[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11780-11783]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I heard the distinguished deputy minority 
leader speak last Friday morning in about a 15-minute speech, and he 
just added another minute, about Iraq. So I come to the floor to 
address the specific points the distinguished Senator just raised and 
the potential amendments that will be offered on the floor.
  I want to tell you about the flashback that went through my mind as I 
sat in that chair and listened to that speech. The flashback was to my 
generation's war in the 1960s and 1970s in Vietnam. The flashback was 
to what I remember started in 1970 and culminated in 1972.
  I commend my staff, in particular Andrew Billing, for spending the 
weekend accumulating the speeches on the

[[Page 11781]]

floor of the Senate from August of 1970 to May of 1972, speeches by 
Cranston and McGovern and Kennedy and Byrd and Humphrey. They talked 
about it was time for us to start withdrawing, first not on a time 
certain, but by just a certain number of troops, until the crescendo 
built so loud over 18 months it became a date certain, August 31, 1972.
  The debate on the Senate floor drove the policy of the United States 
of America against communism and in defense of freedom, and all of us 
remember what happened. The first steps were it wasn't a date certain, 
it was 120,000 troops, and we went from a half million to 380,000 and 
then to 240,000, and then when we got to 240,000, the resolution 
became: Withdraw by August 31, 1972.
  Anyone who was alive on that date who remembers that scene remembers 
precisely what happened: the last of the Americans to leave Saigon on 
the roof of our Nation's embassy being shot at by the Vietcong as they 
were climbing a rope ladder into a Huey helicopter.
  We lost over 50,000 American lives in Vietnam and a lot of them 
between the beginning of that debate to withdraw in August of 1970 
until the end of it in August of 1972.
  I know there is a proposed amendment, probably by the Senator from 
Michigan, that will begin the same way the amendments began over 30 
years ago on this Senate floor: not a date certain, but a scaling down 
of our commitment. And to that I want to address the damage that will 
do to our effort.
  First and foremost, it hands a victory to our enemy they cannot win 
on the battlefield. The terrorists have said it is to psychologically 
destroy the will of America that they want to win the battle. They know 
they can't win it on the battlefield. Why should we begin to question 
our resolve and, worst of all, why should we repeat the horrible 
mistake of the way in which we managed our conflict in the seventies?
  It is time we recognized that we are winning a great victory for 
mankind, not just the Iraqi people; that America went to enforce a U.N. 
resolution when the U.N. would not; that we deposed a dictator that 
everybody said was bad. We won in Afghanistan over the Taliban, and we 
are winning in Iraq today over the insurgency headed by al-Qaida.
  Have some of us forgotten 9/11/2001? Have we forgotten the USS Cole? 
Have we forgotten the fatwa issued in 1996 when war was declared by al-
Qaida on the United States of America? Most Americans haven't.
  I want to conclude by three little stories about the past month in my 
life.
  I stood on the courthouse steps in Walton County, GA, this Saturday 
welcoming home eight members of the 48th Brigade from Iraq. I stood 
there with all the citizens of Monroe and Walton Counties cheering them 
on--all the citizens, including Robert Stokely, the father of SGT Mike 
Stokely who died in August of 2005 in Iraq. He came up and gave me 
Michael's dog tag, hugged me, grabbed my hand, and he welcomed home 
those eight soldiers, knowing that his son, Michael, the ninth, was not 
home with them, but he was proud of his effort.
  Let's make sure Michael didn't die in vain. Let's not lose our 
resolve on the floor of the Senate.
  The second incident I want to describe is what happened yesterday in 
the Atlanta airport. I was late. I was running for my flight. I went 
through the atrium. All of a sudden a huge round of applause erupted. I 
stopped. I didn't know what in the world was going on. I turned and 
looked, and there marched about 30 members of the United States Army in 
their desert fatigues on the way to an airplane, probably on their way 
to Iraq, and all those citizens in that airport from around the world 
flying through Atlanta stopped to give them a standing ovation.
  I don't think those people would want us to set deadlines, 
timetables, and withdraw from the ultimate battle.
  And my last analogy is in Margraten in the Netherlands 3 weeks ago 
when Senators Craig, Specter, Burr, and myself sat on a beautiful sun-
lit day before 7,000 Dutch in the American Cemetery in the Netherlands 
as the Royal Dutch Air Force flew over in a missing-man formation and 
as the Royal Dutch Senior Man's Choir sang ``God Bless America.''
  I stood there for the better part of an hour having my hand shook by 
citizens of Holland thanking me for what Americans did 62 years ago 
when they invaded Normandy, fought the Battle of the Bulge, and deposed 
Adolph Hitler.
  There is nothing different about the hatred and intolerance for 
humanity, race, and religion of Adolph Hitler and the intolerance for 
race, religion, and faith of al-Qaida. The battle is just as great. The 
warriors may be different, the site may be different, the methodology 
may be different, but the result would be the same.
  Had we not stayed the course in the 1940s, the world would have lost. 
If we do not stay the course today, if we turn our back, the world will 
lose again.
  Once again, the sons and daughters of the United States of America 
are fighting the right war in the right place at the right time for the 
right reason. For us to talk about timetables or suggest drawdowns or 
compromise our commitment is just plain wrong.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I compliment our distinguished colleague 
from Georgia for his remarks. I hope throughout the day colleagues on 
both sides will address this critical issue with regard to our future 
policies in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it is amazing to me that less than a week 
after the President returned from Iraq, having visited with the new 
Government leaders there, and having disclosed the death of the top al-
Qaida leader Zarqawi, in Iraq, colleagues in the Senate would actually 
be proposing withdrawal from Iraq.
  The strategy there needs to be to win, not to withdraw. Withdrawal 
follows victory. If we think about the wars we have gone into--think 
about World War II, for example--would it have made any sense for the 
Congress of the United States to pass a resolution saying to Franklin 
Roosevelt: You set a deadline for getting out of Germany and for 
getting out of Japan or we are not going to continue to support this 
effort? It would have been ludicrous at the time. More importantly, it 
sends a message to our troops, to our enemies, and to our allies, and 
to the people in Iraq that is devastating.
  Let me read a letter that was written by one of our soldiers 
stationed in Fallujah recently to his hometown newspaper in Ridgefield, 
CT, which expresses what I suspect is the view of many of our soldiers. 
Here is what he said:

       In Fallujah, the people watch Al-Jazeerah. However, they 
     also watch CNN. A lot of them fear the United States will 
     soon cut and run. . . . Furthermore, they know that the 
     insurgents will not end their efforts early . . . Therefore, 
     if they help us, their lives and the lives of their loved 
     ones will be in great jeopardy the minute we leave--if we 
     don't finish the job. Much that they see on American 
     television leads them to believe that we intend to abandon 
     our efforts before the new Iraqi Government is capable of 
     defending itself and its citizens.

  The bottom line is that the people in Iraq watch what we do, our 
friends and our enemies, and much of our ability to win there depends 
upon figuring out which is going to be the winning side. They want to 
be on the winning side. They don't want to side with us only to have us 
cut and run, leaving them with these insurgents who will find out who 
they are and take care of business. Obviously, we have to send a 
message to them that we intend to prevail and therefore they can side 
with us.
  What we will learn is that much of our ability to get al-Zarqawi and 
others depends upon the cooperation of the Iraqis themselves. A lot of 
our intelligence comes from the fact that Iraqis believe we are there 
to stay until the job is done, and if they help us, they can hasten 
that day. But if they come to believe that they help us, we leave, and 
then the insurgents find out who they are, we are not going to get any

[[Page 11782]]

more help. It is going to delay the time that we can leave rather than 
accelerate that time.
  The people in the region, the countries that surround Iraq, would be 
in the very same position. They have decided that they are going to be 
on the side of the winner, and they believe right now the United States 
is the winner in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and certainly the leaders of 
Pakistan, of Saudi Arabia, of Lebanon, each of the countries 
surrounding has decided to throw in with us. As the President said, you 
are either for us or against us. If we cut and run from Iraq, those 
countries are not going to be able to stay with us, and what we will 
have done is to prove what Osama bin Laden said is true, and that is 
that instead of the strong horse, we are the weak horse. That is what 
the people in the region are waiting to see.
  So these concepts--whether it is an immediate withdrawal or simply 
the beginning of a phased withdrawal this year, with the President 
being required to submit a plan for complete withdraw by the end of 
next year--are all part and parcel of the same thing: a message to the 
enemy that we are leaving and here is our timetable for leaving. All 
you have to do is wait until we are gone and then it is yours for the 
taking. That is not just destructive for the Iraqi people; the whole 
point is that it is destructive for our whole policy in winning the war 
against the terrorists.
  They have to believe we are on the offensive, we are going after 
them, and we won't quit until we win. But by pulling out of Iraq, we 
are sending the signal that by simply hanging on, by causing us trouble 
with roadside bombs and other mechanisms, all they have to do is wait 
us out; we will lose patience, we will lose nerve, we will leave, and 
that is how they win the war on terror.
  So it is not just about the Iraqi people and their ability to govern 
themselves in freedom or the people of Afghanistan; it is about the 
message it sends to the people who are today with us in the war on 
terror. It is about our ability to continue to show that we are winning 
the war on terror, and that they better side with us rather than side 
with people who are going to lose. It is all about winning the war over 
there so that we don't have to worry as much about attacks in the 
United States.
  This is a multifaceted war. There are enemies all over the globe. The 
best way to win that war is through good intelligence and then taking 
the fight to the enemy. Right now, the bulk of that fighting is in 
Iraq, and it is there that we have to confront the enemy and defeat the 
enemy. If we pull out through these sort of sugar-coated notions of 
phased withdrawals--not a deadline--not cut and run--it is just a 
phased withdrawal, what kind of a signal does that send? It still 
creates a date, a timetable, and a message to the enemy that we are, in 
fact, going to be leaving, and all they have to do is wait us out.
  So I say to my colleagues, these kinds of proposals should be soundly 
rejected as they were last week, both in the Senate and in the House of 
Representatives, and we should be sending the signal to our troops, as 
well as to our enemies and to our allies: we are there to stay until 
victory, not until we achieve some artificial deadline.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his contributions 
to this debate. I simply would add this one very important thought I 
have had all along. This has been a struggle of a nation to achieve its 
place in the world of governments of democracy. They have had--if there 
is one sign of courage amongst the Iraqi people, and today regrettably 
there is so much strife and killing, but these people have gone to the 
polls in record numbers three consecutive times. You need only look at 
history and the difficulty of forming a government to say that the 
newly elected government, a permanent government now, at long last, is 
a unified government, and it has been achieved in a matter of months. 
They were tough months, to wait them out. It is interesting that it 
took 8 years in a way for this great Nation of ours to achieve the 
final form of government that we have today.
  So the Iraqi Government is in place, and we must recognize it is a 
sovereign nation, and they have to make decisions on their own. The 
Iraqi people cannot perceive that we are dictating how they will 
exercise their sovereignty. We are committed to stay there with our 
forces and the coalition forces to enable them to exercise their choice 
and the means by which to provide sovereignty for their people.
  So I thank my distinguished colleague, and I think this will, in the 
hours and days to come, unfold into a very strong and vigorous debate 
on these issues. But in the end, always allow the beacon of 
sovereignty, which we have enabled through enormous sacrifice to allow 
them to achieve, to be the beacon that we must follow.
  Mr. President, I understand that my distinguished colleague from 
Rhode Island is prepared to address the Senate for a period of 20 
minutes or so is my understanding, and if that is in accordance with 
the wishes of my ranking member, he may so state.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I would ask the Senator from Rhode Island, 
who is under a unanimous consent agreement to be recognized for 20 
minutes, to yield to me for 2 minutes.
  Mr. REED. I will yield.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I noticed Senator Kyl again uses rhetoric 
which they apparently have decided will be used no matter what the 
facts of any particular proposal are. I would just point out in this 
morning's Washington Post that Mr. al-Rubaie, who is the National 
Security Adviser for Iraq, has argued that by year's end, we envision 
the U.S. troop presence to be under 100,000. That would be at least a 
30,000 reduction. I wonder whether people, or Senators, who are going 
to mischaracterize the Levin-Reed et al amendment are going to also 
then suggest that the Security Adviser to the new Prime Minister of 
Iraq supports cut and run when he says that they envision a reduction 
of American troops to be below 100,000 by the end of this year, and he 
sets forth in this morning's Washington Post all of the reasons it is 
so important that foreign troops be redeployed, including to legitimize 
Iraq's Government in the eyes of its people.
  I ask unanimous consent that the entire article written by the 
Security Adviser to the new Prime Minister, Mr. al-Rubaie, be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       [From the Washington Post]

                    The Way Out of Iraq: A Road Map

                        (By Mowaffak al-Rubaie)

       There has been much talk about a withdrawal of U.S. and 
     coalition troops from Iraq, but no defined timeline has yet 
     been set. There is, however, an unofficial ``road map'' to 
     foreign troop reductions that will eventually lead to total 
     withdrawal of U.S. troops. This road map is based not just on 
     a series of dates but, more important, on the achievement of 
     set objectives for restoring security in Iraq.
       Iraq has a total of 18 governorates, which are at differing 
     stages in terms of security. Each will eventually take 
     control of its own security situation, barring a major 
     crisis. But before this happens, each governorate will have 
     to meet stringent minimum requirements as a condition of 
     being granted control. For example, the threat assessment of 
     terrorist activities must be low or on a downward trend. 
     Local police and the Iraqi army must be deemed capable of 
     dealing with criminal gangs, armed groups and militias, and 
     border control. There must be a clear and functioning 
     command-and-control center overseen by the governor, with 
     direct communication to the prime minister's situation room.
       Despite the seemingly endless spiral of violence in Iraq 
     today, such a plan is already in place. All the governors 
     have been notified and briefed on the end objective. The 
     current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has approved the 
     plan, as have the coalition forces, and assessments of each 
     province have already been done. Nobody believes this is 
     going to be an easy task, but there is Iraqi and coalition 
     resolve to start taking the final steps to have a fully 
     responsible Iraqi government accountable to its people for 
     their governance and security. Thus far four of the 18 
     provinces are ready for the transfer of power--two in the 
     north (Irbil and Sulaymaniyah) and two in the South (Maysan 
     and Muthanna). Nine more provinces are nearly ready.
       With the governors of each province meeting these strict 
     objectives, Iraq's ambition is to have full control of the 
     country by the

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     end of 2008. In practice this will mean significant foreign 
     troop reduction. We envisage the U.S. troop presence by 
     year's end to the under 100,000, with most of the remaining 
     troops to return home by the end of 2007.
       The eventual removal of coalition troops from Iraq streets 
     will help the Iraqis, who now see foreign troops as occupiers 
     rather than the liberators they were meant to be. It will 
     remove psychological barriers and the reason that many Iraqis 
     joined the so-called resistance in the first place. The 
     removal of troops will also allow the Iraqi government to 
     engage with some of our neighbors that have to date been at 
     the very least sympathetic to the resistance because of what 
     they call the ``coalition of occupation.'' If the sectarian 
     issue continues to cause conflict with Iraq's neighbors, this 
     matter needs to be addressed urgently and openly--not in the 
     guise of aversion to the presence of foreign troops.
       Moreover, the removal of foreign troops will legitimize 
     Iraq's government in the eyes of its people. It has taken 
     what some feel is an eternity to form a government of 
     national unity. This has not been an easy or enviable task, 
     but it represents a significant achievement, considering that 
     many new ministers are working in partisan situations, often 
     with people with whom they share a history of enmity and 
     distrust. By its nature, the government of national unity, 
     because it is working through consensus, could be perceived 
     to be weak. But, again, the drawdown of foreign troops will 
     strengthen our fledging government to last the full four 
     years it is supposed to.
       While Iraq is trying to gain its independence from the 
     United States and the coalition, in terms of taking greater 
     responsibility for its actions, particularly in terms of 
     security, there are still some influential foreign figures 
     trying to spoon-feed our government and take a very proactive 
     role in many key decisions. Through this many provide some 
     benefits in the short term, in the long run it will only 
     serve to make the Iraqi government a weaker one and 
     eventually lead to a culture of dependency. Iraq has to grow 
     out of the shadow of the United States and the coalition, 
     take responsibility for its own decisions, learn from its own 
     mistakes, and find Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems, with 
     the knowledge that our friends and allies are standing by 
     with support and help should we need it.

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after Senator 
Reed is recognized--the chairman and I have talked about this--at that 
point, the Dorgan amendment be the matter before the Senate. I believe 
that the Senator from Virginia and I have agreed that Senator Dorgan 
would be recognized for 10 minutes, to be followed then by the chairman 
for 5 minutes, and the intention then would be to proceed to a rollcall 
vote.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we are fully in concurrence as managers, 
but I would like to have the benefit of our leaders and the respective 
staff working up a unanimous consent agreement precisely outlining 
that. Then, as I further discussed with my colleague from Michigan, we 
had hopes that the matter raised by the Senator from Florida, Mr. 
Nelson, in which he had an amendment relating to the issue of amnesty, 
be addressed together with the side-by-side amendment by the Senator 
from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell. So I hope that while hearing from our 
colleague from Rhode Island addressing the Senate, we can have a 
formalized UC agreement.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________