[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1785-1786]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my distinguished colleague from Arizona is 
speaking about a very important issue and one that we certainly will 
have a discussion about and a debate about in this Congress in the 
coming days, and that is as it should be. We are a democracy with 
divided branches of Government, separation of powers. We have a 
President, a legislative branch, a judicial branch, and there is a role 
here for the legislative branch.
  My colleague suggested this was a circumstance where some were simply 
willing to criticize the President but offer no plan of their own. Then 
he subsequently said the resolution that some of my colleagues will 
offer in the Senate will advocate a different course of action. That is 
a plan, I guess, isn't it? If one advocates a different course of 
action than the President is advocating, it seems to me that is a plan.
  I don't disagree with much of what those who have a different view 
would say about these issues. Most of us want peace in Iraq. We want 
the Iraqis to control their own destiny. We want the Iraqi troops to be 
sufficiently trained so they can provide their own security. We all 
share that goal. We all want our country to succeed in the missions.
  Let me make one very important point. My colleague alluded to it in a 
way different than I would respond to it. During the debate on the 
floor of the Senate I don't think there will be a single Senator who 
stands up and in any way says he wants us to withdraw support for 
American troops. Speaking for myself--and I think for most other 
Senators, perhaps every other Senator--I think Members who serve in 
this Congress believe it is critically important to support our troops. 
When we send men and women in our uniform to go to war, we are 
obligated, it seems to me, to do everything to support them in their 
mission.
  So this debate is not about whether we will support those troops whom 
we have asked to go to war in behalf of our country; we certainly will 
do that. The debate will be about the President's plan for a surge in 
troops or a deepening involvement in Iraq. It is a worthy debate for us 
to have because I think this is obviously a conflict that has gone on a 
long while, longer now than the Second World War. We have had a lot of 
discussion with the military leaders in the field about training Iraqi 
troops to provide for their own security.
  Let's review what has happened in Iraq.
  Saddam Hussein ran Iraq. We now know he was a butcher. We knew it 
then; we know it now. There are hundreds of thousands of skeletons in 
mass graves, of the victims murdered by Saddam Hussein. But Saddam 
Hussein doesn't exist anymore. He was executed. He has been buried.
  There is a new constitution in Iraq, voted for by the Iraqi people. 
There is a new government in Iraq selected by the Iraqi people. This 
country belongs to Iraq, not to us. It is their country, not ours. The 
security for their country is their responsibility, not ours. The 
question for all of us is: When will the Iraqi people decide they are 
able to provide for their own security?
  My colleague says it is a matter of being patient with training the 
Iraqi troops. Perhaps today there is going to be a young man or woman 
who is going to enlist in the Marines and the Army and they will go to 
training. It won't

[[Page 1786]]

be very many months before they are fully trained and maybe committed 
to the battlefield--6 months, 7 months, 8 months. The question is: How 
long does it take to train an Iraqi army and Iraqi security forces to 
provide security for their own country? Years? Can they be trained, as 
American troops are trained, in months rather than years? The answer, 
at least in the last several years, seems to have been no.
  It is very important for us to debate this question of our deepening 
involvement in Iraq. We all know what is going on there. It is 
sectarian violence, Shia on Sunni, Sunni on Shia. Seventy-five more 
people were killed today in Shia neighborhoods, multiple bombings, we 
are told by the news today, 160 wounded. The day before, dozens of 
Iraqis were killed, and 25 American troops were killed in numerous 
attacks. Our hearts break for all of them, particularly the American 
troops, but also for everyone who is losing their life in this 
conflict.
  Suicide car bombers, simultaneous car bombings, beheaded bodies 
floating in the Tigris River, bodies with holes drilled in the heads 
and knees with electric drills, tortured, tortured bodies swinging from 
lampposts in Iraq, we read. It is a cycle of grim violence, unlike any 
most of us have ever seen. It is unbelievable.
  Let me tell you what General Abizaid, who is in charge of CENTCOM, 
said about 6 weeks ago. He came to the Congress--and this relates to 
what my colleague had said and the debate we will have. General Abizaid 
said this:

       I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the 
     Corps commander, General Dempsey . . . and I said, in your 
     professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American 
     troops now, does it add considerably to the ability to 
     achieve success in Iraq? And they said no.

  This isn't an approximation of what the top general said; it is 
exactly what he told the Congress: I met with all of my top generals, 
and I asked them the question, if we were to bring in more troops now, 
does it add to our ability to achieve success? They said no. That's 
what General Abizaid said.
  Let me describe to you what General Abizaid said following that 
comment. Again, this is 2 months ago in testimony before the Senate:

       The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It's 
     easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work. I 
     believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from 
     doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own 
     future.

  Less than 2 months ago, the top general said his top commanders in 
Iraq all said no to bringing in more troops. Why? Because it will say 
to the Iraqis: We will do the job. We will do what we would expect you 
to do.
  As we talk about deepening the American involvement in Iraq and the 
issue of how many troops we are going to have in that battlefield, let 
me turn to another issue. If we have 20,000-plus troops to send to 
Iraq, what about Afghanistan?
  Our military is, as all of us know, fairly overstretched. We are 
calling up guardsmen and reservists and some of them second 
deployments, some of them third deployments all across this country. 
But in Afghanistan, which was the home of al-Qaida, where the Taliban 
ruled and where we went first to route the Taliban and create a 
democracy in Afghanistan, the Taliban, by all accounts, are now taking 
hold once again and creating an even greater threat.
  They are fighting hard to destabilize the Government of Afghanistan. 
That was our first battle, to go into Afghanistan and kick the Taliban 
out. We need more troops in Afghanistan now, not less, and yet my 
understanding is the President's plan would divert troops we have in 
Afghanistan to go to Iraq.
  Let me read something that Mr. John Negroponte, the Director of 
National Intelligence said last week. He testified before the Select 
Committee on Intelligence, and here is what he said:

       Al Qaeda is the terrorist organization that poses the 
     greatest threat to U.S. interests, including to the homeland.

  Al-Qaida is what poses the greatest threat to our interests, 
including our homeland. Then he went on to say this. This is again John 
Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence.

       Al Qaeda continues to plot attacks against our homeland and 
     other targets with the objective of inflicting mass 
     casualties. And they continue to maintain active connections 
     and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' 
     secure hideout in Pakistan.

  Let me reemphasize:

       And they continue to maintain active connections and 
     relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure 
     hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, 
     northern Africa, and Europe.

  What does that mean? Osama bin Laden, do we know him? Yes. He is the 
person who ordered--claimed and boasted--he ordered the attacks against 
this country, killing thousands of innocent Americans. He still lives, 
apparently, in a secure hideout, according to the top intelligence 
chief in this country, in Pakistan. It seems to me the elimination of 
the leadership of al-Qaida, the organization that attacked this 
country, that murdered thousands of innocent Americans, ought to be the 
primary interest of this country. That is why moving away from 
Afghanistan and the related activities that ought to exist in Pakistan 
to deal with what are called ``secure hideouts,'' the secure hideout 
from which al-Qaida operates, that ought to be job No. 1 for this 
country.
  I don't understand. My colleague Senator Conrad and I offered an 
amendment to the Defense appropriations bill last year on this subject. 
Does anybody hear anybody talking about Osama bin Laden anymore? Or 
perhaps better described ``Osama been forgotten'' these days? Nobody 
wants to talk about it.
  Finally, last week the Director of our intelligence in this country 
said al-Qaida is the most significant threat to this country. The most 
significant terrorist threat to this country is al-Qaida, and it 
operates from a secure hideout in Pakistan. If that is true, what are 
we doing, deciding to find 20,000 troops by pulling some of them out of 
Afghanistan and moving them to Iraq? If those troops are available, 
they ought to be dedicated to dealing with al-Qaida and bringing to 
justice those who committed the attacks against this country. I will 
have more to say about that at some point, but I did want to make note 
of what the Director of Intelligence said last week that seems to be 
almost ignored in this debate about Iraq.
  I am going to be talking as well this week about the minimum wage. We 
will have an aggressive discussion about that. That is going to be the 
pending issue of the day.

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