[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18661-18663]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, the American people have demanded a 
new direction in Iraq, and the momentum building toward that change is 
strong. It is not difficult to understand why. More than 3,600 brave 
American troops have lost their lives. Tens of thousands have returned 
home gravely injured--gravely injured. The war now costs Americans $10 
billion every

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month in Iraq, with total spending now exceeding that of the Vietnam 
war. It has ruined our international standing.
  Despite all this, little has changed on the ground. Violence has 
worsened. Sectarian fighting goes on virtually unabated, with deadly 
attacks taking a severe and relentless toll. While courageous Americans 
die, Iraqi politicians argue and stall.
  Leaving U.S. troops caught in the morass of Iraq has not made that 
country more secure and, more important, it does not make our country 
more secure. To stay President Bush's course will continue to cost our 
men and women in uniform their lives and their physical and mental 
health. It will continue to drain our national Treasury and further 
erode what little good will remains for America around the world. It 
will leave our military with overstrained troops, overstressed 
families, and equipment and resources in disrepair. We are breaking our 
military in Iraq.
  It is time for a change. The American people know this. Democrats 
and, to their credit, many Republicans in this Congress know this. 
Anyone who is listening or looking with clear eyes knows this. Yet 
after years of misjudgments, years of misleading slogans, years of 
misplaced priorities, and years of failure, this President still 
refuses to do what he must do: Change course in Iraq and bring our 
courageous American troops home.
  Just the other day, the President reasserted his intention to stay 
the course, to continue this war indefinitely, an open-ended 
commitment, a blank check, with no prospects for redeployment or a new 
direction. Again, President Bush has failed to listen to the millions 
of Americans who have called on him and who have called on us to bring 
the war to an end. Enough is enough. It is time for a change.
  Mr. President, a Member of this body recently said this about our 
Nation's course in Iraq:

       In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the 
     current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be 
     achieved. Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy 
     will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of 
     protecting our vital interests over the long-term.

  I happen to agree with those words spoken by the very distinguished 
Senator, Richard Lugar of Indiana, but what I like the most about them 
is the voice of reason and thoughtfulness they impart to this debate. 
There has been too little of that to date. The questions we face over 
this war in Iraq are serious questions, and they demand seriousness and 
reason from those who would grapple with them. Senator Lugar's 
statement reflects that thoughtfulness, reflects that reason, in the 
midst of a debate which has all too often been characterized by a lack 
of those characteristics.
  Look at this administration, which too often communicates not with 
reason but with slogans and sound bites: ``Stay the course.'' ``Global 
war on terror.'' ``Cut and run.'' ``Precipitous withdrawal.'' People 
watching this continuing debate, mark when you hear the phrase 
``precipitous withdrawal.'' You are hearing the end of reason, and 
sloganeering. This is no service to the people of our country, not when 
serious and difficult problems must be solved. Just look where this 
slogan leadership has gotten us so far. It is a dishonor roll of 
failure: weapons of mass destruction, nonexistent; occupation planning, 
incompetence; reconstruction efforts, failed; the strain on our troops 
and their families, disabling; the treatment of our wounded troops, 
disgraceful; expenditures, massive; fraud, run rampant; the confidence 
of the American people, forfeited after cascades of false optimism and 
phony good news.
  It is time, as Senator Lugar's words exemplify, to pursue 
intelligent, thoughtful, and realistic decisions about our course in 
Iraq, decisions that will protect our national interest. It is time to 
put the slogans away and thoughtfully extricate ourselves from a 
disastrous mess.
  I hope we can take these steps forward in the Senate together. I am 
encouraged that several Republican friends have stated clearly that 
they cannot support the President's failed course in Iraq and are 
seeking real change.
  As I have said many times in this Chamber, our strategy to effect 
change in Iraq requires the rapid and responsible redeployment of our 
troops. As I told the President directly when I met with him several 
months ago, I see the prospect of U.S. redeployment as the most 
powerful force at our disposal in this conflict now. That prospect of 
redeployment of American troops will eliminate the insurgents' argument 
that America is an occupying army, taking away from them a powerful 
recruiting tool for militant extremists. It will spur Iraq's political 
leaders to step forward, to quit slow-walking us through their own 
civil war and take responsibility for the security and governance of 
their own country. It will confront neighboring nations with a real 
impetus to assume more positive roles in assuring the region's 
stability. It will help restore the faith of the world in the 
leadership, the integrity, the good judgment, and the good will of our 
great country.
  The President's surge plan is not the new direction Americans are 
calling for. It is a tactic--a tactic that can only be effective as 
part of a larger coherent strategy. And strategy, in turn, largely 
depends on whether the overarching dynamic works in America's favor. In 
this regard, America is presently on the worst possible footing.
  A redeployment of our troops creates the potential to change this 
overarching dynamic for the better, freeing us to focus on more 
effective strategies to counter al-Qaida and to stabilize the region. 
Iraqi leaders will have to reach compromises with each other because 
their vision for their country's future will no longer be drawn with a 
major U.S. military presence in it. In the time it will take to bring 
our massive deployment of troops home, we can send a clear signal to 
Iraqi leaders and to Iraq's neighbors that America is standing down and 
it is time for them to stand up. We can help them do that.
  This is a critical step, and thoughtful, reasoned, political, and 
diplomatic leadership will be essential to take advantage of the new 
dynamic a redeployment offers. I will confess that I am deeply troubled 
that this administration may not have the credibility it needs to 
accomplish this difficult task, even if it were of a mind to try.
  This Congress can help set favorable conditions for executive action. 
We cannot legislate diligence, we cannot legislate thoughtfulness, we 
cannot legislate competence, and it is not clear that this 
administration is viewed as capable of those qualities any longer. It 
may take new faces and new voices to represent our country credibly in 
this process. Fortunately, there are many talented and accomplished 
people in this country whose perspectives and experience can help build 
America's credibility and prestige around the world. It will be a 
significant diplomatic challenge, but it presents a significant--
perhaps historic--diplomatic opportunity.
  That executive responsibility--the need to put ourselves in that 
diplomatic arena--does not relieve us in the Senate of our duty to 
continue to press forcefully on behalf of the millions of Americans who 
demanded a change in Iraq, to apply reason, thought, and our best care 
and judgment to a problem that has not yielded to sloganeering. We will 
keep the pressure on this President and his administration, whose 
inability to admit failure is leading our precious Nation deeper and 
deeper into disaster in Iraq.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, first, what a remarkable ally the junior 
Senator from Rhode Island has been these few months he has been in the 
Senate. For his eloquence and help on many issues--particularly this 
issue--I thank him. I greatly enjoyed listening to his remarks.
  It has been 52 months since military operations began in Iraq. We 
have now been engaged in the Iraq war longer than we were in World War 
II. Approximately 3,600 Americans have died and 25,000 have been 
wounded. More than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes,

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and tens of thousands, at a minimum, have been killed. With President 
Bush's surge well underway, violence in Iraq has exploded to 
unprecedented levels and American troop fatalities are up 70 percent. 
In short, from all sides, the situation in Iraq is an unmitigated 
disaster.
  As if that weren't bad enough, our national security continues to 
suffer as the administration's single-minded focus on Iraq prevents us 
from adequately confronting threats of extremism and terrorism around 
the globe. Indeed, violence and instability continue to fester 
elsewhere at a great cost to our national security.
  Last November, when the American people cast their ballots, they 
expressed their opposition to this war loudly and clearly. As the 
situation continues to deteriorate, they have raised their voices still 
louder. I know my colleagues hear their voices, as more and more of 
them step forward to call for a long overdue change of course.
  At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, those voices continue to 
fall on deaf ears. Time and again, the President has made it clear that 
nothing--not the wishes of the American people, not the advice of 
military foreign policy experts, not the concerns of members of both 
parties--will discourage him from pursuing a misguided war that has no 
end in sight.
  Congress cannot wait for this President to change course in Iraq 
because you and I know he has no intention of doing so. He has made it 
clear that he will continue to pursue massive military engagement 
despite the wishes of the American people, despite the fact that our 
military is stretched to the breaking point, and despite the fact that 
our presence in Iraq has been, according to our own State Department, 
``used as a rallying cry for radicalization and extremist activity in 
neighboring countries.''
  So it is up to us in Congress to listen to the American people, to 
save American lives, and to ensure our Nation's security by redeploying 
our troops from Iraq. We have the power and we have the responsibility 
to act, and to act now. That is why I will support the amendment 
offered by Senators Levin and Jack Reed. By passing binding deadlines 
for both beginning and ending redeployment, the Senate can take a 
strong step toward bringing our involvement in this war to a close.
  I especially applaud Senators Hagel, Smith, and Snowe for putting 
principle ahead of party by cosponsoring this amendment. I hope their 
example inspires still more Senators to realize that it is not enough 
to just criticize the war or just call on the President to change 
course and that we don't need to--in fact, we cannot afford to--wait 
for more reports and more time before taking decisive action.
  The Levin-Reed amendment doesn't go as far as I would like. I am 
concerned that the exception in the amendment, particularly for 
``providing logistical support'' to Iraqi troops, would give the 
administration too much wiggle room to ``repackage'' its military 
mission instead of redeploying our brave servicemembers. Nonetheless, I 
am pleased to see so many colleagues--on both sides of the aisle--
recognizing, at last, that the President's course in Iraq has failed, 
that Congress needs to act, and that we can and must safely redeploy 
our troops.
  Other amendments that have been proposed fall short because they 
don't require the troops to be redeployed. It is not enough to pass 
something that sounds good but doesn't move us toward ending the war. 
Weak, feel-good amendments may give people political comfort, but that 
won't last long. We can fool ourselves, but we can't fool the American 
people.
  Mr. President, it is increasingly clear that the war in Iraq has 
become the defining aspect of our engagement in this part of the world 
and that it, coupled with this administration's inconsistent efforts to 
promote democracy and the rule of law, has unfortunately alienated and 
angered those whose support and cooperation we need if we are to 
prevail against al-Qaida and its allies.
  Our role in the war in Iraq has generated a level of political 
turbulence throughout the region and beyond. It has given way to a new 
variety of al-Qaida-style militants. These militants are gaining 
prominence in many countries that have traditionally been our allies. 
The longer we remain in Iraq, the longer these new strains of extremism 
will threaten the security of the region and, in turn, threaten our 
Nation. As long as the President's policies continue, Iraq will 
continue to be what the declassified National Intelligence Estimate 
calls a ``cause celebre'' for a new generation of terrorists.
  Al-Qaida and its affiliates are not a one-country franchise. Yet this 
administration continues to pretend otherwise, such as calling Iraq the 
central front in the war on terror. Al-Qaida's networks have not 
relinquished their global fight to focus exclusively on Iraq. By 
deploying our troops from Iraq, we can focus on developing a 
comprehensive global strategy to combat them around the globe.
  As I said, the administration's policies in Iraq are an unmitigated 
disaster. But there is a way to mitigate that disaster, to lessen the 
burdens it is imposing on our troops, our national security, our 
taxpayers, and our country. And that is to redeploy our troops from 
Iraq.
  There is no reason to delay this decision until September. We know 
now what we will know then, and we know it isn't pretty. We have 
already read in the Pentagon's first quarterly surge report that 
violence has increased throughout much of the country in recent months, 
and we know there is no military solution to Iraq's problems. The only 
question is how long we are prepared to wait and how many Americans we 
are willing to have killed before we act.
  As my colleagues know, the majority leader and I have introduced 
legislation that would safely redeploy our troops by setting a date, 
after which our funding for the war would be ended. That is what 
Congress did in 1993 with respect to our military mission in Somalia. I 
continue to believe we must be prepared to take that step again to 
finally put an end to the war in Iraq.
  However, if the Levin-Reed amendment wins the support of a majority 
of the Senate, I believe that will be an important step forward, and I 
will likely not insist on a vote on the Feingold-Reid amendment at that 
time. If our efforts to end the war don't succeed, however, I will 
offer Feingold-Reid as an amendment to the Department of Defense 
appropriations bill when it is considered by the Senate. Of course, I 
hope that will not be necessary, but it will depend on whether enough 
of my colleagues are prepared to back up their words with action, to 
listen to the American people, and to say enough is enough.
  This war doesn't make sense. It is hurting our country, and it is 
time to end it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Nebraska). The Senator from 
Alabama may proceed in morning business.

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