[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 141 (Friday, September 21, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11947-S11950]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we have had a very good, healthy debate 
in the Senate this week on the subject of the war in Iraq. Sometimes it 
has been more spirited than usual. At times, it was spirited to the 
point where some things were said that perhaps did not further a good 
constructive debate but took the debate a little bit downhill. We in 
the Senate recognize it is our job to bring forward the issues, to 
discuss the very difficult considerations that are before us as a 
Congress, but to always do it in a manner that reflects the level of 
civility a truly good discourse, a good debate should bring.
  I had an opportunity a couple days ago to speak with a general from 
my home State. I asked him for his comments on what he was seeing as he 
was watching our debate. He said: Senator, the debate has been good. 
The debate has been healthy. There clearly are different perspectives 
that are coming out on the floor, but through it all, no one has 
foresworn the soldier. He said: That makes me feel good as an American, 
certainly good as a military leader.
  That is important to remember, that in the heat of debate, we not 
foreswear our military, that we always honor and respect that which 
they do in such an honorable way.
  I personally want to thank Senator Webb, the junior Senator from 
Virginia, for bringing forth an issue this week. This was the amendment 
he introduced that related to the amount of dwell time, the amount of 
time deployed versus the amount of time a serviceman stays at home. It 
was important for us to focus on the support side of our military. We 
know that those who are serving us over in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 
truly in all parts of the world, where they are separated from their 
families, are at their best and serving us to their fullest when they 
are able to focus on their job.
  For those families who remain behind, who miss not having dad or mom 
at home or miss not having their husband or their wife with them, they

[[Page S11948]]

wish the circumstances were otherwise. But we know that the families 
who have stood behind our service men and women, allowing them to 
serve--it is these families, too, who are serving our country. We need 
to recognize the sacrifices those families also make. They may not be 
on the front lines, but there is no shortage of worry and concern and 
true anxiety over the health and safety of their loved ones. We put our 
military families through a great deal of stress at a time of war 
particularly.
  Just as we can never adequately tell our service men and women thank 
you enough, neither can we say thank you enough to the families who 
provide that support. I thank Senator Webb for reminding us of the 
obligation we owe to the military families themselves.
  We all have our own stories of the exchanges we have had with the 
military families in our respective States. A situation that is very 
clear in my mind, even well over a year later, was an incident that 
happened in July 2006. This was, specifically, July 27 in Fort 
Wainwright, AK, near Fairbanks, where it was publicly announced that 
the men and women of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team were going 
to be extended in Iraq for 120 days. There was some uncertainty as to 
whether it was just 120 days or whether it would go even beyond. This 
Stryker Brigade had been serving very admirably, honorably in a 
difficult part of Iraq and had been there for a year. This decision 
literally pulled the rug out from under the families and the community 
in Fairbanks. It was a surprise, a shock to the servicemembers and 
their families.
  At the time that extension was announced, some elements of the 172nd 
had already returned home. They were back in Alaska. There were 
airplanes that were transporting other elements back home that 
literally turned around in midair when they got the notice of the 
extension. Soldiers who had remained behind in Iraq were packing up the 
unit. They had heard the rumors that they might be extended. 
Unfortunately, they heard it from their family members back in 
Fairbanks, who had heard it on the news and then contacted their loved 
ones over in Iraq. They made some very difficult phone calls confirming 
that, in fact, the rumors were true.
  This was an absolutely unacceptable situation. It is one thing to be 
prepared for an extension. It is one thing to know this is your 
commitment. But when your family is anxiously awaiting you, when you 
are anxiously awaiting your return after a year's service in combat, it 
was horrible for the families.
  I was in Fort Wainwright a couple days after the announcement of the 
extension. At the front gate of the post they have a chain-link fence 
that goes for a mile or so. In anticipation of the return of their 
loved ones, families had pulled together the homemade banners saying, 
``Welcome home, Daddy. We miss you, we love you, we can't wait to see 
you.'' Those signs, some of them clearly in children's writing, 
absolutely broke one's heart because those signs were made with great 
anticipation and then put up on the fence. They were not going to be 
seeing dad that next day or that next week. They were not going to be 
seeing their husband as a consequence of the extension. As a 
consequence of that extension, there were a few who never came home at 
all.
  This was a difficult situation, of course, for the families, for the 
soldiers. It certainly brought me much closer to many of those military 
families. It caused me to set in mind a singular goal: that we were 
going to bring the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team home without any 
further extension. This was tough enough, this 120-day extension, but 
we were going to make sure there was no further extension.
  To the Army's credit, they stepped up to the plate. They brought a 
very extensive menu of family support services that we had never seen 
before.
  The Fairbanks community, which has always been extremely welcoming, 
loving toward our military--gave an outpouring of support. They truly 
went above and beyond.

  The other thing we saw at that time was the strength of the family 
readiness groups, the women, the wives who had for a year been holding 
everybody together, encouraging the younger wives who had never gone 
through deployment. There was a great deal of camaraderie, a great deal 
of support. The support from those family readiness groups helped them 
get through the additional 120 days.
  In December of last year, the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team came 
home. There was no further extension. They were able to be home for 
Christmas. They were able to return because another unit that was ready 
to go broke dwell and went over early to relieve the 172nd. That speaks 
volumes about the sacrifices the men and the women of our military and 
their military families make every day supporting our Nation and 
supporting each other.
  I was at Fort Wainwright in December when the returning soldiers were 
arriving. I spent one afternoon greeting planeload after planeload of 
soldiers. We were in a hangar where they were checking in weapons and 
awaiting transport to greet the families. These soldiers, from the 
junior enlisted up to the rank of colonel, were extremely positive 
about the work in Iraq. They told me, absolutely, they were making a 
difference. They were tired after 16 months of combat. They were 
absolutely elated to be home. They were very proud of themselves, of 
their colleagues, as we were proud of them.
  As I was standing in line, there was one young man from North Pole, 
AK, which is not too far from Fort Wainwright. I said: So you are home. 
What are you going to be doing?
  He said: I have a house. My house is going to be kind of the welcome 
home, the party house, if you will, for all the single guys and all the 
guys whose girlfriends have left them in the past year, for those guys 
whose wives are not going to be here.
  He got very serious in that conversation.
  I said: Do you have a lot of those men who have come home to find 
that their relationships are no longer intact?
  He said: Yes, it is an unfortunate part. But we have been gone for a 
long time.
  He was a young man who was single. But that, too, pulls at your 
heart, to know that you come home after serving your country and the 
relationship you had worked so hard to build prior to your departure is 
now no longer there.
  The extension of the 172nd made me angry at that time, very angry, 
very frustrated--and not necessarily because our soldiers were 
extended. We know that it is the soldiers' creed that you put your 
mission before yourself. You never quit.
  But I was upset because our soldiers and our families were forced to 
endure an abrupt reversal of what they had been promised. They had been 
promised: You are going to be home in a year, and they were not back in 
a year. Their families had been promised: You have to wait this long, 
but it turned out not to be true.
  I have young kids. The Presiding Officer has young children. The 
Presiding Officer knows how children wait for something, whether it is 
a holiday or school to start or school to end. They put it on the 
calendar, and they count the days down. When the calendar has run out 
and that much-anticipated episode is supposed to happen and it does not 
happen, the disappointment of the child is very difficult. It is 
difficult as an adult to bear it, but we see what our children go 
through with extensions like this. It does make you angry that we 
failed to keep our promise.
  Now, I have had many opportunities to meet with the spouses of those 
who are serving, both men and women. I have had an opportunity to meet 
with the family readiness groups. I think probably the most difficult 
meeting of any I have had with family members was a sitdown, literally 
a sitdown on the floor of a classroom at an elementary school on post. 
Children of the deployed military men and women got together for a 
counseling session with the school counselor. I was touring the school 
at the time and was able to meet with the kids and sit down in a circle 
as they were drawing cards to send to their mostly dads over in Iraq--
there were a couple over in Afghanistan--and to talk to these children 
about their life with their parent gone, and gone for a long time in a 
child's eyes.
  I talked to one little girl. She was 11 years old. Her dad has been 
deployed seven times. Now, I did not ask her how

[[Page S11949]]

long each of those deployments was because when you are 11 years old, 
seven deployments is a lot of time out of a young girl's life. We have 
to remember not only--not only--what is happening in the military 
fight, not only what is happening on the streets of Baghdad, but we 
need to always keep in mind what our military families are doing in 
their service to support their loved ones who are serving us. So these 
were the considerations which were on my mind and wrestling with when 
we took up the Webb amendment this week.
  It is important for people to understand the U.S. Army has a policy 
that one-to-one dwell time--in other words, 1 day deployed, 1 day 
home--one-to-one dwell time is the minimum acceptable dwell. This is 
not only to allow soldiers the opportunity to reset but also to meet 
the training and force structure needs. It is the minimum necessary to 
balance reliance on the use of the Active and the Reserve Forces.
  I keep saying this is the minimum time. It is not an ideal period. 
The Army would actually prefer to adhere to its existing policy of 1 
year in combat, 2 years out for the Active Forces. But the Army knows 
it cannot comply with its existing policy and meet the demands of 
staffing our efforts abroad. The Army discovered it could not comply as 
soon as this policy was announced.
  When you think about that, you say: What does this say? What does 
this mean as far as our level of preparedness? Being prepared for war 
is not just making sure you have equipment you need. You have to have 
that human equipment. When we talk about resetting our equipment, we 
also need to be talking about resetting the human--the mind, the body, 
the spirit, and the attitude.
  So when the Webb amendment was before us, I reviewed it very 
carefully. Contrary to some of the assertions made by some on this 
floor that I was strong-armed by the administration, that was not my 
situation. I sought out individuals whose judgment I trust. I did talk 
with several generals to understand the implications of the policy that 
was suggested--an inflexible policy, a policy that says it will be a 
one-to-one dwell time but without any flexibility.
  I was concerned that in an effort to make sure this administration is 
paying attention to the military families, making sure we are giving 
the time we need to reset the soldier, that we were not locking 
ourselves into something that ties the hands of our generals, ties the 
hands of our military planners, and, as a consequence, yields 
unintended consequences that could possibly further jeopardize the 
safety and the security of those who are serving us in Iraq.
  I did have an opportunity to meet with two of the senior military 
leaders. The senior Senator from Virginia had arranged for a meeting 
for several of us who had questions about this issue: Tell us what the 
implications of this policy are.
  I sat down with one general who happens to be an Alaskan by choice, 
General Lovelace. He served several tours over at Fort Richardson and 
also with the Alaska Command at Elmendorf Air Force Base which is where 
I had known him previously. General Lovelace and General Hamm described 
the consequences our troops on the ground would face if the amendment 
before us at that time had been adopted. They mentioned a shortage of 
people to protect our troops from the IEDs, the improvised explosive 
devices. They talked about a shortage of truck drivers and mechanics, a 
shortage of infantry, quite possibly a shortage of senior 
noncommissioned officers and midcareer officers, greater reliance on 
Reserve and Guard than is presently contemplated, and possibly further 
extensions of units that are presently in theater.
  I thought about all of those, and while I do not know that all of 
them would have come true if we had adopted the Webb amendment this 
week, it concerned me greatly to think that through implementation of 
this amendment you could have the further extension of the units that 
are presently in Iraq, operating under an understanding they will be 
home by X date, and their family is operating under that similar 
assumption. That caused me great concern.

  I made contact with the general who had been at Fort Wainwright at 
the time the 172nd had been extended. He is now the general at Fort 
Lewis with that Stryker Brigade unit. I asked him: Walk me through the 
implications. What would it have meant to the 172nd? What can it mean 
to your brigade at Fort Lewis? He reiterated several of the things I 
had learned in my conversations with General Lovelace and General Hamm. 
He also spoke to the strength of support that comes from the family 
readiness units that operate as a unit.
  One of the concerns that an inflexible policy would bring is you 
would--in order to get some of these specialists I referred to, either 
additional infantrymen or additional mechanics, in certain areas or 
those who are skilled with the IEDs, disabling them--in order to make 
sure you have enough on the ground, you would have to be plucking from 
different units.
  I thought back to what we learned there at Fort Wainwright. The thing 
that held those families together when they learned their husband, 
their brother, their son was not going to be coming home and instead 
was going to be extended another 120 days was the strength of that 
family readiness core unit. It had held everybody together.
  If you separate those within the unit, you lose some of the strength 
and support because one of the families that had been a key member of 
that team has now been pulled to another unit. You lose some of the 
strength we have to provide for our soldiers as they are serving us. 
That is important to remember.
  Supporting the troops, supporting their families means, first and 
foremost, we want to bring our troops home alive. We know military 
medicine is doing its part to treat those who have been injured, 
treating them in an expeditious manner. We are saving lives in Iraq 
today that would have been lost in Vietnam. That is a credit to so 
many. But still, the best way to come home alive is not to be injured 
at all.
  This is what I had to come to grips with this week as we were 
debating this issue--whether adoption of an inflexible policy that 
might tie the hands of our military leaders, whether that would mean 
there are fewer people who would be watching the backs of the service 
men and women on the battlefield.
  I do believe our current dwell policy must be revisited. For this 
time, for 2007 and 2008, what we have in place, the 15 months that have 
been accepted for this 12-month dwell period, it is not a perfect 
solution at all. I do not like it. I do not think our military leaders 
like it. They would prefer we were in a better place so we could 
provide for that equal dwell time. So I think it is important that even 
though the Webb amendment is no longer before us--it did not achieve 
the 60 votes--that we do not just kind of move on now, go to another 
aspect, and say the issue of dwell time is not important to us, is not 
important to those who are serving and their military families who are 
providing that support back home.
  It has been suggested we could revise this policy as early as next 
year without causing this chaos which has been described by some of the 
generals. It is something we should be looking at. When we think about 
how we support those who are serving us, we have to remember it is 
unfair to our service men and our service women--who have already 
encountered personnel policies that turn on a dime, with multiple 
deployments and extensions--to endure safety risks that directly flow 
from an inflexible policy that keeps qualified and competent people off 
the battlefield. I said--and I will repeat--the current rotation may 
not be ideal. I don't think it is ideal. The military needs to be 
honest about not pushing people who are not fit for the battlefield 
into combat, and it needs to be honest in compensating people who have 
suffered debilitating mental health conditions and not take the easy 
way out of discharging based upon personality disorders.

  The military needs to address these issues on an individual basis, 
and the Senate should hold them to it. We know the current rotation 
policy may very well cause some individuals to leave the service 
prematurely, but it will also cause others to step up and say: I have a 
great deal more to give, and I am not going to abandon my buddy.

[[Page S11950]]

  When the Nation goes to war, we promise each and every individual on 
the battlefield that they will have the best support this Nation can 
muster. When we take people who are capable of performing off the 
battlefield, we have the potential to jeopardize the safety of those 
who remain.
  The Presiding Officer was not here when I began my remarks, and I 
began those remarks by acknowledging what the Presiding Officer, the 
Senator from Virginia, has done in focusing the Senate's attention on 
the families of those who serve. I greatly appreciate that. I also 
appreciate the level of debate, the level of concern, and the level of 
genuine caring to make sure our policies do right by those who serve 
this country, not only on the battlefield but for those who are serving 
at home. I don't believe that debate or this discussion is over by any 
stretch of the imagination, but as we continue to debate the direction 
of this war, we should always make sure we are recognizing all who are 
serving.
  I want to take just a very brief moment, as I have had an opportunity 
to join with my colleague, Senator Casey from Pennsylvania, in 
introducing an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization 
Act. This amendment calls for a civilian and diplomatic surge in Iraq. 
We spend a lot of time talking on this floor about the military 
component, what our force strength is, the relative success or failures 
in certain parts of Iraq. There has been a lot of focus on that aspect 
of the war. Yet as we talk to our military leaders, we hear from them 
that it is not a military solution alone. There must be a political 
resolve as well, and that political resolve must come about through 
diplomatic channels and resources and truly on the civilian side.
  When General Petraeus was before the Foreign Relations Committee a 
week or so ago, I asked him at that time if he believed the civilian 
surge was adequate; did he have the assistance he needed to do the job, 
to complete the task. He said certain elements of our Government are at 
war, but not all of the others. We can use help in those areas, whether 
it is the Ministry of Agriculture or Treasury. There are areas that can 
be identified. So I have joined with Senator Casey in calling for an 
equal push on the diplomatic front and on the civilian side. There is 
more that we can do and more that we should do so we are able to see 
the progress that all of us wish to see in the war in Iraq.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Webb). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________