[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3225-3234]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. DODD. Madam President, let me commend my colleague from the State 
of Washington for her comments and her views. I associate myself with 
many of the things she expressed in the Senate. I congratulate her for 
her words, her passion, and her strong feelings about where we stand 
today on this issue.
  Let me also commend the Democratic leader for his efforts to engage 
in what is probably the single most important debate this Senate could 
possibly be engaged in. There are other very important matters at home 
and

[[Page 3226]]

around the globe--but everyone would agree, regardless of your views on 
policy, that the issue of Iraq and where we stand and the effort by the 
President to increase the number of troops on the ground in Iraq, 
particularly to place them in the large, highly densely populated urban 
areas of Iraq, is one of the most serious issues facing our country.
  We have had a series of serious and thought-provoking hearings 
conducted by Chairman Biden of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 
over the last number of weeks on this issue, with people who represent 
a variety of ideological perspectives. Yet without fear of 
contradiction, I believe the overwhelming majority of the witnesses who 
have appeared before that committee have expressed serious reservations 
about this escalation, this surge, placing some 21,000 of our young men 
and women into Baghdad to try and act as a referee in what we all admit 
today is clearly a civil war.
  Having this debate is important. I wish to take, if I can, the few 
minutes allotted to me to express my concerns about the process, my 
concerns about the surge, and my concerns about the overall direction 
of the policy in Iraq. There is not a lot of time to do that, but let 
me share some thoughts.
  First of all, I believe that every Member in this Chamber, regardless 
of his or her view on the issue before the Senate regarding Iraq, would 
do everything he or she could to make sure that our brave men and women 
in uniform, serving in harm's way, would receive everything they could 
possibly need to defend themselves. That ought not to be a debating 
point. I know of no one in this Senate who feels otherwise. And the 
fact that we have to have some discussion about this very point is a 
reflection, I think, of what has gone wrong in this debate already.
  In fact, I point out that over the last 4 years or so, there have 
been amendments offered by those of us here to provide different 
additional resources, such as for body armor, because we felt our 
troops were not getting what they needed. There has been significant 
discussion here in the wake of testimony offered by our senior military 
leaders about what has happened to the combat readiness of our troops 
as a result of our failure to continue to provide the kind of equipment 
and support they deserved over the years. Certainly what has happened 
to veterans coming back has also been the subject of debate. But, 
nonetheless, I believe most Members here, if not all Members here, 
believe our troops deserve the kind of support they ought to have when 
they are serving in harm's way.
  And so, the debate is not whether you support our troops. The debate 
is whether the policy direction the President wishes to lead us in is 
the right one. That is a debate which ought to occur in this Chamber. 
Frankly, in my view, it ought to be a debate that resolves around at 
least a legislative vehicle that might have some meaning to it, some 
bite, some teeth, some reality, some accountability.
  My leaders know I have strong reservations about a sense-of-the-
Senate debate. Now, normally, we have sense-of-the-Senate resolutions 
when there is a consensus that develops. Normally, sense-of-the-Senate 
resolutions are offered around matters that are noncontroversial and we 
wish to express ourselves regarding these matters, so we all sign on or 
virtually everyone signs on.
  I would say if, in fact, the goal here was to get 70 or 80 Members of 
this Chamber--Republicans and Democrats--to sign on to a proposition 
that said we think the surge and escalation is the wrong thing to be 
doing, then the vehicle of a sense-of-the-Senate resolution would have 
value. But I would suggest here we are into the second day of this 
debate and we cannot even decide what sense-of-the-Senate resolution we 
want to debate.
  So if you are sitting out there watching this Chamber at this moment, 
in terms of where we ought to be going and what the effect of what we 
are about to do is, it is rather confusing, to put it mildly, as to 
where we stand in all of this. We cannot even decide what sense-of-the-
Senate resolutions to bring up. If we are going to have a debate around 
here that is meaningful, why not debate something that is meaningful?
  So my concerns are, in many ways, that given this moment in time, 
before these young men and women are placed in harm's way--because I 
know full well, after a quarter of a century here, once they are on the 
ground, once they are in place, the debate changes. The debate changes. 
So if we are truly concerned about dealing with the surge and 
escalation, then I believe we ought to be engaging in a debate that has 
some meaningful outcomes when it comes to the decision of whether we go 
forward.
  I, for one, would like to see a new authorization come to this body 
to be debated. The resolution on which we are operating today is one 
that was crafted 5 years ago. It was fundamentally linked to weapons of 
mass destruction and the conduct of Saddam Hussein. The first argument 
was, of course, a fiction. There were no weapons of mass destruction. 
And the second argument is no longer viable. Saddam Hussein is gone.
  Today, we are being asked to place men and women in uniform in the 
middle of a civil war. It seems to me that if the President of the 
United States wants that to be a policy endorsed by the American people 
through the actions of this body, then we ought to be voting on a 
matter that says this is something we agree with and go forward. That 
would have some meaning to it, it seems to me. If we rejected it, then 
the President would have a strong answer from the Congress about 
whether we are about to continue to finance and support that activity--
again, not undercutting the needs of our troops in harm's way but a 
legitimate debate about a real issue that requires Members to stand up 
and vote yes or no.
  I realize I am in sort of a minority of one or two here who believes 
the vehicles we are choosing to debate over the next several days, if, 
in fact, the debate goes on, are ones that in the final analysis are 
nothing more than really message proposals. If we are highly divided 
over which one to bring up, what is the message, in effect, if we 
cannot even decide which vehicles we want to choose to discuss?
  Regarding the surge itself and regarding the Warner-Levin or Levin-
Warner proposal, I have some problems with the language of that 
proposal. It essentially abdicates the power of the purse. It calls for 
selective diplomacy in the region instead of engaging all of Iraq's 
neighbors. The language opposing the surge is weak to the point of 
being nonexistent. And there is language that suggests that nothing in 
this resolution ought to imply a call for redeployment--something I 
wholeheartedly believe we should be pursuing in a phased manner.
  But those are my concerns about it, both in terms of the process and 
the language under consideration. I realize other Members do not have 
those problems. I respect that. But those are my concerns.
  Now, regarding the surge itself, again this has been stated by others 
who have examined this proposal in great detail, including our senior 
military people and senior diplomats. As I said a moment ago, in 
testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they have 
spoken eloquently about their concerns that this proposal does nothing 
but contribute to the chaos that reins in Iraq.
  There are some 6 million people who live in the city of Baghdad. To 
suggest we are going to send 17,000 or 18,000 service men and women 
into a city of 6 million, where there are at least 23 militias along 
with insurgents, Baathists, hardened criminals, and possibly some al-
Qaida elements, and that we are going to sort this out in a way that is 
going to move us toward a political settlement in the country is I 
believe, frankly, beyond dreaming. I do not think it has any viability 
whatsoever. In fact, I think it contributes to a further escalation of 
the conflict in the country and delays even further what everyone 
agrees must occur: some sort of political accommodation between Shias 
and Sunnis and Kurds--between Shias and Shias, for that matter. The 
idea that placing our troops as a referee in the middle of this civil 
conflict

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is going to get us closer to that result, I think, has been 
successfully argued against by those whom we respect and admire in 
these debates.
  Secondly, may I say that, in fact, if you are trying to encourage 
those elements to get together and you are also trying to encourage 
regional diplomacy to play a role here, then it seems to me we ought to 
be talking about how best we can achieve that. When you have an 
administration that refuses to even engage in any kind of conversation 
or negotiations with governments in the region with which we have 
serious disagreements, then I think we get even further away from the 
suggestions made by the Baker-Hamilton study group on Iraq that 
proposed what I thought were very commonsense, sober, and sound 
recommendations that would allow us to have a greater likelihood of 
achieving the success we ought to be pursuing. I see little likelihood 
of that occurring if, in fact, we are talking about a further military 
escalation of the conflict here. Every single person who has looked at 
the situation in Iraq has drawn the following conclusion: There is no 
military solution--no military solution--in Iraq. So continuing to 
pursue that option, continuing to pursue that particular goal in the 
face of all the evidence to the contrary, I believe is a major, major 
mistake for this country.
  I think this body--the Senate--ought to be on record expressing its 
opinion about it and that we ought to go forward in a meaningful, real, 
accountable way. Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen. In fact, 
we may end this debate without voting on anything at all regarding 
Iraq, as we need to move on to other items that the leadership clearly 
must address in the coming weeks. So we are missing an opportunity, 
other than to express our views, which most people have done. I know of 
no Member in this Chamber who has not spoken out publicly about whether 
they think the surge is the right direction to go in, what alternatives 
they would offer in terms of how we might begin to talk about 
redeployment, and the need for the Iraqis to assume responsibility for 
their own country.
  The American people have also publicly spoken out. They voted for a 
change of course in Iraq last November and according to recent polls, a 
majority of Americans oppose a surge. Now I do not believe polling data 
ought to be the way you conduct foreign policy, but the fact is that 
the American public is exhausted and fed up, to put it mildly, with our 
Iraq policy. And let's consider the following data out of Iraq: Over 80 
percent of the people in that country believe that our continued 
presence in that country contributes to the chaos they are facing, and 
over 60 percent of Iraqis believe it is appropriate to attack American 
service men and women. Over 60 percent of the people in Iraq believe 
that.
  How do you justify supporting an escalation, a surge in our military 
presence, when the very people whom we are told we are trying to help 
in this case believe that, one, we contribute to the chaos, and only a 
slightly smaller number believe it is appropriate to attack our service 
men and women? For the life of me, I do not understand how an American 
President could possibly support a policy that takes us further down 
that road.
  Now we are not just talking about only two options here of escalating 
or leaving. There are policies that come in far between these two. For 
example, there have been suggestions about redeployment, with our 
service men and women filling other roles like training the Iraqi 
military, which was suggested by Baker-Hamilton. I think we should do 
this. We could engage in counterterrorism activities. Border security; 
we could play a very meaningful role in that as well. So there are 
those of us here who believe we ought to be redeploying, bring down 
those numbers, but none of us whom I know of have suggested we ought to 
be just packing our bags over the next 6 months and leaving Iraq. We 
are talking about other roles we can perform, as the 300,000 Iraqi 
soldiers and police take over the responsibility of their country.
  Madam President, I am telling you as I stand before you today, if we 
continue to provide the kind of level of support militarily we are 
engaging in, there is less and less likelihood that the Iraqis are 
going to assume the responsibility, both politically and militarily, to 
take over leadership of their country.
  For those reasons, I urge that we find a means and a vehicle, sooner 
rather than later, for this body--the Senate, this coequal branch of 
Government--to say to the administration and to others: We believe in a 
different direction. We would like a new authorization. We would like 
debate on a meaningful proposal that would allow us to be accounted 
for, yes or no, as to whether you want to move forward.
  Again, with all due respect to those who crafted this, I have no 
greater admiration for any two Members than I do for Carl Levin and 
John Warner, people I have served with here for many years. I respect 
immensely the effort they have engaged in here to try to build a 
proposal that would attract a substantial majority of our colleagues to 
support. If you could do that, then sense-of-the-Senate resolutions 
have value. But I rest my case on what is occurring at the very moment 
I stand before you this afternoon. We are divided here. We have some 
four or five different resolutions. All of them are sense-of-the-Senate 
resolutions. None of them have any meaning in law at all. And we cannot 
seem to come around a single debate. We ought to be having one about 
whether we believe our resources and our young men's and women's lives 
ought to be placed in harm's way. That is the debate which ought to be 
occurring here. It is not occurring yet. I think that is unfortunate. 
It is tragic. My hope is we will find a means to address that in short 
order.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted 
to proceed for such time as I consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator was allotted 15 minutes. Does the 
Senator seek UC for more time?
  Mr. KERRY. Well, I ask that, yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KERRY. I probably will not use more time, but at least I am 
protected. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I listened carefully to the comments of my colleague, 
the Senator from Connecticut. I appreciate the frustration he expressed 
about what has gone on in the last hours here and the difficulty of 
presenting to the country a Senate that appears unable to make up its 
mind about what resolution we ought to vote on.
  The fact is, the last 24 hours in the Senate have not been a profile 
in courage; they have been a profile in politics. Rather than protect 
the troops, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided 
to try to do what they can to protect the President. I think they have 
made an enormous mistake.
  The fact is, if we voted on the Warner resolution, those who support 
the mission, the escalation--but the mission, as the Senator from 
Arizona said--have a chance to vote no, and those who believe the 
escalation is a mistake have an opportunity to vote yes. It just does 
not get any clearer than that.
  No matter what happens with all this argument about the process of 
one resolution versus another resolution, the bottom line is that 
people who on Sunday shows and in hearings stand up and say they oppose 
the escalation were, yesterday, unwilling to allow the Senate to vote 
on that. They were unwilling to have a vote of conscience on the 
question of the direction of this war.
  So rather than protect the troops, those troops who are about to be 
sent into a mission that, in fact, does not resolve the issue of Iraq--
and perhaps even makes it far more dangerous, certainly more dangerous 
for those troops being asked to perform it--are not protected by the 
Senate, making its best effort here to try to make a vote that 
disagrees with the President.
  The Senator from Arizona was down here a few minutes ago asking the 
question of the majority leader: If you

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do not support the troops' mission, then aren't you, by definition--if 
you vote as we would like to vote here--not supporting the troops? That 
is just an extraordinary leap of logic which has no basis whatsoever in 
real reasoning.
  The Senator from Arizona himself has criticized the policies of this 
administration time and again--in fact, not enough. But time and again, 
he has said Mr. Rumsfeld was wrong or he did not have confidence in him 
or this and that. Was that a criticism of the troops? Was that not 
supporting the troops? I am absolutely confident the answer is no. I 
know, and we all know, the Senator from Arizona supports the troops, 
but he has been able to draw a distinction between criticizing the 
policy and support for the troops. I will tell you, the best way you 
support the troops, you support the troops by getting the policy right.
  Right now, all over the Hill here in Washington, there are veterans 
of the Iraq war who are going around and talking to Congressmen and 
Senators and the public, advocating that this mission in Iraq ought to 
change, that we ought to begin a process of terminating our involvement 
there. They have a very different view of their own service than that 
which is expressed by some on the other side of the aisle. The fact is, 
there is a growing sentiment among many of those being asked to do this 
very difficult job that the missions they are being sent on don't, in 
fact, always make sense.
  I remember--and I know the Senator from Arizona remembers--what it is 
like to be a troop in a war. I remember being on a river in Vietnam 
when the Secretary of Defense was flying over us on one of his visits 
to take a look at what was going on. Every single one of us said to 
each other: Boy, wouldn't it be great if he came down here and talked 
to us and found out what we really think is going on. We would have 
loved the policy to change. The fact is that more and more of the 
veterans I have talked to who are returning from Iraq and some, 
regrettably, as Senator Dodd and I noticed a few days ago, whom we met 
over there who have not returned alive, are against what is happening 
and believe there is a better way to manage this war.
  What we are trying to do is have a vote, albeit on a nonbinding 
resolution, a vote that expresses the view of the Senate with respect 
to this war. We have a moral obligation to make that statement in the 
Senate. It is our duty to have that vote. The soldiers in Iraq are 
performing their duty. Why aren't the Senators in the Senate performing 
theirs? Is it their duty to obstruct? Is it their duty to protect the 
President, to prevent a vote? Even though they go out publicly and talk 
about their opposition to the war, their opposition to the escalation, 
their belief that the direction is wrong, we are not supposed to vote 
in the Senate on the question of whether you support the troops or 
don't support the troops by sending an additional 21,000 troops over 
there. Now is the time for the Senate to register its opposition to the 
escalation.
  If you pursue the logic of the other side of the aisle when they say: 
Well, we can't have a vote here, we shouldn't express anything, we 
shouldn't try to change anything, then we are complicit in the very 
process with which we disagree. If lives are lost subsequent to our 
unwillingness to stand up and vote, do we bear any responsibility for 
the loss of those lives? Do you go home and say to yourself at night, 
to your wife or your children: Do you know I did everything possible to 
try to stop what is happening? When you make the next phone call to a 
mother or father or wife in your State and express your sorrow for 
their loss in the next days ahead, will you also be able to say, with a 
clear conscience, that you did your best to try to prevent that loss, 
to set this war on its proper course? I don't think so. I don't think 
anybody, with a clear conscience, can say that.
  I hate the fact that we are reduced to having a vote on something 
that isn't at this moment going to change the direction. But every step 
is incremental; every step is a building block. Every step helps to 
build the change of opinion we need to achieve in this country, where 
people will understand the way you best define patriotism and the way 
you best defend the interests of our troops on the ground in Iraq. 
Surely, we haven't reached a point in the Senate where you can't even 
have a debate on the most important life-and-death issue facing people 
in this country. What are we supposed to do? Pack up and go home and 
let the President continue to make a mistake? Are we supposed to be 
somehow satisfied that the President has earned the right and the new 
Secretary of Defense? Who knows yet; the decision is out. But the 
record of the last 5 years, 6 years is one of mistake after mistake 
after mistake after mistake after mistake, one after the other, from 
the planning to the numbers of troops, to what you do afterwards, to 
how you preserve the peace, to what kind of politics we are going to 
pursue.
  So we are doing what we can, within our limited power, with 60-vote 
restrictions, to register our disapproval to sending an additional 
number of troops, which has been told to the American people is 21,000 
but which, in fact, is over 40,000 when you finish with the support 
troops who are necessary. These troops deserve a policy that is worthy 
of their sacrifice. No Senator that I know of is not committed to 
success. We would like to be successful. But what is the definition of 
success now?
  We have heard month after month from Ambassador Khalilizad. General 
Casey, over 7 months ago, said this is the last 6 months for Iraq. They 
have a fundamental 6-month period within which they have to get their 
act together, and if they don't, serious problems.
  That time came and passed. What happened? We hear another promise of 
the next few months. We have had months and even years now of these 
promises about how this is a moment of turning the corner. This is the 
critical moment for Iraq. This is the moment of the difference. 
Everybody has known for the whole last year or more that you have to 
resolve the oil revenues issue. As I stand on the floor tonight, the 
oil revenues issue is not resolved. They say they are making progress, 
they are getting closer, but it isn't resolved.
  The fundamental question of federalism, the role between the Shia and 
the Sunni and a strong Baghdad and a strong central government is 
unresolved. That is a fundamental part of the struggle. Our troops, 
with their technology, with their great weapons, with their 
unbelievable willingness to sacrifice and their courage, they can't 
resolve that issue. Iraqi politicians have to resolve that issue. Right 
now, as we are debating or not debating this issue, Iraqi politicians 
are still jockeying for power at the expense of our young men and 
women. I object to that. I get angry that we have to have a private 
fundraising effort to put together a rehab for our soldiers--thank God 
for the people who did it--in order to take care of those who are going 
to be wounded. And our people are talking about patriotism and 
supporting the troops? We have lost all contact with what is reasonable 
or what is real in this effort.
  It is unacceptable that any young American ought to be giving their 
life or going through the sacrifice for Iraqi politicians who refuse to 
compromise, for a legislature that refuses to even meet. Less than 50 
percent of them can be convened, a Parliament that doesn't meet, that 
is the democracy we are supposedly fighting for--Shia and Sunni 
politicians who are jockeying amongst each other, creating their own 
militias, each of them playing for a future with a U.S. security 
blanket lying over it, preventing the full explosion of the kind of 
sectarian violence that would flow, if all were left to their own 
devices. That is the one thing our presence is doing. There is a 
stopgap. It does prevent absolute chaos, but it is creating a slow, 
cancerous, insidious kind of chaos that is building on itself.
  A couple of days ago, the largest number of civilians were killed by 
a bomb, by one single suicide bomb. It gets worse by the day because 
the fundamental issues of difference between people who have always 
lived there and will live there after we are gone are not resolved.

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  If you stand back from this and look at it and ask, as any reasonable 
American would ask: What do you do to resolve this, what do you do to 
make a difference in Iraq, I don't think any American is going to come 
to the conclusion that a soldier with a gun is going to make that 
difference. General Casey has told us he doesn't believe it will make 
the difference. General Abizaid said he didn't think it would make a 
difference. The President has even said there is no military solution. 
So if there is indeed no military solution, my question to this 
administration is: Where is the robust diplomacy and the robust 
political jawboning, arm twisting that is necessary to get a solution? 
Where is it? It is invisible to the average American.
  If we don't get serious about that diplomacy, if we don't have a 
summit that some of us have been calling for for 3 years, and that is 
ultimately the only way to resolve these differences, then our soldiers 
are being sacrificed and being asked to sacrifice each day without a 
reasonable policy that is guiding this war.
  What are we left to do? Are we left to say that our colleagues can 
stop a vote? We are going to walk away, and we are not going to try to 
do what we can to change this or to stop it? I don't think so. That is 
not the Senate that I came to serve in or I think most of our 
colleagues came to serve in. This is a silly sort of process that is 
going back and forth.
  If you are opposed to the escalation, you ought to have a right to 
vote on it. If you are for it, you will have the right to vote for it. 
Go register your vote and then go out to the country. The troops over 
there are tougher than anybody in this room. They understand what their 
mission is. And what we do, ultimately, barring the effort to either 
cut off the funds or force the President to do something with 60 votes 
that we don't yet have, is not going to change their dedication or 
their courage or their commitment to the specific mission. Because that 
is the kind of troops we have.
  But while we are talking about the kind of troops we have, let me ask 
a question: Our troops, most of them, go through basic training. They 
go through a specialized school. They train with their brigade unit 
company for a while. Then they are sent over. Most of our troops are 
ready to go to battle, and some of them do, new recruits, within 7 
months, 9 months. We are now at the 3-year mark, 4-year mark on 
training of 300,000 troops in Iraq. What I hear from the experts is the 
problem with them is not training. The problem is motivation. How much 
training do you think the terrorists get? How much training do you 
think the guys get who have those machineguns and go out? Where is 
their training camp? Where are their barracks? Where is their 9-week 
basic training or 12 weeks? Most of those people are out there in a 
matter of days and hours because they are motivated.
  Right now in the streets of the West Bank and the streets of Lebanon 
and in the streets of Iraq, the guys we are struggling against are 
getting up earlier, staying up later, and they have more motivation. 
And the guys we are supporting and putting forth money and guns and all 
the technology and all the training in the world are not motivated. 
Many of them don't show up. So unless we deal with this issue of 
motivation, of people who are willing to die for their country and 
people who are willing to go out and put their lives on the line and a 
group of politicians who are willing to make the decisions necessary to 
resolve this, this is going to go on and on and on, and it is not going 
to end well.
  Everybody knows what the public assessment is on the latest NIE. 
People are learning privately what it is. The fact is, these are 
difficult times over there. This is not getting better. It is getting 
worse. Twenty-one thousand troops are not going to change that. An 
escalation is not going to change that. More troops on the ground 
raises the stakes. More troops on the ground provides more targets. 
More troops on the ground raises the stakes in a way that says, because 
we heard it from the administration: Boy, this is kind of our last-
ditch stand. And if we don't make this work, we don't know what is 
going to happen. What a wonderful message to send to the other side.
  We are being accused of sending bad messages. If you raise the stakes 
like that but create a mission and actually can't necessarily achieve 
it, you are preordaining the potential of even worse consequences 
because you will make the negotiation even harder. You will make it 
harder for the surrounding countries to say: This is sensible, we ought 
to get involved now. And you will make it harder for the people there 
to make the compromises necessary because they know that down the road 
is this confrontation with reality with an administration that has 
already said: We don't have a plan beyond this.
  What a predicament. That just defies common sense. So we have made 
matters worse. We will raise the stakes, but we don't have a way to 
deal with it. A wing and a prayer. This is a ``Hail Mary'' pass by this 
administration, with no guarantee. I think our troops deserve some 
guarantees of an outcome.
  The best guarantee I can think of is to redeploy them in a way that 
puts more emphasis on what the Iraqis need to do. It doesn't mean 
leaving Iraq completely. There are plenty of over-the-horizon 
strategies, such as in the desert deployments, a capacity to be there 
for emergency assistance, to tamp down chaos and go after al-Qaida, an 
ability to remain in a truly supportive training role without having 
our troops on the front line of a civil war. But those are not the ones 
they are putting on the table, and that is not what we hear them talk 
about.
  We hear these two dramatic things: We have to go down this road where 
we have telegraphed our move and raise the stakes, and saying they are 
talking about complete withdrawal. No, they are not. Most are talking 
about how to achieve success in a responsible way which honors the 
sacrifice of our troops and meets the important national security needs 
of the United States of America.
  The only way I know of to do that is to get to the diplomatic table; 
bring our neighbors into a new dynamic where they begin to have 
credibility; get Syria and others through the Arab League, the U.N, 
Perm 5, and begin a process of legitimate diplomacy, such as we have 
read about in the history books of our Nation for years. The great 
diplomats of our country are aghast at what we are doing now. Listen to 
any number of them privately, some who served in the administration of 
George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President--Secretaries of State, 
such as Jim Baker. Jim Baker is a model in how to build a true 
coalition. It took him 15 trips to Syria before. On the 15th trip, he 
finally got President Assad to agree to support what we were engaged 
in. I am not sure the current Secretary of State has made 15 trips in 
the last 5 years. I cannot tell you the exact number, but I don't think 
it is 15 in the years she has been in office, let alone the prior 
Secretary of State.
  Mr. President, we have to get serious about what we are going to do. 
The fact is, there are over 3,000 young Americans who have now died. I 
think four were reported in the newspapers yesterday. There will be 
more tomorrow and the next day. The fact that we are losing young 
Americans is not a reason to say we should leave. But it is a reason to 
say we should get the policy right. It is a reason to say we owe them a 
strategy that supports the sacrifice they are making. We ought to be 
able to do better than what we are doing now, Mr. President.
  So this is really pretty simple. The Iraqi Study Group put forward 
some 79 recommendations. They have all been cast aside. This was a 
moment where the President could have brought Democrats to the table, 
all of us. We could have sat down and come together around, OK, let's 
put all these recommendations together. These will work, and we are 
willing to support these. Let's go out jointly and see if we can 
leverage the full power of the Senate and the Congress and the country 
behind the kind of strategy we need in the Middle East in order to 
protect these real interests, which range from Israel, to containing 
Iran, dealing with

[[Page 3230]]

the protection of the gulf states, to Lebanon, the fledgling democracy, 
and obviously to stability in Iraq. We all understand that, not to 
mention oil and the economy and the other interests that we have. Those 
are real.
  But I respectfully submit that the current policy we are on is 
recklessly putting those very interests at greater risk. And the 
measurement of that statement is in the fact that Iran is actually more 
powerful today as a consequence of what we are doing. Iran loves the 
fact that we are bogged down in Iraq because it makes it far more 
difficult for us to play a legitimate card in order to deal with their 
nuclear ambitions. There is nobody in the world who doubts that. 
Lebanon is more in jeopardy today, with Hezbollah and Nasrallah in 
greater positions of threat to the Government and the Prime Minister. 
Hamas has been in an ascendency in the last months, and we have been 
unable to move forward with a legitimate entity with which to be able 
to ultimately make peace. All these things are worse off today than a 
year ago, than 2 years ago, and worse off than 6 years ago.
  If they are worse off, how do you stand there and say this is a good 
policy, that we ought to keep doing what we are doing, digging a deeper 
hole, and making it worse? I was over in the Middle East a month ago. I 
met with leaders of the region. I can tell you that while, yes, they 
say they don't want a precipitous departure and a crazy consequence of 
chaos as a result, they also do want the United States to play a 
sensible, constructive, and legitimate role in resolving the 
fundamental issues of the region.
  So I think a lot of us have had enough of hearing these phony debates 
about who supports the troops. We all support the troops. This is the 
best trained military that many of us have ever seen. They are doing an 
amazing job under difficult circumstances. Again and again, I say that 
they deserve the support of a Congress that gets this policy right and 
that fights for them while they are over there and guarantees that when 
they come home, they don't have to fight for themselves to have the 
promises that were made to them kept. That is what this is about.
  I think we can have a very simple vote. If you are for the escalation 
and you think it is the right policy, vote no against the resolution. 
If you are against the policy of escalation and you think it is the 
wrong policy and you want to be counted, then you ought to vote aye for 
the resolution. That is a vote we can have tonight, tomorrow, or any 
time. Most people here know where they stand, but they are unwilling to 
show the American people and unwilling to hold this President 
accountable. Shame on us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from 
Missouri for being so understanding. I will make my comments quite 
brief.
  The entire success of the President's plan of escalation is 
predicated on the fact that the Iraqi Army is, in fact, reliable. 
Therefore, in every one of our hearings in our committees--be it the 
Armed Services Committee, be it the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
be it the Senate Intelligence Committee--I have asked that question of 
the various witnesses, most of whom are representatives of the 
administration or representatives of our U.S. military. Up to this 
moment, not one of the administration witnesses can tell us that the 
Iraqi Army is, in fact, reliable in a plan that is essential that they 
are, which is to clear the area, hold the area, and then rebuild the 
infrastructure. In the clear phase, it is not only the Iraqi Army and 
the U.S. military--by the way, not in a single unified command but in 
dual commands of which the Iraqi Army will be the most force in 
personnel--and I have heard that 60/40 is the ratio; maybe it is more 
than that--60 percent Iraqi Army and 40 percent U.S. Therefore, it is 
essential that the Iraqi Army is reliable.
  Yet every witness has not been able to tell us that, including up to 
today's witness, the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, who I think 
is doing an excellent job. But when I laid this out to him in front of 
our committee--in this case, the Senate Armed Services Committee--
today, his answer was, as of this morning, that we have to wait and 
see.
  Well, I am just a little country lawyer, but doesn't it seem logical 
that if the President's whole plan is predicated on the reliability of 
the Iraqi Army, and at this moment we still have to wait and see on the 
reliability of the Iraqi Army, then is that reason for us to escalate 
our troops in Baghdad out of 21,000, with some 17,500 going into 
Baghdad, on a plan that we do not know is going to work?
  It is on that basis that this Senator from Florida opposes this troop 
increase. I have said on this floor several times that the Marine 
generals in the west of Iraq, in Anbar Province, convinced me that an 
escalation of troops there would help them, since that is all Sunni, 
and since the main enemy there is al-Qaida. But that is western Iraq; 
that is not Baghdad where the sectarian violence is.
  Mr. President, I will just conclude my remarks by saying that I think 
it is our only hope of stabilizing Iraq, that it depends on three 
successful initiatives: No. 1, an aggressive diplomatic effort led by 
the U.S. with Iraq and its neighbors to quickly find a political 
settlement between Iraq's warring factions; two, Iraqis taking 
responsibility for providing for their own security; three, a massive 
and effective international reconstruction program.
  With regard to the first of these initiatives, an intense diplomatic 
effort aimed at helping Iraq with a political settlement has been 
discussed many times by most of our Senators. This Senator believes it 
must include sufficient autonomy for Iraq's various regions and 
communities but a stake for all in the central government; an oil 
revenue sharing law; a reversal of debaathification--partial reversal--
and a revised constitutional amendment process.
  The lack of a major diplomatic effort to build an international 
coalition to support a political settlement is truly baffling. Iraq is 
in a full-blown crisis.
  So we need at least one, if not several, high-level special envoys 
empowered by the President and endorsed by congressional leadership. 
Working together, they need to be on the ground every day, throughout 
the Middle East, in Europe and Asia, and at the United Nations.
  The goal should be--within a month--to assemble an international 
conference at which all of Iraq's neighbors and other key nations would 
endorse the framework of a political settlement.
  It became painfully evident to me during my last trip to Iraq that 
Prime Minister al-Maliki either lacks the will or the nerve to take on 
the Shiite militias on whose backing he depends for power. For example, 
his rushed execution of Saddam Hussein--certainly justified, but 
horribly carried out--spoke volumes about his insensitivity to the 
concerns of the Sunnis.
  Initiative No. 2: As for Iraqis taking responsibility for their own 
security, this will only take place if U.S. troops begin to pull back 
from the primary combat role they now play and shift to an advisory 
capacity.
  Where are those words ringing familiar, Mr. President? From the Iraq 
study commission, Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton's commission. They offered 
this recommendation.
  Rather than increasing our forces in Iraq, as the President has 
proposed, we should be transitioning the troops to training and 
advising Iraqi troops, training and advising antiterrorism missions and 
border security.
  Finally, the third initiative: The massive reconstruction effort 
requires a reconstruction czar, a person of the highest integrity who 
will cut through the redtape, demand our agencies produce the results 
working together and deliver construction assistance quickly and 
directly to Iraqi communities.
  Concurrently, this official should convene a donors conference to 
elicit pledges of assistance from our international partners and to 
hold them accountable for delivering this aid quickly.
  In short and in summary, the cost of failure in Iraq will be 
catastrophic in

[[Page 3231]]

growing threats to us and to our allies and in more American and Iraqi 
lives lost if we do not awaken to the reality that diplomacy, not a 
military solution, is what is needed to end the sectarian violence in 
Iraq.
  I wish to paraphrase what the President of the United States, when I 
was a student in college, President Kennedy, said in 1961: We must 
always be ready and willing to bear arms to defend our freedoms, but as 
long as we know what comprises our vital interest or our long-range 
goals, we have nothing to fear from diplomacy.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I spoke briefly this morning about the need 
to have votes on the Republican resolutions--the Republican Gregg 
resolution and the bipartisan Lieberman-McCain resolution. It is very 
important we give the opportunity for this body to go on record saying, 
No. 1, they do support and will not cut off funding for our troops in 
Iraq. That needs to be said in the Gregg resolution.
  It is unusual and very unfortunate that at this time, when we are 
actually at war, we are considering resolutions which would say: Well, 
we don't support sending more troops over. We are actually sending 
troops over, and there are some who want to say: Well, we don't support 
the mission; good luck, guys and gals; you are going over, but we don't 
support what you are doing.
  We owe them more than that. We owe them what used to be the baseline 
in our discussions. Unfortunately, in time of war, we can debate and we 
should debate. However, the Levin-Warner resolution, the only 
resolution at this point the majority would let us vote on, sends a 
wrong message to the insurgents, militia, and, obviously, to our 
troops.
  This is a very serious and difficult situation in Iraq, no question 
about it. We got the national intelligence estimate, and it says these 
are tough times. But--and I agree with my colleague from Florida--we 
cannot afford to fail.
  During General Petraeus's testimony before the Armed Services 
Committee last week, he chillingly described the typical Iraqi 
terrorist as ``determined, adaptable, barbaric'' and that ``he will try 
to wait us out.''
  And now we are considering a resolution signaling to this enemy that 
this body doesn't think the terrorists will have to wait too long. By 
capping the troop strength, this resolution limits the very leaders 
this body confirmed as fit to lead and determine strategies and levels 
of troops.
  The proponents of the resolution to limit troop strength must now 
believe that sitting here 8,000 miles away, this body is more equipped 
than our military leaders to say what our force structure should be in 
Iraq. That is unacceptable; it is totally unacceptable.
  The question has been raised: Will this plan work? There are lots of 
challenges. It is a challenging situation. The intelligence community, 
in its National Intelligence Estimate, says there are many difficult 
factors; it is a complex situation. But they said this is the best we 
can hope to do. This is our best effort to make sure something comes 
out that provides a stable Iraq, one that will not be a haven for 
terrorist groups such as al-Qaida to operate.
  The intelligence community was also very forthright, both in the NIE 
that we received last week and in testimony several weeks earlier in an 
open hearing of the Intelligence Committee. They said if we cut and 
run, Iraq would descend into chaos, giving the terrorist groups, such 
as al-Qaida and probably the Shia terrorist groups, the chance to 
operate freely in that country. It would lead to slaughter of more and 
more Iraqis--innocent Iraqis--and it would likely involve the entire 
region.
  It is clear that cutting and running should not be an option. There 
may be some people who would vote to cut off funding. We ought to let 
them have a chance at least to say we want to end it now, not we want 
to tinker with the military strategy so perhaps we can gain some 
political points at home.
  I have heard it said that some of the people who are supporting the 
Levin-Warner resolution think we should be following the guidelines of 
the Iraq Study Group. I had the opportunity on Sunday to ask Jim Baker 
is this military plan the military plan you have supported? He said: 
Yes, it is.
  Others have said we need a new strategy, and I agree. I agree we 
shouldn't have gone forward with debaathification and disbanding the 
Iraqi Army. That mistake is behind us. But we need a new strategy that 
can lead us to victory in Iraq.
  It seems to me the place where we want to be is getting the Iraqi 
Government, al-Maliki and his Sunni and Kurdish counterparts in the 
Government, to take responsibility and say we are going to establish 
stability, we are going to end the insurgency. To do that, they have 
said: We need the support of American troops, not to be on the 
frontlines--and I agree with those who said we want to move the Iraqis 
out front when they are stopping the Shia and Sunni violence; that is 
where they should be. We still have a role, and we can play a very 
important role in helping to take out the al-Qaida leadership and the 
other organized international radical Islamist terrorists, whether they 
be Shia or Sunni, and we can do that. That is part of what the troop 
surge will do. But we need to have them take over, and we need to train 
them.
  The intelligence community said the police are not ready to take over 
now. We have found that when we embed American troops, provide American 
troops in smaller numbers but with Iraqis, they function better. We can 
help show them how to win, and that is a plan I think we ought to 
pursue because what is the cost if we lose? Iraq is the center point in 
the war on terror. And unfortunately, we have no better source than 
Osama bin Laden, who says:

       I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic Nation: 
     Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is 
     momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the 
     whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-
     Zionist coalition began against the Islamic Nation. It is 
     raging in the land of the two rivers. The world's millstone 
     and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.

  That is what he calls Baghdad, ``the capital of the caliphate.'' 
There are similar transmissions by Ayman al-Zawahiri, who said: ``We 
must have Iraq as our caliphate.'' So we have to wait. We have to make 
sure we stabilize the area.
  It seems to me this is absolutely the best plan than fiddling around 
and adopting a resolution that says, no, we don't need 21,000 more 
troops. Some of the same people who said earlier this year and last 
year that we need more troops now are saying no, no, 21,000 more troops 
is not necessary. Whom are we going to believe, someone standing on the 
floor of the Senate or the commanding general who has responsibility 
for making sure that our troops accomplish their mission and they are 
safe? If he says we need those troops, I wish to vote for a resolution 
that says we need those troops. I wish to vote for a resolution that 
says we shouldn't cut off funding; we need to support our troops when 
they are in the field.
  What is at stake in this resolution deserves a commitment that goes 
far beyond what the political pundits and political operatives 
pontificate in Washington. I don't say all the people supporting this 
resolution have a desire to undercut our troops, to send the wrong 
message to our allies in the region or to encourage al-Qaida and Jaysh 
al-Mahdi. But, unfortunately, that is what this resolution can do.
  I had the honor today of talking with the head of the intelligence 
agency of one of our allies in the region. I said: What message would 
it send to your country if we adopt a resolution saying the President 
can't send over more troops? He said: That would be very bad because we 
want to see peace and stability survive in Iraq. It is vitally 
important to the entire region, and we are prepared to help the 
coalition make sure stability is achieved. We want to make sure Iran 
doesn't take over that country, that chaos doesn't ensue, and we--and 
he was speaking for several of the countries in the region--we want to 
provide aid to help rebuild the economy so there will be a stable

[[Page 3232]]

economy because a stable economy is one of the best ways to convince 
people they don't need to get 25 bucks from setting out an improvised 
explosive device along the roadside.
  So we would be sending a bad message to our allies, and we would be 
sending a message of great hope to the people of al-Qaida.
  That is not what we ought to be doing, Mr. President. What is at 
stake deserves a commitment that goes far beyond the political pundits. 
Those who call for an end to the war don't want to talk about the fact 
that the war in Iraq will not end but, in fact, will only grow more 
dangerous if we leave with that country in chaos.
  So as we debate these resolutions, Congress's role in the Iraq policy 
is clear: Either Congress needs to exercise its constitutional powers 
of the purse and cut funding for the operations of the troops, which is 
madness, or get behind them. We shouldn't confirm General Petraeus and 
then say: Oh, but we don't support your plan. So if we are not using 
our power of the purse to cut off funds and force a hasty withdrawal, 
what are we doing? Are we telling 21,000 brave men and women who will 
be going to Iraq that we are uncomfortable with the dangerous mission 
you are about to undertake but not offering any alternative? I am sure 
our troops would find that encouraging.
  Simply put, this may be a situation where there are good politics, 
but these good politics equal bad policy. Politics are trumping good 
policy.
  A headline in today's Roll Call reads: ``Democrats to Launch PR Blitz 
on Iraq Vote.''

       . . . Senate Democrats are launching a national public 
     relations campaign aimed at tying GOP moderates and 
     incumbents facing difficult 2008 re-election races to Bush in 
     the public's mind, Democratic leadership aides said Monday.

  Is that what this is all about? Is that the politics? I think that is 
a very sad message.
  What is at stake is so much bigger than politics, bigger than the 
2008 election, and it is a real disservice to our troops to see our 
national security become a political election gamble.
  I previously entered into the Record an article about 12 days ago by 
Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace and transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall 
Fund. He wrote a piece saying it is a grand delusion if we think we can 
walk away from Iraq and not solve it. He went on to say:

       Democratic and Republican Members of Congress are looking 
     for a different kind of political solution: the solution to 
     their problems in presidential primaries and elections almost 
     2 years off.

  This is coming, as he indicates in his article, just as American 
soldiers are finally beginning the hard job of establishing a measure 
of peace, security, and order in critical sections of Baghdad.
  He goes on to say:

       They have launched attacks on Sunni insurgent strongholds 
     and begun reining in Moqtada al-Sadr's militia.

  And, finally, he concludes, and it is fitting advice for this body:

       Politicians in both parties should realize that success in 
     this mission is in their interest, as well as the Nation's. 
     Here's a wild idea: Forget the political posturing, be 
     responsible, and provide the moral and material support our 
     forces need and expect.

  Mr. President, I hope we will vote on resolutions that do that.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, you have just heard an extraordinary 
speech, and I want to put it in perspective, if I may.
  There was a Foreign Relations Committee meeting several weeks ago at 
which one of the Senators insinuated that the Secretary of State didn't 
understand this war because she didn't have enough of a personal 
interest. Well, we thought that was an unfair question because this is 
a woman who is spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, trying to do the 
right thing for our country, and that was considered a personal thing 
that was out of line.
  We have just now heard a U.S. Senator make a speech that was a 
wonderful, principled speech on the merits of what he is going to 
support in this war effort, the resolution that will come before us, 
and he never mentioned that he had a personal interest. So I want to 
mention it. I want to mention Sam Bond.
  Sam Bond is a Princeton graduate. He is the light of Senator Kit 
Bond's life. He is his only child, his only son. Sam Bond has been a 
star from the day he was born, and we have all heard about it. Sam Bond 
graduated from Princeton University, and he didn't get a job on Wall 
Street to then sign up to go to business school. No, Sam Bond signed up 
for the Marine Corps.
  Sam Bond has spent 1 year in Iraq already, in Fallujah, and he is 
going back in 1 month. Sam Bond is going back to Iraq in 1 month, and 
we just heard the Senator from Missouri not even mention his only son 
because he is talking about what is right for our country. He believes 
that Sam Bond's future depends on our doing the right thing in Iraq. So 
I applaud Senator Bond, and I applaud Sam Bond.
  I want to talk about the resolution that we are going to vote on at 
some point. First, I think Senator Bond is correct; that we ought to 
have the right to vote on at least two resolutions, not just one that 
is unamendable. This is, as we have been reminded time and time and 
time again, the most important issue raging in our country and maybe 
the world today. So I think having two resolutions, or one amendable 
resolution, is a legitimate request because there are legitimate 
differences of opinion. There are legitimate debatable issues that I 
think the Senate is capable of putting forth for our country, 
representing the division in our country on this important issue.
  Some people say we should never have gone into Iraq. In hindsight, it 
is an easy thing to say. Let's remember what we were looking at as 
Senators, and let's look at what the President was looking at as the 
Commander in Chief of this Nation, whose responsibility it is to 
protect the people of this country. The buck stopped on the President's 
desk.
  I don't agree with everything the President has done. Not one person 
on the Senate floor agrees with everything the President has done. But 
I will tell you this: no one--no one--can ever say this President isn't 
committed to one thing, paramount in all of his responsibilities, and 
that is to protect the people of the United States. He is doing what he 
thinks is best to protect our children and freedom for our way of life.
  When he went into Iraq, many people questioned whether it was the 
appropriate thing to do. I did myself. But the President had just been 
through 9/11, where we saw airplanes used as weapons of mass 
destruction that killed thousands of Americans and people working in 
New York City. So he said, to look at it from his view: I can't afford 
to take a chance that a weapon of mass destruction would hit America 
again, only this time it would be a chemical or a biological weapon.
  I believe that is what the President was thinking. He knew that 
Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, had used them on his own people 
and had kicked the weapons inspectors out in 1998. He had kicked the 
weapons inspectors out. Why would he have done that, was the thinking, 
if he didn't have something to hide?
  Then there were the intelligence reports. There were the intelligence 
reports that we saw and there were the intelligence reports that the 
President received which were at a much higher level than even we were 
able to get. All of that pointed to Saddam Hussein having weapons of 
mass destruction and the capability to deliver them. So it is a 
legitimate debate to ask why are we there, but it is not the debate we 
ought to be having today.
  The debate we ought to be having today is what should we do to have 
success in Iraq because success in Iraq and Afghanistan is a part of 
the war on terror.
  After 9/11, we didn't treat what happened as a criminal act. In 1993, 
after the first World Trade Center bombing, that is what America did. 
We treated it

[[Page 3233]]

as a criminal act. America didn't know this was the beginning of a war 
on terror. Then there was Khobar Towers, attacked in Saudi Arabia, and 
19 American soldiers killed. We treated it as a criminal act. There was 
the bombing of our embassies, and then there was the USS Cole. We 
treated those as criminal acts. But America woke up on 9/11/2001 and 
realized, finally, 10 years after the war had started, that America and 
our way of life was under attack. This was not a crime, it was the 
continuation of a war.
  So we are there now. We are not succeeding. Success would be a 
stabilized Iraq, an Iraq where people can go to the market in security 
and buy food or necessities and visit and have coffee on the street. 
That is what success in Iraq will be. Success in Iraq will be when they 
have self-governance. Success in Iraq will be when there are not 
security forces that kill people of a different sect. Success in Iraq 
will be when they are a stable neighbor in the Middle East and 
terrorists will not be able to get a foothold.
  We are not succeeding yet. How can we do better? We should be 
debating how we can do better to succeed. If victory is not the end 
result, we will have failed our children and grandchildren. So I ask, 
what could possibly be the purpose of passing a resolution in what has 
been considered the world's most deliberative body that would send 
General Petraeus to take charge of Baghdad and a new strategy and say, 
General Petraeus, we have faith in you but not the mission? That is not 
the right resolution to pass in this Senate.
  I hope we can debate that resolution, and I hope we can debate 
against those who would send a signal to our troops that we don't have 
faith in the possibility of success in their mission. I want to debate 
a resolution that would say we are not going to send any more troops, 
and even if we need troop protection we are not going to send those 
troops because Congress is going to take the place of the Commander in 
Chief and the generals on the ground.
  I want to debate a resolution that would cut off funding for our 
troops in the field. I would like to debate what would happen to our 
troops who are there now if a signal were sent that we were not going 
to give them the support they needed to do the job they have right now.
  I very much hope that we will be able to take up the Levin-Warner 
resolution, and I hope we will be able to take up an alternative which 
will not have amendments because those are not in order. But we must 
have the ability to exercise a voice that would go in a different 
direction, that would set benchmarks for what the Iraqi Government must 
do if they want America to stay and help them become strong and stable 
and free.
  I want to be able to debate also the McCain-Lieberman resolution 
because I think there will be a clear choice. And I hope that we have 
the opportunity to bring that out to the American people because there 
are consequences of setting a timetable and trying to have some kind of 
graceful exit strategy that basically says this is too tough for 
America, we just can't take it and, therefore, we are going to walk 
away.
  How about keeping our commitments, so that our allies and our enemies 
will know, when they are partners with America or enemies of America, 
we will stick through thick and thin, arm in arm with our allies and be 
formidable against our enemies? How about having a strategy that says 
we have not succeeded in the way this has gone, so here is a different 
approach? We expect the Iraqis to stand up now. We are going to help 
you, but you must lead. You must meet certain benchmarks if you are 
going to keep us helping you help yourselves.
  We want the Iraqi people to succeed because we don't want terrorists 
to takeover Iraq, get the oil revenue and come and deliver their 
weapons of mass destruction to America. That is what we are talking 
about. That is what is at stake in this war. How we execute our 
responsibilities as Senators who have the leadership mantle is going to 
determine how successful our troops can be.
  I hope we can have that debate. I hope we can have the debate on the 
Levin-Warner resolution. I hope we can have a debate on the Gregg 
resolution. I hope we can have a debate on the McCain-Lieberman-Lindsey 
Graham resolution because I think it would be the right thing for the 
American people. But don't try to put one resolution on the floor with 
no amendments and call that an opportunity to have a voice. No one 
could keep a straight face and say that is a fair process.
  There are 100 Members of the Senate. I do not question one Member's 
patriotism. I do not question the motives of one Member. Everyone has a 
view that we believe is the right way for our country. We ought to be 
able to support resolutions that put forward those views. This is too 
important to have a struggle over process keep us from having the 
ability to come together and try to reason and pass one good resolution 
or two that would allow us to have a voice in this debate. The world is 
going to listen to what we say. I hope we don't send the wrong signal 
to our allies or to our enemies that America cannot stand it when it 
gets tough. America is the beacon of freedom to the world. If we do not 
stand and fight for freedom, who will? America must never step back 
from that mantle and that responsibility. Freedom will die everywhere 
if we don't fight and keep it for America and our allies.
  Let's have that debate. Let's have that debate on whatever differing 
resolutions come forward. I am not afraid to debate the Levin-Warner 
resolution, and I am certainly proud to support the Gregg and the 
McCain-Lieberman resolutions. I wish to talk more about it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Menendez). The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am dismayed at where we now stand. 
Last fall, the people of the United States sent a message to the 
President of the United States that the current course of his war in 
Iraq is deeply misguided and that bold, new solutions are called for. 
The President failed to listen. Yesterday, the Senate, this historic 
institution, was prevented from speaking.
  What we say in this historic Chamber about our course in Iraq, and 
even more what I hope we will do in this Chamber to correct that 
course, are among the most urgent concerns of the community of nations. 
It matters to millions of Americans who have already raised their 
voices in concern at a strategy lacking in foresight and cratered with 
flaws. It matters to millions more souls throughout the world whose 
lives, whose hopes, whose futures depend on American leadership and 
authority.
  But we are silenced as a Senate, silenced because yesterday, on the 
single most important issue facing America today, on the issue that has 
cost more than 3,000 young Americans their lives, tens of thousands 
more their limbs and livelihoods, and countless families their well-
being--on the issue where this President has squandered so much of our 
national Treasury and national good will--the Senate was silent. It was 
silenced by a parliamentary maneuver.
  The people we represent deserve better from us. As you know, I am new 
to this body, but each time I step through these doors, I bring with me 
the hopes and expectations of thousands of Rhode Islanders I have heard 
who know it is time for a new direction in Iraq. Tired of a President 
who has failed to listen and failed to learn, last November, they 
joined millions of their countrymen and voted for change.
  Whenever I think of these men and women, I am filled with an enormous 
sense of responsibility. They trusted me to hear their voices and to 
make sure the Senate hears them too. So I speak today. I share Rhode 
Island's conviction that it is time for a change of course. Our troops 
and their families have made countless sacrifices, and our choices in 
this Chamber must be worthy of them.
  The situation in Iraq is dire, rife with sectarian conflict that can 
only be resolved by Iraqi political cooperation, not by American 
military force. A

[[Page 3234]]

broad consensus has emerged from senior military commanders to the 
bipartisan Iraq Study Group and throughout the American people that our 
best course would be to begin to redeploy American troops out of Iraq. 
Instead, the President has insisted on a costly strategy of escalation 
that would send more of our soldiers into harm's way. I believe that to 
be a terrible mistake.
  It is my deeply held conviction that in order to create the best 
environment for real change, the President must announce, clearly and 
unequivocally, that the United States plans to redeploy our troops from 
Iraq. That announcement would change the dynamic, enhancing our 
national security position in Iraq, in the Middle East, and throughout 
the world in three important ways.
  First, a clear statement of American intent to redeploy forces from 
Iraq would eliminate the Iraqi insurgents' case that we are an army of 
occupation. It would eliminate it once and forever. The Iraqi 
population's nationalist sentiment would no longer be engaged against 
us. The Iraqi people don't want us there, and a majority of them 
consequently believe it is acceptable to kill American soldiers. That 
is not an environment in which we can gain likely success.
  Second, without a buffering American presence, the world community 
would understand it must face the consequences of the Iraq situation. 
Other nations in the region and elsewhere around the world would be 
motivated to take a more active role to work together to bring peace 
and stability to the region. Now, for all intents and purposes, we are 
alone.
  In particular, Arab nations, facing the risk of a pan-Arabic, Sunni-
Shiite conflict igniting in Iraq, must then assume greater 
responsibility for averting such an outcome. Under current U.S. policy, 
these Arab countries have little incentive to help calm the conflict or 
reduce the violence. Any incentive they have is buffered by America's 
role as the peacekeeper and offset by the cost, in so many eyes, of 
even associating with the United States.
  Third, Iran presently gains immensely from fomenting violence in 
Iraq. Keeping America bogged down in a civil war in Iraq undermines 
critical U.S. policy objectives, including the effort to work 
effectively with the international community to address the serious 
threat posed by Iran's nuclear weapons program. The threat of American 
redeployment changes that calculation for Iran. The advantages Iran 
currently enjoys from bogging America down in Iraq would diminish or 
evaporate.
  Some argue--we hear it right in this Chamber--that to fail to support 
this President's judgment is to fail to support the troops. Never mind 
the manifest and repeated flaws in that judgment: Misjudgment on 
weapons of mass destruction; misjudgment on when the mission was 
completed; misjudgment on the risks, costs, and demands of occupation; 
misjudgment on the wisdom of de-Baathification; misjudgment that the 
insurgency was in its last throes; and now misjudgment on whether there 
is civil war. There has never been a record of error, failure, and 
falsity similar to it. Now, the unfortunate fact is the President's bad 
misjudgments and failed diplomacy leave us few good options.
  Changing the Iraq dynamic can set the stage for an aggressive 
international diplomatic effort to restore security in Iraq and combat 
terrorism worldwide. An intense diplomatic effort, with the parties 
thus motivated by the prospect of American redeployment, is our best 
remaining real chance for success. It will also staunch the hemorrhage 
of two critical American assets: Our international standing and our 
national Treasury--and most importantly, it will bring our troops home.
  Without such a change in the dynamic, we are likely to remain trapped 
there, seen by many as more provocative than helpful, a great nation 
ensnared. For the safety of our troops, the stability of the region and 
the security of our Nation, that must not happen.
  The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. It undermines our 
national security by hurting our troops and their families, by 
diverting our attention from al-Qaida and other critical threats, and 
by degrading our military capability for other actions. The Iraq 
quagmire demands a new strategy that is both bold and realistic. If we 
lead boldly, sensitively, and firmly on the diplomatic front, if we 
speak, again, in realities instead of slogans, if we build consensus 
instead of polarizing nations, we can restore America's prestige, 
leadership, and good will. The President's escalation does not help 
achieve these goals, and yesterday the Senate had the opportunity to 
say so. We did not. We were silenced--silenced by parliamentary 
maneuver.
  The Senate has been called the world's greatest deliberative body. 
Let us deliberate. The debate over our course in Iraq echoes all over 
the world, from world capitals to the kitchen tables of middle 
America--everywhere except this silenced Chamber.
  Mr. President, I call on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
to stop the stalling and allow this body to deliberate. Ultimately, the 
free and unfettered clash of ideas that a real Senate debate represents 
is exactly what our troops in Iraq are fighting for.
  Let us, in this historic Chamber, not undermine their sacrifice with 
our silence.
  For my part, it remains my view that announcing our intent to bring 
our soldiers home will help us start down the long road toward renewed 
American strength and leadership in the region and in the world. It is 
a critical journey, and it is long past time to begin.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.

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