[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 23, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S877-S879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there is one moment each year when America 
comes together, when the leader of our country, our President, in his 
State of the Union Address, speaks of our experience in the past, our 
history, and his vision of our Nation's future. It is a rare moment on 
Capitol Hill, House and Senate together on a bipartisan basis, the 
Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the diplomatic corps. It is quite a festive 
and historic--sometimes solemn--gathering. Tonight will be an 
opportunity for us to gather again for the State of the Union Address. 
I am looking forward to it.
  It comes at a moment in American history when there is a strong 
emotion across this country, a strong feeling about the war in Iraq. It 
is a feeling that was made even more intense by the events of this last 
weekend where we lost so many of our brave soldiers: a helicopter crash 
from the sky, lives were taken on the ground. At the end of the day, we 
had lost 3,059 of our best and bravest soldiers, marines, airmen, and 
sailors in this war in Iraq.
  The President will speak of many things this evening. That is his 
responsibility--from energy to health care to education and beyond. But 
the issue most dominant in the minds of America is the issue of Iraq. 
It was certainly the most dominant issue in the November election when 
the message came through loudly and clearly that it was time to change, 
it was time for America to step back and reassess our role in Iraq and 
where we go from here.
  Since that election, many important things have happened. The 
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, resigned, replaced by Robert 
Gates. The military leadership in Iraq was changed and the President 
came forward, after a time of deliberation, with his own proposal. That 
proposal, which we heard a little over a week ago, called for adding 
more troops in the theater of war in Iraq, some 21,000 more Americans, 
to join the 144,000 soldiers who are there today.
  Most of us have spoken publicly about that in disagreement with the 
President: our belief that the escalation of the number of troops in 
Iraq is the wrong way, the wrong direction for our Nation; our belief 
that 21,000 soldiers cannot stop the civil war that has 14 centuries of 
fighting behind it; and our belief that 21,000 American lives are too 
many to ever lose in this kind of dangerous situation.
  The President, undoubtedly, will speak to Iraq this evening and the 
American people will listen closely. But that is not the end of the 
conversation. The conversation will continue in the Senate where men 
and women representing States, as I have the honor to do in 
representing Illinois, will engage for the first meaningful debate on 
the war in Iraq in more than 4 years since we passed the use-of-force 
resolution.
  Circumstances have changed dramatically. Reading the resolution 
today, one would wonder if it even justifies our current presence 
because it spoke of removing Saddam Hussein, dealing with weapons of 
mass destruction, stopping the march of nuclear weapons into Iraq. We 
now know all of those things were either wrong in that original 
resolution or have become moot by the events that have transpired.
  There is an effort underway to make sure this debate on Iraq 
represents the bipartisan feeling of America, represents the fact that 
there are Democrats and Republicans and Independents who feel intensely 
that the current strategy, the current plan the President is pursuing 
is not the right plan.
  The first resolution will be considered by the Foreign Relations 
Committee this week and is sponsored by Senators Biden and Levin on the 
Democratic side and Senator Hagel on the Republican side.
  Yesterday, there was another resolution brought to the attention of 
the American people, introduced by three Members I respect. Senator 
John Warner, former chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, a 
Republican Senator from Virginia, the lead sponsor, Senator Ben Nelson, 
a Democrat from Nebraska, and Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from 
Maine, are about to introduce a resolution that clearly expresses the 
sense of Congress about this strategy in Iraq. Much has been written 
about it. The resolution should speak for itself because these 
Senators, two Republicans and a Democrat, resolve:

       That it is the sense of Congress that--
       (1) the Senate disagrees with the ``plan'' to augment our 
     forces by 21,500, and urges the President instead to consider 
     all options and alternatives for achieving the strategic 
     goals set forth below with reduced force levels than 
     proposed.

  The important thing about these resolutions, though they are 
different in wording, is they all reach the same conclusion. The 
conclusion is the President's policy, the escalation or augmentation, 
virtually the same word, is the wrong way to move in Iraq today.
  I hope at the end of the day we can come together on a bipartisan 
basis, that we can cooperate in finding ways to blend these resolutions 
so we do speak as much as possible with a common bipartisan voice in 
the Senate. We need to call for the kind of change in the President's 
policy that the American people asked for in this election.
  Our call is not based on politics but based on reality--the reality 
of the deaths which American troops have endured in this conflict and 
the reality of the war on the ground, a war which becomes more serious 
and more violent by the day.

[[Page S878]]

  We know the military experts have disagreed with the White House for 
a long time. GEN Eric Shinseki in 2003, as Army Chief of Staff, said we 
would need many more troops than the administration was prepared to 
send and more allies to secure peace ultimately in Iraq. Not only did 
the administration ignore General Shinseki's advice, they invited him 
to leave. We now know he was the one who had the insight they should 
have followed.
  General Abizaid, the commander of all our forces in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, has told us that every divisional and corps commander in 
the theater has told him we should not send more troops. That is what 
the President has chosen to do despite this advice from his top 
generals. General Abizaid testified before Congress that he is 
convinced that:

     . . . more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing 
     more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.

  General Abizaid and others have also repeatedly stated that the 
solution to the violence in Iraq is not military, it is political. We 
have to turn to Prime Minister Maliki and his Cabinet to make the 
political decisions which will make the difference.

  General Abizaid is not alone. The Iraqis themselves appear to agree 
with his conclusion. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki stated on 
November 27 last year:

       The crisis is political, and the ones who can stop the 
     cycle of aggravation and bloodletting of innocents are the 
     politicians.

  The Iraqi Prime Minister has said what he needs most is weapons and 
equipment, not American soldiers. When Prime Minister Maliki met with 
President Bush in Jordan in November, he didn't ask for more American 
troops; rather, he said he needed support by way of equipment and 
weapons. In fact, Prime Minister Maliki suggested we should reduce the 
presence of American troops in his country. The President has done just 
the opposite.
  A United States official was quoted as saying that ``The message in 
Amman was that Maliki wanted to take the lead and put an Iraqi face on 
it. He wanted to control his own forces.''
  The answer to all of Iraq's problems is not simply to deliver more 
American soldiers. But American weaponry and equipment can be helpful. 
President Bush has disagreed. Although he steadfastly said as the 
Iraqis stand up, our forces will stand down, exactly the opposite has 
occurred. As the Prime Minister of Iraq has offered to stand up more 
forces to defend his own country, the President of the United States 
has said we are going to send 21,000 more of our best and bravest into 
the face of danger.
  Our troops have fought brilliantly and courageously. Over the 
weekend, Senator John McCain, a man whom I respect and count as a 
friend, made a statement on one of the talk shows, I believe it was 
``Meet the Press,'' that he felt the resolutions we were debating were 
a vote of confidence on whether we trusted America's troops to get the 
job done. As much as I respect Senator McCain, I could not disagree 
more. This vote is not about our faith in our troops. Trust me, if a 
vote came to the Senate on our commitment and respect for our American 
military service men and women, it would be 100 to 0. We all stand in 
awe and admiration of the contributions they have made to our country 
and the courage they show every day. We have confidence that given an 
assignment that can be physically accomplished, they will do it better 
than any military force in the world.
  But the debate is not over our troops. The debate is over the 
President's policy. Those troops didn't write the policy that sent too 
few troops to Iraq initially. Those soldiers didn't write the 
requisitions to send humvees that have become, sadly, opportunities for 
roadside bombs to maim and kill our soldiers. Those troops didn't make 
the critical decisions about disbanding the Iraqi Army. They didn't 
make the political decisions along the way. They did their duty. And 
they continue to do so.
  What we are debating here is the policy decisions being made by this 
administration, and a larger and larger number of Democratic and 
Republican Senators are speaking out that these decisions have been 
wrong and that the President's plans continue to make the wrong 
decision.
  The Iraq Study Group was a bipartisan effort to try to find a way 
through this, to come out with a plan that will work so we can truly 
bring our troops home successfully. They talked about the fact that 
adding more troops would not be a good move. In fact, bringing troops 
home should be our goal. They established the date of April 1, 2008, 
for most of those troops to be gone. And they called for something that 
this administration continues to ignore: They called for a surge in 
diplomacy--not a surge in the military but a surge in diplomacy.
  Baker and Hamilton, a Republican and a Democrat, with credentials of 
real experience at the highest levels of our Government, said it is 
time for us to open a dialog with the Syrians and with the Iranians 
about the stability of the Middle East and to try to find common 
ground. There are no guarantees of success with diplomatic dialog, but 
there is a guarantee that if you don't try, you won't succeed.
  Sadly, this administration has refused to try at the diplomatic 
level. Their responses continue to be military when we know time and 
again the solution is political within Iraq and diplomatic outside 
Iraq.
  The Baker-Hamilton study group issued its report. It was received 
cordially by the White House and then ignored. Many Members believe we 
should return to it, begin the redeployment of American forces, start 
them coming home, as Prime Minister al-Malaki has asked, start moving 
the Iraqis into a position of more responsibility and leadership, call 
on the al-Malaki government in Iraq to make the political concessions 
to try to bring an end to the sectarian strife, the civil war that has 
caused all this violence and continues to on a day-to-day basis.

  There is one thing we should stop and assess as well. That is the 
real cost of this war. I have come to the floor of the Senate many 
times and talked about $2 billion a week that is not being spent in 
America, $2 billion being spent on this war. I voted for the money to 
support our troops, and I will continue to, but we have to be honest 
about the costs of the war. Our Defense bill for the coming year, 
according to the Wall Street Journal last week, may top $600 billion. 
That figure does not include the extra $100 billion in emergency 
appropriations that Congress will soon be asked to vote on to sustain 
current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  The costs of the war in Iraq have been extraordinary, whether 
measured in dollars or human lives. I went through a long list last 
week of what we could have done in America with $400 billion, the $400 
billion we have spent in Iraq, what we could have done by way of 
extending the opportunity for health care and health insurance to 
millions of Americans currently uninsured, offering to pay for college 
education for students coming out of high school who are accepted at 
the best colleges. All of these things could have been done and weren't 
done because, instead, we have invested the money in this war.
  The administration's view is, we will continue with no end in sight 
to spend these dollars at great expense to America and lost 
opportunities to our people. An open-ended commitment, as this 
administration has suggested, means these costs are also open-ended. It 
is time to break this cycle, to address our real security needs in 
America, to implement the 9/11 recommendations at some expense but, 
really, to protect our people from any future possible terrorist 
attack. The bipartisan resolution that will come before the Senate in 
the coming days states that our goal in Iraq should be to maximize our 
chances of success. An open-ended commitment of U.S. forces in Iraq 
reduces these chances rather than increasing them. Here in the safety 
and comfort of Washington, we owe to it our troops not to forget that 
today they stand in danger risking their lives.
  Soon we will vote on whether we support the escalation of the war 
that the President has called on. Let no one confuse that issue with 
the question of whether we support our troops, whether we have 
confidence in our troops.
  Let me make something else clear: The resolution we are debating is 
not a vote of confidence on the President,

[[Page S879]]

nor on the troops. It is about a policy. It is a deliberation about a 
policy and a strategic decision. That is why we are here. That is why 
we were elected. We cannot shy away from that responsibility. We all 
support our men and women in uniform. But like a majority of Americans, 
we also support the changes in policy that will lead to the 
redeployment of U.S. forces, ultimately bringing them home to safety.
  That is the change that was called for in the last election. That is 
the new direction that is needed at this point in our history.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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