[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1368-1370]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the issue that is paramount in the minds 
of many Americans is the war in Iraq. It is a consuming issue for us 
because we know that as we stand in the safety of the Senate Chamber or 
in our homes across America, at the same moment in time, 144,000 
American soldiers are risking their lives. Sadly, some are giving their 
lives almost on a daily basis. Many are injured and come home to face a 
different life than they ever imagined.
  The cost of this war, of course, starts with the human accounting. 
Over 3,013 American soldiers have died as of today, 23,000 have 
returned injured, 6,600 seriously injured, with double amputations, 
blindness, or traumatic brain injury of a serious nature.
  This morning's Wall Street Journal, in an article by David Rogers, 
talks about the real cost of this war in dollar terms. Many of us have 
used the numbers of $380 billion, $400 billion, and some have come to 
the conclusion that the number is really much higher and that when you 
account for our obligations to our veterans and rebuilding the military 
after this war, it will range in the hundreds of billions of dollars 
more. This will affect our Nation. It will affect the quality of our 
life. It will affect our spending on basics, whether it is the 
education of our children, the health of our citizens, building the 
infrastructure so our economy can expand, or creating higher education 
opportunities so that the 21st century can be an American century, as 
the 20th century was.
  This war has taken its toll. It isn't the first war that has been 
controversial in our history. Some of us are old enough to remember 
another war not that long ago. It was October 19, 1966, on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate, across the aisle, when a Senator from the State of 
Vermont, George Aiken, rose to speak. George Aiken gave a speech about 
the war in Vietnam. It is one that has been quoted many times since. He 
said a lot about the war at that moment. Some of the things he said are 
interesting in a historical context.
  Senator Aiken said, in October of 1966, about the Vietnam war:

       The greater the U.S. military commitment in south Vietnam, 
     however, the less possibility that any south Vietnamese 
     government will be capable of asserting its own authority on 
     its own home ground or abroad. The size of the U.S. 
     commitment already clearly is suffocating any serious 
     possibility of self-determination in south Vietnam for the 
     simple reason that the whole defense of that country is now 
     totally dependent on the U.S. armed presence.

  Of course, Senator Aiken went on to say that we should declare 
victory and start bringing our troops home. He said:

       Such a declaration should be accompanied not by 
     announcement of a phased withdrawal, but by the gradual 
     redeployment of U.S. military forces around strategic centers 
     and the substitution of intensive reconnaissance for bombing.
       This unilateral declaration--

  Senator Aiken said--

     --of military victory would herald the resumption of 
     political warfare as the dominant theme in Vietnam.

  He closed by saying:

       Until such a declaration is made, there is no real prospect 
     for political negotiations.

  When Senator Aiken took the floor and gave that speech in October of 
1966, we began that year with fewer casualties in Vietnam than we have 
already incurred in Iraq. Around 2,800 American lives had been lost in 
Vietnam at the beginning of 1966. But 1966 was a bloody year in 
Vietnam, and by the end

[[Page 1369]]

of that year, we had lost 8,400 soldiers as Senator Aiken gave his 
speech. Had we followed his advice, what a difference it might have 
made. By the end of that Vietnam war, we hadn't lost 8,000, we had lost 
58,193 troops.
  The President's call for increasing the number of American soldiers 
who will be serving and fighting in Iraq is a grim reminder of the cost 
of escalation. Instead of assessing where we are today in honest terms, 
the President is continuing a strategy which has failed. He has 
conceded that point. The President no longer says we are winning the 
war in Iraq. He concedes we have made serious mistakes--mistakes which 
all of us know have cost us dearly in human life and in the cost of 
this war.
  Now we face the reality of our politics in this town. In 2 weeks, 
things have changed pretty dramatically here in Washington. If you 
haven't noticed, with the hearings on Capitol Hill with the Democratic 
Congress, there is a different tenor, there is a different approach. 
Before, over the last 6 years, the President has had a compliant and 
supine Congress, afraid to ask hard questions about this war. That has 
changed. And the encouraging thing is that the hearings before the 
Foreign Affairs Committee last week showed that not only is the 
Democratic majority speaking out with important and relevant questions, 
but now our Republican colleagues are joining us in what should be a 
national and bipartisan chorus. This is a moment of accountability when 
this President and the administration will have to answer for policy 
decisions. It was a Republican Senator last week who made a statement 
in that Foreign Affairs Committee, which sadly I have to agree with, 
when he said that our invasion of Iraq was the greatest strategic 
foreign policy blunder in recent memory. I think it may be one of the 
worst mistakes in the history of our country, one we will pay for in 
years to come.
  Now I watch carefully for the reaction in Iraq as we are preparing to 
send more soldiers, and I am waiting for signs and signals and 
statements from the al-Maliki government that they understand this is a 
new day, and I am still waiting. Until they are prepared to eliminate 
the militias, whether they are going to disband them or destroy them, 
there can be no security on the ground in Iraq. I read the statements 
by our soldiers and the media where they say the Iraq Army and the Iraq 
police force is a dead horse and we are not going to get anywhere by 
kicking it. If that is a fact, then 21,000 American soldiers' lives 
won't make a difference. That is the reality of what we face.
  In the coming days ahead, very soon after we finish this debate on 
ethics legislation, we are going to move into a more serious and open 
debate on the war in Iraq. Initially, there will likely be a markup in 
one of the committees on a resolution. It will come to the floor, and 
we will consider it. I sincerely hope that, like the Foreign Affairs 
Committee meeting of last week, it is a bipartisan resolution because I 
will tell you, the sentiment about this war is strongly bipartisan or 
nonpartisan across this country.
  First and foremost, there are some basics we should make clear. No. 
1, how much we respect and admire and will stand behind our troops. 
These men and women in uniform, the best and bravest, have done 
everything we have asked them to do--in fact, many times with displays 
of heroism--and they have done more than we could ever expect from any 
human being. They have been there. They have unflinchingly responded to 
the call to arms and have served us so well. Their families stay home 
with worry and prayer, hoping they will come back safely. For those 
soldiers and their families, the first thing said is thank you, thank 
you from a grateful nation for all you have given to this country and 
continue to give.
  Secondly, we won't turn our backs on these soldiers. Whether it is a 
matter of the equipment they need now to be safe in Iraq and to come 
home to their families with their missions completed or, if they come 
home with a need, whether it is through the Veterans' Administration or 
for college education or for some help in their lives, we need to be 
there. They were there for us; we need to be there for them. That 
almost goes without saying.
  But I wish to make it clear from the Democratic side, and I am sure I 
speak for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we will never 
shortchange our troops. We will never shortchange their safety. For 
those who suggest any disagreement with foreign policy of this 
administration somehow is going to be at the expense of our troops, 
they are just plain wrong. In the final analysis, we will keep our word 
to our soldiers.
  The other point I would like to make, though, is if we expect this to 
end and end well, it can only end with a political solution in Iraq 
driven by Iraqi leadership. We cannot superimpose a democracy on Iraq. 
They have to come to this clear understanding that their future is in 
their own hands. We can help them aspire to this goal, but ultimately 
they have to take the difficult, painful steps moving toward it. That 
means, of course, putting an end to the sectarian violence.
  For 14 centuries now, the people of the Islamic faith have had a 
disagreement about who were the rightful heirs to their great Prophet 
Muhammad. We cannot resolve 14 centuries of this sectarian debate and 
violence in one little country with more American soldiers. This is 
something which will have to be resolved if Iraq decides their future 
will be a democracy. They have to treat all Iraqis in a fair and honest 
way instead of favoring one sect over another. They have to bring an 
end to violence, whether it is inspired by Sunnis or Shias or others. 
Whatever the inspiration, it has to come to an end.
  The militias that now control parts of Baghdad and parts of Iraq have 
to come to an end as well. You can't have private armies in a country 
and expect the national army to have the strength to control the 
situation. We need to see the police forces in Baghdad and other places 
really emerge as professionals. When I was there in October, the 
reports were very disappointing. It was said that if you went to a 
police station, you could decide right off the bat whether it was going 
to be a Sunni or Shia police station and then decide how they would 
react to crime committed by their own. That has to end. We can't change 
that by sending American soldiers into battle. We can't change that 
with American lives and American injuries. Only the Iraqis can change 
that.
  As Senator Aiken said 40 years ago now:

       The unilateral declaration of military victory would really 
     herald the resumption of political warfare in south Vietnam.

  We need to move this to a political level, and that is where I think 
the President's recommendations last week are so wanting. He still is 
in the mindset to believe that enough American soldiers can somehow 
change the politics of Iraq. That is never going to happen. It has to 
come from the Iraqi people.
  So we face a challenge--a challenge which we accept--to have an 
honest, nonpartisan, productive, and positive debate on our foreign 
policy in Iraq. Those of us who disagree with the President really 
stand in an awkward position in this regard. I sincerely hope the 
President is right. I hope 21,000 American soldiers change the whole 
contour of the debate and the future of Iraq. I don't believe they 
will, but I want this to end and end well, and I don't care who takes 
credit for it. But I believe--sincerely believe--that the only way to 
convince the Iraqis of their responsibility is for us to start bringing 
American troops home, as Senator Aiken called for in Vietnam in 1966 
with 8,000 American lives lost, and that we start the phased 
redeployment of our troops. Had America, had Congress, had the 
President in 1966 followed the suggestions of the Senator from Vermont, 
50,000 American lives might have been spared. By the end of the Vietnam 
war, almost 3,000 Illinoisans had given their lives in Vietnam. Some 
were my buddies in high school, my friends with whom I had grown up. I 
still remember to this day and wonder, if the Senate at that moment in 
time had made the right decision, a decision

[[Page 1370]]

Senator Aiken had called for, whether they might be alive today. That 
is the reality of war, and it is the reality of these foreign policy 
decisions.


                             Ethics Reform

  Our business before the Senate now is the Senate ethics reform bill. 
We have a big task ahead of us. The leadership has made it clear to 
Senators on both sides of the aisle that we are going to finish this 
bill this week. It could mean long sessions, as Senator Reid said 
earlier today. It could mean we are in late in the night, perhaps even 
on the weekend, but we want to get this important part of our business 
behind us. The culture of corruption, the climate of corruption which 
has been on Capitol Hill over the last several years has to come to an 
end.
  There will always be Members of the House and Senate who can think of 
another way to improve the way we do business. Each of us has our own 
ideas. I was fortunate, as I said before on the floor of the Senate, to 
start my Senate and public career with two extraordinary men, Senators 
Paul Douglas and Paul Simon of Illinois, who tried to set new standards 
of ethical conduct in national service. Back when I was fresh out of 
law school and penniless, I went to work for Lieutenant Governor Paul 
Simon, who insisted that every member of his staff make a complete 
income disclosure every year and a complete net worth disclosure.
  My first disclosure brought real embarrassment to me and my wife 
because we had nothing and with student debts would have qualified for 
bankruptcy under most circumstances. We didn't file bankruptcy, but 
those annual disclosures were embarrassing until we finally passed a 
point where we had a few meager possessions and were on the positive 
side of the ledger.
  I have continued to do that every year. I make the most detailed 
disclosure I can in my financial statement, not categories of wealth or 
income but actual dollar amounts. I have done it every single year. I 
know it serves up to my critics a ready menu of things on which to 
attack me. That's OK. I want to make it clear that in the time I have 
been in public service, the decisions I have made--good, bad, whether 
you agree with them or not--have not been driven by any desire to come 
away from this experience wealthy.
  I have not imposed that on my colleagues here, or suggested it by way 
of amendment, that they do a detailed income disclosure, put their 
income tax returns with that disclosure, and a net worth statement each 
year. But I feel comfortable doing it. I am glad I got started. Now 
that my family is beyond the embarrassment of those early disclosures 
when we had nothing, they have come to accept it every year as just a 
routine. It is a small thing, but it is voluntary on my part, and I 
hope that others, if they see the need, will accept voluntary changes 
in the way they approach this to demonstrate their commitment to ethics 
in public service.
  The amendment before us by Senator Reid, Senator Harry Reid, our 
majority leader, is one that deals with the use of corporate airplanes. 
That has been a source of some embarrassment and question before. I 
believe that Senators Reid and McConnell have shown real leadership in 
moving this amendment forward. We will consider some changes to it 
during the course of our debate but, once again, it is a step in the 
right direction.
  Finishing this, we will move to the minimum wage bill and then to a 
debate on Iraq and then probably to the stem cell issue, so we have 
quite an agenda before us. Our friends in the House are benefited by 
something known as the House Rules Committee, which can expedite the 
process. The Senate doesn't work that way. We have a unanimous consent 
process which is slow, ponderous, deliberate, and, for Members of the 
House, absolutely maddening. It will take us longer.
  At the end of the day, though, I hope we end up with a good work 
product for the American people.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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