[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 29 (Thursday, February 15, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1999-S2000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I wanted to take just a few minutes to kind of review where we are 
here in the silence that abounds in this Senate. The question about 
what is going on is kind of mystifying for much of the public looking 
in and saying: What are they doing wasting time?
  There was some talk about the terrible situation we are in in Iraq, 
and I spoke as one of those who say we have had enough. We have had 
enough there. We have lost over 3,000 people, and the Iraqis have lost 
substantial numbers. One would have to be really hardhearted not to be 
moved when you look in the paper and you see a child weeping over a 
dead mother or a brother or a sister or people lying in the street dead 
from brutal attacks from this internal civil war while we are trying to 
figure out what we do to protect our people.
  What is it that we want to accomplish with the votes that have been 
taken here? I think it is fair to say that what we would like on this 
side of the aisle, and I am sure there are many colleagues on the other 
side who feel as we do but would be out of step politically if they 
took the vote we want to take, to approve or disapprove of sending more 
troops into that death trap, to say how long we want to stay there.
  What do we have to prove by supporting the President's order, the 
President's interest in the so-called surge? They try to disguise the 
word. The word is ``escalate.'' It is not ``surge.'' ``Surge'' can be 
interpreted many ways, but ``escalate'' is very clear: Put more people 
there. Put more people in harm's way. Put more people in an abyss from 
which there is no way, that anyone has told us, out of the situation.
  We get the argument: Oh, you want to cut and run. No. Do you want to 
stay and die? Is that what the alternative is? Ask the families who 
have children, brothers, fathers, and mothers there. They come in to 
see me, people who have someone who is in Iraq, and they are scared to 
death about what kind of news they will get some night.
  I had a woman in the office one day, with a group of other people, 
sobbing so hard that she couldn't talk. Why? Because her son had been 
wounded--a light wound but enough to earn him a Purple Heart--and he 
was being sent back on hazardous duty. He was willing to do it. His 
mother didn't want him to do it. But at what point do we say the pain 
is so excruciating that we can't stand it?
  It has nothing to do with cut-and-run. I wore a uniform in World War 
I. Others here have worn the country's uniform, some in Vietnam, some 
in Korea. We have had a lot of experience with wars. But in each case, 
if we didn't have an objective, we fared very badly. That was true, 
unfortunately, in Vietnam, where we finally had to wrap it up and go 
home, leaving 58,000 of our brothers and sisters still there, if not 
physically, in sharp memory. And now we see what is happening here.
  I bring to our attention the fact that in Iraq, in the month of 
January, we lost 83 of our bravest. Thus far in February, we have 
already lost 48 members of the American military. And the Iraqis have 
suffered deaths. Look at the number of people who have been murdered 
there with suicide bombs, roadside bombs, and brutal murders, with 
hands tied behind their backs and blindfolded. It goes on and on. If we 
could wish it away, if we could see an end to it, I would be more than 
willing to leave troops there to kind of monitor the last parts of a 
war that is one of the worst America has been in, but what we see is 
not only the numbers that are perishing daily, weekly, but the tactics 
they are using now with shooting down helicopters. That wasn't 
something we saw before.
  Suddenly now, in the past couple of weeks, three helicopters have 
been taken down by enemy fire. That changes the complexity of things 
because helicopters were an integral part of our capacity to fight 
back. If we can't do that, does that mean we have to put more people on 
the ground, that we have to lose more people? It ought not to be that 
way.
  Last week, we took a vote here, and it was a vote that would limit 
debate. We, the Democrats, led the charge there because we wanted to 
get on with the issue of whether we wanted to send more troops than we 
have there now. The number, estimated to be at 21,000 in combat, means 
that 48,000, roughly, would be the total number because you need the 
support groups as well. That vote was disguised as something else, 
which is what our friends are doing today--disguising what their intent 
is. Their intent is to escape the responsibility they took when they 
voted against closing the debate the other day. That is what happened.
  They have a lot of discomfort over there. I see my colleague from the 
State of Minnesota is here now, and if I am not mistaken, he was one of 
those who said: Let's cut the debate and get on with the issue. That is 
what his message was that day. And so there is abject discomfort with 
the vote that was taken because people at home interpreted that in a 
different way. They are not interested so much in our tactical 
maneuvering here or the process; they want to know: Do we want to send 
more troops into that inferno or do we want to try to figure out a way 
to get out of there as quickly as practicable? That is the question.
  So they voted the wrong way. And now, Heaven forbid, we had something 
we could vote on, and that was voted on by way of closing the debate, 
which was developed by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman now of 
the Armed Services Committee, and supported fully by Senator John 
Warner, who himself was a veteran and served at the time of World War 
II, who agreed with him that we ought to show our displeasure. There 
wasn't anything radical in it. We weren't calling the other side names. 
We just said we want to stop this escalation. We don't want to put more 
troops out there in harm's way. We don't want to see more limbless 
veterans. We have almost 800 now, veterans who have lost one limb at 
least, and we have 25,000 who have been injured. And there are a lot of 
severe injuries that you can't see because they are internal injuries. 
They are injuries of the mind. They are injuries of the spirit. There 
are a lot of them; 30,000 with PTS, post-traumatic stress, in addition 
to those who have the physical, visible wounds we see.

  So we want to get on with the vote. Let us have an honest count here 
about whether you are for escalation or

[[Page S2000]]

against it. Do you want to throw more into the Iraqi war? Do you want 
to put more sons and daughters there or do you want them to start 
coming home and reuniting them with their families? That is the 
question. Instead, it is dressed up here. If we voted to adjourn, it 
would be a sign that we are not supporting the troops. Baloney. We 
support the troops fully. Each and every one of them over there now is 
a hero to us, each and every one, because many of them disagree with 
the policy that got them there, the falsification of whether there were 
weapons of mass destruction.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 10 minutes in morning business 
has expired.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. COLEMAN. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. COLEMAN. I ask further unanimous consent that the additional time 
of the Senator not be charged against the minority. It was our time. I 
want to be sure his time is not charged against the minority so we can 
finish morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank our colleague from Minnesota.
  What we see is a deliberate attempt to avoid the question: Yes or no, 
how do you stand on the escalation of this war? How do you stand on 
sending more sons and daughters into that hell on Earth?
  It is time to stand up and be counted and not to permit the public, 
across this land of ours, to be fooled by debate structures, by 
delaying tactics. It is time to stand up and be counted, but we cannot 
do that. The other side will not permit us to do it, and we know how to 
count votes so we know we do not have enough to do what we would like 
to.
  But the House has taken the bull by the horns. The House is 
considering it, and it is very favorably being considered there--not 
yet voted--legislation that says we are against this escalation. 
Republicans as well as Democrats there are going to join. What we are 
saying here is let us simply vote on that. That is what has been asked 
for by our leadership.
  I hope we will be able to conclude this debate, find out and let the 
American people know where we stand, each one of us. When we raise our 
hand, each one of us will be making a declaration: Do we think it is 
necessary to put more of our troops out there, to run them through 
there at the risk of their limbs, or lives, and disrupt family life, 
leaving children without a guiding parent on one side, to let the bills 
accumulate, worry about the mortgages? These are people, for the most 
part, who were reservists. They have served once, served twice--a year 
each--and now a third callup is being talked about because the 
President has decided--against the will of many outstanding military 
experts, those who have served at the highest rank. They say no, it 
will not help. But the President of the United States is very stubborn 
on this issue, despite all of the opposition--opposition here, 
opposition across this country. The numbers are around 70 percent of 
the people do not want us to continue to do this, or send in any more 
troops. I hope we can resolve the truth here in short order.
  I yield the floor with thanks again to my colleague from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I intend to speak in morning business and 
to talk about an issue of great importance in Minnesota, access to 
health care in rural communities, but I have to make one comment in 
response to my colleague from New Jersey.
  Iraq is the most important issue facing America today. There is no 
question about it. I want to raise some concerns about the surge in 
Baghdad. I understand we are fighting a war against insurgency and 
foreign fighters in Anbar Province. If those commanders on the ground 
need more, I am going to give it to them. I have great concerns about 
the surge. We need to debate this. It is absolutely mind boggling to 
watch what is going on with this playing around with rules. The bottom 
line is Senators should have the right to debate. Senators should have 
the right to offer amendments and we should be voting on whether you 
support a surge, we should be voting on whether you support continued 
funding, we should be voting on whether there should be benchmarks. We 
should do what the Senate does, which is debate, have discussion, and 
then vote. What the majority is attempting to do is to forestall that, 
offering something that they know is something the Senate does not do, 
offering something they know the American public--the public wants us 
to debate this and vote on it. So instead they offer a resolution 
which, they know, will gather objection, a resolution on which they 
will allow no amendments, no discussion about other things other than a 
proposal that comes out from them. That is absurd. That is not the 
Senate. It is not the greatest deliberative body in the world. We 
should do better. The American public deserves better, and I hope our 
leaders can come together and figure out a way to structure a debate so 
opinions can be laid out and they can be discussed and then we can 
vote--not on one thing that a 51-person majority says, but the way the 
Senate does it: We put it on the table and vote.
  I may disagree with some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle 
on some of that, but everyone has a right to lay out their amendments 
and their proposal, and we should do so on Iraq.

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