[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 2481]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  NOMINATION OF GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I regret that commitments in North 
Dakota prevented me from voting on the nomination of David H. Petraeus 
to be promoted to the rank of General in the U.S. Army and to be 
commander of Multinational Forces Iraq.
  If present, I would have voted in favor of General Petraeus's 
nomination.
  I believe General Petraeus is well-qualified to command in Iraq. He 
was unanimously approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee because 
of his leadership skills and his operational experience. And he is 
widely recognized as one of the military's top experts on 
counterinsurgency operations.
  He is an excellent choice to be entrusted with the operational 
command and welfare of over 130,000 American servicemembers who are in 
the middle of a bloody sectarian battle over the future of Iraq. He is 
familiar with the situation in that country from his experiences as an 
infantry division commander during and immediately after the invasion 
of Iraq, and from his tenure as the commander of U.S. efforts to train 
and equip Iraqi security forces. Altogether, he has served 27 months in 
Iraq since the war began.
  I was impressed by the fact that General Petraeus promised to 
regularly update Congress on whether the President's new plan in Iraq 
is working and on how much progress the Iraqi Government is making 
toward assuming responsibility for security.
  But my support for General Petraeus's nomination should not be taken 
as support for the President's decision to send additional soldiers and 
marines to Iraq and to escalate our military involvement there.
  I am very skeptical that the President's plan to send 21,500 
additional troops to Iraq is going to work.
  I have listened to what President Bush and his advisers have said 
about the subject, and I listened to what General Petreaus said during 
his confirmation hearing. But I do not think they have adequately 
explained away the Senate testimony given less than 2 months ago by 
General Abizaid, the top commander of American troops in Iraq. In 
November General Abizaid said:

       I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the 
     corps commander, General Dempsey. We all talked together. And 
     I said, ``In your professional opinion, if we were to bring 
     in more American troops now, does that add considerably to 
     our ability to achieve success in Iraq?'' And they all said 
     no. The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It 
     is 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.

  Has that changed? Has something changed in 2 months? The question for 
us now is: Should American troops be in the middle of that civil war? 
Should we send additional troops to that circumstance? If so, for what 
purpose? And why the change only two months after General Abizaid said 
the commanders do not believe additional troops will be effective?
  That issue is going to be debated here in Congress in the coming 
weeks. All of us in that debate want to find the right solution for 
this country to support our soldiers, make the right choices for them, 
and make the right judgments for our country's long-term interests. I 
believe that sending General Petreaus to Iraq will help accomplish 
that. I wish him well and Godspeed.

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