[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16286-16287]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I rise this morning first to commend the 
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, for her efforts to negotiate a 
cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and to engage other countries 
in helping to make and keep peace there. I salute her for her expressed 
willingness to return to that region as soon as it is practical to 
achieve her goals.
  I am appalled, as all civilized people are, by the terrorists' 
destruction and the maiming and loss of human life in Israel, in 
Lebanon, and in Gaza. That is why I found it so disturbing that the 
Lebanese Prime Minister, Fuad Siniora, and his Speaker rejected 
Secretary Rice's proposals before she had even left their country and 
was on her way to Israel.
  The Lebanese Government and the Lebanese people cannot have it both 
ways. They cannot want an immediate cease-fire on the one hand, yet 
continue to support Hezbollah as it kidnaps Israeli soldiers inside 
Israel to start this war and then rain destruction on Israel's cities 
and civilians. As long as Hezbollah keeps those kidnapped Israeli 
soldiers and continues to fire its rockets into Israel, there can be no 
cease-fire and there can be no peace for Lebanon. As long as the 
Lebanese people and their Government house terrorists who have sworn 
the total destruction and the elimination of the democratic State of 
Israel, support the terrorist acts in that country and against Israeli 
citizens, and allow their own country to be used as a staging area for 
those terrorist acts, there can be no peace for Lebanon.
  Just as the Lebanese Government and people must stand up for their 
country and themselves and demand that those who want to continue the 
acts of violence and the repercussions for their fellow Lebanese 
citizens must cease and desist or leave their country,

[[Page 16287]]

so must the Government and people of Iraq stand up for their own 
country and for their own future.
  Earlier this week, just as Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki was engaged 
in a public relations tour of Washington, DC, President Bush announced 
the redeployment of American troops back into Baghdad because of the 
failure of the Iraqi Government to run even its own capital city, much 
less its own country, and the failure of the Iraqi security forces to 
protect that city, in addition to other significant areas of Iraq. 
There are further reports that the U.S. military command had to replace 
the supposedly top Iraqi units because of their failure to stand up 
effectively against the insurgents. I submit the only cutting and 
running in Iraq is by the Iraqis and that President Bush's plan of 
``stand up, stand down'' is failing miserably. It has become: Iraqis 
stand down and U.S. stay.
  I voted just a couple of weeks ago against this body establishing 
arbitrary timelines and deadlines for the redeployment of U.S. forces 
from Iraq because I respect that our military commanders and our 
soldiers there have terribly dangerous and difficult missions to 
perform. I believe it is imperative that we give them what they say 
they need in order to carry out those missions. But the fact that they 
need more troops, or at least no fewer American troops, is further 
evidence of the miserable failure of this administration's policies and 
plans for Iraq. After all, the U.S. forces there are carrying out the 
mission that has been assigned them by their Commander in Chief, the 
President of the United States. It is a mission that is defined by his 
policy, and that policy is failing.
  It is past time that we admit that failure, that the administration, 
starting with the President, admits that failure and tells us how he 
proposes to correct it. It is time we send an emphatic message to the 
Prime Minister and the Government of Iraq: Quit your dickering, your 
squabbling, your posturing, and get down to the business of running 
your own country and running it successfully. Stop opining about 
others' actions elsewhere in the Middle East, condemning Israel and 
fanning the flames there, which is counterproductive to Secretary 
Rice's efforts to negotiate a cease-fire there. Take note of the fact 
that a country such as Israel, located in the same region of the world, 
with the same kind of barren terrain, without even the oil resources 
Iraq enjoys, is able to run its own country, provide prosperity and, 
most of the time, peace for its own citizens, defend its borders, and 
provide for the internal security within its country. That is a model 
which the Government of Iraq as well as the Government of Lebanon 
should be following and trying to respect and build upon rather than 
denigrate.
  I don't know what the future holds for Iraq. But I do know that it 
has become one where their lack of effort--or at least the lack of 
success--seems to be condoned and enabled by this administration's 
policy. As long as the Iraqis know they have carte blanche, as long as 
they know our forces will be there to back up their efforts, to correct 
their mistakes, to stand up as they are standing down, I don't see how 
that country--its government and its security forces--are going to make 
the progress necessary for them to become an independent and viable 
nation.
  I do know it is their responsibility. We have been there for almost 
3\1/2\ years, since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's evil regime. We 
have given them more than enough time. We have shed more than enough 
American blood--lives lost forever, lives maimed and altered forever.
  All this administration is telling us is to stay the course, stay the 
course, stay the course. I submit that to stay the course only makes 
sense when there is an end to that course. It only makes sense when it 
is part of a successful stand up/stand down strategy. But it is so 
clearly demonstrated now that that strategy not only is not working but 
it is going in the wrong direction, that it is time for this 
administration to tell the American people what it intends to do and 
how it intends to reverse that failed course, and what ``stay the 
course'' is going to mean absent that turnaround, and what we must do 
to achieve it.
  We need to enlist the rest of the world, as Secretary Rice, to her 
credit, is attempting to do in the situation involving Israel and 
Hezbollah. We need to admit that we need the active assistance of the 
United Nations, of other nations that have stood back because of the 
cavalier way in which the Bush administration went into this war, 
rejecting any common effort. It is understandable they don't want to 
put their troops, their own citizens--sons and daughters--into those 
perilous conditions that are the creation of this administration and 
that persist as a result of its failure to correct them. But we must 
enlist their help. We must enlist the help of everyone in the world 
necessary to bring about true peace in Iraq and the rest of the Middle 
East.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. 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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