[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18372-18373]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

  Mr. GREGG. On the question of Iraq, and specifically as I have my own 
amendment which I will be offering--it is not my amendment; I have an 
amendment in which I am joined by other Members, including Senator 
Salazar, on how to proceed in Iraq, and we will be talking about that 
later--maybe even later today--I wish to speak briefly on an amendment 
being offered by Senator Reid and Senator Levin which fixes a timeframe 
for withdrawal that is arbitrary and which is condensed. That 
timeframe, as I understand it, would occur within 6 months, when there 
would be a withdrawal. There are no underlying policy proposals which 
say that the Government of Iraq has to be a functioning government and 
has to have the capacity to secure itself and has to have the capacity 
to maintain stability in order for the withdrawal to occur; the 
withdrawal simply is going to occur. I think the practical implications 
for that are pretty staggering and not constructive to the process, 
quite honestly. I think a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, which has 
no underlying policy and which leaves behind a stable government or 
attempts to leave behind a stable government, will inevitably lead to a 
desperate government, which will, in turn, lead to chaos, and chaos in 
Iraq is not in our national interests.
  We have to remember what the stakes are. Our purpose of being in Iraq 
is fundamentally to protect ourselves as a nation. The people who wish 
to do us harm--and they have made it clear they intend to do us harm 
and they have done us harm--intend to use their ability to attack the 
United States as the essence of their war on us. The way you keep them 
from attacking our Nation is to find them where they are and attack 
them and to make it very difficult for them to have a safe haven and to 
disrupt their activities and to find them before they can attack us. 
That is our philosophy. It is a philosophy which is totally appropriate 
to the war that we now find ourselves engaged in.
  This is not a conventional situation. We are not fighting a nation 
state. We are fighting individuals who subscribe to a philosophy which 
says they will have a better afterlife if they destroy Western culture 
and specifically kill Americans and destroy America. That is their 
purpose. They have said that and they have done it. Let's not be naive 
about this. Let's not look at this through rose-colored glasses and say 
they wish some other outcome and if we are nice to them they will go 
away; that if we ignore them, they will ignore us. That is not the 
case.
  So we have pursued a policy in Iraq and across the world of finding 
them before they find us. If Iraq, because of a precipitous withdrawal 
which leaves no stability behind, is allowed to devolve into chaos, it 
is very obvious what is going to happen. Besides a civil war, which is 
obviously already going on, to some degree, which will be expanded 
radically with many thousands of people, more thousands of people 
dying, there will undoubtedly occur within Iraq the creation of a 
client state for Iran, and Iran has made it very clear what their 
intentions are. Their intentions are to develop a nuclear weapon and 
produce hegemony throughout the Islamic world.
  Secondly, it will become a safe haven for al-Qaida and give them a 
base of operation which will represent a clear and present threat to us 
as a nation.
  So that type of course of action, although it obviously looks 
attractive because it gets our troops out of immediate harm's way, and 
everybody wants

[[Page 18373]]

to do that to the fullest extent possible, will have the exact opposite 
effect on our national security. It will actually put us at greater 
risk.
  There has to be an underscoring of the withdrawal, or the drawdown, 
which I think is the more appropriate term, because even the most 
strident people on the other side of the aisle who wish to withdraw 
recognize there is going to have to be some residual force left for the 
purpose of protecting American assets, such as our embassies, and 
training, hopefully, troops of the Iraqi Government. But any process 
for the drawdown really has to be done in the context of leaving behind 
as stable a government as we can possibly create, or participate in 
helping to create. That is why I have become a sponsor of and 
participating in the effort to put in place the proposals of the Iraq 
Study Group, which essentially outlines a series of steps that can be 
taken which will, hopefully, lead us toward a drawdown of American 
troops which is tied to leaving behind a stable government.
  The Reed-Levin amendment abandons all of that. It abandons the Iraq 
Study Group proposal. It abandons the effort to try to leave in place a 
stable government. It essentially says: Here is the date; we are going 
to leave by that date. And it is a date certain.
  That has two effects. It means the Government of Iraq will inevitably 
be in desperate shape and potentially collapse, which will lead to 
chaos, and, more importantly, it means our troops who are on the ground 
will, during that period leading up to that date, be under significant 
stress because their morale will be at serious issue because they will 
know when they get to that date, they are leaving and they are leaving 
behind a mess and, more importantly, they will be pursuing a mission, 
which they will have been told by the other side of the aisle at least, 
has no viability. And how can you ask somebody to go out and walk the 
streets of Baghdad and participate in ``the surge and the clear and 
hold and hopefully pass on stability'' exercise that is going on there 
if you have the other side of the aisle saying: I am sorry, that 
mission is irrelevant. You are out there, we don't believe in what you 
are doing, we have no faith in that effort.
  Yes, everyone has total commitment to our troops, but we also have to 
have a commitment that when we send the troops out on the street, and 
they put their lives at risk, they know there is a policy behind that 
effort which is supported. In this case, what is being said is that 
policy isn't being supported and their efforts on the streets in 
Baghdad and other places are not going to have support.
  It is a very dangerous message to send, first, to our enemies who 
have a specific date and can ratchet up the violence radically to force 
that date on us; second, to our troops on the ground; and thirdly, to 
the long-term stability of a region which is critical to our national 
interests and which plays a major role in whether we are going to be 
successful in keeping our homeland, America, from being attacked.
  A precipitous withdrawal without a game plan will lead to a 
dysfunctional and disorganized and possibly collapse of the Government 
of Iraq, and it will lead to chaos. Therefore, I think it is a very 
intemperate policy to pursue.
  There is also a certain cynicism about it, when you get right down to 
it, and this bothers me. The people promoting this amendment have 
constituencies who are truly and sincerely, I am sure, committed to 
getting us out of Iraq as soon as possible, and they are trying to 
respond to those constituencies. We see those constituencies all the 
time, and their intensity is huge; especially in the Democratic Party 
they have great sway. But the amendment itself is almost a free pass in 
that everybody knows it cannot pass, and that is the irony. It is a 
free pass that cannot pass. It cannot pass the Senate because it cannot 
get 60 votes. If it did pass the Senate, and it did pass the House, it 
would be vetoed by the President and, clearly, would not go into 
effect.
  So, essentially, what is happening is a policy is being put forward 
which has serious political implications on the ground and substantive 
implications on the ground in Iraq but has maybe a political upside in 
the United States for people who are speaking to that constituency 
which wants to immediately get us out of Iraq but has no viability 
behind it, has no expectation of success behind it, and therefore is, 
to a certain degree--a considerable degree--a rather cynical strategy.
  The losers in this effort, quite honestly, are our troops on the 
ground because they are seeing this debate going forward, and they are 
scratching their heads saying: Why am I being asked to go out on the 
streets? Why am I being asked to do this mission when they trying to 
pass legislation in the Senate which says they don't support the 
mission, and they know for sure that is not going to become law?
  It is not good to pursue this type of an approach on an issue of such 
importance, of such significance to our Nation, and especially to the 
men and women who defend us.
  I have serious reservations about not only the substance of the 
proposal but about the politics behind the proposal, knowing that the 
proposal has no capacity to become law, that it would be put forward in 
such a way that basically creates false claims, in my opinion, or false 
opportunities, or alleged opportunities.
  This is an immensely serious issue, we all know that. What we need, 
quite honestly, is some sort of approach that has a little bit of 
bipartisanship to it, where both sides say: OK, we know we have a 
difficult situation, an extremely frustrating situation in Iraq. Let's 
come up with something that is a united policy, a bipartisan policy. 
That is why the suggestion which is being put forward--to put in place 
the Iraq Study Group as the blueprint for how we proceed there--is one 
which I think has some vitality to it.
  Is it the perfect answer? Obviously not. There is no perfect answer. 
In fact, I was interested in hearing Lee Hamilton say there are no good 
solutions to this situation. It was a very forthright statement that I 
think resonates strongly.
  The fact is, this little gambit--not a little gambit--this 
significant gambit of putting forward a proposal that speaks to a 
constituency, but everyone knows is not going to become law, is not 
constructive for the process.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland is 
recognized.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the 
Senate?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is in a period of 
morning business. Three minutes remains on the majority side, and three 
minutes remains on the minority side.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask that I may speak in morning 
business on the Democratic side.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is recognized.

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