[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3793-3795]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              WILLIAM ODOM'S ``VICTORY IS NOT AN OPTION''

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, William Odom is one of the finest 
intelligence officers who have served in our military. Retiring at the 
rank of lieutenant general, his distinguished Army career culminated in 
his heading up the U.S. Army's intelligence division and the National 
Security Agency. He has worked tirelessly to help the country 
understand and deal with the challenges to its security and defense. I 
have known the general for decades, and, like many of my colleagues, I 
deeply value his judgment and insight.
  That is why I read his opinion piece from last Sunday's Washington 
Post, ``Victory is Not an Option,'' with great interest.
  General Odom lays out the truths and myths of the Nation's 
involvement in Iraq. Among the clear truths is that the dream of a real 
democracy gaining roots in that war-torn country is simply that, a 
dream. He rightly points out, too, that any Iraqi government is likely 
to be more anti than pro-American at the end of the day.
  As for the myths, he sensibly lays out that it is pure fantasy for 
anyone to think that our presence is actually preventing the horrible 
carnage from unfolding or holding Iran back from gaining influence with 
its neighbor. It is similarly a flight of the imagination to think that 
our military presence is actually stanching--as opposed to 
encouraging--al-Qaida's involvement in the country. Finally, it is a 
myth to think that we must stay in Iraq ``to support the troops.'' In 
fact, he notes, many of our brave men and women in the country 
understand the cold realities that unfold there every day, and many of 
them believe that we should get out of Iraq.
  General Odom makes some sensible suggestions for a new policy 
direction, something beyond the absurd ``surge'' that is only the same 
old repast of stay-the-course with a different seasoning. We should get 
out of Iraq and recognize that our presence there has become a source 
of instability for the whole Middle East. He smartly suggests that we 
should work with our international partners to seek order and 
stability, which will fundamentally alter the balance against the 
radicals who want to stir up even more strife.
  I ask unanimous consent that General Odom's article, ``Victory Is Not 
an Option,'' now be printed in the Record. I urge my colleagues to read 
this article closely and truly think about what General Odom is saying. 
The logic is clear and sensible. I think it is incontrovertible.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 11, 2007]

                        Victory Is Not an Option

                          (By William E. Odom)

       The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly 
     delineates the gulf that separates President Bush's illusions 
     from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president

[[Page 3794]]

     sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is 
     pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of 
     producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the 
     consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is 
     a declaration of defeat.
       Its gloomy implications--hedged, as intelligence agencies 
     prefer, in rubbery language that cannot soften its impact--
     put the intelligence community and the American public on the 
     same page. The public awakened to the reality of failure in 
     Iraq last year and turned the Republicans out of control of 
     Congress to wake it up. But a majority of its members are 
     still asleep, or only half-awake to their new writ to end the 
     war soon.
       Perhaps this is not surprising. Americans do not warm to 
     defeat or failure, and our politicians are famously reluctant 
     to admit their own responsibility for anything resembling 
     those un-American outcomes. So they beat around the bush, 
     wringing hands and debating ``nonbinding resolutions'' that 
     oppose the president's plan to increase the number of U.S. 
     troops in Iraq.
       For the moment, the collision of the public's clarity of 
     mind, the president's relentless pursuit of defeat and 
     Congress's anxiety has paralyzed us. We may be doomed to two 
     more years of chasing the mirage of democracy in Iraq and 
     possibly widening the war to Iran. But this is not 
     inevitable. A Congress, or a president, prepared to quit the 
     game of ``who gets the blame'' could begin to alter American 
     strategy in ways that will vastly improve the prospects of a 
     more stable Middle East.
       No task is more important to the well-being of the United 
     States. We face great peril in that troubled region, and 
     improving our prospects will be difficult. First of all, it 
     will require, from Congress at least, public acknowledgment 
     that the president's policy is based on illusions, not 
     realities. There never has been any right way to invade and 
     transform Iraq. Most Americans need no further convincing, 
     but two truths ought to put the matter beyond question:
       First, the assumption that the United States could create a 
     liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq defies just about 
     everything known by professional students of the topic. Of 
     the more than 40 democracies created since World War II, 
     fewer than 10 can be considered truly ``constitutional''--
     meaning that their domestic order is protected by a broadly 
     accepted rule of law, and has survived for at least a 
     generation. None is a country with Arabic and Muslim 
     political cultures. None has deep sectarian and ethnic 
     fissures like those in Iraq.
       Strangely, American political scientists whose business it 
     is to know these things have been irresponsibly quiet. In the 
     lead-up to the March 2003 invasion, neoconservative agitators 
     shouted insults at anyone who dared to mention the many 
     findings of academic research on how democracies evolve. They 
     also ignored our own struggles over two centuries to create 
     the democracy Americans enjoy today. Somehow Iraqis are now 
     expected to create a constitutional order in a country with 
     no conditions favoring it.
       This is not to say that Arabs cannot become liberal 
     democrats. When they immigrate to the United States, many do 
     so quickly. But it is to say that Arab countries, as well as 
     a large majority of all countries, find creating a stable 
     constitutional democracy beyond their capacities.
       Second, to expect any Iraqi leader who can hold his country 
     together to be pro-American, or to share American goals, is 
     to abandon common sense. It took the United States more than 
     a century to get over its hostility toward British 
     occupation. (In 1914, a majority of the public favored 
     supporting Germany against Britain.) Every month of the U.S. 
     occupation, polls have recorded Iraqis' rising animosity 
     toward the United States. Even supporters of an American 
     military presence say that it is acceptable temporarily and 
     only to prevent either of the warring sides in Iraq from 
     winning. Today the Iraqi government survives only because its 
     senior members and their families live within the heavily 
     guarded Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and 
     military command.
       As Congress awakens to these realities--and a few members 
     have bravely pointed them out--will it act on them? Not 
     necessarily. Too many lawmakers have fallen for the myths 
     that are invoked to try to sell the president's new war aims. 
     Let us consider the most pernicious of them.
       (1) We must continue the war to prevent the terrible 
     aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon. 
     Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now 
     fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! 
     Undoubtedly we will leave a mess--the mess we created, which 
     has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers 
     gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next 
     breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, 
     a civil war, a terrorist haven, a ``failed state,'' or some 
     other horror. But this ``aftermath'' is already upon us; a 
     prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.
       (2) We must continue the war to prevent Iran's influence 
     from growing in Iraq. This is another absurd notion. One of 
     the president's initial war aims, the creation of a democracy 
     in Iraq, ensured increased Iranian influence, both in Iraq 
     and the region. Electoral democracy, predictably, would put 
     Shiite groups in power--groups supported by Iran since Saddam 
     Hussein repressed them in 1991. Why are so many members of 
     Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now 
     supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war 
     inexorably and predictably caused? Fear that Congress will 
     confront this contradiction helps explain the administration 
     and neocon drumbeat we now hear for expanding the war to 
     Iran.
       Here we see shades of the Nixon-Kissinger strategy in 
     Vietnam: widen the war into Cambodia and Laos. Only this 
     time, the adverse consequences would be far greater. Iran's 
     ability to hurt U.S. forces in Iraq are not trivial. And the 
     anti-American backlash in the region would be larger, and 
     have more lasting consequences.
       (3) We must prevent the emergence of a new haven for al-
     Qaeda in Iraq. But it was the U.S. invasion that opened 
     Iraq's doors to al-Qaeda. The longer U.S. forces have 
     remained there, the stronger al-Qaeda has become. Yet its 
     strength within the Kurdish and Shiite areas is trivial. 
     After a U.S. withdrawal, it will probably play a continuing 
     role in helping the Sunni groups against the Shiites and the 
     Kurds. Whether such foreign elements could remain or thrive 
     in Iraq after the resolution of civil war is open to 
     question. Meanwhile, continuing the war will not push al-
     Qaeda outside Iraq. On the contrary, the American presence is 
     the glue that holds al-Qaeda there now.
       (4) We must continue to fight in order to ``support the 
     troops.'' This argument effectively paralyzes almost all 
     members of Congress. Lawmakers proclaim in grave tones a 
     litany of problems in Iraq sufficient to justify a rapid 
     pullout. Then they reject that logical conclusion, insisting 
     we cannot do so because we must support the troops. Has 
     anybody asked the troops?
       During their first tours, most may well have favored 
     ``staying the course''--whatever that meant to them--but now 
     in their second, third and fourth tours, many are changing 
     their minds. We see evidence of that in the many news stories 
     about unhappy troops being sent back to Iraq. Veterans groups 
     are beginning to make public the case for bringing them home. 
     Soldiers and officers in Iraq are speaking out critically to 
     reporters on the ground.
       But the strangest aspect of this rationale for continuing 
     the war is the implication that the troops are somehow 
     responsible for deciding to continue the president's course. 
     That political and moral responsibility belongs to the 
     president, not the troops. Did not President Harry S. Truman 
     make it clear that ``the buck stops'' in the Oval Office? If 
     the president keeps dodging it, where does it stop? With 
     Congress?
       Embracing the four myths gives Congress excuses not to 
     exercise its power of the purse to end the war and open the 
     way for a strategy that might actually bear fruit.
       The first and most critical step is to recognize that 
     fighting on now simply prolongs our losses and blocks the way 
     to a new strategy. Getting out of Iraq is the pre-condition 
     for creating new strategic options. Withdrawal will take away 
     the conditions that allow our enemies in the region to enjoy 
     our pain. It will awaken those European states reluctant to 
     collaborate with us in Iraq and the region.
       Second, we must recognize that the United States alone 
     cannot stabilize the Middle East.
       Third, we must acknowledge that most of our policies are 
     actually destabilizing the region. Spreading democracy, using 
     sticks to try to prevent nuclear proliferation, threatening 
     ``regime change,'' using the hysterical rhetoric of the 
     ``global war on terrorism''--all undermine the stability we 
     so desperately need in the Middle East.
       Fourth, we must redefine our purpose. It must be a stable 
     region, not primarily a democratic Iraq. We must redirect our 
     military operations so they enhance rather than undermine 
     stability. We can write off the war as a ``tactical draw'' 
     and make ``regional stability'' our measure of ``victory.'' 
     That single step would dramatically realign the opposing 
     forces in the region, where most states want stability. Even 
     many in the angry mobs of young Arabs shouting profanities 
     against the United States want predictable order, albeit on 
     better social and economic terms than they now have.
       Realigning our diplomacy and military capabilities to 
     achieve order will hugely reduce the numbers of our enemies 
     and gain us new and important allies. This cannot happen, 
     however, until our forces are moving out of Iraq. Why should 
     Iran negotiate to relieve our pain as long as we are 
     increasing its influence in Iraq and beyond? Withdrawal will 
     awaken most leaders in the region to their own need for U.S.-
     led diplomacy to stabilize their neighborhood.
       If Bush truly wanted to rescue something of his historical 
     legacy, he would seize the initiative to implement this kind 
     of strategy. He would eventually be held up as a leader 
     capable of reversing direction by turning an imminent, tragic 
     defeat into strategic recovery.
       If he stays on his present course, he will leave Congress 
     the opportunity to earn the

[[Page 3795]]

     credit for such a turnaround. It is already too late to wait 
     for some presidential candidate for 2008 to retrieve the 
     situation. If Congress cannot act, it, too, will live in 
     infamy.

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