[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 43 (Tuesday, March 13, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3016-S3018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, 9 months ago, 13 Senators cast their vote
for a 1-year deadline for redeployment of most U.S. troops from Iraq.
Our country has been waiting impatiently for Washington to find the
right way forward for Iraq and the right policy for our troops. It
seemed then, when those 13 votes were cast, as it does now, that was
the only way to help Iraq and the Middle East to emerge from a
nightmarish war that has delivered chaos where it sought order, fear
where it promised freedom, and open-ended escalation where the
President promised us mission accomplished. This is a war which has
cost us dearly in just about every possible measure of American
interest and power.
Today, Democrats stand nearly united behind a strategy for success, a
strategy for success that includes a deadline needed to force the
Iraqis to stand up for Iraq. A lot has changed in the last 9 months,
but I am more convinced than ever that a combination of serious,
sustained diplomacy, real diplomacy, leveraged by a 1-year deadline for
the redeployment of U.S. troops, is the best way to achieve our goal of
stability in Iraq and security in the region.
I listened to administration spokespeople in the last few days as
they went on television blasting the Democratic proposal. It is
interesting how they continue their habit of just setting up a straw
man, putting something out there that has nothing to do with the
reality of the program, and then knocking it down. They are fond of
saying: a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be just terrible to
our interests in the region. Let's make it clear. A 1-year date from
now, with discretion to the President to leave troops there to finish
the training, with discretion to the President to leave troops there to
chase al-Qaida, with discretion to the President to leave troops there
to protect American facilities and forces, with the ability to have an
over-the-horizon presence--a 1-year deadline from today, which would be
entering the 6th year of this war, is not a precipitous withdrawal of
any kind whatsoever. In fact, there are many people in the country who
think that is not soon enough.
The fact is, this administration wants to sow fear in Americans, so
they choose to debate something that is not the proposal of those of us
who have put this proposal forward. What we propose to do is change the
strategy of our mission so we can achieve success.
What we have seen is that this open-endedness you just kind of say we
need to do this and we need to do that and we want the Iraqis to stand
up and we want the police to do better and Prime Minister Maliki said
he is going to deliver--none of that delivers anything. The Iraqi
politicians know that as long as there is no deadline, they can take as
long as they want to work out whatever power struggles and differences
they have. So they are using the presence of American forces as cover
for their own goals, for their own desires, until we in the United
States say to them: Hey, folks, get serious. Our young people are
prepared--obviously, because we have been doing it for 4 years--to put
their lives on the line in order to help you have democracy, but you
have to grab that democracy, you have to make decisions, and you have
to go in and police your neighborhoods.
The only way you are going to change that is by being responsible and
demanding something.
It provides the President the discretion to be able to complete the
training. What else, after 5 years, would we want to be in Iraq for
besides finishing the training and standing up the Iraqi forces and
chasing al-Qaida and fighting the legitimate war on terror?
This 1-year deadline is sound policy. It is based on the Iraq Study
Group's goal of redeploying U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the first
quarter of 2008. It is consistent with the timeframe for transferring
control to the Iraqis that was set forth by General Casey and the
schedule agreed upon by the Iraqi Government itself.
Even the President has said, under his new strategy, responsibility
for security would be transferred to Iraqis before the end of this
year. If the President is telling us that responsibility for security
can be transferred to the Iraqis by the end of this year, don't we have
a right to hold the President accountable for that goal? Don't we have
a right to hold the Iraqis accountable for that goal? If the goal is to
transfer security to them by the end of this
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year, how can you resist the notion that you are going to leave troops
there to complete the training, chase al-Qaida, protect American
forces, but bring the bulk of our combat forces home so they, indeed,
will be standing up for their own security?
The President has said it. The Iraq Study Group has said it. The
generals have said it. Now it is time for the Senate to put it on
record as part of our effort to support this objective. It is long
since time for the Iraqis to assume responsibility for their country.
We need this deadline to leverage the Iraqis into making the hard
compromises that are necessary.
I might add, no young soldier from the United States or Great Britain
ought to be dying so that Iraqi politicians can get more time to
squabble, more time to try to strike a better deal for themselves. We
ought to be working overtime in order to bring about a compromise that
is ultimately the only solution to what is happening in Iraq today.
Even now, we keep hearing the Iraqis are close to a deal on sharing
oil revenues. But we still have not seen the final agreement ratified.
Without a real deadline to force a deal, there is no telling how long
it will take. But we do know that as long as there is no deadline, the
Iraqis will believe they can take as long as they want.
We also know American soldiers and Iraqi civilians will continue to
die and be maimed while those politicians continue to use the presence
of American forces as a cover for their other objectives. We saw that
again last weekend, when Iraq's neighbors and key players from the
international community finally got together at a conference in
Baghdad. The conference was a welcome development. We have been calling
for it for several years. It was long overdue. But nothing tangible
came out of it because, of course, no preparations and no diplomacy had
been carried out leading up to it in order to get something substantive
to come out of it. That is precisely why a deadline is so critical and
essential, to force everyone to focus on the urgent need to reach a
political solution.
The debate--this debate, a debate the Senate needs to have--offers a
very clear choice, a choice between a new way forward and the old way
that has taken us backward.
I might add, yesterday we saw a little more of that old way as the
rhetoric escalated. The Vice President said yesterday, ``When Members
speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines, and other arbitrary
measures, they are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait
us out.''
First of all, there is nothing arbitrary about a date for next year.
The Iraq Study Group put it forward, the President said security
responsibility could be transferred by the end of this year, and the
generals put it forward. But more importantly, the Vice President of
the United States must be the last person in America who believes the
enemy is waiting or watching the clock. It is Iraqi politicians who are
watching the clock. They are the ones who are delaying and squabbling.
The enemy is busy doing what the enemy has been doing.
Moreover, the Vice President lumps things together in the word
``enemy'' here in a very strange way. Yes, the enemy is al-Qaida, and
we are focused on al-Qaida. But the fact is that this war in Iraq is
fundamentally a civil war now. It is a struggle between Sunni and Shia,
and the last I knew, they are Iraqis and they are not our enemy. They
are fighting amongst each other for the power and the future of Iraq.
With each day, this administration becomes more detached from the
realities.
I believe if you look at the figures, this is not a temporary surge.
This weekend, we learned that the President's escalation is going to
involve nearly 5,000 more troops than the 21,500 that was initially
announced and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total
could eventually reach 48,000 additional troops total. The original
cost estimate was about $5.6 billion but the CBO tell us the final
amount could reach nearly five times that much. And it looks more and
more like the troop increase could last well into next year.
We also see that most people understand that when the Vice President
talks about undermining the troops, there is not one of us here who is
not outraged by what has happened to the troops with respect to the
lack of adequate armor, the lack of adequate humvees, the lack of
adequate support, numbers of personnel and planning, and, most
importantly, the treatment of those soldiers when they have come home--
a VA budget that is inadequate, a disability system that is
dysfunctional, and obviously the treatment we saw recently at Walter
Reed.
The Vice President needs to focus on how you really support the
troops. The way you really support the troops is to get the policy in
Iraq right. We have a policy for success. They have had a 4-year policy
of failure that has made Iran stronger, North Korea stronger, Hamas
stronger, Hezbollah stronger, weakened our relations in the region, and
has certainly not served the interests of our national security.
It is time for the Senate to do what this administration has
stubbornly refused to do to recognize that we should honor lives lost
with lives saved. That starts by putting aside the hollow rhetoric and
straw men that have undermined a real debate for far too long and
support a strategy that preserves our core interests in Iraq, in the
region, and throughout the world. That is how we support the troops.
Mr. President, we can do better. This resolution we have submitted is
a way to do better.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise, first, to offer strong words of
support for the statement that was just offered by the distinguished
Senator from Massachusetts. I also rise today to speak in support of
the Iraq resolution the Senate will consider tomorrow.
The news from Iraq is very bad. Last week, a suicide bomber stood
outside a bookstore and killed 20 people. Other attacks killed 118 Shia
pilgrims. On Sunday, a car bomb went off in central Baghdad, and more
than 30 people died. The road from the airport into Baghdad is littered
with smoldering debris, craters from improvised explosive devices, and
the memories of our sons and daughters.
The civil war in Iraq rages on. The insurgents have started to change
their tactics. They hide in buildings and along the streets and wait
for our helicopters. They have shot down at least 8 U.S. helicopters in
the last month. More of our soldiers are dying or coming home with
their bodies broken and their nerves shattered to a VA system
completely unprepared for what they need to rebuild their lives.
It is not enough for the President to tell us victory in this war is
simply a matter of American resolve. The American people have been
extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters
killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah. They have spent hundreds
of billions of dollars on this effort--money they know could have been
devoted to strengthening our homeland security and our competitive
standing as a nation. The failure has not been a failure of resolve.
That is not what has led us into chaos. It has been a failure of
strategy, and it is time that the strategy change. There is no military
solution to the civil war that rages on in Iraq, and it is time for us
to redeploy so that a political solution becomes possible.
The news from Iraq is very bad, and it has been that way for at least
4 years. We all wish the land the President and the Vice President
speak of exists. We wish there were an Iraq where the insurgency was in
its last throes, where the people work with security, where children
play outside, where a vibrant new democracy lights up the nighttime
sky. We wish for those things, but there is no alternative reality to
what we see and read about in the news, to what we have experienced
these long 4 years.
I repeat, there is no military solution to this war. At this point,
no amount of soldiers can solve the grievances at the heart of someone
else's civil war. The Iraqi people--Shia, Sunni, and Kurd--must come to
the table and reach a political settlement themselves. If they want
peace, they must do the hard work necessary to achieve it.
Our failed strategy in Iraq has strengthened Iran's strategic
position, reduced U.S. credibility and influence around the world, and
placed Israel and other nations in the region that are friendly to the
United States in greater
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peril. These are not signs of a well-laid plan. It is time for a
profound change.
This is what we are trying to do here today. We are saying it is time
to start making plans to redeploy our troops so they can focus on the
wider struggle against terrorism, win the war in Afghanistan,
strengthen our position in the Middle East, and pressure the Iraqis to
reach a political settlement. Even if this effort falls short, we will
continue to try to accomplish what the American people asked for last
November.
I am glad to see, though, that this new effort is gaining consensus.
I commend Senator Reid for his efforts. He took the time to listen to
so many of us from both Chambers of Congress to help develop this plan.
The decision in particular to again begin a phased redeployment, with
the goal of redeploying all our combat forces by March 30, 2008, is the
right step. It is a measure the Iraq Study Group spoke of, an idea I
borrowed from them, an idea that, in a bill I introduced, now has more
than 60 cosponsors from the House and Senate and from both sides of the
aisle. They have supported this plan since I announced a similar plan
in January.
The decision to allow some U.S. forces to remain in Iraq with a clear
mission to protect U.S. and coalition personnel, conduct
counterterrorism operations, and to train and equip Iraqi forces is a
smart decision. President al-Maliki spoke at a conference and warned
that the violence in Iraq could spread throughout the region if it goes
unchecked. By maintaining a strong presence in Iraq and the Middle
East, as both my bill and the leadership bill does, we can ensure that
the chaos does not spread.
I should also add that the decision to begin this phased redeployment
within 120 days is a practical one. Our military options have been
exhausted. It is time to seek a political solution to this war, and
with this decision we send a clear signal to the parties involved that
they need to arrive at an accommodation.
While I strongly believe this war never should have been authorized,
I believe we must be as careful in ending the war as we were careless
getting in. While I prefer my approach as reflected in my bill, I
believe this resolution does begin to point U.S. policy and Iraq in the
right direction. An end to the war and achieving a political solution
to Iraq's civil war will not happen unless we demand it. Peace with
stability does not just happen because we wish for it.
It comes when we never give in and never give up and never tire of
working toward a life on Earth worthy of our human dignity. The
decisions that have been made have led us to this crossroad, in a
moment of great peril.
We have a choice. We can continue down the road that has weakened our
credibility and damaged our strategic interests in the region or we can
turn toward the future. The road will not be smooth. I have to say
there will be risks with any approach, but this approach is our last
best hope to end this war so we can begin to bring our troops home and
begin the hard work of securing our country and our world from the
threats we face.
The President has said he will continue down the road toward more
troops and more of the same failed policies. The President sought and
won authorization from Congress to wage this war from the start. But he
is now dismissing and ignoring the will of the American people who are
tired of years of watching the human and financial tolls mount.
The news from Iraq is very bad, but it can change if we in this
Chamber say ``enough.'' Let this day be the day we begin the painful
and difficult work of moving from the crossroad. Let this day be the
day we begin pulling toward the future with a responsible conclusion to
this painful chapter in our Nation's history. Let this be the day when
we finally send a message that is so clear and so emphatic that it
cannot be ignored.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.
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