[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24185-24187]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE PATH FORWARD

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a recent 
speech I delivered on Iraq printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                           [October 26, 2005]

                          ``The Path Forward''

                        (Georgetown University)

       A few weeks ago I departed Iraq from Mosul. Three Senators 
     and staff were gathered in the forward part of a C-130. In 
     the middle of the cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum 
     coffin with a small American flag draped over it. We were 
     bringing another American soldier home to his family and 
     final resting place.
       The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the 
     silence except for the din of the engines, was a real time 
     cold reminder of the consequences of decisions for which we 
     Senators share responsibility.
       As we arrived in Kuwait, a larger flag was transferred to 
     fully cover his coffin and we joined graves registration 
     personnel in giving him an honor guard as he was 
     ceremoniously carried from the plane to a waiting truck. When 
     the doors clunked shut, I wondered why all of America would 
     not be allowed to see him arrive at Dover Air Force Base 
     instead of hiding him from a nation that deserves to mourn 
     together in truth and in the light of day. His lonely journey 
     compels all of us to come to grips with our choices in Iraq.
       Now more than 2,000 brave Americans have given their lives, 
     and several hundred thousand more have done everything in 
     their power to wade through the ongoing internal civil strife 
     in Iraq. An Iraq which increasingly is what it was not before 
     the war--a breeding ground for homegrown terrorists and a 
     magnet for foreign terrorists. We are entering a make or 
     break six month period, and I want to talk about the steps we 
     must take if we hope to bring our troops home within a 
     reasonable timeframe from an Iraq that's not permanently torn 
     by irrepressible conflict.
       It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our 
     troops are in constant danger. I know this dilemma first-
     hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own 
     personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed 
     strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to 
     speak truth to power. We still do.
       In fact, while some say we can't ask tough questions 
     because we are at war, I say no--in a time of war we must ask 
     the hardest questions of all. It's essential if we want to

[[Page 24186]]

     correct our course and do what's right for our troops instead 
     of repeating the same mistakes over and over again. No matter 
     what the President says, asking tough questions isn't 
     pessimism, it's patriotism.
       Our troops have served with stunning bravery and resolve. 
     The nobility of their service to country can never be 
     diminished by the mistakes of politicians. American families 
     who have lost, or who fear the loss, of their loved ones 
     deserve to know the truth about what we have asked them to 
     do, what we are doing to complete the mission, and what we 
     are doing to prevent our forces from being trapped in an 
     endless quagmire.
       Some people would rather not have that discussion. They'd 
     rather revise and rewrite the story of our involvement in 
     Iraq for the history books. Tragically, that's become 
     standard fare from an administration that doesn't acknowledge 
     facts generally, whether they are provided by scientists, 
     whistle-blowers, journalists, military leaders, or the common 
     sense of every citizen. At a time when many worry that we 
     have become a society of moral relativists, too few worry 
     that we have a government of factual relativists.
       Let's be straight about Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a brutal 
     dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that 
     was not the reason America went to war.
       The country and the Congress were misled into war. I regret 
     that we were not given the truth; as I said more than a year 
     ago, knowing what we know now, I would not have gone to war 
     in Iraq. And knowing now the full measure of the Bush 
     Administration's duplicity and incompetence, I doubt there 
     are many members of Congress who would give them the 
     authority they abused so badly. I know I would not. The truth 
     is, if the Bush Administration had come to the United States 
     Senate and acknowledged there was no ``slam dunk case'' that 
     Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, acknowledged 
     that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, there never would have 
     even been a vote to authorize the use of force--just as 
     there's no vote today to invade North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or a 
     host of regimes we rightfully despise.
       I understand that as much as we might wish it, we can't 
     rewind the tape of history. There is, as Robert Kennedy once 
     said, 'enough blame to go around,' and I accept my share of 
     the responsibility. But the mistakes of the past, no matter 
     who made them, are no justification for marching ahead into a 
     future of miscalculations and misjudgments and the loss of 
     American lives with no end in sight. We each have a 
     responsibility, to our country and our conscience, to be 
     honest about where we should go from here. It is time for 
     those of us who believe in a better course to say so plainly 
     and unequivocally.
       We are where we are. The President's flippant ``bring it 
     on'' taunt to the insurgents has found a meaning beyond his 
     wildest expectations, a painful reality for troops who went 
     for too long without protective armor. We have traded a 
     dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure, and 
     the mission the President once declared accomplished remains 
     perilously incomplete.
       To set a new course, we must be strong, smart, and honest. 
     As we learned painfully during the Vietnam War, no president 
     can sustain a war without the support of the American people. 
     In the case of Iraq, their patience is frayed and nearly to 
     the breaking point because Americans will not tolerate our 
     troops giving their lives without a clear strategy, and will 
     not tolerate vague platitudes or rosy scenarios when real 
     answers are urgently needed.
       It's time for leaders to be honest that if we do not change 
     course, there is the prospect of indefinite, even endless 
     conflict--a fate untenable for our troops, and a future 
     unacceptable to the American people and the Iraqis who pray 
     for the day when a stable Iraq will belong to Iraqis alone.
       The path forward will not be easy. The administration's 
     incompetence and unwillingness to listen has made the task 
     that much harder, and reduced what we can expect to 
     accomplish. But there is a way forward that gives us the best 
     chance both to salvage a difficult situation in Iraq, and to 
     save American and Iraqi lives. With so much at stake, we must 
     follow it.
       We must begin by acknowledging that our options in Iraq 
     today are not what they should be, or could have been.
       The reason is simple. This Administration hitched their 
     wagon to ideologues, excluding those who dared to tell the 
     truth, even leaders of their own party and the uniformed 
     military.
       When after September 11th, flags flew from porches across 
     America and foreign newspaper headlines proclaimed ``We're 
     all Americans now,'' the Administration could have kept the 
     world united, but they chose not to. And they were wrong. 
     Instead, they pushed allies away, isolated America, and lost 
     leverage we desperately need today.
       When they could have demanded and relied on accurate 
     instead of manipulated intelligence, they chose not to. They 
     were wrong--and instead they sacrificed our credibility at 
     home and abroad.
       When they could have given the inspectors time to discover 
     whether Saddam Hussein actually had weapons of mass 
     destruction, when they could have paid attention to 
     Ambassador Wilson's report, they chose not to. And they were 
     wrong. Instead they attacked him, and they attacked his wife 
     to justify attacking Iraq. We don't know yet whether this 
     will prove to be an indictable offense in a court of law, but 
     for it, and for misleading a nation into war, they will be 
     indicted in the high court of history. History will judge the 
     invasion of Iraq one of the greatest foreign policy 
     misadventures of all time.
       But the mistakes were not limited to the decision to 
     invade. They mounted, one upon another.
       When they could have listened to General Shinseki and put 
     in enough troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They 
     were wrong. When they could have learned from George Herbert 
     Walker Bush and built a genuine global coalition, they chose 
     not to. They were wrong. When they could have implemented a 
     detailed State Department plan for reconstructing post-Saddam 
     Iraq, they chose not to. And they were wrong again. When they 
     could have protected American forces by guarding Saddam 
     Hussein's ammo dumps where there were weapons of individual 
     destruction, they exposed our young men and women to the ammo 
     that now maims and kills them because they chose not to act. 
     And they were wrong. When they could have imposed immediate 
     order and structure in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam, 
     Rumsfeld shrugged his shoulders, said Baghdad was safer than 
     Washington, D.C. and chose not to act. He was wrong. When the 
     Administration could have kept an Iraqi army selectively 
     intact, they chose not to. They were wrong. When they could 
     have kept an entire civil structure functioning to deliver 
     basic services to Iraqi citizens, they chose not to. They 
     were wrong. When they could have accepted the offers of the 
     United Nations and individual countries to provide on the 
     ground peacekeepers and reconstruction assistance, they chose 
     not to. They were wrong. When they should have leveled with 
     the American people that the insurgency had grown, they chose 
     not to. Vice President Cheney even absurdly claimed that the 
     ``insurgency was in its last throes.'' He was wrong.
       Now after all these mistakes, the Administration accuses 
     anyone who proposes a better course of wanting to cut and 
     run. But we are in trouble today precisely because of a 
     policy of cut and run. This administration made the wrong 
     choice to cut and run from sound intelligence and good 
     diplomacy; to cut and run from the best military advice; to 
     cut and run from sensible war time planning; to cut and run 
     from their responsibility to properly arm and protect our 
     troops; to cut and run from history's lessons about the 
     Middle East; to cut and run from common sense.
       And still today they cut and run from the truth.
       This difficult road traveled demands the unvarnished truth 
     about the road ahead.
       To those who suggest we should withdraw all troops 
     immediately--I say No. A precipitous withdrawal would invite 
     civil and regional chaos and endanger our own security. But 
     to those who rely on the overly simplistic phrase ``we will 
     stay as long as it takes,'' who pretend this is primarily a 
     war against Al Qaeda, and who offer halting, sporadic, 
     diplomatic engagement, I also say--No, that will only lead us 
     into a quagmire.
       The way forward in Iraq is not to pull out precipitously or 
     merely promise to stay ``as long as it takes.'' To undermine 
     the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a 
     political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat 
     forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks. At the 
     first benchmark, the completion of the December elections, we 
     can start the process of reducing our forces by withdrawing 
     20,000 troops over the course of the holidays.
       The Administration must immediately give Congress and the 
     American people a detailed plan for the transfer of military 
     and police responsibilities on a sector by sector basis to 
     Iraqis so the majority of our combat forces can be withdrawn. 
     No more shell games, no more false reports of progress, but 
     specific and measurable goals.
       It is true that our soldiers increasingly fight side by 
     side with Iraqis willing to put their lives on the line for a 
     better future. But history shows that guns alone do not end 
     an insurgency. The real struggle in Iraq--Sunni versus 
     Shiia--will only be settled by a political solution, and no 
     political solution can be achieved when the antagonists can 
     rely on the indefinite large scale presence of occupying 
     American combat troops.
       In fact, because we failed to take advantage of the 
     momentum of our military victory, because we failed to 
     deliver services and let Iraqis choose their leaders early 
     on, our military presence in vast and visible numbers has 
     become part of the problem, not the solution.
       And our generals understand this. General George Casey, our 
     top military commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that 
     our large military presence ``feeds the notion of 
     occupation'' and ``extends the amount of time that it will 
     take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.'' And 
     Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, breaking a 
     thirty year silence, writes, ''Our presence is what feeds the 
     insurgency, and our gradual withdrawal would feed the 
     confidence

[[Page 24187]]

     and the ability of average Iraqis to stand up to the 
     insurgency.'' No wonder the Sovereignty Committee of the 
     Iraqi Parliament is already asking for a timetable for 
     withdrawal of our troops; without this, Iraqis believe Iraq 
     will never be its own country.
       We must move aggressively to reduce popular support for the 
     insurgency fed by the perception of American occupation. An 
     open-ended declaration to stay 'as long as it takes' lets 
     Iraqi factions maneuver for their own political advantage by 
     making us stay as long as they want, and it becomes an excuse 
     for billions of American tax dollars to be sent to Iraq and 
     siphoned off into the coffers of cronyism and corruption.
       It will be hard for this Administration, but it is 
     essential to acknowledge that the insurgency will not be 
     defeated unless our troop levels are drawn down, starting 
     immediately after successful elections in December. The draw 
     down of troops should be tied not to an arbitrary timetable, 
     but to a specific timetable for transfer of political and 
     security responsibility to Iraqis and realignment of our 
     troop deployment. That timetable must be real and strict. The 
     goal should be to withdraw the bulk of American combat forces 
     by the end of next year. If the Administration does its work 
     correctly, that is achievable.
       Our strategy must achieve a political solution that 
     deprives the Sunni-dominated insurgency of support by giving 
     the Sunnis a stake in the future of their country. The 
     Constitution, opposed by more than two thirds of Sunnis, has 
     postponed and even exacerbated the fundamental crisis of 
     Iraq. The Sunnis want a strong secular national government 
     that fairly distributes oil revenues. Shiites want to control 
     their own region and resources in a loosely united Islamic 
     state. And Kurds simply want to be left alone. Until 
     sufficient compromise is hammered out, a Sunni base cannot be 
     created that isolates the hard core Baathists and jihaadists 
     and defuses the insurgency.
       The Administration must use all of the leverage in 
     America's arsenal--our diplomacy, the presence of our troops, 
     and our reconstruction money--to convince Shiites and Kurds 
     to address legitimate Sunni concerns and to make Sunnis 
     accept the reality that they will no longer dominate Iraq. We 
     cannot and should not do this alone.
       The Administration must bring to the table the full weight 
     of all of Iraq's Sunni neighbors. They also have a large 
     stake in a stable Iraq. Instead of just telling us that Iraq 
     is falling apart, as the Saudi foreign minister did recently, 
     they must do their part to put it back together. We've proven 
     ourselves to be a strong ally to many nations in the region. 
     Now it's their turn to do their part.
       The administration must immediately call a conference of 
     Iraq's neighbors, Britain, Turkey and other key NATO allies, 
     and Russia. All of these countries have influence and ties to 
     various parties in Iraq. Together, we must implement a 
     collective strategy to bring the parties in Iraq to a 
     sustainable political compromise. This must include obtaining 
     mutual security guarantees among Iraqis themselves. Shiite 
     and Kurdish leaders need to make a commitment not to 
     perpetrate a bloodbath against Sunnis in the post-election 
     period. In turn, Sunni leaders must end support for the 
     insurgents, including those who are targeting Shiites. And 
     the Kurds must explicitly commit themselves not to declare 
     independence.
       To enlist the support of Iraq's Sunni neighbors, we should 
     commit to a new regional security structure that strengthens 
     the security of the countries in the region and the wider 
     community of nations. This requires a phased process 
     including improved security assistance programs, joint 
     exercises, and participation by countries both outside and 
     within the Middle East.
       Ambassador Khalilzad is doing a terrific job trying broker 
     a better deal between the Iraqi parties. But he can't do it 
     alone. The President should immediately appoint a high level 
     envoy to maximize our diplomacy in Iraq and the region.
       Showing Sunnis the benefits that await them if they 
     continue to participate in the process of building Iraq can 
     go a long way toward achieving stability. We should press 
     these countries to set up a reconstruction fund specifically 
     for the majority Sunni areas. It's time for them to deliver 
     on their commitments to provide funds to Iraq. Even short-
     term improvements, like providing electricity and supplying 
     diesel fuel--an offer that the Saudis have made but have yet 
     to fulfill--can make a real difference.
       We need to jump start our own lagging reconstruction 
     efforts by providing the necessary civilian personnel to do 
     the job, standing up civil-military reconstruction teams 
     throughout the country, streamlining the disbursement of 
     funds to the provinces so they can deliver services, 
     expanding job creation programs, and strengthening the 
     capacity of government ministries.
       We must make it clear now that we do not want permanent 
     military bases in Iraq, or a large combat force on Iraqi soil 
     indefinitely. And as we withdraw our combat troops, we should 
     be prepared to keep a substantially reduced level of American 
     forces in Iraq, at the request of the Iraqi government, for 
     the purpose of training their security forces. Some combat 
     ready American troops will still be needed to safeguard the 
     Americans engaged in that training, but they should be there 
     to do that and to provide a back stop to Iraqi efforts, not 
     to do the fighting for Iraqis.
       Simultaneously, the President needs to put the training of 
     Iraqi security forces on a six month wartime footing and 
     ensure that the Iraqi government has the budget to deploy 
     them. The Administration must stop using the requirement that 
     troops be trained in-country as an excuse for refusing offers 
     made by Egypt, Jordan, France and Germany to do more.
       This week, long standing suspicions of Syrian complicity in 
     destabilizing Lebanon were laid bare by the community of 
     nations. And we know Syria has failed to take the aggressive 
     steps necessary to stop former Baathists and foreign fighters 
     from using its territory as a transit route into Iraq. The 
     Administration must prod the new Iraqi government to ask for 
     a multinational force to help protect Iraq's borders until a 
     capable national army is formed. Such a force, if sanctioned 
     by the United Nations Security Council, could attract 
     participation by Iraq's neighbors and countries like India 
     and would be a critical step in stemming the tide of 
     insurgents and money into Iraq.
       Finally, and without delay, we must fundamentally alter the 
     deployment of American troops. While Special Operations must 
     continue to pursue specific intelligence leads, the vast 
     majority of our own troops should be in rear guard, 
     garrisoned status for security backup. We do not need to send 
     young Americans on search and destroy missions that invite 
     alienation and deepen the risks they face. Iraqis should 
     police Iraqis. Iraqis should search Iraqi homes. Iraqis 
     should stand up for Iraq.
       We will never be as safe as we should be if Iraq continues 
     to distract us from the most important war we must win--the 
     war on Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the terrorists that are 
     resurfacing even in Afghanistan. These are the make or break 
     months for Iraq. The President must take a new course, and 
     hold Iraqis accountable. If the President still refuses, 
     Congress must insist on a change in policy. If we do take 
     these steps, there is no reason this difficult process can 
     not be completed in 12-15 months. There is no reason Iraq 
     cannot be sufficiently stable, no reason the majority of our 
     combat troops can't soon be on their way home, and no reason 
     we can't take on a new role in Iraq, as an ally not an 
     occupier, training Iraqis to defend themselves. Only then 
     will we have provided leadership equal to our soldiers' 
     sacrifice--and that is what they deserve.

                          ____________________