[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 143 (Tuesday, September 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12019-S12021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        POLITICAL SURGE IN IRAQ

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, on another matter on which we are going 
to be voting shortly, the Biden-Brownback amendment, I wish to show 
this map of Iraq. I note to my colleagues in the time I have, when 
President Bush saw the military situation was devolving on the ground 
and was moving toward civil war, he called for a military surge. He 
said: It is not working; we are not getting control; we

[[Page S12020]]

need more troops. I had difficulty with that decision. I questioned 
whether it would work. But I think one has to say this has worked, that 
it has calmed down much of the situation. We don't know for what period 
of time. It certainly has produced a lot of results in Anbar Province.
  I was at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas yesterday meeting with a number 
of key leaders in the military who have been in and out of Iraq several 
times. They were quite pleased with the number of positive events 
moving forward in Iraq with the military situation.
  If we look at the GAO report of what is taking place on the political 
situation in Iraq where there has been a military surge, when the 
military surge has produced results, what I am contending now is we 
need a political surge. The military situation is more stable. It is 
certainly not completely stable in Iraq, but it has produced an 
environment where we need a political surge, and the current political 
setup is not producing that situation.
  When the military situation was not producing results, we made 
changes. The political situation is not producing results, and I 
suggest we have to have changes in this situation as well. We did not 
hesitate to move forward with a U.S. strategy on keeping a civil war 
from going full blown in Iraq. We should work now with a political 
surge in Iraq because this current situation is not working. Two weeks 
ago, when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified, the focus 
was on General Petraeus when I think the focus should have been on 
Ambassador Crocker.
  As we see in the GAO assessment, the Iraqi Government has met 3 
benchmarks politically, partially met 4 benchmarks, and did not meet 11 
of the political benchmarks that we in Congress had set and that the 
administration had gone along with and said, yes, those are realistic. 
Out of 18 total, 11 have not been met at all, 4 partially met, and 3 
met. That is not working politically.
  I am showing a map of Iraq under the Ottoman Empire. It is broken 
into three categories, referred to as Mesopotamia at that point in 
time--Shia south, Sunni middle, and Kurdish north, with Baghdad as a 
federal city. They had it broken into three states. My point in saying 
this is--and the Chair will recognize this as he was raised in farm 
country, raised on a farm--you can work with nature or you can fight 
it. My experience is you are a lot more successful when you work with 
it than try to fight.
  There is a natural setup in Iraq. There are divisions which people 
have lived with and in for a long period of time. We can try to force 
the whole country together and hold it together with a strong military 
force, or we can recognize these difficulties and say we are going to 
work with this situation. And we have in the north, in the Kurdish 
portion of the country. We said the Kurds run the Kurdish portion.
  I was up there in January. It is stable, growing, with investments 
taking place, people moving into the area, the exact situation we want 
to see taking place across all Iraq. Wouldn't it be wise at this point 
in time to allow a Sunni state to develop, still one country, but 
devolving the power and authority more down to a state level of 
government and have the Sunnis have a police force and a military in 
their region, and the Shia doing the same in their region so they trust 
the structure, so they are willing to work with us?

  This is a political structure that can meet some benchmarks we set 
and others set. Why would we be hesitant putting in a political surge 
and pushing? We were not hesitant about pushing a military surge and 
pushing that piece of it. I don't see why we wouldn't do a political 
surge.
  This is a map of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was before the Dayton 
accords and then after the Dayton accords. This is a very diverse map 
of what was taking place. This is the former Yugoslavia. We can see the 
different ethnic groups. We can see them spread around.
  I now wish to show a map of what took place after the ethnic 
sectarian buttons were pushed and you had people sorting out, you had 
people moving to various parts to feel more comfortable and more 
secure, and this sorted out.
  Then we saw the Bosnia-Herzegovina lines under the Dayton peace 
agreement that the United States pushed. It was a political agreement 
because the people on the ground could not agree to this themselves. 
This is something they could not deal with on their own because their 
own people would say we don't trust these guys or we don't trust those 
guys, we can't deal with them. We had to go in with a very aggressive 
military force that is still sitting there to enforce an agreement that 
was uncomfortable on the ground. We came in with a political surge to 
say: OK, this is something that should take place. We forced the 
parties to come to an agreement, and they have been at relative peace. 
There have been different breakouts. There is tension in the region. We 
still have troops in the area, as many others do, 15 years later, but 
this has maintained a relative peace.
  I wish to show a map of Baghdad now. My point in saying that is, at 
times in these types of situations, I believe we have to have a U.S. 
push for a political surge. I am suggesting that we have a well-known, 
well-regarded policy person--maybe a Jim Baker, maybe it is Condoleezza 
Rice, maybe it is Colin Powell--who goes over and knocks out the 
agreement between particularly the Sunni and Shia who have not been 
able to get along. The Sunnis have run the country for a century, but 
they are in the minority. They think they still ought to run the 
country, but that is not going to happen. The Shia who are in the 
majority are not confident at all that the Sunnis are not coming back 
to run the place again, and they don't trust them.
  We see ethnic splitting. This is a map of Baghdad. The Tigris River 
runs through the middle. This is purifying more Sunni and more Shia. 
The hash lines to the left are Shia purifying, and Sunni purifying on 
the other side, and a lot of people moving out of this region.
  This makes all the sense in the world. Instead of trying to fight 
against this situation and trying to force Sunni and Shia together into 
one government that has a strong centralized government, we are only 
going to get a weak Shia government because the Kurds and the Sunnis 
are not going to agree with a strong Shia government, and we devolve 
the power and authority mostly out to the states and let them run it. 
We would have the Sunnis running their region and the Shia running 
their region in Baghdad. That is a way we can work with the natural 
setup of the situation. That is what we are calling for in the Biden-
Brownback amendment. It has a number of cosponsors from both sides. It 
is a political surge that recognizes the realities on the ground and 
says this is something that can produce results in keeping with what we 
are doing militarily in trying to give the political environment a 
setting in which it can work.
  This current political setup is not going to work. It has not 
produced results. It has not produced results to date. It is unlikely 
to produce results in the future. I think it has failed as a political 
structure. We have seen a portion of this already work in the northern 
region, in the Kurdish region where the Kurds run their area and it is 
stabilized and moving forward. That is why I urge my colleagues to look 
at this amendment. This is a positive step on our part. It is a 
positive step for the Iraqis.
  Some of my colleagues believe it is the U.S. dictating to them what 
they ought to do. I contend in the Dayton peace agreements we pushed 
awfully hard. They still had to make the decision, as the Iraqis will. 
I also believe because of these ethnic sectarian divisions that have 
existed for some period of time, that unless an outside force comes in 
and pushes aggressively, these things are unlikely to happen because 
the leaders are not going to be able to lead their people voluntarily; 
it is going to have to be something with some push.
  We are going to have to work with the nations in the region as well 
to make sure the people we worked with a lot--the Saudis and 
Jordanians, in particular, and others within the region as well--are 
supportive of this plan. We have to assure them that Iraq will remain 
one country. One of the points they have all been adamant about is that 
Iraq remain one country. It would remain one country, as Bosnia-
Herzegovina has remained one country, although it is split into two 
states.

[[Page S12021]]

  We can do this. It is a positive step. It is a bipartisan step on a 
topic that certainly could use a little bipartisanship. We haven't had 
much on Iraq. That is the way we overall lose in a situation, when we 
split here. If we will stand together here, we will not lose over 
there. We need to start pulling people together around some sort of 
common idea and not say: Well, because it is a Democratic idea, I guess 
we can't do it, or because it wasn't proposed by certain individuals, 
we aren't going to do it.
  Let's pull together. This is something that can and will work, and it 
is something we need to do because if we can get this situation to 
stabilize, we can start pulling our troop levels back. I do not believe 
we will pull our troop levels completely out of Iraq for some period of 
time, just as we are still in the Bosnia region for some period of 
time. We can pull our troop levels back, certainly pull them back to 
the Kurdish, Sunni, and Baghdad to keep as a stabilizing force for some 
years to come, but not losing troops on a daily basis and we will be 
able to get those troop levels down.
  This is something we can work on in a bipartisan way and get us 
pulling together and get us into a stable political environment. It is 
not a perfect solution. There isn't a perfect solution that exists. I 
think it is a far better one and far more likely to produce political 
results on a benchmark basis of stability that we can work with and 
that we can then move forward in facing other more difficult 
situations, other equally difficult situations in the region, as I 
started off talking about--Iran, the lead sponsor of state-sponsored 
terrorism, which is one we have to address with what they are doing in 
the region.

  I yield the floor, and I 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.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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.

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