[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 178 (Friday, November 16, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14607-S14609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we are facing a number of challenges in
the Senate and in the Congress, but none is more important than our
willingness and our responsibility to properly support the men and
women in our Armed Forces who are serving us today in Iraq and
Afghanistan; serving us because we voted to send them there, doing the
policy of the United States that has the support of the President, the
Chief Executive, the Commander in Chief, and that has been supported by
the Congress.
Yes, we have had a lot of debate, a lot of dissension, and a lot of
complaints, but when the chips have been down, time and time again we
have authorized and funded the activities that are going on now in the
name of the United States of America in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
We had an election last fall. We have heard people talk about that.
But the American people did not say: We want to pull out of Iraq
regardless of the consequences. They said they were not happy, and none
of us were happy with the way things were going.
It seemed to be drifting in a bad way, and there seemed to be no
positive results coming. So we had, after this election, last spring,
April and May, a big debate about it. And President Bush said: We need
to change policy. I am going to send a new general over there, General
Petraeus, and we are going to change tactics, and I am going to ask you
to approve additional troops. I am asking for a surge in troops.
So we talked about it. We debated it right here in the Senate. This
great Nation's legislative branch responded to the President's call and
had a debate on it. We had no obligation to fund that. None whatsoever.
But earlier in the summer, we voted 80 to 14 to fund the surge in Iraq
and to send General Petraeus and to give him a chance to utilize a new
tactic and a new strategy for confronting the terrorist forces we were
facing there, in particular al-Qaida, which was a strong entity at that
time.
I have got to tell you, I was worried things had not gone as well as
we had expected. We had had a bad year, and casualties were up and
attacks were up and it was a tough time. But as part of that debate, we
asked General Petraeus to come back in September and give us a report.
My Democratic colleagues and others, all of us were concerned. We
wanted a report to see how things were going because we were not going
to have a blank check and unended obligation to Iraq if things were not
going to work.
That is a fundamental synopsis of the situation. I believe that is a
fair analysis. So General Petraeus came back and gave us his report.
General Jimmy Jones had been sent and a group of other independent
evaluators with experience in military matters.
That commission was sent over there at the direction of Congress.
When we passed the supplemental to fund General Petraeus and the surge,
we required another report, not just General Petraeus, but the Jones
Commission to come back and make a report. We asked the General
Accounting Office to do an evaluation also, the independent GAO.
So they all came back in September. We had hearings and debate and
suggestions and we continued to go forward. We voted, in essence, to
continue to allow General Petraeus to pursue the plans he was carrying
out. Some progress had been made. It was notable, but it was not
sufficient for us to say with certainty that a major change positively
had occurred. We could not be certain of that. But it looked as if some
progress was being made with more troops and new tactics.
So we said then: Let's go forward. And we did. Now we have seen some
very dramatic positive developments in Iraq. The Iraqi people, by all
accounts, I think few can dispute this, have believed the American
troops are reliable allies. We have changed our tactics in how we deal
with the local Iraqi officials and tribal leaders and mayors and chiefs
of police.
We are doing a much better job--General Petraeus is--of partnering
with them. They have turned against al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden's troops,
that terrorist group they thought was going to take over Iraq. And Al
Anbar, the worst area in Iraq for al-Qaida, has made a transformation.
Al-Qaida is on the run throughout Iraq. Violence is down substantially.
Can I guarantee you it will continue to go down? I cannot. I can tell
you that deaths of American soldiers are down by two-thirds this last
month; and attacks on Iraqi civilians, which always cost more lives
than attacks on our American soldiers, are down by a similar margin.
Attacks on Iraqi soldiers are also down.
Al-Qaida has virtually been removed. Sadr's group has quieted down
and
[[Page S14608]]
seems to be working with the Government. The Government has not
performed like we would like it to. The Parliament, they have not
performed like I would like to see them perform. I think they deserve
criticism for that. But it is not an easy thing for them to do, just to
walk in and reach agreements that affect the future of Iraq and the oil
revenue and military power within Iraq for generations to come.
It is understandable they would be somewhat reluctant. But they need
to do better. But, fundamentally, as of this date, things are so much
better than they were in April and May, and so much better even than
they were in September. That is quite remarkable. No one, I think, can
deny that.
We are a great nation. We have a great Congress. And we went through
a national post-election discussion about what to do. Were we just
going to pull out regardless of the consequences? Were we going to give
General Petraeus a chance to employ new tactics? We voted to give him a
chance. It is beginning to work better than I think any of us would
have predicted so far. It is rather dramatic.
So I would say to my colleagues, at this point in time, for goodness'
sake, let's not now start cutting back on the ability of our soldiers
to have the resources they need to continue what they are doing. Let's
not try to pass legislation that directs General Petraeus how to
conduct operations in Iraq.
What do a group of politicians in a dysfunctional Congress have to
offer to one of the most brilliant generals this Nation has ever
produced, General Petraeus? In a few short months he has achieved
dramatic progress there.
We are committed there. Our soldiers are committed. They are serving
us now. I had an e-mail the other day sent to me from a relative of a
soldier in Iraq. He was saying things are better. The only concern he
had was what the Congress would do, whether we would pull the rug out
from under them, if we are going to deny them the resources they need
to continue the progress. After all this effort, to walk away from what
we have done is, to me, unthinkable.
We are at a point now where instead of giving a supplemental that
will allow the military to plan the year's activities, plan to go
forward with, as you know, General Petraeus's commitment to reduce
troops by next summer, we are talking about a $50 billion supplemental
with all kinds of strings attached to it. The President is not going to
accept it. He cannot accept it. He is not going to accept it. So for us
to continue to pursue a supplemental with excessive strings attached
that is too small, leaves the military uncertain of the support of the
American people and the Congress is a bad thing for us to do. It really
is. It is not good.
Well, they say, let's keep the military out there. Let's let them
know we are watching them. We are going to keep control of them instead
of giving them the funding they need for a year or more. Let's do it a
few months at a time. Then we can bring them in here, and we can beat
them up. We can appeal to our antiwar people out in the country and let
them know we are fighting for them, and we will do all these things.
And it won't hurt anything.
But it does hurt. If you were walking the streets in Baghdad right
now attempting to execute the policy of the United States, placing your
life at risk, does it not make any difference to you whether Congress
is behind you? I think it does make a difference. While questioning
General Casey yesterday, the chief of staff of the Army, former
commander in Iraq, I said, I am concerned that what we are doing is
going to undermine the confidence American soldiers have in the support
they have at home. It will embolden the enemy and make our allies less
certain of our commitment. I said, I know you don't want to be drawn
into a political debate, but that seems to be the situation. He summed
it up this way. He said: Senator, as I said in my opening statement, it
sends the wrong message.
Doesn't it send the wrong message that we can't, after a full debate
this summer, now continue for a few months to support our troops? They
are in the field now. Why stand we here idle? Why are we not doing our
part to show them the support they need? We will watch this situation
in Iraq. If it gets worse and things are not moving effectively, then
we ought to, as a Congress, continue to consider whether to remove our
troops, to cut off funding. But that is not what we are going to do. We
are not going to cut off funding for our troops while they are making
the kind of progress they are making. It is not going to happen. So if
we are going to actually follow through eventually and give this money
to them, why don't we do it in a way that helps them to be even more
successful instead of doing it in a way that makes it more difficult
for them and places our soldiers and troops at greater risk?
This is what the Deputy Secretary of Defense wrote a few days ago,
November 8, about the budget situation we are now in. Yes, we did pass
a Defense appropriations bill. But we funded the military effort in
Iraq and Afghanistan by separate supplemental appropriations. It allows
us to have more control over what is actually being spent on the war
effort to do it separately. He wrote this letter. This is Secretary
Gordon England:
I am deeply concerned that the . . . Defense Appropriations
Conference report under consideration does not provide
necessary funding for military operations and will result in
having to shut down significant portions of the Defense
Department by early next year.
He goes on to say:
Without this critical funding, the Department will have no
choice but to deplete key appropriations accounts by early
next year. In particular, the Army's Operation and
Maintenance account will be completely exhausted in mid-to-
late January, and the limited general transfer authority
available can only provide three additional weeks of relief.
This situation will result in a profoundly negative impact on
the defense civilian workforce, depot maintenance, base
operations, and training activities. Specifically, the
Department would have to begin notifications as early as next
month to properly carry out the resultant closure of military
facilities, furloughing of civilian workers, and deferral of
contract activity.
If you were Secretary of Defense, what would you do if you have
soldiers in the field authorized by the Congress, authorized by the
Commander in Chief, and you run out of money? You have to lay off your
civilian personnel, and you have to get the money to the soldiers whose
lives are at risk.
Secretary England goes on to say:
In addition, the lack of any funding for the Iraqi Security
Forces and the Afghanistan National Security Forces directly
undermines the United States' ability to continue training
and equipping Iraqi and Afghani security forces, thereby
lengthening the time until they can assume full security
responsibilities.
These are not idle threats. The money is running out. We ought not to
be dangling the Defense Department out there, leaving them hanging with
uncertainty, having them spend hours and hours figuring out how they
are going to juggle personnel, developing plans to lay off nonessential
civilian personnel, although I suppose in some sense are all essential,
but laying off civilian personnel and canceling contracts. It will
result in substantial expense to the Government for penalties and that
kind of thing. We ought not to be doing that.
This is what Secretary of the Army Geren said yesterday at the Armed
Services Committee hearing:
Let me just conclude with a brief comment on the
supplemental.
Very quickly we run through the resources that are
available to us.
Dr. Gates has told us to start planning for what we're
going to do when we--if we reach the point where we do run
out of our O&M funding and start making plans for what we as
an army would do with that eventuality.
He pleaded with us:
Last year, we had bridge funding that helped us through
this period. This year, we don't have that funding. So we
just ask that--we know there are many issues you all are
working on and working through regarding that supplemental.
But it's very important for us to be able to provide the
orderly and reliable support to our soldiers, for us to get
that funding.
Isn't that a reasonable request for him to make? I know moveon.org
doesn't want us to fund the military. But we voted 80-14 to do this as
a Senate, and the House also supported it. Why are we putting the
military in a position to go through incredible gymnastics to try to
manage this effort, because we are leaving them hanging about whether
we are going to give them the money to support our troops?
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the Armed Services
[[Page S14609]]
Committee, asked this of General Casey. General Casey is the chief of
staff of the Army. He asked:
And I want to ask General Casey, if I might, a question
because earlier this year the Army--it was at an Army posture
hearing, I believe, that your predecessor, General
Schoomaker, raised concerns about the effect of not
delivering adequate and predictable funding, particularly in
the form of supplemental funding for the war effort.
We're 46 days into the first quarter of fiscal year 2008.
We don't have an authorization bill. We don't have a bridge
funding bill for the [Department of Defense]. And we don't
have an [fiscal year 2008] global war on terror supplemental.
Senator Thune goes on:
We recently sent a defense appropriations bill to the
president which he has signed into law, but that has little
effect on the war effort.
So my question is what will be the effect of no timely
bridge funding or supplemental funding. Will you have to
cancel service contracts, lay people off, slow down work at
depots, those sorts of thing? If you could, address that
subject.
This is what General Casey said, a career military man:
Secretary [of Defense] Gates has instructed us to begin
planning for that possibility. The signing of the
appropriations bill did two things. One, it gave us money for
our base budget, but it also stopped the continuing
resolution funding that was going to support the war.
So now we're faced with having to fund the war without a
bridge out of the base budget. Our Army O&M account is about
$27 billion. When you look at our Army base budget . . .
you're talking about $6.5 billion, $6.6 billion a month.
If the Army is asked to fund this without any type of
bridge or without any additional resources, we're going to
run through that $27 billion . . . around mid February. And
we cannot wait until then to start making some of the
decisions that will have to be made.
Our employment contracts, many of them, require 60 days' or
45 days' notice before you can furlough somebody. We have
many of the services that are provided by civilians, by
contractors, and it would have a hugely detrimental effect on
the home base.
We will beggar the home front to make sure our soldiers
that are in theater have everything they need, and it will
put a terrible burden on our soldiers, on families, on the
institutional Army, our ability to train.
Timely funding is absolutely essential. An organization of
our size cannot live effectively with unpredictable funding.
And we need that supplemental passed soon, or we're going to
have to start planning for the possibility that we're not
going to have it.
Can anybody dispute that General Casey is exaggerating about that?
Can anybody dispute that uncertainty in funding has a terrible impact
on the Pentagon?
Senator Thune asked another question:
General Schoomaker also testified that the Army was forced
to cash flow itself through the first quarter of . . . 2006.
Could you explain what that means? And will the Army have to
do that again?
General Casey:
We're in that position now. The O&M account is our account
that offers us the greatest flexibility. Most of the other
accounts are constrained by specific--we call the term color
of money.
But we would find ourselves having to spend the O&M money
not only to support the Army but to support also the war
effort. So we are in that position today and using up the
funds at a rate of $6.5 billion a month against a $27 billion
total.
So I hope in the weeks to come our leaders in the Senate will begin
to work together in a way that can allow us to approve this funding--
that I think with certainty we will ultimately approve--sooner rather
than later and not go through this painful exercise.
I have to say, I really think it would be a lot better for our
country, I think it would be a lot better for our military, I think it
would be a lot better for our allies, and I think it would put us in a
much better position against our enemies if the leader of the Senate,
the majority leader, would quit saying this is a doomed, failed effort.
It is not helpful.
We have voted to support this effort, and we do not need to be saying
publicly it is not going to work when, in fact, we are achieving more
success today than any of us would have thought possible just a few
weeks ago.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________