[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 110 (Wednesday, July 11, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8969-S8970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I relish this opportunity. We have before 
us in the Senate this week, and probably next week, Department of 
Defense reauthorization, a reauthorization that is critically important 
because our men and women are deployed around the world carrying out 
critical missions.
  The Department of Defense reauthorization does some interesting and 
some good things: an across-the-board 3.5-percent increase in the pay 
for our men and women in the Armed Forces; an increase in our manning 
document for the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army to increase our 
authorized levels; an important increase in funding and capital for 
those bases and those States and those communities affected by the most 
recent BRAC, which it is critically important to see to it, as we 
reposition our military domestically, that those communities that are 
affected have the capital and the resources to improve their 
infrastructure to meet that pressure. Equally important is legislation 
included that was introduced by Senator Chambliss of Georgia, 
cosponsored by myself, to accelerate retirement benefits for Guardsmen 
and Reservists deployed in combat, to let their deployments, as they 
increase, accelerate the time in which they become eligible for their 
retirement. These are all great benefits.
  Unfortunately, we have no debate on the benefits, nor the need. We 
continue to debate a question that was on the floor most of the month 
of May when we did the Iraq emergency supplemental, a debate that is 
scheduled following the report of General Petraeus in September. But 
for a reason not sure to me, except political, we debate today 
something we have already debated once before and will debate again in 
60 days and that is the issue of whether we do a precipitous, 
dangerous, scheduled withdrawal from the overall battle in Iraq today.
  I wish to address the Levin-Reed amendment from two perspectives. 
First is the role of Iraq and its battle in the overall global war on 
terror, and secondly, the consequences of a scheduled, timed, 
precipitous withdrawal from that battle. First of all, in terms of 
beginning to withdraw in 120 days and being out by April, you send the 
clear signal to those we are in combat with today, which is al-Qaida 
and the insurgencies in Iraq--the enemies of freedom and liberty around 
the world--you have scheduled the fact that we, in fact, are leaving. 
You have offered them the opportunity, which they will seize, to 
declare victory. In the end, the danger to America and the free world 
is far greater following that than it is carrying out the tough battle 
we have today.
  I am reluctant to quote anything Osama bin Laden would ever say, but 
in one of his speeches following the declared fatwah against freedom in 
the West and America, he said simply: People will follow the strong 
horse. That is exactly what they will do if we retreat. We may, in 
fact, have to change our strategy. We may, in fact, reposition 
ourselves, but we owe it to ourselves to do it when our generals have 
reported back on their scheduled time. We do it on our timetable and 
not as a retreat but as a strategy change. We did it earlier this year 
and are now in the early stages of its implementation.
  From a historical perspective, I wish to remind all of us what 
happened in the last 50 years of the last century. Two great 
Presidents, one a Republican and one a Democrat, both were confronted 
with difficult times that threatened America and democracy as we know 
it: John Kennedy, when the Soviet Union put missiles on the Cuban 
island and, secondly, when the Iranians took our people as hostages, 
communism was flourishing and Ronald Reagan was elected and had the 
will and the courage to confront both. The results of the Cuban Missile 
Crisis were we did not blink. President Kennedy blockaded the island of 
Cuba, Khrushchev threatened, but he blinked and they withdrew and 
missiles are not 90 miles off our shore today. In the case of Iran, and 
their taking our hostages, and in the case of the Soviet Union, 
President Reagan stood before the world and said: ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear 
down this wall.'' Then he had the intestinal fortitude, through the 
appropriations, to build up our military and the proposal of a mutually 
shared defense of the United States of America and the free world to 
finally get the Soviet Union to back away from communism, back down 
from the Cold War, and today we have a much safer world.
  The enemy we face today in the terrorists is no less a threat; they 
are greater. The policy change our President made in 2001, 9 days after 
the attack on 9/11, to change it from a reaction to a preemption was 
precisely right, and the global war on terror and its central battle in 
Iraq which has been declared so by al-Qaida is, in fact, a necessary 
preemption in terms of terrorism.
  The second point is the consequences of withdrawing precipitously and 
on a posted schedule. No. 1, before the Foreign Relations Committee, 
every expert from a Democrat to a Republican, Colin Powell to Madeleine 
Albright; every institute, every think tank, every foreign Middle 
Eastern expert said the following: We don't know if the surge will work 
or what its success will be, but we will tell you this: if the United 
States withdraws, there will be an outright civil war in the Middle 
East, hundreds of thousands may die and, quite frankly, millions could, 
in an uncontrolled, difficult time. If there is one place in the world 
where that type of turmoil threatens the security of all freedom and 
all mankind, it is the Middle East. Withdrawal in that case is 
absolutely the wrong thing to do.
  Secondly, when the Mujahedin and terrorists ran the Russians out of 
Afghanistan, they created a safe haven for terror from which the 
ultimate 9/11 attack came at America 20 years later. We should not 
think for a minute that if we leave Iraq, left to the insurgency and 
the terrorists, the same would not happen. But it wouldn't be 20 years 
before the attack came against America; it might be a matter of months. 
It is important for us to continue to pursue the goals of the surge, 
give the President the chance to make the report this Thursday, General 
Petraeus the chance to make the report this September, and then have a 
debate; not in advance of the facts but after we know the facts as they 
stand. This is too important. This is too important for America.
  September 15 is an important date for us to judge the success of our 
brave men and women who are carrying out the surge today. To declare a 
retreat today on a timed, precipitous schedule is wrong for America, it 
is wrong for our effort in the war on terror, and it strikes a dagger 
in the heart of our new found policy of preemption.
  So I appreciate the time the Senate has afforded me this morning. In 
closing, I ask unanimous consent that a column on this very issue 
written by Tony Blankley and appearing around the United States today, 
being syndicated, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                  [From MDJOnline.com, Jul. 11, 2007]

      Senate Fails To Address the Real Question About War in Iraq

       The Senate is emitting an embarrassing level of emotional 
     policy twitching on the topic of Iraq. Sen. Harry Reid can't 
     take the war anymore. He ``knows'' it is lost. Sen. Olympia 
     Snowe has just about had it with the Iraqi government. If 
     they don't meet her benchmarks--that's it. Sen. Mitch 
     McConnell thinks ``that the handwriting is on the wall that 
     we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I 
     expect the president to lead it.'' Who authored that wall 
     graffiti, he doesn't say. After talking with grieving family 
     members of one of our fallen warriors, Sen. Pete Domenici 
     ``wants a new strategy for Iraq.''
       I haven't seen such uncritical thinking since I hid under 
     my bedsheets to get away from the monsters back when I was 3 
     years old.
       Whether they are talking about war weariness, grief over 
     casualties, fear of their upcoming elections, disappointment 
     with the current Iraqi government or general irritation with 
     the incumbent president: What in the world do such misgivings 
     of U.S. senators have to do with whether we should continue 
     to advance our vital national security interests?
       None of these senators have even addressed the question of 
     whether the United States is

[[Page S8970]]

     safer if we leave Iraq than if we stay. Isn't that the key 
     question? The question is not whether the Iraqi government 
     deserves American sacrifice on their behalf.
       Our sons and daughters are not fighting, being grievously 
     wounded and dying for Iraq--but for American vital interests. 
     If this were just about Iraqi democracy, I might join the 
     screaming for a quick exit.
       But if al Qaeda can plausibly claim they drove America out 
     of Iraq (just as they drove the Soviet Union out of 
     Afghanistan), they will gain literally millions of new 
     adherents in their struggle to destroy America and the West. 
     We will then pay in blood, treasure and future wars vastly 
     more than we are paying today to manage and eventually win 
     our struggle in Iraq.
       Our staying power, unflinching persistence in the face of 
     adversity, muscular capacity to impose order on chaos and 
     eventual slaughtering of terrorists who are trying to drive 
     us out will do more to win the ``hearts and minds'' of 
     potentially radical Islamists around the world than all the 
     little sermons about our belief in Islam as the religion of 
     peace. As bin Laden once famously observed--people follow the 
     strong horse.
       We have two choices: Use our vast resources to prove we are 
     the strong horse or get ready to be taken to the glue 
     factory.
       Even Bush's war critics who specialize in Middle East 
     affairs (such as the Brookings Institute) believe that the 
     immediate chaos in the Middle East that will follow our 
     premature departure would likely involve not only regional 
     war there, a new base for al Qaeda, but also a nuclear arms 
     race that would quickly result in the world's most unstable 
     region--which possesses the world's oil supply--armed with 
     nuclear weapons on a hair trigger.
       But the debate today in Washington is about none of these 
     strategic concerns. It is exclusively about Washington's 
     political timetable and when the president will bend to such 
     political necessity. For self-admitted politics--rather than 
     national security--to be driving decision making in wartime 
     Washington is not only an unpatriotic disgrace--it is a 
     national menace.
       Imagine the following fanciful discussion in April 1943:
       FDR: ``Ike, you're going to have to get the Normandy 
     Invasion completed by June this year.''
       Ike: ``But I need at least another year to assemble troops 
     and materiel, establish logistics and strategy and train the 
     men for the battle.''
       FDR: ``Sorry. Several senators are feeling very 
     uncomfortable with the war. Frankly, they have just had it. 
     And several of them are worried about their re-election.''
       Ike: ``My men are fighting and dying for yards in Italy 
     right now--and even so, they can't wait to take the war to 
     Hitler next year in France. Tell those pantywaisted senators 
     to unloosen their girdles, take an aspirin and go to bed--and 
     leave the fighting to my men.''
       FDR: ``But we could lose the Senate.''
       Ike:'' Better to lose the Senate than the war.''
       FDR: ``I'm with you, Ike. You beat Hitler, and let me beat 
     the Senate.''
       Ike:'' My men thank you, Mr. President.''
       Of course, it is an absurdity to imagine such a 
     conversation would have been possible during WWII. And it is 
     a tragedy and disgrace that we are, in fact, having precisely 
     such a conversation today.
       But the worm will surely turn. And senators who today 
     proudly call for retreat will then be hiding their faces in 
     shame. And deservedly so. And the public will remember.

  Mr. ISAKSON. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire is 
recognized.

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