[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5741-5742]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise to offer a simple proposition: 
Congress should act like a coequal branch of Government and vote on 
whether to keep American troops in Iraq for at least 3 more years. Late 
last month, the President told the American people that it is his 
intent to keep American soldiers in Iraq through the end of his term in 
office. He has never before made such a sweeping commitment. When the 
Senate voted in October of 2002 to send troops to Iraq, few Americans 
believed then that the U.S. military would be in Iraq in 2006, let 
alone 2009 or beyond. Based on what the Bush administration said then, 
Americans would be justified in thinking that by now Iraq would be free 
and democratic. Based on what the Bush administration said then, 
Americans would be justified in thinking that by now Iraq would be 
stable and self-supporting. Based on what the Bush administration said 
then, Americans would be justified in thinking that by now the vast 
majority of U.S. forces, if not all of them, would be safely back home.
  Unfortunately, the rosy forecast put out by the White House and the 
Pentagon in 2002 perished in the harsh reality of Iraq.
  The failure to plan for the post-war period has thus far created less 
security for the world, greater heartache for Iraq, and extraordinary 
costs for America.
  As of today, neither the American people nor the Congress knows how 
the President intends to get American troops out of Iraq. Instead, 
virtually every day, the administration offers a new theory for how 
discouraging events on the ground in Iraq are actually positive signs.
  Here is what is indisputable: 2,348 American soldiers are dead, 
17,469 are injured, and 262 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent.

[[Page 5742]]

  If our troops remain in Iraq for at least 3 more years, how many more 
will die, how many more will be injured? How many more hundreds of 
billions of dollars will it cost?
  By all accounts, the insurgency remains strong and is constantly 
attacking and killing American soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and Iraqi 
civilians. Every day there is another bombing, another brutal image on 
the TV that reflects the chaos that passes for an average day in Iraq.
  Sectarian violence is rampant. The ethnic strife is so grave that 
Shiites and Sunnis living in mixed neighborhoods are fleeing for the 
safety of ethnic enclaves.
  In recent months, there have been more and more groups of bodies 
found--hands bound, shot in the back of the head or beheaded--and many 
Iraqis have come to believe that their own Iraqi Interior Ministry is 
participating in these death squad-style killings.
  According to Ambassador Khalilzad, the ``potential is there'' for 
all-out civil war. That, my friends, is an understatement. As former 
Prime Minister Allawi concedes, a low-level civil war is already being 
waged in Iraq.
  The so-called ``enduring bases'' that the Pentagon has built in Iraq 
certainly create the appearance that the Bush administration intends 
for the United States to occupy Iraq indefinitely, unnecessarily 
fostering ill-will among the Iraqi population and throughout the Arab 
world.
  Oil production, household fuel availability, and electricity 
production are lower than they were 2 years ago. Iraqis have 
electricity half of each day. About 32 percent of Iraqis are 
unemployed.
  The list of problems that plague Iraq goes on and on.
  Supporters of the war tout the Iraqi forces that are standing up and 
taking responsibility for security. Yet it has been reported that not a 
single Iraqi security force battalion can operate without U.S. 
assistance. The Iraqi police force is plagued by absenteeism and 
militia infiltration. The level of incompetence is high enough that 
U.S. forces are reluctant to hand over their best weapons to the 
Iraqis.
  You will also hear supporters of the war point to the three elections 
as proof of progress. Yes, there have been elections. But as the 
current impasse makes clear, elections are just the beginning. And 
while those elected have been deliberating for the past 3 months, 
unable to reach consensus over the makeup of the new Iraqi Government, 
insurgents have been exploiting the power vacuum to kill, to maim, and 
to instill terror and fear.
  Supporters of the war will also point to our reconstruction efforts. 
But billions of reconstruction dollars have been misused, misspent, or 
lost by American contractors, like Halliburton, and Iraqi ministries, 
including the Ministry of Oil.
  While in Iraq recently, as a member of the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence, I sat down with representatives of the Oil Ministry to 
discuss the issue of graft. After I repeatedly pointed to independent 
analyses documenting the serious corruption problems within the Iraqi 
oil sector, the Iraqi officials finally acknowledged that there were 
``small'' problems with graft in this sector. Considering that oil 
accounts for more than 90 percent of the country's revenues, this ought 
to be extremely disturbing to Congress and people all across America.
  Just as the President made the case to go to war, he owes it to 
Congress and the American people to come to Congress and lay out his 
plan and his budget for achieving a lasting peace in Iraq.
  Congress owes it to the American people and the institution to vote.
  If the President refuses to come to Congress in the coming weeks with 
his plan and his budget to win the peace in Iraq, Congress owes it to 
the American people to vote up or down on whether to keep American 
troops in Iraq for at least 3 more years.
  The President's case for winning the peace in Iraq should address 
these concerns:
  First, how the President can help make the Iraqis self-reliant so 
that they can defeat the deadly insurgency.
  Second, how the President intends to help Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish 
leaders break the political impasse so that they can form a unity 
government.
  Third, how the President intends to pull the Iraqi people back from 
the brink of all-out civil war and the specter of another Rwanda or 
Darfur.
  Fourth, how the President intends to help rebuild the Iraqi 
infrastructure and ensure that Iraqis have access to basic services 
like electricity and clean water.
  And fifth, how the President intends to bring the troops home from 
Iraq.
  If need be, to be sensitive to national security matters, I would not 
be averse to the Senate moving into Executive Session to consider 
portions of the President's plan and his budget for securing the peace 
in Iraq.
  I simply ask the President to come to Congress and describe his plan 
and his budget specifically, and let Congress consider its potential to 
succeed before the Congress, with its silence, consents to 3 more years 
of very costly involvement in Iraq.
  The vote I call for today, if held, won't be about cutting-and-
running. It won't be about who comes up with the best spin. It will be 
about holding the President and Congress accountable. The vote will 
hold the President accountable for presenting a plan and a budget for 
securing the peace. And the vote will hold Congress accountable by 
making it finally act like a co-equal branch of government.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Oregon, who has just spoken, for what he has said. I shall read his 
speech carefully tonight, the Lord willing, the general theme of which 
I am in accordance with. His was a speech that had to be said and ought 
to be said. It was in his words. I might have made it with a change or 
two. But we are together, as we were when the Senator and I joined the 
immortal spirits of the 23 who on that day cast the most important vote 
that I have ever cast in my 48 years now in the U.S. Senate.

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