[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Page 29685]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday we reached another tragic 
milestone in Iraq. It seems it never stops. We lost five young American 
soldiers. That means 2007 has been the deadliest year for our troops in 
the entire war. In just a few months, we will be starting the sixth 
year of this war. We have almost completed 5 years of the war. Our 
thoughts have to be, as they should be, with the families of the five 
latest American victims of the civil war in Iraq. Our hearts go out to 
the families--several score have been Nevada families--a total of about 
almost 3,900 now, young men and women who have lost their lives, and to 
the more than 30,000 who have been gravely wounded.
  This war has caused so much suffering in America where losses 
continue to rise, not only in the loss of life and injury to our 
valiant troops but our Treasury. The Joint Economic Committee is going 
to come out with a report soon showing it to be in the trillions of 
dollars this war has cost our country. That means our Treasury is going 
to be depleted for generations to come.
  No one doubts that our military is battered, scarred, and stretched 
to the limit. And let's not forget about what is going on in Iraq. It 
is estimated that 2 million people have left the country. This was a 
country of about 25 million people when the invasion took place. We 
learned today that 2.3 million civilians are now displaced, fleeing 
from their homes, their neighborhoods, their schools, places of 
worship. Violence is down, and certainly that is important and good, 
but many of the experts are saying one reason the violence is down is 
that so much ethnic cleansing has already taken place. It is true they 
found 35 or 40 dead bodies today, and they are still finding them--not 
to the amount they were finding before. They were finding more than 100 
a day. Many of the areas have been ethnically cleansed.
  Two-thirds of the displaced are children under the age of 12. This 
humanitarian crisis rages with no end in sight. Two-thirds of the 2.3 
million displaced are kids under 12. By the most critical benchmarks, 
President Bush's flawed strategy on Iraq is making America not more 
secure but less secure.
  We are seeing no signs of meaningful progress on political 
reconciliation, which is the key to success in Iraq. We have a civil 
war going on with the Palestinians. Two factions are at war. We have 
Lebanon, in effect, with an election that cannot be held because of 
civil strife in that country. We have Iran which is causing trouble in 
the whole region. And if a civil war in Iraq were not bad enough, now 
we have 100,000 Turkish troops who have gathered on the northern 
borders of Iraq.
  Our brave troops, more than 160,000 of them, are giving everything 
they have to this war. Far too many of them have been buried; far too 
many face lives forever marred by physical and psychological wounds. 
Yet for all of our troops' sacrifice and suffering, Iraqi politicians 
are doing basically nothing. President Bush has said: As they step up, 
we stand down. They have not stepped up.
  What better reminder do we need than the crisis in Pakistan that the 
world can change overnight? It is time to rebuild our military to 
refocus on the war on terror and the grave challenges that face us 
throughout the globe, not just in Iraq. We must repair the readiness of 
the Army and Marine Corps, the finest fighting force in the world, but 
a force that is under great strain. One only need look at the leader of 
the Army, General Casey. He is saying that right now, and he has 
testified under oath to that effect. We must be prepared to respond to 
new challenges. We must have the strength and flexibility to promote 
freedom and defend human rights when they are attacked. We must refocus 
our efforts on bin Laden and al-Qaida who threaten our safety, and it 
is long past time to give our troops the hero's welcome they so bravely 
earned. They need to come home.
  After years of the Republican underfunding of veterans' care, 
Democrats have provided $4 billion above the President's request to 
make this failure right. President Bush remains obstinate. His allies 
in Congress have remained loyal. They have blocked our efforts so far, 
but we will continue fighting to give our troops and all Americans the 
new course in Iraq they deserve.

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