[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 124 (Thursday, September 29, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10650-S10652]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise once again today to comment on
the deeply disturbing consequences of the President's misguided
policies in Iraq. I have spoken before about my grave concern that the
administration's Iraq policies are actually strengthening the hand of
our enemies, fueling the insurgency's recruitment of foreign fighters,
and unifying elements of the insurgency that might otherwise turn on
each other.
But today I want to focus on a different and equally alarming issue,
which is that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq are making
America weaker. None of us should stand by and allow this to continue.
It is shocking to me this Senate has not found the time and the
energy to take up the Defense authorization bill and give that bill the
full debate and attention it deserves. Our men and women in uniform and
our military families continue to make real sacrifices every day in
service to this country. They perform their duties with skill and
honor, sometimes in the most difficult of circumstances. But the Senate
has not performed its duties, and the state of the U.S. military
desperately needs our attention.
The administration's policies in Iraq are breaking the U.S. Army. As
soldiers confront the prospect of a third tour in the extremely
difficult theater of Iraq, it would be understandable if they began to
wonder why all of the sacrifice undertaken by our country in wartime
seems to be falling on their shoulders. It would be understandable if
they and their brothers and sisters in the Marine Corps began to feel
some skepticism about whether essential resources, such as adequately
armored vehicles, will be there when they need them. It would be
understandable if they came to greet information about deployment
schedules with cynicism because reliable information has been hard to
come by for our military families in recent years. And it would be
understandable if they asked themselves whether their numbers will be
great enough--great enough--to hold hard-won territory, and whether
properly vetted translators will be available to help them distinguish
friend from foe.
At some point, the sense of solidarity and commitment that helps
maintain strong retention rates can give way to a sense of frustration
with the status quo. I fear we may be very close to that tipping point
today. It is possible we may not see the men and women of the Army
continue to volunteer for more of the same. It is not reasonable to
expect that current retention problems will improve rather than worsen.
We should not bet our national security on that kind of wishful
thinking.
Make no mistake, our military readiness is already suffering.
According to a recent RAND study, the Army has been stretched so thin
that active-duty soldiers are now spending 1 of every 2 years abroad,
leaving little of the Army left in any appropriate condition to respond
to crises that may emerge elsewhere in the world. In an era in which we
confront a globally networked enemy, and at a time when nuclear weapons
proliferation is an urgent threat, continuing on our present course is
irresponsible at best.
We are not just wearing out the troops; we are also wearing out
equipment much faster than it is being replaced or refurbished. Days
ago, the chief of the National Guard, GEN H. Steven Blum, told a group
of Senate staffers that the National Guard had approximately 75 percent
of the equipment it needed on 9/11, 2001. Today, the National Guard has
only 34 percent of the equipment it needs. The response to Hurricane
Katrina exposed some of the dangerous gaps in the Guard's
communications systems.
What we are asking of the Army is not sustainable, and the burden and
the toll it is taking on our military families is unacceptable. This
cannot go on.
Many of my colleagues, often led by Senator Reed of Rhode Island,
have taken stock of where we stand and have joined to support efforts
to expand the size of our standing Army. But this effort, which I
support, is a solution for the long term, because it depends on new
recruits to address our problems. We cannot suddenly increase the
numbers of experienced soldiers so essential to providing leadership in
the field. It takes years to grow a new crop of such leaders. But the
annual resignation rate of Army lieutenants and captains rose last year
to its highest rate since the attacks of September 11, 2001. We are
heading toward crisis right now.
Growing the all-volunteer Army can only happen if qualified new
recruits sign up for duty. But all indications suggest that at the end
of this month the Army will fall thousands short--thousands short--of
its annual recruiting goal. Barring some sudden and dramatic change,
the Army National Guard and Army Reserve too will miss their annual
targets by about 20 percent, missing their targets this year by 20
percent in terms of recruitment. GEN Peter Schoomaker, the Army's Chief
of Staff, told Congress recently that 2006 ``may be the toughest
recruiting environment ever.''
Too often, too many of us are reluctant to criticize the
administration's policies in Iraq for fear that anything other than
staying the course set by the President will somehow appear weak. But
the President's course is misguided, and it is doing grave damage to
our extraordinarily professional and globally admired all-volunteer
U.S. Army. To stand by--to stand by--while this damage is done is not
patriotic. It is not supportive. It is not tough on terrorism, nor is
it strong on national security. Because I am proud of our men and women
in uniform, and because I am committed to working with all of my
colleagues to make this country more secure, I am convinced we must
change our course.
As some of my colleagues know, I have introduced a resolution calling
for the President to provide a public report clarifying the mission the
United States military is being asked to accomplish in Iraq, and laying
out a plan and a timeframe for accomplishing that mission and
subsequently bringing our troops home. It is in our interest to provide
some clarity about our intentions and restore confidence at home and
abroad that U.S. troops will not be in Iraq indefinitely. I have tried
to jump-start this discussion by proposing a date for U.S. troop
withdrawal: December 31, 2006.
We need to start working with a realistic set of plans and benchmarks
if we are to gain control of our Iraq policy, instead of simply letting
it dominate our security strategy and drain vital resources for an
unlimited amount of time.
So this brings me to another facet of this administration's misguided
approach to Iraq, another front on which our great country is growing
weaker rather than stronger as a result of the administration's policy
choices, and that is the tremendously serious fiscal consequences of
the President's decision to put the entire Iraq war on our national
tab. How much longer can the elected representatives of the American
people in this Congress allow the President to rack up over $1 billion
a week in new debts? This war is draining, by one estimate, $5.6
billion every month from our economy--funds that might be used to help
the victims of Hurricane Katrina recover, or to help
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address the skyrocketing health care costs facing businesses and
families, or to help pay down the enormous debt this Government has
already piled up.
Not only are we weakening our economy today, this costly war is
undermining our Nation's economic future because none of that
considerable expenditure has been offset in the budget by cuts in
spending elsewhere or by revenue increases. All of it--every penny--has
been added to the already massive debt that will be paid by future
generations of Americans.
For years now, this administration has refused to budget for the cost
of our ongoing operations in Iraq that can be predicted, and has
refused to make the hard choices that would be required to cover those
costs. Instead--instead--the President apparently prefers to leave
those tough calls to our children.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a quick
question?
Mr. FEINGOLD. Could I do that in 2 minutes?
Mrs. BOXER. Sure.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I want to finish my statement.
Mr. President, in effect, we are asking future generations to pay for
this war, and they will pay for it in the form of higher taxes or fewer
Government benefits. They stand to inherit a weakened America, one so
compromised by debt and economic crisis that the promise of opportunity
for all has faded. And there is no end in sight.
In addition to that, the war will leave other costly legacies. Here
again, it is the members of the military and their families who will
endure the most severe costs. But even if the war ended tomorrow, the
Nation will continue to pay the price for decades to come.
Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard estimates
that over the next 45 years, the health care, disability, and other
benefits due our Iraq war veterans will cost $315 billion. We owe our
brave troops the services and benefits they are due. We owe it to them
and to their children and to their grandchildren to guide the course of
this country and this economy to ensure that we are in a position to
deliver for our veterans and for all Americans.
I cannot support an Iraq policy that makes our enemies stronger and
our country weaker, and that is why I will not support staying the
course the President has set. If Iraq were truly the solution to our
national security challenges, this gamble with the future of our
military and with our economy--who knows?--might make sense, if that
were the case. If Iraq, rather than such strategically more significant
countries as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were at the heart of the global
fight against violent Islamic terrorism, this might make some sense. If
it were true that fighting insurgents in Baghdad meant we would not
have to fight them elsewhere, all the costs of this policy might well
make sense.
But these things are not true. Iraq is not--is not--the ``silver
bullet'' in the fight against global terrorist networks. As I have
argued in some detail, it is quite possible that the administration's
policies in Iraq are actually strengthening the terrorists by helping
them to recruit new fighters from around the world, giving those
jihadists on-the-ground training in terrorism, and building new,
transnational networks among our enemies. Meanwhile, the costs of
staying this course indefinitely, the consequences of weakening
America's military and America's economy, loom more ominously before us
with each passing week. There is no leadership in simply hoping for the
best. We must insist on an Iraq policy that makes sense.
I yield to the Senator from California for a question.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr.
Feingold. I am very proud to be on his resolution which finally would
hold this President and his administration accountable for the
disastrous situation we find ourselves in in Iraq, a situation that has
led to now nearly 2,000 dead, countless wounded, young people and not
so young without limbs, without their full brain capacity. It is a
stunning failure.
Finally, in the Senate, we have a resolution that simply says to this
administration: Do tell us, what is your plan? When are we getting out?
Give us the milestones. And, what is the mission?
I have a couple of questions I wanted to ask my friend. As my friend
was talking, I wrote down the various missions that we have heard from
the administration that we were supposed to have in Iraq. The first one
was weapons of mass destruction. Remember when Secretary Rumsfeld said:
I know where they are; I could point to where they are. No, there
weren't any. Then they said: We have to get Saddam. He is a tyrant. We
all agreed, he is a tyrant. Saddam is gone for all intents and
purposes. That was the second mission. Then they said: We are going to
rebuild Iraq, a disastrous situation over which Secretary Rice is in
charge. I haven't seen much rebuilding. I have seen a lot of no-bid
contracts. Then they said: We have to have an election. That is the
next mission. They had an election. After that, everything fell apart.
Then they said: We need to bring security. We are going to train the
Iraqi forces. The Senator from Wisconsin and I agree with that. We want
to see them trained--it seems to be taking forever--especially when we
have the President saying: We will stay there as long as it takes. What
kind of message is that to the Iraqis?
We had a briefing yesterday. We can't discuss the details of that
briefing, but it seemed to me there were yet other missions laid out.
I ask my friend, does he see the situation the way I do: An ever-
changing mission in Iraq, setting the bar higher and higher with no end
in sight is where we are at the present time?
Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the Senator from California. She accurately
described the way in which we got in this situation. I called it on the
Senate floor, in October 2002, shifting justifications. The one we
began with, the one that sold the American people, was that somehow
there was a connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Most
of the American people apparently believed it because the President
told them so at the time of the invasion. That would have been the
ultimate justification because everybody assumed the Iraq invasion had
something to do with that.
Ever since that myth has been exploded, the administration has been
trying any way, scampering any way they can to come up with other
justifications--the obviously failed attempt to suggest the imminent
threat of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein, and then 6
to 7 months later, a year later, the President suddenly announces what
he was really trying to do was to start a domino effect. We were going
to fight a war that was going to create a domino effect of democracy
around the world, which is a lovely ideal and notion, but nobody
thought that was the justification when we voted here. I am guessing
that it wouldn't have gotten one single vote if Members thought we were
buying into that kind of project.
The Senator is right, not only with regard to how we got into the war
but also with regard to how this administration is conducting the war.
It is a mixture of so many inconsistent justifications that it doesn't
make sense.
I had 18 town meetings in northern and central Wisconsin, some of
them at very conservative areas, during the August recess. These were
places where most of the people supported the Iraq war. They came to my
town meetings and said: Why is this happening? Why were we given false
pretenses to get into the war, and why is it that there isn't a serious
plan to finish the war? Because of the failure of the administration to
handle this war in any sensible way, the very people who supported the
war are starting to say: Let's just leave.
So the President presents us with a false choice. He says: We have to
stay the course. And if you don't believe in staying the course, then
you must be for cutting and running. He is causing the movement in
America to simply leave Iraq because of his failure of leadership.
What our resolution does--and I thank the Senator from California for
her cosponsorship--is modest. It just says: Mr. President, within 30
days, could you give us a written plan that lays out the best way you
want, without being bound to it, what is the plan, what is the mission,
what are the benchmarks we have to achieve, by what time do you think
we can achieve those benchmarks, and at what point and through what
stages do you think we can begin and then complete the withdrawal of
our American troops.
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I say to my friend through the Chair, I think her comments and her
question are right on the point.
I yield for another question.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague for
correcting me on the point that I missed that, yes, out of the five or
six missions I named, I left out the very important one that he
corrected me on, which is that there was a link between Saddam and al-
Qaida and, in fact, there was al-Qaida all over Iraq.
The Senator and I sit on the Foreign Relations Committee. I think he
remembers this document that I put into the Record, because I remember
he very much wanted it, which showed that about a month after September
11 when we were so viciously attacked by bin Laden--who, by the way, we
were going to get dead or alive, and we need to do that--the fact is,
the State Department in its own document said there wasn't one al-Qaida
cell, not one, in Iraq. There were more cells in America than in Iraq,
according to our own State Department. We have put that in the Record.
Now, of course, it is a haven for terrorism because of this failed
policy, this disastrous policy, this policy that is utter chaos with no
end in sight, unless the Senate and the administration look at what my
friend put forward, which is finally saying to the President: You need
a mission, a mission that can be accomplished, and we need to end this
in an orderly fashion.
I wanted to ask my friend one more point, and then I will leave the
Chamber. That is about the National Guard. Right now, there are fires
raging in my home State, sadly. We have them every year at this time.
It is heartwrenching. We need all the help we can get. We always get
all the help we ask for. We have never had a problem. The National
Guard is called out when it gets really out of control.
Is my friend aware that the best equipment that the National Guard
had at its disposal is in Iraq, not here at home? And when the people
were crying out for help, not only were so many of the National Guard
over in Iraq, my understanding is--and my friend can correct me--
approximately 40 percent of our troops over there are National Guard.
That is my information. Not only that, the best equipment of the
National Guard is over in Iraq.
Don't our people deserve better than that so when they experience
disasters, our National Guard can respond?
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California. The
Senator has very nicely returned to the main point of what I was trying
to illustrate today. We certainly agree on the problems of how we got
into this war and our very troubled feelings about that and also the
myriad of problems with the way the war is being conducted. But what
the Senator from California has done is returned us to the main point I
wanted to make today: This strategy is weakening America. I am not
talking about some general sense. We are talking specifically about our
military. We are talking specifically about our Army. We are talking
specifically about our National Guard.
Yes, we know about this in Wisconsin. We have some 10,000 Guard and
Reserve. The vast majority of them have been called up for action
overseas. There are serious concerns that have been reported--which, by
the way, were beginning prior to 9/11--about equipment. It is to the
point where my National Guard people ask me to ask the Secretary of
Defense, Are we going to replenish these things for our National Guard?
What is the guarantee? I received a rather weak answer, as I recall.
The equipment needs are only at 34 percent for the National Guard--a
dramatic decline in the last 4 years. Since 9/11, we have allowed the
situation to become much worse in terms of equipment for our National
Guard, whether it be for use in a foreign conflict or whether it be
used to handle a terrorist situation domestically or whether it be used
to help deal with one of the natural disasters that obviously can and
do occur.
I appreciate the Senator heightening this point. This isn't about
opposing a war. This is about mistakes being made by an administration
in terms of forgetting the main point of fighting terrorism and
forgetting about the need for our military to be strong both
internationally and to be able to help, as the National Guard must,
domestically.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to
speak as in morning business. Is that proper at this time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, it is. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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