawed plans to promote a “compassionate colonialism,” Byrd concluded Monday saying, “We cannot continue on this path alone. We ought to seek help before we completely alienate the international community.”

To contact staff writer Paul J. Nyden, use e-mail or call 348-5164.

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