swordmage | "whoever this guy is, he's brilliant"

That was the subject for an e-mail I recieved from an aunt which contained the following speech, made by
Mark Dayton, D-Minnesota, before Congress. Looks like the speech was made two days ago.

Link is here.

"Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today to also oppose the nomination of
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State.

I do so, because she misled me about the situation in Iraq before and
after the congressional resolution in October, 2002, authorizing that
war, a resolution that I opposed. She misled other members of Congress
about the situation in Iraq, members who have said that they would have
opposed that resolution if they had been told the truth. And she misled
the people of Minnesota and Americans everywhere about the situation in
Iraq, before and after that war began.

It is a war in which 1,372 American soldiers have lost their lives and
over 10,000 have been wounded, many of them maimed for life. Thousands
more have been scarred emotionally and physically. All of their
families and many thousands of other American families whose loved ones
are now serving in Iraq, who are suffering serious financial and family
hardships, who must wonder and worry every day and night for a year or
longer whether their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and
daughters are still alive, will stay alive, and wonder when they will
be coming home.

For many, the answer is not soon enough. I read in today's Washington
Post that the army is planning to keep its current troop strength in
Iraq at 120,000 for at least two more years. I did not learn that
information as a member of Congress. I did not learn it as a member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, where I regularly attend public
hearings, classified meetings, and top secret briefings. I did not
learn it from the U.S. military command in Iraq, with whom I met in
Baghdad last month. I read it in The Washington Post. Just as I read
last weekend that the Secretary of Defense has created his own new
espionage arm by -- quote -- "reinterpreting an existing law." Without
informing most, if any, members of Congress and by reportedly -- quote
-- "reprogramming funds appropriated for other purposes."

Just as I learned last weekend by reading The New York Times that
secret U.S. commando units are operating in this country based on the
administration's reinterpretation of another law. Or I also learned of
official reports documenting horrible abuses of prisoners, innocent
civilians as well as enemy combatants at numerous locations in
countries besides the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which directly
contradicts assurances we have been given repeatedly by administration
officials in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

I might as well skip all the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings
and meetings and top secret briefings and just read the papers. And
thank goodness for a free and vigilant press to ferret out the truth
and to report the truth, because we cannot get the truth from this
administration.

And, sadly, the attitude of too many of my colleagues across the aisle
is: our President wrong, wrong, or wrong. They defend him. They protect
him. And they allow his top administration officials to get away with
lying. Lying to Congress, lying to our committees, and lying to the
American people. It's wrong. It's immoral. It's un-American. And it has
to stop.

It stops by not promoting top administration officials who engage in
the practice, who have been instrumental in deceiving congress and the
American people, and regrettably that includes Dr. Rice.

Dr. Rice stated in a television interview on December 8, 2002, as the
Administration was launching its campaign to scare the American people
and stampede Congress about Saddam Hussein's supposedly urgent threat
to our national security. She shrewdly invoked the ultimate threat that
he possessed or would soon possess nuclear weapons. She said that day
-- quote -- "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Soon thereafter, she and other top administration officials cited
intercepted aluminum tubes as definite proof that Saddam Hussein had an
active nuclear weapons program under way. Dr. Rice stated publicly at
the time -- quote -- "the tubes are only really suited for nuclear
weapons programs, centrifuge programs."

In late September of 2002, shortly before we in Congress were to vote
on the Iraq War Resolution, Dr. Rice invited me along with, I believe,
five of my Senate colleagues to the White House, where we were briefed
by her and then-C.I.A. Director George Tenet. That briefing was
classified. What I was shown and told conformed to Dr. Rice's public
statements with no qualifications whatsoever.

Now, of course, we have been told after an exhaustive search for 18
months by over 1,400 United States weapons inspectors that Saddam
Hussein did not have an active nuclear weapons development program
under way and that he, apparently, possessed no weapons of mass
destruction of any kind.

We've also been told that in the fall of 2002, right at the time of my
meeting in the White House, right at the time of the Senate and House
votes on the Iraq war resolution, the top nuclear experts at the United
States Department of Energy and officials in other federal agencies
were disagreeing strongly with Dr. Rice's claim that those aluminum
tubes could only have been intended for use in developing nuclear
weapons materials. That expert dissent and honest disagreement, a
different point of view, was not communicated to me; nor was it brought
to me later, if it was not known at the time. I received no phone call
or letter to say, no, Senator Dayton, I just wanted to correct a
misimpression that I gave you at that meeting. I now have information
that contradicts what you were told then. I still believe in my own
view, but I want you to be aware of others before you cast the most
important vote in your Senate career. Or even a call or communication
after that vote was cast, there was nothing.

When Senator Boxer properly pressed Dr. Rice on this point in the
Foreign Relations confirmation hearing, there was no admission even
then of any mistake. In fact, she replied, -- quote "Senator, I really
hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity. Thank you very
much." Well, there's a saying that we judge ourselves by our
intentions; others judge us by our actions. I don't know what Dr.
Rice's intentions were, but I do have direct experience with her
actions. This was no slight misunderstanding or slip or even a mistake
that was limited to one meeting. This was a public statement made
repeatedly by Dr. Rice.

In similar words by Vice President Cheney and even by President Bush as
part of an all-out campaign which continues even to today to mobilize
public support and maintain public support for the invasion of Iraq and
for the continuing war there, regardless of what the facts were then or
are now. And it's been done by misrepresenting those facts, by
distorting the facts, by withholding the facts, by hiding the truth. By
hiding the truth in matters of life and death, of war and peace, that
profoundly affect our national security, our international reputation,
and our future well-being. And will for many years to come.

I don't like to impugn anyone's integrity, but I really don't like
being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally. It's wrong. It's
undemocratic, it's un-American, and it's dangerous. It is very, very
dangerous. And it is occurring far too frequently in this
administration. And this Congress, this Senate must demand that it stop
now.

My vote against this nomination is my statement that this
administration's lying must stop now. I urge my colleagues to join me
in this demand, Democrats, Republicans, independents; we are all, all
of us, first and foremost Americans. We must be told the truth, if
we're to govern our country and to preserve our world, and that's why
we must vote against this nomination."