[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 759-762]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          ONGOING WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, tonight I would like to address the most 
urgent issue facing our Nation today, the ongoing war in Iraq.
  I recently returned from a congressional delegation trip to Iraq with 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and several of our 
colleagues on the House Committee on Armed Services. Meeting with our 
servicemen and women in Iraq made me appreciate their service and their 
courage even more. My trip also reinforced my conviction that America 
needs an exit strategy from Iraq, and that is what I would like to 
discuss tonight.
  It has been nearly 2 years since we invaded Iraq and removed one of 
the world's most brutal regimes; but 2 years later, America's Armed 
Forces are confronting a far more resilient enemy, a growing insurgency 
that has plunged Iraq into violence and chaos.
  The elections are drawing closer. The peace and stability seem to be 
moving further and further away. How we got to this point in time has 
been the subject of an extensive debate. How did our intelligence fail 
us so badly about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? Was that 
intelligence deliberately manipulated by the administration in order to 
rush to war? Why did the Bush administration not give the U.N. 
inspectors more time to conduct their inspections, and how did we allow 
so much chaos to grow out of Saddam Hussein's downfall? And why did we 
not have a better plan to secure the peace?

[[Page 760]]

  Many of us have strong views about these issues, and many of us have 
been quite vocal in expressing them. Unfortunately, when there is a 
hotly contested Presidential campaign, the national debate often 
descends into starkly partisan terms. I believe this is what happened 
to much of the debate about our policy in Iraq.
  In Congress the bipartisanship was lacking, and partisanship was 
especially bad. Most Republicans saw it as their responsibility to 
defend the President's policies, however flawed. Many Democrats viewed 
their role as questioning and criticizing all that went wrong without 
necessarily offering policy alternatives. The result has been a failure 
to forge bipartisan consensus and develop answers to the pressing 
questions about our involvement in Iraq. By rallying behind the 
administration's policy, the Republican leadership in Congress failed 
in its responsibility to lead, not just follow, on issues of war and 
peace. At the same time, many Democrats who opposed the war from the 
beginning have spent more energy lamenting the past than thinking about 
solutions for the future.
  A substantive, nonpartisan reassessment of America's goals and 
options in Iraq is long overdue. The time has come for us to change our 
focus from the missteps of the past to the challenge that confronts us 
in the immediate future.
  When I visited with our soldiers on the front lines, they were not 
focused on the mistakes of last year, they were concerned about what we 
are doing today and tomorrow. Now more than ever, with our current 
policy going nowhere, America needs to form a bipartisan consensus 
behind a strategy, a responsible strategy, in Iraq.
  Today I challenge my colleagues in Congress to work together to 
develop answers to the most urgent question facing our country today: 
How can the United States put Iraq on a path toward self-sufficiency 
and begin to bring our troops home in a way that advances our strategic 
interests? We owe it to the American people and we owe it to the brave 
men and women who are putting their lives on the line every day.
  All of us in Congress have met with the family of guardsmen and 
reservists whose deployments have been extended. We have spoken to too 
many mothers of soldiers and attended too many funerals to leave these 
fundamental questions unanswered. We must stop looking backward and 
thinking defensively. We must start looking forward and developing 
proactive ideas about the next steps in Iraq.
  It is clear that the administration has no endgame in sight. It is 
time for Congress to reassert its role in foreign policy and take the 
lead on providing an exit strategy in Iraq.
  The first step in Iraq to any exit strategy is an honest assessment 
of the facts on the ground there. It is time to take the rose-tinted 
glasses off and put aside our partisan hostilities and start with the 
basics: What is going well, and what is not? What is still possible in 
Iraq, and how do we get there?
  In search of answers to these questions, I returned to Iraq earlier 
this month. The last time I was in Iraq was August 2003, 4 months after 
the fall of Baghdad. Iraq was hardly a safe place then, but we were 
able to walk the streets and talk with average Iraqis, something I had 
hoped to do this time. Unfortunately, the threat of violence was simply 
too high. Baghdad is still a war zone.
  My colleagues and I traveled in heavily armed military convoys, 
zigzagging through the streets to avoid ambushes. In Iraq today the 
expectation is that any American or anyone associated with the 
Americans will be attacked.
  The United States has spent more than $150 billion on military 
operations in Iraq, with another $80 billion that the administration is 
going to request from this House next month in a new supplemental 
budget. We have maintained between 100,000 and 150,000 troops for 2 
years. The Army's current plan is to maintain that level until at least 
2007.
  Over the past year, America has sent more soldiers and more money to 
Iraq, but we have seen more violence. As Iraq prepares to hold 
elections 5 days from now, the violence is worse than it has ever been. 
All of us hope that the elections will proceed peacefully and safely 
with maximum participation, but we should be realistic that regardless 
of who votes or who wins, the insurgency will continue.
  When Saddam was captured, we hoped the insurgents would give up. When 
we transferred sovereignty, we hoped that the violence would end. And 
when we routed the insurgents in Fallujah, we hoped it would break 
their backs. But with each milestone, the insurgency has come back 
stronger and more deadly. Attacks on U.S. forces have grown steadily 
both in frequency and sophistication. Attacks on Iraqi security forces, 
civilians and the infrastructure are also on the rise. Coalition forces 
have been killing and capturing 1,000 to 3,000 insurgents every month 
for more than a year. But over that same time, the insurgency has 
quadrupled its ranks from at least 5,000 insurgents to at least 20,000 
insurgents in that same amount of time.
  More troubling is a network of Iraqi civilians, 200,000 by some 
estimates, who offer both active and passive support, arms, materiel, 
sanctuary, and, most important, intelligence. It is often better 
intelligence than what our own forces have.
  It is time to accept one of the basic assumptions held by the Bush 
administration, and many of its critics, no longer applies: More troops 
do not mean more security in Iraq. Despite 150,000 boots on the ground 
and tactical victories in Fallujah and elsewhere, the insurgency is 
only growing in size and lethal capacity. It may have been possible at 
one point in time to pacify Iraq with an overwhelming American force. 
Had we gone in with 700,000 troops like General Shinseki said we 
needed, perhaps the insurgency would not have developed. We will never 
know for sure. But whatever chance we had is now gone.
  Ramping up our troop presence now will not turn the tables in Iraq, 
and it will probably make the situation worse. The undeniable fact is 
that the insurgency is being fueled by the very presence of the 
American military. Back in July of 2003, General John Abizaid called 
Iraq a ``classic guerrilla war,'' but we have continued to wage war as 
if we were fighting a conventional army.
  The result has been the ``center of gravity'' of any 
counterinsurgency, the civilian population, has moved further and 
further away from us. The growing hostility is palpable in Iraq. It is 
measured by polls taken of Iraqis by our own government and our own 
State Department. In November 2003, only 11 percent of Iraqis said they 
would feel safer if coalition forces left; 6 months later, 55 percent 
did. In the most recent poll that asked the question, 2 percent viewed 
the United States as liberators, and 92 percent viewed the United 
States as occupiers.
  Iraqis have grown tired of an occupation that has provided them 
neither security nor meaningful sovereignty. Iraqis were apprehensive 
of America's intentions to begin with, and every time President Bush 
signals our forces will remain in Iraq ``for as long as it takes,'' it 
reconfirms their suspicion that we intend a permanent presence. Every 
time Iraqi citizens see a Bradley fighting vehicle rolling through 
their streets or a Black Hawk helicopter overhead, it undermines our 
assertion that Iraq is already sovereign. Every time Iraqi bystanders 
are killed in coalition actions, it further erodes the goodwill we 
earned by ridding them of Saddam Hussein.
  And even when innocent Iraqis are murdered by insurgents, the United 
States is blamed for failing to provide security. If the world's most 
potent Army cannot make the streets safe, Iraqis are asking, what is it 
that they are really here for?
  So the first step in achieving stability in Iraq is recognizing that 
the United States presence there has become inherently destabilizing. 
We also need to recognize the fact that for the most part we are 
fighting not foreign terrorists or former regime loyalists, but 
indigenous factions within Iraq who have united against us.
  It is a native insurgency, fueled by a combination of volatile 
ingredients: a

[[Page 761]]

population of 25 million, 5 million of them Sunnis, with a median age 
of 19 years old; a jobless rate of 30 to 40 percent with pockets of 
extreme unemployment; 400,000 skilled and experienced army soldiers 
dispersed throughout the country with their weapons but without their 
salaries or pensions; 4,000 shoulder-fired missiles left over from the 
old regime; and 250,000 tons of unsecured explosives.

                              {time}  2030

  The insurgency's size and strength are unlikely to decrease any time 
soon. Attempting to kill or capture every last insurgent is an 
impossible task. And as long as that is the thrust of our strategy, we 
will continue along a downward spiral.
  Confronted with a growing native insurgency, America is left with 
three options, and two of them are not really options at all. The first 
one is to withdraw immediately. Given the current state of Iraqi 
security forces, we cannot cut and run. This option is a nonstarter. 
Even if you believe that the United States should never have entered 
Iraq, it does not follow that we should leave now. The chaos that would 
result would be much worse than the vacuum of authority left by the 
downfall of Saddam, and the humanitarian consequences could be even 
greater.
  From a strategic standpoint, immediate withdrawal undermines 
America's credibility and destabilizes the entire region. The second 
option is to stay on the same path, as the President says, for as long 
as it takes. I believe that this course of action would only cause the 
problem to grow worse. As of May of 2003, the administration was 
predicting that only 30,000 troops would remain in Iraq by the fall of 
that year. Twenty months later, five times that many remain. The most 
compelling reason not to continue down the same path is that the 
occupation has become counterproductive to stability and progress in 
Iraq. With United States forces serving as a focal point for tensions 
and violence, factions within Iraq have turned against us when they 
should be confronting each other peacefully in setting up a new Iraqi 
Government. The indefinite U.S. presence is forestalling the political 
compromises that are ultimately necessary to end the violence in Iraq.
  I am proposing a third option, an option that Prime Minister Alawi 
and President Bush announce a timetable for a phased drawdown of U.S. 
forces in Iraq. This could be done in concert either with Prime 
Minister Alawi in Iraq with President Bush or with the new Prime 
Minister who will be elected after these elections. Changing the 
dynamic in Iraq means handing the security of the Iraqi people back to 
the Iraqis and bringing an end to the occupation. Under this proposal, 
the United States would draw down the majority of our forces by the end 
of this year. Only a small and mobile force would remain by mid-2006, 2 
years after the transfer of sovereignty.
  Announcing a timetable for a phased-in withdrawal over the next 12 to 
18 months will change the underlying dynamic in Iraq in several ways. 
First, it would help win the support of the Iraqi people for a 
political process and a government untainted by the appearance that the 
United States controls them. Second, announcing a drawdown would 
splinter insurgent groups who have set aside their own differences in 
order to unite against the United States. Foreign jihadists, Sunni 
nationalists, and Shiite extremists have little in common except their 
opposition to the United States' presence in Iraq.
  Third, a timetable for withdrawal would encourage the Iraqi 
Government and the factions within Iraq to deal with each other rather 
than relying on American troops to make the sacrifices. A withdrawal 
could be structured in such a way as to create incentives for violent 
factions within Iraq to come to the negotiating table rather than 
engaging in armed insurrection.
  Fourth, renouncing any long-term presence in Iraq would enhance 
America's legitimacy throughout the world. It would be the first step 
in putting the division that we have had with our allies behind us so 
we can focus on the war on terror. Fifth, the central political 
question in Iraq is not whether the United States should leave, but how 
soon. The politics in Iraq are such that the incoming government, no 
matter who is elected, will demand that the United States withdraw as 
soon as it is confident of its own survival. The fact that 70 to 80 
percent of the Iraqi people do not want us there makes it clear, if 
elections determine who is in power in Iraq, whoever is elected Prime 
Minister will want to work with the United States to set up a timetable 
for a withdrawal.
  Finally, a timetable for withdrawal would be that light at the end of 
the tunnel for our military which has been severely overstretched and 
unfairly deployed. While in Iraq, I met with many of our soldiers and 
Marines. Their spirits are high. Morale is strong. They are prepared 
for any mission. But they and their families want a reasonable 
expectation of when this mission will end. From a standpoint of 
readiness, a phased drawdown in Iraq would forestall what could 
otherwise soon become a recruiting and retention crisis in the Armed 
Forces.
  We can withdraw the vast majority of our forces in Iraq by the end of 
this year under a realistic plan. This is not a cut and run strategy, 
but a phased drawdown that would leave a small, mobile and low-profile 
U.S. presence in Iraq for a reasonable time frame in agreement with the 
new Iraqi Government. This smaller contingent of approximately 30,000 
troops could continue to fill specialty roles, such as training Iraqi 
forces and engaging in quick strikes against insurgent or terrorist 
infrastructures that minimize the risk of civilian casualties. A 
smaller, more remote presence would not patrol Iraqi cities or streets, 
but it would be enough to prevent outbreaks of civil warfare.
  Two factors will allow Iraq to move forward while our troops come 
home. First, our highest priority must be on training high-quality 
Iraqi security forces. It must be our number one priority. For too 
long, the Bush administration assumed that Americans would bear an 
indefinite burden of security in Iraq. But lasting security can only be 
provided by Iraqis. In the words of President Bush, ultimately the 
success in Iraq is going to be the willingness of the Iraqi citizens to 
fight for their own freedom. With the United States providing an open-
ended guarantee for security, there is little urgency for Iraqis 
opposed to the insurgency to take charge and to fight it.
  In addition, the training program was set back for months by a focus 
on quantity over quality. A couple weeks' training is clearly not 
enough. One of the reasons why there were problems with our policy on 
training in the beginning was that we would train Iraqi soldiers for 2 
weeks and then send them out into battle and oftentimes many of those 
Iraqi soldiers when faced with the violence of an insurgency would run 
away or, in some instances, join the insurgency.
  While I was in Iraq, I met with General Petraeus and surveyed the 
training of Iraqi security forces. General Petraeus gets it. He knows 
that to fight a sophisticated insurgency, these Iraqis will need to be 
highly skilled. Despite the rocky start, the training program is moving 
forward. I believe 12 to 18 months is enough time to train Iraqi 
security forces with the skills they will need to confront the 
insurgency.
  As important as training Iraqi security forces is, creating jobs for 
Iraqis is also important. It is outrageous that of the $22 billion that 
Congress has committed to Iraq reconstruction, only $4 billion has 
actually been spent. And a huge percentage of that $4 billion has gone 
to provide security for foreign contractors. When General Petraeus took 
the 101st Airborne into Mosul, he used riches from Saddam's palaces to 
keep Iraqi soldiers on the payroll. He invested in local reconstruction 
projects that put people to work immediately. It was one of the reasons 
that Mosul was relatively quiet for so long. It may not be a model of 
free market capitalism, but it is a model for success in a country that 
is desperate for jobs. It is worth replicating. As the United States 
begins to reduce our military

[[Page 762]]

involvement in Iraq, our investment in Iraq's reconstruction must 
endure.
  Last week, President Bush spoke eloquently about America's special 
responsibility to spread freedom around the globe, but his inaugural 
address did not include a single mention of the actual war we are 
fighting, the war that 150,000 of our servicemen and -women are 
fighting every day in one of the most volatile and violent places on 
Earth. In the realm of rhetoric and abstraction, President Bush has 
clearly defined ideas about the struggle for human freedom, but his 
policy for Iraq has not yet included a clear path for when or how we 
will leave.
  Our national conversation about Iraq needs more realism. It needs 
more focus on the future rather than on the past. We need to refocus on 
our original goal, a stable Iraq that does not threaten its neighbors, 
develop weapons of mass destruction, export terrorism, or terrorize and 
murder its own people. Hard experience and tragedy have taught us that 
prolonged military occupation in Iraq will not end the insurgency, will 
not stabilize Iraq or bring us closer to our strategic goals. It will 
only cause more casualties and more hatred toward America within Iraq 
and beyond. Iraqis want freedom, and they also want control over their 
daily lives and their country's future. The best hopes for a stable, 
peaceful Iraq are achieved by making it clear to the Iraqis that the 
occupation is not indefinite and that soon they will bear the burden of 
creating a responsible, democratic state.
  Iraq's political development is occurring on a clearly defined 
timetable. Elections will be held this Sunday; a constitution drafted 
by August 15; an election to ratify that constitution by October 15; 
new elections by December of this year; and a permanent government in 
place by the end of December. Iraq needs a similar timetable for taking 
responsibility for its own security. By laying out a timetable for a 
phased-down withdrawal, the United States sends a clear message to 
Iraqis, and all citizens of the world, that we believe Iraq is capable 
of governing itself and making decisions about its future.
  The removal of Saddam Hussein was a victory for the United States, 
but lasting success in Iraq will not be achieved until the country is 
stable and American soldiers have the opportunity to come home and be 
with their families. I believe adopting a strategy of phased-down 
withdrawal is the only course of action for the United States, and I 
would hope that the Members of the Congress of the United States would 
engage in this very important policy issue and have an influence on the 
direction this country takes in the weeks and months ahead.

                          ____________________