[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 391-393]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 THE IRAQ RESOLUTION ON MILITARY FORCE

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, it was just a few years ago--some days 
seem much longer--that we considered a resolution in the Senate to 
authorize the use of military force in Iraq. We cast thousands of 
votes. Most members of Congress cannot recall too many of them 
specifically, unless reminded. But you never forget a vote on a war 
because you know that, at the end of the day, if you decide to go 
forward, people will die. It is your fervent hope that it will be the 
enemy, of course, but you know, in honesty, that it will be American 
soldiers and innocent people as well. So a vote on a war is one that 
Members of Congress--most every one of them--take so seriously. It 
costs you sleep, as you think about the right thing to do.
  I can recall when the vote was cast on this war in Iraq. I sat on the 
Intelligence Committee for months listening to the testimony and all 
the evidence that was brought before us, listening behind closed doors 
to this classified information about the situation in that country, and 
then emerging from that Intelligence Committee and reading newspapers 
and watching television, saying the American people are not being told 
the same thing outside that room that I am being told inside that room. 
There were serious differences of opinion in this administration about 
whether there were even weapons of mass destruction.
  At one point, we challenged the administration and said: If there are 
weapons of mass destruction, for goodness' sake, turn over some 
locations to the international inspectors. Let them find them. Once 
they discover them, it will confirm our fear, and other countries will 
join us in this effort against Saddam Hussein. But, no, they wouldn't 
do it. Although they told us there were hundreds of possible locations, 
they wouldn't turn over any specific location possibility to the 
international inspectors.
  It raised a question in my mind as to whether they were very certain 
of any locations. And, if you remember, weapons of mass destruction 
were the centerpiece of the argument for the invasion of Iraq.
  On Christmas Day many years later after that decision was made on the 
floor of this Senate, we learned that more Americans have now died in 
Iraq than died on September 11. Less than a week after that disclosure, 
on New Year's Eve, we marked a mournful milestone in the war in Iraq: 
the death of the 3,000th U.S. serviceman killed in Iraq.
  Today, as I stand before the Senate, the Department of Defense 
reports that we have lost 3,014 American soldiers in Iraq. The 3,000th 
death is as tragic as the 1st death, the 300th death, the 1,000th 
death, but the staggering scope of casualties, the enormous toll this 
war has taken, must not be allowed to pass unnoticed.
  America's service men and women are the bravest and best in the 
world. I know I say that with some patriotic pride, having been there 
to sit and have breakfast and lunch with them in Iraq, Afghanistan, and 
their other assignments. I just can't say enough about their courage 
and sacrifice, just ordinary, young-looking men and women who do 
extraordinary things.
  This last October, with Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, while 
sitting for breakfast with a group of about 12 soldiers from Illinois, 
I went around the table: Where are you from? Downstate. Oh, you are 
from the suburbs of Chicago. Or, you live in the city. We talked about 
everything under the Sun. We talked about the Chicago Bears, the Cubs, 
the White Sox, and how things were going back home.
  I asked them how things were going. They said: We had to get up 
early. We had to form an honor guard at dawn because one of our 
soldiers was killed in the middle of the night by one of these homemade 
bombs that takes so many lives.
  I asked: How often does that happen?
  Well, pretty frequently.
  We know it does because we read the press accounts. We think of these 
young men and women and the challenges they face every single day as 
they risk their lives for America. We think about the families back 
home deep in prayer that their soldier is going to return home safely.
  We owe them so much. We owe them our prayers and thanks for sure. But 
those of us in elected office owe them more than that. Part of what we 
owe them is a plan to bring this war to a close, a plan to bring them 
home safely, a plan to congratulate them as they return home for what 
they have given to this country.
  Last March, President Bush was asked whether there would come a day 
when there will be no U.S. forces in Iraq. His answer to that simple 
question spoke volumes. The President said: That, of course, is an 
objective, and that will be decided by future Presidents and future 
Governments of Iraq.
  Now we are told that in a few days the President will make a major 
policy announcement about this war. According to reports he is going to 
call for an increase, a major escalation of the U.S. troops committed 
in Iraq. The administration carefully has used the word ``surge'' to 
suggest this is somehow temporary, but we have to listen carefully when 
the President makes his announcement to see just how temporary it might 
be for the 10,000 or 20,000 or more American lives that will be at risk 
because of this decision.
  Sending tens of thousands more troops to Iraq is not a change of

[[Page 392]]

course. It is not what our top military experts advise. In fact, they 
have said just the opposite. It is clearly not what the American people 
bargained for when they voted just a few months ago for a change in our 
direction in Iraq. It is literally and tragically more of the same. I 
think our troops deserve better.
  President Bush has always said he will send more troops if the 
commanders in the field said they needed more. In December, General 
Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, testified before the 
Armed Services Committee. This is what the general said. The President 
told us he was listening to the generals:

       Our troops' posture needs to stay where it is as we move to 
     enhance the capabilities of the Iraq security forces and then 
     we need to assess whether or not we can bring major combat 
     units out of there. . . .

  General Abizaid went on to say:

       The ability to sustain that commitment [of 20,000 
     additional troops] is simply not something we have right now.

  That was a statement made by General Abizaid just a few weeks ago. He 
is now moving on. He is being replaced. This was the advice of the 
leader of the Army and the Central Command in the field of battle. 
General Abizaid continued:

       I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the 
     core commander, General Dempsey. We all talked together. And 
     I said, ``In your professional opinion, if we were to bring 
     in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our 
     ability to achieve success in Iraq?''

  General Abizaid testified:

       And they all said no. And the reason is, because we want 
     the Iraqis to do more. It's easy for the Iraqis to rely upon 
     us to do the work. I believe that more American forces 
     prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more 
     responsibility for their own future.

  Last month, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the group that was 
headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and Congressman Lee 
Hamilton of Indiana, offered a series of recommendations that they say 
could allow U.S. forces to largely redeploy safely out of Iraq by April 
1, 2008. The President has made it clear--although he thanked the 
commission--that he doesn't share their feelings. He also apparently 
does not share the views of the Commission that the situation in Iraq 
is grave and deteriorating.
  This war began with deception--a deception of the American people 
about the threat of weapons of mass destruction. It then moved into a 
phase of denial where we were told over and over: Oh, the Iraqi 
soldiers, the forces are just terrific; we are getting them ready to 
take our place there; we are going to stand down when they stand up. As 
violence ramped up dramatically, as more and more people died, 
including American soldiers, it went from deception to denial, and now 
we are in delusion, a delusion that somehow sending more American 
troops into the field of battle, putting them in the midst of a civil 
war that finds its roots in history 14 centuries old, that somehow 
placing our best and bravest soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors in 
this crossfire of sectarian violence, putting more of them there, as 
the President is likely to suggest, is going to bring this to an end 
sooner.
  I think the President is wrong, I think the Iraq Study Group had it 
right, and I think sending those troops in, as General Abizaid said, 
gives a message to the Iraqis that is completely wrong.
  Think about this for a minute. We sent the best military in the 
world. They deposed Saddam Hussein, took him out of power in a matter 
of weeks, dug him out of a hole in the ground, put him on trial which 
led to his execution. We then gave the Iraqis a chance to vote on their 
own constitution. We allowed them to form their own government. We have 
spent $400 billion. We have lost 3,014 lives as of this moment, and the 
number, sadly, continues to mount. Twenty-three thousand American 
soldiers have come home injured, 2,000 of them multiple amputees, 
soldiers who are blinded, soldiers whose lives may never be the same. 
We have done all this for this nation of Iraq, and now what we ask of 
them is simply this: Stand up and defend your own country. If you 
believe in your country and your future, be willing to stand and fight 
for it. Be willing to make the hard political decisions to bring peace 
and stability to your country.
  That is the message we should be giving them, but instead, this 
administration's message is we will send in more American soldiers, 
maybe 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. We will escalate this conflict. We will 
escalate our commitment. We will build up these forces.
  According to two members of the Iraq Study Group who were present 
when the group met with the President in November, President Bush said 
he continues to use the word ``victory'' to describe the vision in Iraq 
because ``it's a word the American people understand.'' The President 
said: If I start to change it, it will look like I am beginning to 
change my policy.
  That is a staggering statement because, Mr. President, we do need a 
change of policy. We need to face the reality of what we are currently 
facing in Iraq.
  There are other costs beyond what I have mentioned. There are costs 
that we feel at home. I voted against this Iraq war--23 of us did--but 
I voted for every single penny this President has asked for. My 
thinking on it is very basic and fundamental: If it were my son and 
daughter in uniform, I would want them to have everything they need--
everything. I can quarrel with this President, debate him all day about 
the policy, but not at the expense of the safety of our troops.
  The money we spent there--almost $2 billion a week, over $400 billion 
in total--is money that has been taken out of America, away from our 
needs at home, money that, sadly, has been piled up in debt as this 
administration refuses to even pay for the war they are waging.
  We are currently spending about $8 billion a month on Iraq--$8 
billion. We are going to be asked to come up with another $100 billion 
soon and, sadly, that money we spent so far doesn't even include the 
cost of reequipping our Armed Forces or caring for our veterans who 
have come home. That is a long-term cost of this war that we will pay 
for decades to come.
  What could we have done in America with the $380 billion or $400 
billion that we spent in Iraq? We could have paid for all of the 
following that I am about to list--all of the following: Health care 
coverage for all of the uninsured children in America for the entire 
duration of this war; 4-year scholarships to a public university for 
all of this year's graduating high school seniors in America; new 
affordable housing units for 500,000 needy families; all the needed 
port security requirements to keep our homeland safe; substantial new 
energy conservation programs. Or, we could have completely funded No 
Child Left Behind.
  Remember that program where we tested our kids and found out they 
needed help and then the Federal Government didn't send the help? We 
could have done that.
  Or, we could have provided savings accounts for low-income families 
preparing for retirement, or made a downpayment on reducing the 
alternative minimum tax.
  From my State of Illinois, our share of the Iraq war comes to about 
$19 billion. With that $19 billion, we could have paid for 2.5 million 
Illinois children in Head Start, insured 11 million children for 1 
year, paid the salaries of 330,000 teachers for a year, underwritten 
170,000 new affordable housing units, and covered 900,000 4-year 
scholarships to public universities.
  President Bush has the distinction not just for this policy in Iraq, 
but the fact that he is the first American President in our history who 
has cut taxes in the midst of a war. His tax cuts have benefited the 
wealthiest people in America and left the largest debt in the history 
of the United States, and every year we remain in Iraq we add $75 
billion to $100 billion to that national debt.
  Beyond the cost of human lives and dollars, there are strategic costs 
in this war. Our military is stretched dangerously thin. The National 
Guard units that have been activated have come home with less 
equipment. Today, in Illinois, we have about a

[[Page 393]]

third of the equipment we need to respond to another crisis either at 
home or overseas.
  We also know that when it comes to combat readiness, there are no 
units prepared to go into war at this moment. We have stretched our 
military so thin. The costs of reequipping these units and rebuilding 
these services are enormous and go way beyond what we have already 
spent in Iraq. Investing U.S. troop levels in Iraq will almost 
certainly prolong our involvement in that nation. It almost certainly 
will make President Bush's statement that it will be up to the 
successors to bring our forces home a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is 
not what the American people voted for in November. Sending these 
troops to Iraq will send the wrong message to Iraq. It will signal that 
Americans will continue to bear the burdens of this war.
  This year, the British, who have been the most cooperative in helping 
us there, are slated to pull their troops out. At that point, it will 
be virtually an American struggle, with only a handful of countries 
remaining by our side.
  General Casey, the commanding general in Baghdad, recently stated:

       The longer we in the U.S. force continue to bear the main 
     burden of Iraq's security, the longer it lengthens the time 
     that the government of Iraq has to make the hard decisions 
     about reconciliation and dealing with the militias.

  General Casey also said:

       It has always been my view that a heavy and sustained 
     American military presence was not going to solve the 
     problems in Iraq over the long term.

  These are the generals President Bush said he listens to, and these 
are the people who are in command of our forces. These are voices which 
clearly disagree with the escalation of this war in Iraq.
  Last week, America bid farewell to a good and decent man named Gerald 
Ford. I was honored to be at his funeral service in Grand Rapids, MI. 
He was a man who served at one of the most tumultuous times in American 
history. He inherited a war he couldn't win. Years later, when asked 
about that Vietnam war, President Ford said:

       My approach was we inherited the problem with the job. It 
     is my obligation on behalf of the country to try and solve 
     the damn thing.

  A generation later, our Nation faces a similar moment. We need to 
work together. We need to cooperate on a bipartisan basis to find a 
plan worthy of the courage and sacrifice of our men and women in 
uniform. It should begin now. It shouldn't be left to future 
Presidents.
  If one reads the authorization for Iraq, one understands that the 
goals and missions of that statement for the use of force have changed 
dramatically. No weapons of mass destruction, no Saddam Hussein, no 
threat to America. It is time for us to announce that we achieved our 
goals in Iraq and now the American people need to hand this 
responsibility over to the people of that nation in Iraq.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Pryor). The Senator from Florida is 
recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is my understanding we have 
a 10-minute limit in morning business. I ask unanimous consent that I 
be allowed an extension of an additional 5 minutes, for a total of 15 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________