[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1671-1673]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to talk a little bit about the 
situation in Iraq and how we are trying to deal with this as a nation. 
We need to start with, when we are discussing Iraq, what are our 
national interests and why are we engaged there.
  Our basic national interest in Iraq is the protection of America, our 
desire to make sure that we are projecting our purposes in a way that 
reduces the ability of those who would wish to do us harm in this war 
against us, which was declared in the late 1990s, when it was obviously 
brought to our shores on September 11, that in that war we are best 
postured to make sure terrorists, specifically Islamic fundamentalists 
who wish to do us harm, are not successful. That is the first purpose 
of our engagement in Iraq.
  The second purpose, of course, is to make sure our troops, who are 
engaged in pursuing this war on the ground in Iraq, are adequately 
funded and given the support they need in order to do their job and not 
be exposed to risks which would occur were they not adequately funded 
and supported.
  It has been 5 years since we were attacked. That is the good news, 
that we have not been attacked for 5 years. Obviously, some of that is 
good fortune and luck, I suspect. But a lot of that is the result of a 
policy which has essentially said we are going to find the terrorists 
before they can find us, and we are going to bring them to justice. And 
we are going to also try to initiate a process where we establish, in 
the Middle East, an attitude that respects democracy, respects 
individual rights, respects the rights of women, and respects the 
approach of a marketplace economy.
  In Iraq, we have attempted to accomplish that, and much has occurred 
in Iraq that has been good, although, obviously, there is a lot there 
that has occurred that has been unfortunate, and there have been 
mistakes made. But the fact is, they have gone through major election 
processes. They have elected a government. They have had a number of 
elections, where a large percentage of the population participated. 
Women have been allowed out of the household and are participating in 
society.
  It remains, however, a nation which is torn by religious strife and 
cultural and deep ethnic differences. We have not been successful in 
being able to resolve that and nor have the Iraqi people been able to 
do that through their democratic process.
  But the question becomes for us--in light of the President's request 
that there be an increase of troops, called the surge, of potentially 
20,000 troops, especially concentrated in the Baghdad area, to try to 
bring more stability to that region--how do we approach this as we move 
down the road?
  Well, I think we have to, as we approach this, keep in context what 
is our goal. Our goal is to protect us--America--from attacks by 
radical fundamental Islamic movements and individuals, terrorists 
specifically, and to make sure our troops, who are in the field, are 
adequately protected and have the support they need in order to do 
their job correctly.
  A precipitous, immediate pullout, which is the proposal that has come 
from the other side in a number of different scenarios, would, I 
suspect, lead to a number of results which would not be acceptable to 
us and would undermine our basic purpose, which is to protect America 
from further attack and to protect our soldiers who are in the field 
protecting us.
  How do you manage a precipitous pullout that does not immediately 
lead to chaos in Iraq, where the sectarian and religious violence has 
escalated dramatically, where the potential that a client state of Iran 
will be set up, at least over a portion of Iraq, where safe havens will 
occur and result for al-Qaida in other portions of Iraq, and where even 
greater numbers of people--even though that may seem hard to 
understand--but where even greater numbers of people may die in Iraq, 
where a massive civil war, potentially in catastrophic proportions in 
relation to the population there, will precipitate?
  I do not see how you avoid those occurrences if you immediately 
withdraw. An immediate withdrawal also leads to the issue of what 
happens to the troops who are left behind. You cannot get 130,000 
troops out of Iraq overnight. It is going to take, even under the 
scenario laid out here by the Democratic leadership, 8 to 12 months to 
accomplish that. And if you are doing that in a compressed time--as is 
proposed by the recent language that has been put forward by some of 
our colleagues--if you compress that time, you are going to leave some 
troops behind at significant risk, much more significant risk than if 
they have the support mechanisms they need in order to do the job 
right.
  Is the surge the right approach? Is this concept of 20,000 troops 
going to resolve this? Is that going to lead us to an Iraq that is more 
stable? I do not know the answer to that question. I have deep 
reservations that that is going to accomplish that goal. I have to 
admit, I suspect if we are able to stabilize certain sections of 
Baghdad, divided into nine districts, as is proposed--stabilize them in 
sequence or in parallel--that as you stabilize one district, you are 
going to push the people who are causing the problems into another 
place. It is not as if they are going to disappear or even probably be, 
for the most part, corralled. They are simply going to move.
  So I am not sure it is going to accomplish its goal. But I do know 
this: It is the proposal put forward by the people who are on the 
ground and to whom we have given the responsibility of trying to 
address this issue of how you deal with an Iraq in the context of the 
problems which it has. To take the other option is to lead inevitably 
to a dramatic problem that will be immediate, both for us as a nation, 
because it will give potentially safe haven to al-Qaida and create an 
Iran client state, and it will also lead to what I suspect would be a 
huge explosion in the area of civil war.
  So although I have reservations, I, also, am not about to vote to cut 
off the support for the troops who are in the field. Now, I do not 
command those troops. I am a Senator. I am not the commander of the 
troops. The President is Commander in Chief. He has literally the 
unilateral authority to pursue this course of action, unless we vote as 
a Senate to cut off funding. And the practical implications of us doing 
that would mean that troops in the field would not have the money they 
need in order to undertake their own protection. That would be the 
result of us cutting off funds.
  That is a vote I am never going to take or support because the first 
obligation we have is to those soldiers who are in the field. You may 
disagree with the Commander in Chief's position, but I do not think 
that as people who are charged with the responsibility of funding the 
troops in the field, that you take that disagreement to the point of 
putting them at risk. So that would not be a vote that I think would be 
a good vote for us, as a Congress, to take.
  But it appears to me--listening to the debate as it has evolved 
here--there are some who wish to have it sort of both ways. They want 
to be able to say one thing but not do what they say. I almost am of 
the view that we should engage this at the level of substance, and we 
should have that vote. I am not going to vote for it, but we should 
have that vote. We should say: OK, if it is the position of the 
Democratic Party that they want to cut off funds to the troops in the 
field, if they feel that should be the course of action, so be it.

[[Page 1672]]

  I happen to be attracted, more appropriately, or more positively, to 
the proposals of the Iraq Study Group. I think they have laid out a 
blueprint for us to pursue. I am not sure that is going to lead to 
anything that fundamentally resolves the problem in Iraq, as the 
problem in Iraq is religious and it is ethnic and it is cultural and it 
goes back a long way. But at least they have laid out a roadmap. I will 
not use that word because that word, obviously, has other implications. 
They have laid out a blueprint we can pursue and I believe we should 
pursue.
  I, for example, think we should engage both Iran and Syria in 
diplomacy. I agree with former Secretary of State Baker on that point. 
The way you engage them--of course, that does not instantaneously give 
them credibility, but there are ways to engage governments that are so 
antithetical to us, as has been shown over the years, without giving 
them inordinate credibility as a result of that engagement. And I think 
that is appropriate.
  So there are processes we could follow. But we have to, under any 
circumstances, get back to what is our basic purpose, I believe, as 
governors--and I use that term in the generic sense--and it is, A, No. 
1, to protect this Nation from another attack. And that means finding 
the terrorists before they find us and bringing them to justice. And 
the effort in Iraq was a legitimate and appropriate effort to try to 
support the construction of a state in the middle of the Middle East 
which would subscribe to democratic values, which would give its people 
the opportunity to have a pluralistic society, where individuals are 
respected, especially women, and as a result to build a center from 
which we would have the capacity to undermine the Islamic 
fundamentalist movement's philosophy that Western values are 
fundamentally at variance with the Muslim religion and the Muslim way 
of life. And I believe that is still a legitimate and valued purpose.
  But it all comes back to how it protects us. And it protects us by 
creating an atmosphere where we can go to the Muslim world and say we 
are not your enemy, but we are actually an opportunity for you to have 
a better lifestyle, if you follow the course of action of liberty, 
freedom, individual rights, rights for women, and a market-oriented 
approach. That protects us. And that should be our first goal: the 
protection of America from further attack.
  We should respect the fact that this administration has succeeded for 
5 years in protecting us. Some of that is good fortune, as I said, but 
a lot of it is the fact that we have reached beyond our borders to find 
them before they could find those who wish to do us harm.
  The second purpose must be to make sure the troops who are in the 
field have the support they need, not only financial and technical and 
logistical support but the moral support they need, so they know they 
are fighting for what is an American cause and is going to keep America 
safe--which they are. And we need to respect them. They are 
extraordinary young men and women who are on the frontlines of this war 
against terrorism and who are doing exceptional service for us.
  So that is a brief outline of my thoughts on this matter. I notice, 
in the concurrent resolution which was submitted by some of our 
colleagues, they stated that the primary objective of the strategy of 
the United States in Iraq should be to have the Iraq political leaders 
make political compromise necessary to end the violence in Iraq. That 
is an objective, but that is not our primary objective. To make 
compromise? Whom are they going to compromise with, al-Qaida? Are they 
going to compromise with Iran?
  That is not our objective. Our objective is to, hopefully, have an 
Iraq that is democratic, is pluralistic, and that is reasonably stable, 
that is not a client state of Iran, that is not a safe haven for al-
Qaida.
  Our primary purpose in Iraq is to create an atmosphere in the Middle 
East where people will look at democracy, at liberty and say: It works. 
Even though I am Muslim, that works for me as a Muslim--where women 
have a chance to pursue their options, where market forces work.
  Our other primary purpose in Iraq must be to make sure our soldiers, 
who are fighting for us and protecting us and who are engaged there, 
are properly supported as long as they are there. Our Commander in 
Chief has made a decision to move additional troops in there; and that 
those troops are equally supported.
  It is, obviously, a difficult and torturous issue for us as a nation 
because we are a good nation. We do believe genuinely--I ask unanimous 
consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, will the Senator from New Hampshire yield 
for a question?
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if I could complete a quick thought and 
then turn to the Senator for his question, my thought was this: This is 
obviously a torturous issue for us as a nation, because we are 
basically a very good people. And our history shows that when we use 
force, we use it for the purposes of trying to free people, of giving 
people more options and a better lifestyle. We did it during World War 
I and World War II, and we did it throughout the Cold War. Our success 
is extraordinary. We have never sought territorial gain, and we do not. 
We seek to give people the opportunity to pursue the liberties and 
freedoms which were defined so brilliantly by our Founding Fathers. 
When we see something such as Iraq, where there seems to be such an 
inability of the culture to grasp these concepts, even though we are 
trying as hard as we can to give them that option, it is difficult.
  But we still can't take our eye off the ball, which is to basically 
recognize that we are doing this for our national defense, as we try to 
stabilize a region that represents an immediate threat to us and has 
already damaged us more than any other event in our history has damaged 
us, other than potentially Pearl Harbor, and that we have troops in the 
field who need to be supported.
  I yield to the Senator from Texas for a question.
  Mr. CORNYN. I agree with the argument the Senator from New Hampshire 
has made about the importance of our prosecuting the war against terror 
and particularly what has been called by the terrorists themselves 
``the central front in the war on terror'' in Iraq.
  Some of our colleagues have introduced a resolution, which the 
Senator has spoken to, which is a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate 
resolution. I heard others this morning talk about imposing caps on the 
number of troops we might deploy there.
  I ask the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, if it is so 
important that we not fail in Iraq and that the region not descend into 
either a failed state or a launching pad for future terrorist attacks 
or a regional conflict ensue, does he not believe it would be important 
for those who criticize the President's announced plan to offer a 
constructive alternative of their own, if they believe that the 
President's chosen plan is not the best course of action?
  Mr. GREGG. Answering the Senator through the Chair, that seems to me 
to be the logical approach. As I mentioned earlier, there are some who 
seem to want the language of opposition but don't want the 
responsibility of opposition. If the case is that some believe we 
should have immediate withdrawal, then that ought to be put on the 
table in a context which would have the force of law and effect, and 
let us vote on that. I would vote against it, but let us vote on it.
  Mr. CORNYN. If the Senator will yield for one final question.
  Mr. GREGG. Yes, I yield to the Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Notwithstanding the fact that we have a number of our 
colleagues running for President of the United States in 2008, and 
notwithstanding the fact that obviously we have Senators of different 
party affiliation, Republican and Democrat, isn't a matter of national 
security exactly the kind of issue that should rise above partisan 
divisions and upon which we should work to find common ground so we can 
protect the national security of

[[Page 1673]]

the United States? I ask the Senator whether he believes that perhaps 
we have let our guard down and let this discourse become too political 
in nature rather than solution oriented?
  Mr. GREGG. Responding to the Senator through the Chair, the Senator 
makes a good point. My big concern goes to the morale of the troops in 
the field. What are they thinking? What are they thinking as a young 
19-, 20-, 22-year-old soldier in Iraq today when they hear this 
discourse going forward and they are asked to go out on patrol, and 
they are told that maybe the troops their military leadership says it 
needs to support them is an issue? It is a legitimate issue as to how 
long we should allow this to hang out there. Let's have the debate. 
Let's resolve our national position as to what it is going to be, at 
least for the next year, if we get that far, and resolve it so that we 
know where we are; otherwise, we do harm to our national policy, 
because it is so disruptive to have this many voices at the same time 
claiming legitimacy and, more importantly, it does harm to our troops 
in the field, which is my primary concern.
  I thank the Senator from Texas for his questions and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

                          ____________________