[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 2383]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          IRAQ WAR RESOLUTIONS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, for a week now we have had this 
speculation, the rumors, and then finally the deliberations in front of 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of a resolution disapproving the 
President's increase of the forces by 21,000 in Iraq. A resolution was 
passed out on a vote of something like 12 to 9 yesterday. It was 
bipartisan in the passing, but it was basically a partisan vote. Save 
for one member of the minority on the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, all of the minority voted against the resolution. But almost 
to a person, all of the members of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, both sides of the aisle, had expressed their 
dissatisfaction, individually in their statements in front of the 
committee, with the President's intention to increase the number of 
troops, which is already underway, as we know, as we have been reading 
the commentary in the press.
  So we have that resolution. Then we have a resolution introduced by 
Senator Warner. This Senator from Florida looks at these two 
resolutions, and they are almost identical. So this Senator is one of 
several Senators who has cosponsored both resolutions. This Senator is 
one of several Senators who has been trying to bring the two together 
to be folded into one, since it basically, in substance, is the same 
thing in both of them. Yet for one reason or another, that has not been 
accomplished.
  Therefore, next week, we expect both of those resolutions to come in 
front of the Senate. At this moment, it looks as if it will be the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee product that will then be amendable 
and I suppose with a substitute amendment. Then we go through all the 
amendatory process. Now, that may be the way the Senate will work its 
will, but it is not necessarily the way it could be done the easiest, 
if we could have great minds come together in a bipartisan way on two 
resolutions that virtually say the same thing.
  I bring this up simply to say we get so wound around the axle and so 
worked up over the particular number of troops when, in fact, looking 
at the underlying conditions in the Middle East and in Iraq, where 
there is so much at stake for our country: The oil and gas in that 
region, the east-west trade routes that go through the area, all of the 
international capital investment that is in that region of the world, 
and all of the capital that is produced that flows out of that part of 
the world--all of that instability in the region, brought about as a 
result of instability in Iraq, is going to have a major global impact.
  The former commander, the former combatant commander of the U.S. 
Central Command, General Tony Zinni, a now retired 4-star Marine 
general who served as the head of Central Command back under the 
Clinton administration, has written extensively on this, and he points 
out that there is a complexity we have unleashed by going into Iraq 
that is not only the Sunni-Shiite conflict but also the Arab-Persian 
conflict. General Zinni, in his upfront, blunt-talking way says:

       There are three options in Iraq: Fix it, contain it, or 
     leave it.

  And he doesn't feel, and this Senator doesn't feel, that we can take 
the third option of picking up and leaving it because of the enormous 
consequences. And if we can't fix it, we have to contain it, but then 
you are going to have to own that containment and have a containment 
strategy executed by the United States because the region can't do it 
for itself. And containment, according to General Zinni, is very messy 
and is probably much tougher in the long run.
  So perhaps as we discuss next week these two resolutions over the 
issue of 21,000 troops, let's remember that in the long run, for us to 
be successful in stabilizing Iraq, we have to look to additional issues 
that have to be solved, such as the economics there, the diplomacy, the 
security--a lot of what the Iraq Study Commission has come forward with 
in their plan. And let's also understand that as we talk about what we 
want to do to stabilize Iraq in getting the Iraqi security forces able 
to provide their own security, that getting them provided with guns and 
other equipment isn't going to provide the security that you need 
because, the Iraqi security forces need civil affairs and psychological 
operations and counterintelligence and intelligence forces. They are 
going to have to have civil affairs moving in behind their military 
operations in order to paint buildings and create infrastructure so 
there will be something positive left behind.
  Remember, the doctrine under Secretary Rumsfeld was ``clear, hold, 
and build.'' The problem was, they cleared an area, but they never held 
it. They never got around to the point of building. General Petraeus 
said yesterday in our committee we were going to go in and clear, hold, 
and then we have to be able to build. Whether we talk about 21,000 
troops or not, you cannot build in the midst of sectarian violence of 
Shia, Sunnis, and the overall Arab-Persian conflict. Until we address 
these issues, at the end of the day, Iraq is not going to be 
stabilized. In a destabilized society, a priority has to be in 
rebuilding institutions in social, economic, and political areas.
  One of the things the United States may consider increasing its 
emphasis on, since we have so many agencies of government there all 
doing their own thing, is an interagency coordinating mechanism to help 
bring everything together so, indeed, ``clear, hold, and build'' has an 
opportunity to be executed and then, hopefully, an opportunity to 
succeed.
  I wanted to offer some additional ideas, a lot of which have been 
inspired by General Zinni, someone who understands how to operate in 
that part of the world as we debate next week the resolutions over 
whether we would indicate our approval of the President's plan. Maybe 
when we debate that, we can debate the deficiencies of not only what 
has been done in the past but what we have to do in the future in order 
to give that country an opportunity to stabilize.
  I hope it is not too late. I must say, this Senator feels at times it 
is too late, particularly with these almost 1,500 years of sectarian 
violence that occurred after the death of Mohammed in the 600s A.D., 
that it was the rebellion started by his son-in-law that ultimately led 
to the Shiite sect which was born out of rebellion and wanting to get 
revenge. We have seen that play out over centuries and centuries. 
Again, we are seeing it play out now in Iraq. But we must be optimists 
and we must try, for the stakes are exceptionally high.

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