[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4410-4428]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, an historic vote was announced in the 
House Chamber moments ago. By a vote of 246 to 182, the House of 
Representatives, in a bipartisan rollcall vote, has approved the 
resolution relative to the President's call for escalation of the 
number of troops serving in Iraq. That resolution is fewer than 60 
words in length, and I believe it should be read into the Record. This 
is a resolution which we are hoping to bring to the Senate floor 
tomorrow so that the debate can begin in this Chamber. It reads:

       Congress and the American people will continue to support 
     and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who 
     are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; 
     Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. 
     Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 
     20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

  It is unembellished, it is straightforward, and it states a position. 
Those who agree with this resolution, as I do, should be heard. Those 
who disagree and believe we should escalate the number of troops in 
this war have a right to be heard as well. That is the nature of this 
institution. It is the nature of our democracy.
  For the Republicans to continue to threaten a filibuster to stop the 
debate in the Senate so that Members of the Senate cannot come forward 
and express themselves and vote on this issue is wrong. It is unfair. 
It is inconsistent with the reason we ran for office. We were asked by 
the people kind enough to entrust us with this responsibility to face 
the issues of our times, to address those issues in a responsible 
manner, to have a civilized debate on the floor of the Senate, and to 
take a vote and take a stand. We are expected to do that.
  We are not expected to waffle and weave and avoid the obvious. This 
is the issue of the moment. It is the issue of our time. With over 
130,000 American soldiers' lives on the line, it is unacceptable that 
the minority would stop us from debating this issue. It is unacceptable 
to our troops and to their families who wait anxiously to know what 
their fate will be. It is unacceptable to the rest of the Nation, which 
expects the Senate to be a full partner in congressional debate.
  It takes 60 votes to bring a measure to the floor in the Senate. On 
the Democratic side, with one absence by illness, we have 50. We need 
the cooperation of the Republicans to even debate the issue. They have 
made it clear in pronouncements on the floor and in press conferences 
they are going to stop this debate at any cost. They are prepared to 
filibuster this measure so we cannot have a debate and a vote on this 
critical issue. That is wrong. It is inconsistent with the reason we 
ran for office and the reason this institution exists.
  We have to face the obvious. Since the decision was made by the 
United States of America to give President Bush this authorization of 
force, we have seen horrible results.
  Mr. President, 3,132 of our best and bravest soldiers have given 
their lives, thousands have been seriously injured, hundreds of 
billions of dollars of taxpayers' money have been spent in pursuit of 
this war, with no end in sight. Our soldiers did their job and did it 
well--deposed a dictator and gave the Iraqis an opportunity for the 
first time in their history to stand and govern themselves and guide 
their nation into the future.
  Instead, we have seen this situation disintegrate into a civil war, 
and we have watched our soldiers caught in the crossfire of a battle 
that started 1,400 years ago among followers of the Islamic faith. That 
is not what America bargained for. That is why the majority of the 
American people believe we need to change course, we need a new 
direction, and we need to bring our troops home. We need to tell the 
President that the escalation of this war and the escalation of the 
troops is the wrong policy at this moment in history.
  For this Senate to speak, we need to engage in a debate, a debate 
which leads to a vote. There are choices before us. This choice, which 
I support, tells the President we disagree with his policy. It joins 
with the House of Representatives, which made the same decision on a 
bipartisan basis. We have offered to Senator McCain, a Republican from 
Arizona, an opportunity to bring his position forward in support of 
adding more troops in Iraq. That is the fair parameter of a good 
debate. But sadly the Republican minority has said they will deny us 
that opportunity.
  I hope those who believe it is important for the Senate to engage in 
this debate will contact their Members of

[[Page 4411]]

the Senate as quickly as possible and let them know the vote tomorrow 
at 1:45 in the afternoon here on the Senate floor is a historic vote, a 
vote of great importance. Every Member should be here. Every Member 
should vote. Every Member should understand the nature of this 
institution. The reason we serve is to give voice to the people we 
represent on the issues of our time. There is no more compelling and 
timely issue than this war in Iraq.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of my colleague 
from Illinois. This debate we are trying to have is actually a debate 
about a debate. This must be the only place, the only real estate in 
the United States of America in which, rather than having a debate 
about the war and strategy, we are having a debate about whether we 
should debate it. It is pretty unbelievable.
  This is called the greatest deliberative body in the world. It is an 
unbelievable privilege for me to be here. I came from a very small town 
of about 300 people, a high school class of 9. I am here in the 
greatest deliberative body in the world. I am enormously proud to be 
here. But I came here not to avoid debate but to engage in debate, to 
talk about this country and its future.
  There is an old saying: When everyone is thinking the same thing, no 
one is thinking very much. There is a desire in this Chamber by some 
who have spoken that we all be thinking the same thing about these 
issues, that we all support President Bush and whatever his strategies 
might be and wherever he might take us. This Congress has a 
constitutional role to play, and the constitutional role is not to 
decide to come to the floor from Monday through Friday to support the 
President of the United States, it is to come to the floor of the 
Senate to support this country and its interests as best we see those 
interests.
  Some long while ago, I went to a veterans hospital on a Sunday 
morning and I presented medals to a veteran. His name was Edmund Young 
Eagle. He was an American Indian. He had fought in the Second World 
War, had gone all around the world, had fought in northern Africa, 
fought at Normandy, fought across Europe, and came back to live on the 
Indian reservation. He never married, never had very much. He loved to 
play baseball. But he had kind of a tough life. At the end of Edmund 
Young Eagle's life, this man who served his country, at the end of his 
life he was dying of lung cancer. He was in the veterans hospital in 
Fargo, ND, and his sister called and said her brother Edmund Young 
Eagle had proudly served his country and had never received the medals 
for his service in the Second World War.
  Would you get him his medals, she asked?
  I said, Of course I will.
  So I achieved getting the medals he earned but never received from 
the Pentagon, and I went to the VA hospital on a Sunday morning to 
present medals to Edmund Young Eagle, a Native American, one of those 
first Americans who served this country and then went home and lived 
quietly.
  When I went to his room that morning, Edmund Young Eagle was very 
sick. I didn't know it at the time, but he would die within a week or 
so. We cranked up the hospital bed for Edmund Young Eagle so he was in 
a sitting position, and I pinned his World War II medals on his pajama 
tops and told him that his country was grateful for his serving our 
country in the Second World War.
  This man, very sick, looked up at me and said: This is one of the 
proudest days of my life.
  This man who lived in a spartan way, never having very much but 
served this country with honor, felt great gratitude at the end of his 
life for a country recognizing what he had done for us. That is the 
life of a soldier, someone who commits himself or herself to answer 
their country's call without question. So many have done it.
  I will attend a funeral this week of a young man killed in Iraq. I 
received a call this morning from a mother, the mother of a soldier who 
spent a year in Iraq and returned with very difficult circumstances--
post-traumatic stress, all kinds of difficult emotional problems--who 
just this week received the alert notice that his reserve unit will 
likely be called up again.
  This is about war. It is about commitment. It is about our soldiers. 
It is about our country and our future. Some say we should not talk 
about that, we should not debate it. If that is the case, this is the 
only real estate, this is the only room in America where it is not 
being discussed and debated. It is being debated in the homes, in the 
restaurants, in the gymnasiums, in the schools, in the office. It ought 
to be debated here as well. This has a profound impact on our country 
and its future.
  Make no mistake about it, our military has won every battle it has 
fought. Our military will win the battles they fight. But winning 
military battles does not win the war in Iraq. We disapprove of 
President Bush's plan to deepen our escalation in Iraq because it is a 
military response to a problem that must be resolved through diplomacy 
and through negotiation. The civil war and the violence in Iraq is only 
going to stop when there is genuine reconciliation between groups in 
Iraq.
  Let's think through what we have done in Iraq. Through our soldiers' 
blood and our Treasury, we sent troops to Iraq. The Iraqi leader, 
Saddam Hussein, is dead. Good riddance, I say. We have unearthed mass 
graves in Iraq showing that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were 
murdered by a dictator. But Saddam Hussein was executed. The country of 
Iraq was able to vote for its own new Constitution. The country of Iraq 
voted for its own Government. That is very substantial progress.
  But the next step has not shown much progress. The next step is this: 
Do the Iraqi people have the will to provide for their own security? 
This is their country, not ours. Iraq belongs to them, not us. The 
question is, Do the Iraqi people have the will to provide for their 
security? If they do not, this country cannot and will not be able to 
do that for any length of time. That is the question. Do they have the 
will to take back their country?
  Iraqi leaders are going to have to make very difficult decisions, 
political decisions in some cases which may undermine their own power 
and their own base of support. But it is the only way this is going to 
be resolved. The sectarian violence that exists in Iraq today can trace 
its roots in some cases back to the year 700 A.D. This violence is not 
going to dissipate soon unless there is reconciliation between the 
factions. This requires Iraqi troops to fight their ethnic and 
religious allies who are part of the insurgency as well as fight their 
opponents. It requires Iraqi security, Iraqi police, and Iraqi troops 
to provide for the security of the whole country of Iraq.
  The resolution we want to debate is a resolution which does not say 
we don't support our troops. Clearly we support our troops. We support 
our troops with everything we believe is necessary for their safety and 
security and for them to do their jobs the way we expect them to do 
their jobs. This Congress, every man and every woman, supports 
America's troops and prays for their safe return.
  This resolution says we support our troops but we do not agree with 
President Bush in his desire to deepen our involvement in Iraq. Some 
come to the floor of the Senate and say: Your position on this 
emboldens the enemy. It is a message to embolden the enemy. It sends 
the wrong message to our troops.
  It is neither of those. It is a message from the Congress of the 
United States to the President, and that message is we do not support 
his proposal to deepen our involvement in the war in Iraq.
  A blue ribbon commission was put together, of some of the best 
thinkers, foreign policy and military thinkers in our country, headed 
by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, very distinguished Americans. That 
group included former Secretaries of State and military leaders and 
some outstanding thinkers. They worked for months, many months, to 
develop a plan. We all understand the alternatives are not good in 
Iraq. We understand that. If there

[[Page 4412]]

were an easy way to deal with this, believe me, it would have been 
dealt with. In many ways, we found a box canyon in Iraq, and it is hard 
to get out of a box canyon.
  The Baker-Hamilton report represented a consensus of some of the best 
thinkers in our country, having worked months on this problem. The 
President chose to ignore that report. The President says he is the 
decider.
  You know, the Constitution says something about that as well. I agree 
with my colleagues that we can't have 100 or 535 commanders in chief. I 
understand that. But I also understand that the Constitution has a role 
for the Congress. Only the Congress can declare war--only the Congress. 
Yes, the President is Commander in Chief, but only the Congress can 
declare war. Only the Congress has the power of the purse.
  The question is, What do we do about what is now happening in Iraq? 
No other country that I am aware of, in what the President has called 
the coalition of the willing, has decided they are going to deepen 
their involvement or expand their troops to Iraq. No other country. 
Even Great Britain, the strongest supporter of President Bush's Iraq 
policy, has refused to increase their troop strength in Iraq. In fact, 
the British news reports say that Britain intends to have all or most 
of its troops withdrawn by the end of 2007. None of our allies, old or 
new, of which I am aware, have decided the proper approach at this 
point, given the sectarian involvement in Iraq, is to deepen their 
involvement and increase their troop strength in Iraq.
  The President is saying we should surge some additional troops to 
Iraq. We have done that before. In early 2004, we surged 20,000 
additional troops. A similar one happened in the fall of 2005. Most 
recently, last summer the President announced that thousands of 
additional troops would be surged into Baghdad. What happened as a 
result of that was the violence increased, and deaths and injuries to 
American troops went up. So we have seen some examples of a surge, and 
the examples have not been very helpful. In fact, it has been 
counterproductive.
  This map is a map of the city of Baghdad--about 4 million to 6 
million people, about 250 square miles. We have people in this city who 
have grievances that go back 1,300 and 1,400 years. The Shia and the 
Sunni religious split occurred in the seventh century, and they have 
clashed frequently since then.
  This country is not put together by natural borders. This country was 
put together by a pen and paper, by a decision 90 years ago of how to 
draw the borders of this country. This was a diplomatic decision, that 
this should be the country of Iraq.
  Let me describe what is happening now in this city. We have areas 
that are Shia areas and Sunni areas, and now we have areas that are 
turning Shia and turning Sunni. In many ways, you will see from this 
map the dramatic evidence of violence in this capital city of Iraq. It 
is getting worse, not better.
  I mentioned that some of the hatred goes back 1,400 years. But a more 
recent example, in a story I was reading about Iraq, a Shiite was 
recently driven from his home and farm by the Sunnis who killed his 
brother and nephew, and he was so bitter and angry, he said, ``A 
volcano of revenge has built up inside. I want to rip them up with my 
teeth.'' It is this hatred which fuels a civil war and the atrocities 
that occur nearly every day.
  Saturday, February 3, saw the deadliest single suicide bombing since 
the war began nearly 4 years ago, with 130 people killed and more than 
300 wounded. It was the fourth major attack against a densely populated 
Shia area in less than 3 weeks. On the Thursday before, twin suicide 
bombers struck a market jammed with people--60 killed, 150 wounded. 
Again, 60 killed, 150 wounded; spraying body parts so far that police 
were scouring rooftops late in the night for body parts. A few days 
before that, 75 people killed in Baghdad's Shia neighborhoods in 
multiple bombings; 160 wounded. The day before that, 3 car bombs 
detonated within minutes of each other at the vegetable market. More 
than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in the last week of January. We are told 
there were 3,000 killed in the last 3 weeks. Unbelievably, it seems to 
me, they pick up bodies in the middle of the morning in Baghdad from 
the night's carnage with holes drilled in their kneecaps, holes drilled 
in their skulls. These are unbelievable signs of torture. These are 
acts of unimaginable violence committed against others. No one is safe, 
nowhere is safe, and this violence pervades nearly every aspect of 
daily life.
  The question I think the President proposes with his suggestion of a 
surge of an additional 20,000 or 21,000 troops in Baghdad poses is: 
Will additional troops in Baghdad on street corners, going door to 
door, embedded with the troops, with the security of the Iraqi 
Government, stem the violence? The answer is likely no. We have seen 
this attempted previously and it did not stem the violence; the 
violence increased.
  Let me make another point I think is important. No one has made, I 
think, the point that this troop escalation, whatever it is, is 
temporary. The United States troops are leaving Iraq. The question is 
when, not if. At some point, United States troops will leave Iraq. The 
question is: Will we leave in a time that gives us the opportunity to 
turn the country of Iraq back to the Iraqi people and say, this is your 
job to provide for your security.
  Let me talk about the National Intelligence Estimate. The National 
Intelligence Estimate was done with 16 intelligence agencies. They 
spent the last 5 months analyzing the situation in Iraq, reviewed by 
the head of the CIA, the head of the intelligence units at the 
Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department, and the Director of 
National Intelligence, our most senior intelligence official. Some of 
it is top secret, but some was released publicly. Let me read 
something:

       Even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-
     take-all attitude and sectarian animosities affecting the 
     political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard-pressed to 
     achieve sustained political reconciliation in this time 
     frame.

  Continuing to quote:

       Iraq's neighbors are influenced by the events within Iraq, 
     but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to 
     be a major driver of violence or the prospect for stability 
     because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal 
     sectarian dynamics.

  That is a fancy way to describe the civil war.
  I might say the last National Intelligence Estimate was done was in 
2004 and it detailed 3 possible outcomes for Iraq over the next 18 
months, which at the time would put us in the fall or winter of 2006. 
The worst-case scenario for the previous NIE was a civil war. Well, 
that is what the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate says has now 
happened. That is right; what is going on in Iraq now is the worst-case 
scenario of the previous National Intelligence Estimate.
  Let me make a couple of other points, if I might. General Abizaid 
just over 2 months ago came to the Congress and here is what he said:

       I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the 
     Corps Commander, General Dempsey, and I said, ``In your 
     professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American 
     troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to 
     achieve success in Iraq? And they said no.''

  This is our top military commander testifying to the Senate just over 
2 months ago: They said no.
  Now, here is why General Abizaid said the commanders did not believe 
they should have additional troops brought into Iraq:

       The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is 
     easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work. I 
     believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from 
     doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own 
     future. The only way Iraq works in the future is for the 
     Iraqis to take more responsibility for that future. That is 
     what General Abizaid said. He was right then; he is right 
     now. This is the testimony heard by the Senate just over 2 
     months ago. Interestingly enough, as a side note, just 2 
     weeks ago--3 weeks ago, John Negroponte, the head of the 
     intelligence in this country at that time said this in open 
     testimony to the Senate:
       The greatest terrorist threat to America is al-Qaida and 
     its network around the world.

  The greatest terrorist threat to our country is al-Qaida and its 
network

[[Page 4413]]

around the world, and he said they operate from a ``secure hideaway'' 
in Pakistan. If that is the case, if the greatest terrorist threat to 
our country is al-Qaida operating from a ``secure hideaway'' in 
Pakistan, and that comes from the head of our intelligence service in 
this country in open testimony to the Senate, if there are 21,000 
additional American troops available to surge somewhere, why on Earth 
would we not choose to move those troops through Afghanistan near to 
Pakistan to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaida, the greatest 
terrorist threat to our country? I do not understand the priorities 
coming from the administration. There has to be a change. We all 
understand that. We know Iraq is a different place. The various sects, 
tribes, religions, in some cases do not speak to each other, and in 
many cases don't trust each other. In other cases, they hate each 
other, and in too many cases, they kill each other.
  That is what must change. It is why reconciliation is the key. It is 
why more U.S. troops are not going to make a difference.
  Does anyone believe that if we go back 4 years and the President 
brought a proposition to the floor of the Senate and said: Look, we 
have a civil war in Iraq. What we ought to do is send more American 
troops to the middle of that civil war, or at least begin sending 
American troops to the middle of that civil war because we don't 
believe after 3 years of training that the Iraqi people are prepared to 
provide for their security, does anybody believe we would think it a 
good strategy to send additional troops to the middle of a civil war? I 
don't believe so.
  I understand there are very different opinions here in this Chamber, 
and I respect them. I wouldn't diminish anyone in this Chamber for 
holding any views on this subject. I understand their passions. I share 
their passions. But I don't understand this: I don't understand how it 
is that this great body has to spend days debating whether we will have 
a debate. This is, after all, a debate about the motion to proceed. 
This isn't a debate about Iraq or Iraq strategy; it is about whether we 
can proceed to a motion on that subject. It is a debate about whether 
we can debate. If there is any space left in this country in which this 
debate should take place, it ought to be this space on this floor, this 
real estate. This is the great deliberative body. I do not for the life 
of me understand a vote against cloture that says: No, we believe the 
United States should not debate this issue. This is an issue the 
American people care a great deal about, and it is long past the time, 
in my judgment, for us to have this debate.
  We are all united, I think, in loving this country. We want what is 
best for this country. We want to protect the American troops. We want 
our country to succeed. All of us want all of those things. I don't 
believe anybody who says we are undermining this or that or anything of 
that sort. All that is nonsense. This country deserves from this Senate 
a thoughtful, serious, real debate about what is happening that affects 
every part of American life, and that is the struggle we are involved 
in with respect to Iraq. The American people deserve this debate, and I 
hope that tomorrow when we have a vote on the motion to proceed, we 
will have the opportunity to proceed from that motion to a debate on 
the underlying petition that is on the floor of the Senate with respect 
to the subject of the war in Iraq.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, how much time was I allocated?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has until 4:30.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, this morning I got up and I went to get 
on an airplane and the plane was delayed because of mechanical issues. 
Then I got the word that the leader said we should come vote on 
questions being discussed, just as I heard now.
  I am here to participate in a charade. This is nothing but a charade. 
It is a nonbinding resolution. We are coming back to vote on Saturday 
on a nonbinding resolution that the American public doesn't support. As 
a matter of fact, as I read in The Hill newspaper and as I see on the 
front page, there is the majority leader's photograph and a story about 
how the majority is trying to embarrass the 21 of us who are up for 
election in 2008. I think the majority--current majority, former 
minority--ought to look at that paper. Inside it, after giving the 
majority leader credit for this charade, is a poll. It is an online 
poll, and this was a question: Does debate on a nonbinding Iraq 
resolution help or harm Americans? Harm: 57 percent; help, 43 percent.
  Nothing at all will be accomplished tomorrow, even if we got cloture. 
We would vote on a nonbinding resolution that is an embarrassment to 
the troops that are wearing our uniforms in Iraq. What we should be 
doing is voting on cloture on a series of votes which would include 
Senator Gregg's resolution or amendment that declares our support for 
our troops.
  The reason we face this situation today is the new majority, with one 
vote--a majority of one vote--went over to the House and negotiated a 
resolution--a nonbinding, nothing resolution--and brought it over here 
and said: You are going to vote on this resolution and nothing else. If 
we do this, we become a lower body of the House. The House, in 
responding to the Rules Committee, had no chance to offer any 
amendments to that bill. Over here, the majority leader says: You 
cannot offer any amendments to this because I am the leader.
  Well, it is time we showed this leader the processes of the Senate 
are here for the purpose of allowing debate. The House represents the 
population of a whole series of congressional districts. We represent 
our States. The national viewpoint is settled in the Senate. This is 
the place where debate is supposed to take place and it should not be 
limited.
  If we voted for cloture on this resolution tomorrow, we would not be 
allowed to vote on the Gregg amendment. The Gregg amendment:

       Expressing the sense of Congress that no funds should be 
     cut off or reduced for American troops in the field which 
     would result in undermining their safety or their ability to 
     complete their assigned missions.

  What is wrong with that? Why won't the leader let us vote on that? 
You know why? Because it would carry. It would carry. Because Senators 
on that other side of the aisle know they must support the forces in 
the field.
  Senator Gregg's amendment goes on to say:

       Whereas under Article II, section 2, of the Constitution of 
     the United States, the President is the ``commander in chief 
     of the Army and Navy of the United States'', and in such 
     capacity the President has the command of the Armed Forces, 
     including the authority to deploy troops and direct military 
     campaigns during wartime.
       Whereas under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of 
     the United States, Congress has the power of the purse 
     specifically as it relates to the Armed Forces, and in such 
     capacity Congress has the responsibility to fully and 
     adequately provide funding for the United States military 
     forces, especially when they are at war and are defending our 
     Nation; and
       Whereas the United States military forces are in harm's way 
     and are protecting our country, Congress and the Nation 
     should give them all the support they need in order to 
     maintain their safety and to accomplish their assigned 
     missions, including the equipment, logistics, and funding 
     necessary to ensure their safety and effectiveness, and such 
     support is the responsibility of both the Executive Branch 
     and the Legislative Branch of Government.
  Senator Gregg goes on to say this:

       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring)--

  And they have to concur if we send it back to them--

       That it is the sense of Congress that Congress should not 
     take any action that will endanger United States military 
     forces in the field, including elimination or reduction of 
     funds for troops in the field, as such action with respect to 
     funding would undermine their safety or harm their 
     effectiveness in pursuing their assigned missions.

  It is nothing but a charade to say an amendment that does nothing 
should not have a resolution such as this attached to it. That is our 
purpose. That is our job. It is our constitutional responsibility to 
support the forces in the field.
  I am ashamed the Senate is taking action to prevent the voting on a 
resolution, once again, establishing the

[[Page 4414]]

principle. Our duty is to support our forces in the field.
  I have a chart to show, but it is difficult for many to understand 
why we need surge forces. This whole concept we are talking about is 
safety. Senator Gregg's resolution deals with safety of our forces. 
This is a chart that shows the Iraqi Army and national police with lead 
responsibility for counterinsurgency operations in their areas.
  In May of 2006 this was their deployment, fairly small. By February 
of 2007, this is their deployment. We are now in the process of going 
forward on the new plan to deal with the fact that we have trained a 
great many of these forces now, but they have not been moved into the 
areas of real combat, and those are the white spaces on this chart. The 
whole idea now is to start moving these forces into those areas.
  By the way, the hot spots are also on arterial highways in Iraq. This 
demonstrates where it is. The white areas are occupied by American 
forces and coalition forces. We want to give them a chance now to move 
them into those areas. As such, forces will be moving all over this 
country. In that period of time, these additional surge forces are 
necessary in order to provide the safety for the people whom they are 
going to be moving. They are our forces, they are their forces. 
Secretary Gates has said he does not think they will be there too long. 
He made a point to make that statement. They will come out as soon as 
they are no longer needed. Safety is a problem.
  To those people who say: Let's get ready to withdraw, if we try to 
withdraw right now, there would be mass murder in this country. Think 
of what happened to the Russians and the Soviets when they tried to get 
out of Afghanistan--and multiply it by factors of 10 to 20. We are 
spread out all over this place and so are the Iraqis because that was 
the problem, we were providing for the defense until they were ready to 
move in and take care of their defense.
  This is a chart that shows the current position of forces in Iraqi 
Freedom. We can see various operations, Japanese and coalition forces, 
including the British, around the periphery. We are there, in Baghdad, 
on the major highways. We are in the white spaces on the chart. To get 
the Iraqi forces in there, we have a new scheme where we will have 
Iraqi brigades--not divisions but brigades--with an embedded battalion 
in each brigade move in. Our people will be along with them to make 
sure their training is carried out and they do the job of defending 
themselves.
  As a practical matter, in order to do that, we need the increased 
safety of movement in this country. I fully support the plan. It was an 
Iraqi plan improved on by Secretary Gates, the President, and his 
staff. Very clearly, the whole program is so they can provide the basic 
defense for themselves in areas where there is key opposition.
  Assume the other side, the side who wants to withdraw, would get 
approval of the Congress and had some way to mandate the President to 
withdraw forces. The first thing that would have to be done would be to 
move the Iraqi forces in there where they can defend themselves and 
hold back the insurgents currently combatting our forces.
  I am not a general, I am not even an armchair general, but I have 
been around wars for almost all my life now starting out when I was 19. 
I have seen a great many wars, and I have seen a great many problems 
with war. Coming back from overseas, I talked to some of my friends and 
I decided I was going to become an aeronautical engineer to try to find 
out what caused wars. I hate wars. But I know my duty is to support the 
military and to support those people carrying out our constitutional 
mandate to provide for the common defense of this country.
  In my opinion, this is the common defense of our country. We have 
taken on the task of trying to stop a movement that could very well 
destroy the world. I do believe we should stop these incessant debates 
on resolutions that mean nothing. Why would we spend all this time and 
come back on Saturday in order to vote on a nonbinding resolution that 
would not do a thing? It would not do a thing at all for anyone in that 
conflict, not one thing. It is nothing but a charade, a charade. It 
embarrasses me to have to say that. The whole reason for it, pick up 
The Hill newspaper, back to where I started, to provide a challenge to 
the 21 Members, Republicans, up for election in 2008, 3 on that side of 
the aisle. The whole idea is to try to see if we cannot force them to 
come back on Saturday in order to say to our State constituents: They 
were not here to vote. I am here to vote. I happened to get off the 
airplane because I was pretty irritated when I read that story. I am 
still irritated.
  I remember Steve Syms in 1986, when everyone was trying to embarrass 
people up for election, he said: I am going home and I am going to talk 
to my constituents, and he did not get sucked back into the debates 
such as this. He was reelected.
  What these people do not know is, we are going to stand up and speak 
up. We are going to call a spade a spade. This is a charade. I have not 
been home since January. And I got off that plane to come back and 
complain about this. I have a right to go home once in a while. I live 
4,500 miles from here. As a matter of fact, I am stopping off on my way 
home to see a very sick relative before I get to Alaska on Monday. 
Leadership is leadership, and I have been in leadership in this Senate. 
I was not elected leader, but that is another story. As a practical 
matter, I have seen leaders come and I have seen leaders go. My friend 
from Nevada has been my friend for a long time. I am saying I am not 
going to be embarrassed to come out and say this is nothing but a 
charade. We should not come back tomorrow to vote on a nonbinding 
resolution to see if we would vote on a resolution that doesn't tell 
the story that America wants us to tell, and that story is we support 
our forces in the field, we support what they are doing. We want them 
to do what we said we would do, move the forces in that are now trained 
in Iraq. Let them show how they can defend themselves and we then pull 
out our embedded battalions and we will be in a position to figure out 
what is the long-term plan now for this new democracy we have helped 
establish.
  What does this nonbinding resolution do to people in the field? What 
does it do to the Iraqis? What is it selling them? People are telling 
me now we should find some way to take the money the President has 
asked for, the supplemental, and to use it for something else--not to 
use it to support the people in the field.
  There is what is called the Food and Forage Act of the United States. 
I hope the Senate understands that act. I have been involved in defense 
appropriations now for over 25 years. The President of the United 
States has the authority to take money from wherever it is to support 
forces in the field. We will never abandon our people in the field. We 
will support them in every way possible. That is why the current 
majority does not want to vote on the resolution of Senator Gregg. They 
do not want to be put in a position of saying no to Senator Gregg 
because if they vote, if they support that resolution, they are 
continuing the concepts that have been embodied in my life and in the 
Senate's life as long as I have known it. That is, we support our 
forces in the field. We are not going to divert money they need for 
their support, and we are not going to waste our time on nonbinding 
resolutions that do not do anything to help anybody.
  We have a lot of things we could be working on, immigration, energy, 
global climate change. What are we doing? We are spending our time 
coming back on Saturday to debate whether we should vote on a bill that 
was started in the House of Representatives, with not one amendment, 
and brought over here, not one amendment, and expresses a point of view 
that the American public does not approve of.
  I hope we can get to a debate one of these days, and people will stay 
around after they make comments such as I heard before I came in. I 
guarantee, in my heart and in my mind, I know what it means to be in 
uniform, what it means to be in a position to feel it is necessary to 
have support at home.

[[Page 4415]]

  I spent some time last night talking to Colin Powell, one of the 
famous generals of this country, and reminded him once when we were 
talking years ago, he told me about the time when he was sent into Laos 
as a young captain with about 12 days' rations and how when you get up 
on the morning of the 12th day and realize a drop mission is coming to 
give you your rations for the next 12 days, how you realize what it 
means to rely on people, to understand that people in the United States 
are behind their military, to know you can eat those rations because 
the supplies are going to come in when they are supposed to come in. 
That is support to people in the field.
  Another concept I speak of is our people have a doctrine that hardly 
any armies or military in the world has had--we never abandon our 
forces in the field. What these people are doing now if you listen to 
them on this other resolution, they are saying, we are going to take 
and divert this money and put it somewhere else. Not this Senator. If 
they need that money over there to carry out the commands of the 
Commander in Chief, I am going to support it. The Senate should support 
it. We should stop this business of trying to embarrass people who are 
up for election and demanding they come back and vote on Saturday.
  This recess was announced a month ago. Those who live a long distance 
from here rely on that. The Senate has to start keeping its commitments 
to our Members whether they are up for election or not.
  This is political posturing at its worse. I will be here to vote 
tomorrow to represent some of those people who could not get back. I 
stayed to vote so I could come and say this: Political posturing has no 
place in the Senate of the United States.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, on December 23, 1783, George Washington, 
having successfully led the Continental Army to victory in the 
Revolutionary War, appeared before the Continental Congress and 
resigned his commission as commander of the Armed Forces.
  It was a quietly pivotal action in the history of our young country, 
an event so important in shaping the Nation that it is one of only 
eight moments in our history deemed worthy enough of gracing the walls 
of the Capitol rotunda.
  A painting of Washington's historic act hangs not far from this 
Chamber alongside more well known moments in American history such as 
the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Battle of Bunker 
Hill.
  The precedent that Washington set on that December day was as 
revolutionary as it was clear: In the United States of America, the 
power to make and execute war will be held not by the military but 
instead by peacefully elected leaders sitting in a legislative body.
  Washington understood that the will of the people--the will of the 
American people--shall be the guiding hand of government, even on 
questions of war and peace.
  I wonder how President Washington would feel, I wonder what he would 
say to each of us today. First, I think he would be very proud of what 
has happened this afternoon in the House of Representatives, where they 
came together, after lengthy debate, to state their opinions about the 
most pressing issue of war, the war in Iraq. I am very proud that we 
saw the House of Representatives vote 246 to 182 to say, first, that 
they support the troops and, secondly, that they do not support the 
escalation of the war in Iraq.
  Regardless of how each person voted today in the House, they took 
that vote. They were willing to stand up and be counted and give their 
opinion. I believe the majority of the American people--and their will, 
their belief--was represented in this vote today of 246 to 182.
  What has happened in the Senate? Well, first of all, I commend our 
majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, for his perseverance, for his 
continuing effort to reach across the aisle with the minority leader to 
find a way to do the same thing the House has done. He has put forward 
numerous proposals, and, as late as yesterday, very simply and in a 
straightforward way, offerred us the opportunity to vote on a 
resolution opposing the escalation and one that supports the 
President's escalation. What could be more fair? What could be simpler? 
Yet we continue to see the minority block the efforts to bring us to a 
vote.
  For over 2 weeks now, I have watched the Republican leadership engage 
in legislative games and political posturing to avoid taking a vote on 
the most pressing issue of our time, the war in Iraq. They say they 
support it, but they will not vote on a resolution, up or down, whether 
or not to support the President's escalation. I believe it is because 
they do not like what they know the outcome will be if we are able to 
have that vote. They have turned their backs on their responsibility to 
the people who elected them and to our troops because they may lose a 
vote.
  Four years ago, 23 of us stood on the floor of the Senate and lost a 
vote. It was a vote to go to war. It was a vote to give the President 
the authority to go to war in Iraq. It was a tough vote. We knew we 
were not going to win that vote, but we all--those for and against--
made a determination and voted because we are elected officials, 
charged with overseeing the U.S. Armed Forces, and we had a 
responsibility to voice our opinions for the record on the question of 
war.
  I have stood on the floor of the Senate time and time again to voice 
my opposition to this President's proposals of escalation--more of the 
same, calling it a different strategy, and yet doing the same thing 
over and over again. Sending more Americans into combat without a 
strategy for success will not improve the situation on the ground in 
Iraq. And it will not bring our men and women in uniform home any 
sooner.
  Only the Iraqis can secure Iraq. Only the Iraqis can secure Iraq. We 
have heard that from generals and military experts and the Iraq Study 
Group and learned colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The American 
troops cannot be seen as a substitute for Iraqi resolve. Why would we 
go further down the path that has led us to this point? Why would we 
repeat our previous mistakes and call it a new strategy?
  Unlike the President, all of us and our counterparts in the House 
will go home over recess and on weekends and face our constituents, our 
neighbors. We see them and talk to them at church, in the line at the 
bank, at our kids' schools, in the grocery store, and at countless 
events and meetings as we travel throughout our States.
  And we are here because they elected us to be their voice.
  This is not Washington, DC's, war. We may set policy here, we may 
make speeches here, and we may take votes here, this is America's war.
  The men and women putting their lives on the line in Iraq every day 
are from our smallest neighborhoods and our biggest cities, from farm 
communities and factory towns, from places many of us have never heard 
of and few of us will ever go. Flint, Howell, West Branch, Hemlock, La 
Salle, Port Huron, Ypsilanti, Muskegon, Ann Arbor, Byron, Flushing, Bay 
City, Canton, Paw Paw, Lake Orion, Saginaw, Sand Creek--these are only 
some of the dozens of communities in my home State of Michigan that 
have given up a son or a daughter to this war.
  We sit in this historic Capitol and argue over whether we should 
dignify this war with a simple vote, while these and other communities 
across the country bury their loved ones, while high schools hold 
vigils for alumni laid to rest too young, while churches comfort 
parishioners who have lost sons and daughters and husbands and wives 
and fathers and mothers.
  We are the voice of these communities, of these towns and cities and 
counties. We were elected with their

[[Page 4416]]

sacred trust to come here, to Washington, and to speak out for them, to 
make our mark for them on the issues that face this country. There can 
be nothing more important than the issue of war.
  By continuing to stonewall a vote on this resolution, the Republican 
minority has stripped all of America of their voice in this debate. 
They have said to the people who elected us that this issue--the issue 
of an escalation of war--is not important enough for their elected 
representatives to consider.
  Too often in the white noise of politics we lose sight of the 
responsibility we bear. We get bogged down in the politics of 
partisanship and lose sight of why we were elected. We owe it to the 
American people to take this vote. This is the most serious issue of 
our time. There is nothing more important or more pressing than our 
Nation being at war. It is the responsibility of the Congress to engage 
in shaping policy concerning the war on behalf of the American people.
  Let me take a few moments to remind everyone what is really at stake. 
While some posture and jockey for legislative position, lives are on 
the line this moment and every moment the war goes forward. It doesn't 
matter if you support or oppose the war. Anyone involved in slowing a 
vote on this resolution should be ashamed. Our military has not failed 
us at any turn in this endeavor. But we are failing them as a body by 
failing to lead. What is at stake?
  On January 21, the Grand Rapids Press published the following account 
on the war in Iraq:

       The first roadside bomb four months ago knocked a front 
     tire off Kyle Earl's Humvee, rang his head like a bell and 
     made his ears bleed.
       The second bomb a couple of weeks later blew out the front 
     tires and took out the transmission but, again, spared Earl 
     serious injury.
       The third one, on Oct. 17, was his last.
       With the headlights out for security and wearing night-
     vision goggles, the 20-year-old Marine lance corporal from 
     Cedar Springs was driving the lead Humvee returning from a 
     night patrol in Iraq's Al Anbar province near the border with 
     Syria. He and a Marine manning the Humvee's machine gun saw 
     it at the same time: a hump in the road ahead, a sure sign of 
     a buried improvised explosive device (IED).
       Earl instantly made the calculation: If he swerved, the 
     trailing Humvee carrying the company commander would hit the 
     IED, so ``I drove right into it, knowing it was probably 
     going to kill me,'' he said.
       He ran over the hump, igniting three 155-mm artillery 
     shells and five propane tanks. The flash, amplified by the 
     night-vision goggles, was brighter than anything he'd ever 
     seen. A fireball shot through the cab, and shrapnel pierced 
     his right leg, arm and face. The shock wave felt like someone 
     had placed him inside a plastic bag and sucked out all the 
     air.
       Still, he remained conscious, as the Humvee rolled off the 
     road and came to a stop. Blood streamed from his eyes, ears 
     and nose. He reached for his 9 mm handgun, but noticed 
     something about the size of his palm on it. He picked it up 
     and examined it, unaware it was a chunk of his flesh, ripped 
     from his right forearm.
       He smelled something burning and realized he and the Humvee 
     were on fire. He rolled out onto the ground as his fellow 
     Marines kicked him to extinguish the flames.

  We are here because of that lance corporal. He and his comrades, the 
men and women serving, deserve our best--our best judgment, our best 
decisions, our best funding, our best strategy for them.
  On November 16, 2006, the Detroit Free Press gave us this insight 
into life on the ground in Iraq:

       ``A few days ago, from out of a crowd of kids, one of them 
     threw a grenade and it went off under the vehicle, and my 
     executive officer's door was peppered,'' said Lance Cpl. 
     Michael Rossi, a 28-year-old student majoring in urban 
     planning at Wayne State University who lives in Detroit. ``A 
     crowd of kids, and one of them threw a grenade.''
       ``Out here,'' he said, ``nobody is safe.''

  On January 5, the editorial page of the Flint Journal paid its 
respects to one of Flint's fallen sons:

       It's touching and laudable that the father of Marine Cpl 
     Christopher Esckelson would want the family of a fellow 
     Marine to understand the full heroics these men displayed in 
     Iraq combat that claimed both their lives.
       They are among more than a dozen local military men whom 
     the Iraq war has claimed, with each succeeding loss being no 
     less painful to an area that has supplied an ample measure of 
     these patriots.
       Of course, the grief is much greater for the families who 
     knew the men in so many other wonderful ways. Those memories 
     undoubtedly will be recalled during services for Miller and 
     Esckelson Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

  All of us have stories of the men and women who have served 
heroically and lost their lives, men and women who have come home and 
need our assistance now as veterans while in our hospitals and will 
forever carry a remembrance of this war through lost limbs and other 
health conditions. They deserve a vote on whether we believe this 
strategy for them and their colleagues is the right strategy. They 
deserve this. They expect us to stand up and speak out and work as hard 
as we can to get it right.
  Too often on the floor of this Chamber and too often in politics, we 
use words such as ``bravery'' and ``toughness'' and resolve.'' We 
describe votes as ``tough.'' We describe speeches as ``brave.'' The men 
and women serving in combat know the real meaning of these words. They 
go about their dangerous duty with the pride of professionals. They 
live and work under the shadow of violence, never knowing what might be 
facing them around the next corner, and they do it with stoic resolve 
that reflects their character and their training. They do not have the 
luxury of picking and choosing when and where to fight. They go where 
their country sends them and stand shoulder to shoulder with their 
brothers and sisters in arms and face whatever is thrown at them. What 
we consider heroic, they consider doing their job.
  Their sacrifices deserve and demand leadership, our leadership, 
collectively. We owe to it them and to every person we were elected to 
represent to vote on this resolution, to take a stand about how this 
war will proceed. It is our job. It is time to stop stalling and face 
our responsibility, a responsibility that pales in comparison to that 
which is taken every day by our troops in Iraq.
  I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I would like to state my support of the vote 
we will take tomorrow. Last week, I expressed my support for the 
bipartisan Levin-Warner resolution which was denied a vote by the full 
Senate due to procedural motions. Ten days later, we find ourselves in 
a similar situation.
  Our colleagues in the House have spent the last 4 days debating the 
current course of action in Iraq, and they have completed a vote on 
final passage today. At the same time, the Senate has continued to 
engage in partisan bickering and political gamesmanship. The House 
found a way, it found a bill, and it took a vote. We have a bill, and 
we need to debate it.
  At bottom, this debate is not about whether one is a Republican or 
Democrat; it is about the legislative branch exerting its proper 
constitutional oversight by deliberating on the most vital and 
challenging issue of our day. I would urge my colleagues to think about 
the vote that took place in 2002 authorizing the use of force in Iraq 
and about what happened afterward. This was not a party-line vote. I 
was not a Member of this body, and I do personally believe it was an 
erroneous vote, at least in its outcome, but at the same time, most 
importantly, we should look at the lack of respect shown by the 
administration after the vote. This lack of respect was a clear signal 
that the true issues dividing us in this Government are more related to 
the relations between the executive and legislative branches than 
between our respective parties.
  The administration has failed the country again and again in the 
conduct of this war. At the same time, it repeatedly claims that it 
holds the power, regardless of the input of the Congress, to continue 
to push our military people to the limits of their endurance, while 
avoiding the diplomatic options crucial to resolving the situation in 
Iraq which inevitably evolved from our invasion and occupation.

[[Page 4417]]

  I have heard discussion today about the consequences of withdrawal. 
No one on this side is advocating a precipitous withdrawal, but the 
consequences that are being described--increased terrorism, the 
empowerment of Iran, the loss of prestige of the United States around 
the world, and economic distress in our country--are, quite frankly, 
the exact conditions many of us were warning about if we invaded in the 
first place. The question is not how we withdraw or should we withdraw. 
Some day, we are going to withdraw. Inevitably, we are going to 
withdraw. The question is the conditions we leave behind when we do so.
  I have long advocated that an integral part of our strategy in Iraq 
must include engagement with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran 
and Syria. As Iraq's neighbors, they are stakeholders in both the 
future of Iraq and the need for stability in the region. As we seek to 
decrease our presence in Iraq and increase our ability to fight 
terrorism and address strategic challenges elsewhere in the world, we 
must bring those two countries to the table. An overwhelming majority 
of those who recently testified before hearings at the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee agree with that assessment.
  I have heard today the name of General Petraeus invoked several times 
as evidence of this body's support for the administration's current 
policy. I voted for General Petraeus. A vote for General Petraeus is 
not a vote for this administration's policy or its strategy or its, 
quite frankly, lack of strategy. That vote was to support the 
qualifications of an individual to command troops in Iraq. That was a 
military vote, not a political vote. If the strategy were to change, as 
I hope it will, I have full confidence that General Petraeus is capable 
of overseeing that policy as well. We must see evidence of a new 
diplomatic effort from this administration before we, as a Congress, 
not as Democrats and Republicans, ratify the expanded use of our 
military.
  On that note, it should be emphasized that despite comments today 
about the fact that the Baker-Hamilton group supported a temporary 
military surge in its report, it did so only in consonance with a 
robust regional diplomatic surge which was supposed to begin more than 
2 months ago.
  Many Republicans seem to be implying that we must support all of this 
administration's actions or, by inference, we don't support the troops. 
The issue is not whether we support the troops; it is whether we agree 
on the political issues to which they are being put. This effort 
demands clear direction from the top. It depends on the extent to which 
this Government is capable of forging a regional consensus regarding 
Iraq's future. This administration has refused to do so. It is not in 
the interest of our troops to continue sending them in harm's way 
without a clear strategy that will bring closure to this endeavor.
  I believe very strongly that our political representatives should be 
careful in claiming to speak politically for our troops. Our military 
is a mirror of our society, and so are its political views. We have 
heard a lot of anecdotal evidence today--TV clips, newspaper interviews 
with individuals. But anecdotal evidence notwithstanding, poll after 
poll shows that our troops are just as concerned about this policy as 
is the public at large.
  I have one poll from a year ago, a Zogby poll, that says that 72 
percent of the people then stationed in Iraq believed the war should 
have ended by the end of 2006. This includes 7 out of 10 of our Regular 
Army soldiers and a vast majority--nearly 60 percent--of our marines. 
These are people who have done their job. They know what their military 
job is, but they have the same questions about the political policies 
as do the rest of Americans.
  I ask unanimous consent to print the Zogby poll in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                          [February 28, 2006]

          U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72 Percent Say End War in 2006

       Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll shows just one in five troops 
     want to heed Bush call to stay ``as long as they are 
     needed,'' While 58 percent say mission is clear, 42 percent 
     say U.S. role is hazy, Plurality believes Iraqi insurgents 
     are mostly homegrown, Almost 90 percent think war is 
     retaliation for Saddam's role in 9/11, most don't blame Iraqi 
     public for insurgent attacks, Majority of troops oppose use 
     of harsh prisoner interrogation, and Plurality of troops 
     pleased with their armor and equipment.
       An overwhelming majority of 72 percent of American troops 
     serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within 
     the next year, and more than one in four say the troops 
     should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby 
     International survey shows.
       The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College's 
     Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29 percent 
     of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed 
     forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq ``immediately,'' 
     while another 22 percent said they should leave in the next 
     six months. Another 21 percent said troops should be out 
     between six and 12 months, while 23 percent said they should 
     stay ``as long as they are needed.''
       Different branches had quite different sentiments on the 
     question, the poll shows. While 89 percent of reserves and 82 
     percent of those in the National Guard said the U.S. should 
     leave Iraq within a year, 58 percent of Marines think so. 
     Seven in ten of those in the regular Army thought the U.S. 
     should leave Iraq in the next year. Moreover, about three-
     quarters of those in National Guard and Reserve units favor 
     withdrawal within six months, just 15 percent of Marines felt 
     that way. About half of those in the regular Army favored 
     withdrawal from Iraq in the next six months.
       The troops have drawn different conclusions about fellow 
     citizens back home. Asked why they think some Americans favor 
     rapid U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, 37 percent of troops 
     serving there said those Americans are unpatriotic, while 20 
     percent believe people back home don't believe a continued 
     occupation will work. Another 16 percent said they believe 
     those favoring a quick withdrawal do so because they oppose 
     the use of the military in a pre-emptive war, while 15 
     percent said they do not believe those Americans understand 
     the need for the U.S. troops in Iraq.
       The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58 percent of those 
     serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in 
     their minds, while 42 percent said it is either somewhat or 
     very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it 
     at all, or are unsure. While 85 percent said the U.S. mission 
     is mainly ``to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 
     attacks,'' 77 percent said they also believe the main or a 
     major reason for the war was ``to stop Saddam from protecting 
     al Qaeda in Iraq.''
       ``Ninety-three percent said that removing weapons of mass 
     destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there,'' 
     said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby 
     International. ``Instead, that initial rationale went by the 
     wayside and, in the minds of 68 percent of the troops, the 
     real mission became to remove Saddam Hussein.'' Just 24 
     percent said that ``establishing a democracy that can be a 
     model for the Arab World'' was the main or a major reason for 
     the war. Only small percentages see the mission there as 
     securing oil supplies (11 percent) or to provide long-term 
     bases for US troops in the region (6 percent).
       The continuing insurgent attacks have not turned U.S. 
     troops against the Iraqi population, the survey shows. More 
     than 80 percent said they did not hold a negative view of 
     Iraqis because of those attacks. About two in five see the 
     insurgency as being comprised of discontented Sunnis with 
     very few non-Iraqi helpers. ``There appears to be confusion 
     on this,'' Zogby said. But, he noted, less than a third think 
     that if non-Iraqi terrorists could be prevented from crossing 
     the border into Iraq, the insurgency would end. A majority of 
     troops (53 percent) said the U.S. should double both the 
     number of troops and bombing missions in order to control the 
     insurgency.
       The survey shows that most U.S. military personnel in-
     country have a clear sense of right and wrong when it comes 
     to using banned weapons against the enemy, and in 
     interrogation of prisoners. Four in five said they oppose the 
     use of such internationally banned weapons as napalm and 
     white phosphorous. And, even as more photos of prisoner abuse 
     in Iraq surface around the world, 55 percent said it is not 
     appropriate or standard military conduct to use harsh and 
     threatening methods against insurgent prisoners in order to 
     gain information of military value.
       Three quarters of the troops had served multiple tours and 
     had a longer exposure to the conflict: 26 percent were on 
     their first tour of duty, 45 percent were on their second 
     tour, and 29 percent were in Iraq for a third time or more.
       A majority of the troops serving in Iraq said they were 
     satisfied with the war provisions from Washington. Just 30 
     percent of troops said they think the Department of Defense 
     has failed to provide adequate troop protections, such as 
     body armor, munitions, and armor plating for vehicles like 
     Hum Vees. Only 35 percent said basic civil infrastructure in 
     Iraq, including roads, electricity, water service, and health 
     care, has

[[Page 4418]]

     not improved over the past year. Three of every four were 
     male respondents, with 63 percent under the age of 30.
       The survey included 944 military respondents interviewed at 
     several undisclosed locations throughout Iraq. The names of 
     the specific locations and specific personnel who conducted 
     the survey are being withheld for security purposes. Surveys 
     were conducted face-to-face using random sampling techniques. 
     The margin of error for the survey, conducted Jan. 18 through 
     Feb. 14, 2006, is +/- 3.3 percentage points.

  Mr. WEBB. Another poll, of December 29, 2006, by the Military Times, 
the most credible military newspaper in America, indicates that barely 
one-third of our service members approve of the way the President is 
handling the war. In fact, only 41 percent of our military now believes 
the United States should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place.
  I ask unanimous consent that this poll be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Military Times Poll, Dec. 29, 2006]

                            Down on the War

                          (By Robert Hodierne)

       The American military--once a staunch supporter of 
     President Bush and the Iraq war--has grown increasingly 
     pessimistic about chances for victory.
       For the first time, more troops disapprove of the 
     president's handling of the war than approve of it. Barely 
     one-third of service members approve of the way the president 
     is handling the war, according to the 2006 Military Times 
     Poll.
       When the military was feeling most optimistic about the 
     war--in 2004--83 percent of poll respondents thought success 
     in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 
     percent.
       Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year 
     said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the 
     war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The president's 
     approval rating among the military is only slightly higher 
     than for the population as a whole. In 2004, when his 
     popularity peaked, 63 percent of the military approved of 
     Bush's handling of the war. While approval of the president's 
     war leadership has slumped, his overall approval remains high 
     among the military.
       Just as telling, in this year's poll only 41 percent of the 
     military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the 
     first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely 
     reflects the beliefs of the general population today--45 
     percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.
       Professor David Segal, director of the Center for Research 
     on Military Organization at the University of Maryland, was 
     not surprised by the changing attitude within the military.
       ``They're seeing more casualties and fatalities and less 
     progress,'' Segal said.
       He added, ``Part of what we're seeing is a recognition that 
     the intelligence that led to the war was wrong.''
       Whatever war plan the president comes up with later this 
     month, it likely will have the replacement of American troops 
     with Iraqis as its ultimate goal. The military is not 
     optimistic that will happen soon. Only about one in five 
     service members said that large numbers of American troops 
     can be replaced within the next two years. More than one-
     third think it will take more than five years. And more than 
     half think the U.S. will have to stay in Iraq more than five 
     years to achieve its goals.
       Almost half of those responding think we need more troops 
     in Iraq than we have there now. A surprising 13 percent said 
     we should have no troops there. As for Afghanistan force 
     levels, 39 percent think we need more troops there. But while 
     they want more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly three-
     quarters of the respondents think today's military is 
     stretched too thin to be effective.
       The mail survey, conducted Nov. 13 through Dec. 22, is the 
     fourth annual gauge of active-duty military subscribers to 
     the Military Times newspapers. The results should not be read 
     as representative of the military as a whole; the survey's 
     respondents are on average older, more experienced, more 
     likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the 
     overall military population.
       Among the respondents, 66 percent have deployed at least 
     once to Iraq or Afghanistan. In the overall active-duty 
     force, according to the Department of Defense, that number is 
     72 percent.
       The poll has come to be viewed by some as a barometer of 
     the professional career military. It is the only independent 
     poll done on an annual basis. The margin of error on this 
     year's poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
       While approval of Bush's handling of the war has plunged, 
     approval for his overall performance as president remains 
     high at 52 percent. While that is down from his high of 71 
     percent in 2004, it is still far above the approval ratings 
     of the general population, where that number has fallen into 
     the 30s.
       While Bush fared well overall, his political party didn't. 
     In the three previous polls, nearly 60 percent of the 
     respondents identified themselves as Republicans, which is 
     about double the population as a whole. But in this year's 
     poll, only 46 percent of the military respondents said they 
     were Republicans. However, there was not a big gain in those 
     identifying themselves as Democrats--a figure that 
     consistently hovers around 16 percent. The big gain came 
     among people who said they were independents.
       Similarly, when asked to describe their political views on 
     a scale from very conservative to very liberal, there was a 
     slight shift from the conservative end of the spectrum to the 
     middle or moderate range. Liberals within the military are 
     still a rare breed, with less than 10 percent of respondents 
     describing themselves that way.


                           Seeing media bias

       Segal was not surprised that the military support for the 
     war and the president's handling of it had slumped. He said 
     he believes that military opinion often mirrors that of the 
     civilian population, even though it might lag in time. He 
     added, ``[The military] will always be more pro-military and 
     pro-war than the civilians. That's why they are in this line 
     of work.''
       The poll asked, ``How do you think each of these groups 
     view the military?'' Respondents overwhelmingly said 
     civilians have a favorable impression of the military (86 
     percent). They even thought politicians look favorably on the 
     military (57 percent). But they are convinced the media hate 
     them--only 39 percent of military respondents said they think 
     the media have a favorable view of the troops.
       The poll also asked if the senior military leadership, 
     President Bush, civilian military leadership and Congress 
     have their best interests at heart.
       Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of those surveyed said the 
     senior military leadership has the best interests of the 
     troops at heart. And though they don't think much of the way 
     he's handling the war, 48 percent said the same about 
     President Bush. But they take a dim view of civilian military 
     leadership--only 32 percent said they think it has their best 
     interests at heart. And only 23 percent think Congress is 
     looking out for them.
       Despite concerns early in the war about equipment 
     shortages, 58 percent said they believe they are supplied 
     with the best possible weapons and equipment.
       While President Bush always portrays the war in Iraq as 
     part of the larger war on terrorism, many in the military are 
     not convinced. The respondents were split evenly--47 percent 
     both ways--on whether the Iraq war is part of the war on 
     terrorism. The rest had no opinion.
       On many questions in the poll, some respondents said they 
     didn't have an opinion or declined to answer. That number was 
     typically in the 10 percent range.
       But on questions about the president and on war strategy, 
     that number reached 20 percent and higher. Segal said he was 
     surprised the percentage refusing to offer an opinion wasn't 
     larger.
       ``There is a strong strain in military culture not to 
     criticize the commander in chief,'' he said.
       One contentious area of military life in the past year has 
     been the role religion should play. Some troops have 
     complained that they feel pressure to attend religious 
     services. Others have complained that chaplains and superior 
     officers have tried to convert them. Half of the poll 
     respondents said that at least once a month, they attend 
     official military gatherings, other than meals and chapel 
     services, that began with a prayer. But 80 percent said they 
     feel free to practice and express their religion within the 
     military.

  Mr. WEBB. I believe very strongly that we should leave our military 
people out of these political debates. I am not using these figures to 
advance the Democratic Party's point. I believe it is inappropriate for 
the other party to use our military people in a way that might insulate 
them from criticism over the woeful failures of this administration's 
policy. The American people's confidence in this administration is at 
rock bottom. Many rightly believe they were misled on the reasons for 
going to war.
  The administration's credibility has suffered--rightly so--also with 
respect to its intentions for dealing with Iran. I do not believe one 
can speak of our responsibility on these immediate issues without 
stating clearly our concerns about the entire region, and especially 
the administration's position regarding its constitutional authority to 
use military force outside of Iraq.
  The administration's view of its Presidential authority to conduct 
unilateral military action against other countries, and particularly 
with Iran, was documented in President Bush's signing statement 
accompanying the original authorization for the use of force against 
Iraq in October 2002. I

[[Page 4419]]

urge my colleagues to examine this language. In part, it states:

       My signing this resolution does not constitute any change 
     in the long-standing positions of the executive branch on 
     either the President's constitutional authority to use force 
     to deter, prevent, or respond to aggression or other threats 
     to U.S. interests.

  In other words, if one were to read that carefully, this 
administration is stating that it has the authority to use force to 
respond to threats to our interests. What is an ``interest''?
  I have raised this language with the Secretary of State, as well as 
with the Deputy Secretary. My question was whether this administration 
believes that it possesses the authority to conduct unilateral military 
activity against Iran in the absence of a direct threat and without the 
approval of the Congress. I have not received a clear answer from 
either of them on that point. That is troubling.
  This administration and its supporters must understand the realities 
that are causing us, as a Congress, to finally say enough is enough. 
After 5 years of misguided policy, ineffective leadership, and 
diminished U.S. stature around the world, the Congress must show the 
way to reclaiming the moral high ground and exert its proper oversight 
role more forcefully.
  For these reasons, I support the pending Iraq resolution before us, 
and I will vote for cloture. I urge my fellow Senators to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar). The Senator from Alabama is 
recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I was a Member of the Senate when we 
voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq. It was not just a 
rapid, quickly done deal, we talked about it for months. We talked 
about primarily the 16 or 17 resolutions that Saddam Hussein had failed 
to comply with that he agreed to with the United States and the United 
Nations; that he was setting about systematically to break out of the 
box of the embargo placed on him because he failed to comply with those 
resolutions.
  We were flying, if you remember, aircraft over Iraq on a regular 
basis, and they were shooting missiles at us, trying to bring down our 
aircraft. We were dropping bombs on them on a weekly basis. This was 
the context of the debate that we entered into.
  At the end, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the question of 
weapons of mass destruction by the President and others. But for most 
of us, I think it was a strategic American decision based on the 
fundamental questions: Were we going to give up? Were we going to let 
the embargo elapse? And would Saddam Hussein be able to continue to 
say--actually say with conviction and some honesty--that he had won the 
1991 gulf war? He said he won the war. He never complied with the 
agreements that he entered into and, as a result, we entered this 
conflict.
  The initial invasion went far better than most of us believed 
possible, than many predicted--those who supported the war and those 
who did not. The aftermath has been much more troubling and difficult. 
I have been one of those who shared General Abizaid's view of let's 
keep the number of our troops as low as we can, let's push as hard as 
we can to train and bring on the Iraqi forces, and let's let their 
government be responsible for its own activities as soon as possible. 
But I have to be honest, it has been more difficult than most of us 
would have thought. We now have many soldiers there in dangerous 
circumstances. So I am concerned about that. I respect anybody who is 
concerned about that.
  I am not here to say I know you are wrong, that I know this is the 
only way and the only right policy, and I guarantee you it will be 
successful. I want to say that in the beginning. We have some difficult 
choices to make, and I respect people who don't agree.
  I am not able, however, to justify a resolution that appears to be 
designed to embarrass the President, appears to be contradictory to our 
Nation's policy, that would indicate to our adversaries and enemies 
that we are divided. I cannot see that as a positive step for us. I am 
inclined to agree with the view of General Petraeus. He finished at the 
top of his class at West Point. He was No. 1 in his class at the 
Command and General Staff College. He got his Ph.D. at Princeton. He 
was in Mosul, right after the initial invasion, commanding the 101st 
Airborne Division. He was a Ranger, a soldier, a fabulous leader. I saw 
him in operation when some of the Alabama National Guard members had 
felt they were not being fully utilized right after they got to Mosul. 
I told General Petraeus, and he said:

       Let's go over and meet them.

  He told them:

       You are part of our effort. I will be bringing you right 
     away the Screaming Eagle patch and you are going to put it on 
     and be one of ours. There won't be any difference in the 
     Guard and Reserve.

  That was such an example of leadership, I thought. Later, he showed 
how they captured Uday and Qusay under his command. He showed how they 
formed the government. He had a Sunni, Shia, Christian, and a Kurd on 
the city council. He formed a court system. He was a fabulous leader 
and everybody recognized that. He finished his tour and came back.
  We realized that we needed to spend more effort and be more effective 
in training the Iraqi Army. So we sent him over there. We asked him to 
go back. He went back to specifically be in charge of training the 
Iraqi security forces. During that time, he got to know virtually every 
major Iraqi military leader. He knows them personally and he worked 
with them and with most of the Iraqi leadership. He said he didn't know 
Prime Minister Maliki, but he knows most of them.
  After some 15 months at that, well over 2 years in Iraq, he came back 
home and he was placed in charge of writing the doctrine for the U.S. 
Department of Defense on how to confront and defeat an insurgency 
operation, the so-called Counterinsurgency Manual. It is a real serious 
document. A lot of people don't know this, but there are ways--proven 
ways--to confront and defeat insurgency operations. In fact, one 
military historian recently pointed out that very few insurgency 
operations ultimately become successful. They can cause great distress 
for substantial periods of time, but they usually fail. There is a 
fairly significant number--70, 80, 90 percent--that fail, according to 
this report. So this manual that he painstakingly put together had 
incredible subtleties in it about how to handle various situations 
because every situation is different. What might be true in the Kurdish 
north may not be true in Bosra, the Shia south, or in the Sunni west. 
Every part of the Sunni and Shia and Kurdish areas are different 
themselves. Their tribes and their heritage and their religious sects 
are different. You have to handle them all differently.
  President Bush asked General Petraeus to help formulate a plan to be 
successful in Iraq. He committed to him five additional brigades, over 
20,000 soldiers. That is a bitter pill to me. I was very pleased--and I 
spoke out when some were critical--and in favor of General Casey over a 
year ago saying he hoped to be able to bring troops home. He brought 
some home. He asked for more at different times. What happened? Well, 
violence began to pick up substantially in Baghdad. The Sunni and al-
Qaida terrorists saw the country beginning to come together, and they 
decided to make a devilish decision, and that decision was to 
deliberately provoke a sectarian conflict. They began to attack the 
Shia in the marketplaces and they attacked their holy mosque at 
Samarra. They blew up that mosque and killed people. It began to work. 
Shia militias began to grow and strengthen and develop, feeling they 
were not being protected by the government. They began to kill Sunnis, 
and people would find bodies that had been killed execution style. It 
was a very grim thing to happen. It still is going on to a substantial 
degree.
  But I believe that this can be reversed. I cannot guarantee that, but 
I believe it can be reversed with the leadership of the United States, 
with increased effort on behalf of the Iraqi military and the country 
of Iraq, that they can begin to reverse this trend. I will just cite 
that recently General

[[Page 4420]]

Conway testified at a hearing. He commanded the Marines in the western 
part of Fallujah and during some of the toughest fighting. Now 
commandant of the Marine Corps, he testified a few days ago. I told him 
about the visit Senators Levin, Warner, Pryor, and I made to Iraq last 
fall. The briefing that we had gotten by the Marines in the Ramadi area 
really concerned me. Some of the information they gave--and the 
Presiding Officer and I traveled over there, and I know he cares about 
these issues. That briefing was one of the more troubling things I had 
heard in visiting there five times, as I have. He pointed out how, in 
just a matter of weeks, that made a dramatic change; that 12 out of 16 
tribal leaders in that area have gotten fed up with al-Qaida and their 
murdering ways, their parasitic ways, and their domination. And they 
have made agreements with the U.S. military. We are helping them create 
their own law enforcement entities, hiring their young people, and they 
are resisting al-Qaida. There has been a dramatic change in the 
toughest area, the Sunni area, the area where most of al-Qaida has 
been. So that is good.
  I say to my colleagues that can happen in Baghdad. Don't think that 
because things have been very difficult in the last year they cannot 
begin to get better. General Petraeus has stepped up. We are going to 
increase our forces. The Iraqis are going to increase their forces. I 
think the Iraqis know this may be their last chance to save this 
country as a decent and progressive country that treats people fairly 
and equally. I think they are beginning to wake up to that fact--I hope 
so. They are moving substantial numbers of troops in there. They are 
not as good as the American troops in many ways. They have a lot of 
difficulties. We know that. But they have taken more casualties than we 
have, and they continue to sign up. We have an opportunity, I believe, 
to make a difference.
  If this effort does not succeed and we do not begin to notice that 
more progress has been made, that the Iraqis do not meet certain 
benchmarks we have called on them to make, then we do need to review 
our policy. I have to say it. What we will do then, I am not sure. But 
we need to be smart about it. We don't need to be aberrational or 
spasmodic in how we face those challenges.
  What happened on the floor of the Senate is not something that I 
think has brought credit to this body. After approving General Petraeus 
to go to Iraq 94 to 0, after making clear we intend to fund the policy 
the President, as Commander in Chief, is executing, our soldiers are 
executing, and soldiers have been sent over there as part of this 
surge--some have already gotten there as part of this surge--it became 
a goal of the majority leader, Senator Reid, and the Democratic 
leadership, apparently, to vote on a resolution that disapproved it, 
that criticized the President, I guess to make happy some of the people 
out there who oppose this war so deeply, some with great passion and 
legitimate concerns and some with fevered brow who believe we are over 
there trying to steal Iraqi oil. But that crowd is out there. They want 
a resolution that is critical of the President and this policy.
  Our leader, the Republican leader, said: You can have that vote, that 
will be all right, let's have that vote, but Senator McCain has a 
different view. Senator McCain's view is we need to set some benchmarks 
for the Iraqis and we need to support the President. Senator Gregg said 
it is most important when troops are in harm's way, when they are 
placing their lives at risk for us, that we tell them we are going to 
support them financially. Oh, no, we can't vote on those amendments. We 
are only going to vote on the one we want.
  This resolution, by the way, should have come, by historical 
tradition and rules of the Senate, out of the Armed Services Committee, 
but it didn't come out of the Armed Services Committee. Why didn't it 
come out of the Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member? 
Because it doesn't have the votes. It wouldn't have passed out of the 
Armed Services Committee. So what Senator Reid did is, he filed it as a 
bill instead of a resolution. He filed it and, under rule XIV, brought 
it to the floor and determined that no other amendments could be 
accepted or even voted on, only his view should be voted on. And they 
carefully calculated, I am sure, to make sure they had over 50 votes, 
so they would be able to pass one resolution that was deemed an attack 
on the President and a rejection of the policy we are now funding and 
is being executed by our soldiers who are far more worthy, in my view, 
of maturity and respect than a Congress that gets itself tied up in 
this kind of mess.
  I think most of us on this side--even some Republicans and some 
Democrats who supported the resolution--have refused to vote for 
cloture to bring it up for a vote because they think Senator McCain's 
and Senator Gregg's resolutions deserve a vote too. Senator McCain 
said: I would just be satisfied if you vote on Gregg if you don't vote 
on mine.
  I would like to vote on both of them, and I am not afraid to vote on 
the Democratic resolution. I would vote on all three of them. I am not 
afraid to talk about this war or to talk about the resolutions. But 
somehow the media has adopted the Democrat's talking points and 
suggests Republicans don't want to debate and vote on the issue. That 
is not true. How many times do we have to say that? I don't think what 
I said is inaccurate. If it is, I would like to be corrected on the 
fundamental debate in which we find ourselves.
  But what I wish to say to my colleagues is we are, at this very 
moment, in reality, financially supporting the policy with which they 
disagree. Advice and suggestions from business, athletics, church, and 
families needs to be welcome, but naysaying after a decision is reached 
is nearly always destructive, in my opinion. People have to pull 
together once a decision is reached. We only have one Commander in 
Chief. We have the absolute power to shut off every dime going to Iraq 
and bring our troops home immediately. That is the constitutional power 
this Congress has. But while we are executing this effort in Iraq, we 
only have one Commander in Chief. And for the life of me, I can see no 
advantage to our Nation, to our foreign policy or to our soldiers in a 
resolution that disagrees with the President's plan, a plan to which we 
have our soldiers committing their lives this very moment.
  Congress should either support it or stop it. But, of course, we all 
know the awesome responsibility that voting for a precipitous 
withdrawal out of Iraq would entail because stopping the funding for 
Iraq is real, just like funding Iraq is real, just like voting for 
General Petraeus is real. It is not positioning, it is not an 
expression of concern or an effort to distance oneself from a war that 
over three-fourths of us in this Senate voted for but has now become 
very difficult.
  The President studied the Baker-Hamilton report, he met with his 
commanders in Iraq and in the United States, and he met with retired 
officers, elder statesmen. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
General Peter Pace, started a bottom-up review of our Iraq policy in 
August. I called him about that time to raise some questions and urge 
that he do that. He said: Senator, I have started that already. After 
all of this evaluation and receipt of ideas for improvement, both 
public and private, our President, the one given the power to decide 
such issues in our system, made his call. He changed his policy. 
Perhaps he should have done it earlier. I think this kind of review 
would have been more appropriate earlier.
  The President has gone through a deliberative process, though, and 
made his decision, and I have decided the right response for me, as a 
Member of this Senate trying to serve the national interest, is to 
support that policy, at least for the immediate future, and to support 
those who will execute it--our military personnel.
  Others may disagree. An official expression of disagreement, though, 
about a policy we authorized and we are now funding and our soldiers 
are executing does not meet, I believe, high standards of 
responsibility to which a great Senate should adhere.

[[Page 4421]]

Please remember also that what we do is not contained just in these 
Halls. I am not persuaded there can be any effect, other than a 
pernicious one, on those allies and other nations that are assisting us 
in our efforts. Nor do I see how the threat of an imminent withdrawal 
could cause the Iraqi Government and the leaders of the various sects 
and groups to be more willing to reach an accord than would be achieved 
if we continue assistance in restoring order, particularly in the 
nation's capital. I don't know. I don't think so myself. If it was so, 
I would be persuaded. If that would be the result of a rapid 
withdrawal, that they would all get together and reach an accord, then 
I would support it because I don't think we need to be an occupying 
force in Iraq. But this is not what our generals tell us. It is not 
what we have heard from the intelligence community.
  Some people said: I talked to a retired general; that is what he 
said. Maybe that is what he said. Maybe that retired general is right. 
The people we are hearing about are not saying this is any kind of 
panacea, to pull out, and there is going to be harmony and compromise 
reached all at once.
  In fact, many are saying the violence in Baghdad is so significant 
that if we allow it to continue to grow, it makes it harder for the 
warring factions to get together and reach an accord.
  Still, despite the difficulties, our experts in public and private 
conversations believe there is hope for stability with this new policy 
in Iraq, this new surge. They give that evaluation with full and 
realistic evaluations of all the challenges we face. The new Iraqi 
permanent Government has only been formed for 8 months, maybe 9 months 
now. That Government has only been up for 8 or 9 months. The forces of 
violence, oppression, and extremism have attacked it full force. They 
are determined to bring it down. But it still stands, and it has made 
new commitments to taking the necessary steps toward security and 
progress.
  This is a test for them, no doubt. Maybe they will fail. Maybe they 
would not meet the commitments they have made. But perhaps not. Perhaps 
this fragile Government and the Iraqi Army working in new and better 
ways with General Petraeus and our forces together can be successful, 
as our experts tell us is possible and realistic.
  I, thus, have concluded this Congress should fund this new strategy, 
not adopt a resolution that has any tendency whatsoever to lessen the 
chance of that strategy being successful.
  Finally, I do not see how a congressional resolution that disagrees 
with, or one that rejects the President's new policy will have any 
other effect than to reduce the morale of our soldiers.
  Right out here a couple of days ago, I talked with a group from 
Hartsville, AL. The man pulled me aside and said his son was an 
infantry officer at Fort Benning. He said: Senator, I want you to know 
one thing. When you make your decisions, don't think they don't know 
what is going on. He said: ``They are watching you like a hawk.''
  We have a responsibility to them. Yes, we have a responsibility to 
say pull out if we have to pull out, if that is the thing to do--and I 
don't think it is yet; I think we have a chance for success. If that is 
our decision, so be it. But when we send them over there, they should 
be supported. They should have no doubt that we are going to be with 
them.
  We are waging a war against violent extremists who bomb markets, who 
behead people who disagree with them, who murder, who kill, who destroy 
teachers because they teach young girls how to read and write. So this 
is a complex effort. It is an important effort that to date has 
protected our homeland from further attack.
  We didn't choose this duty. It has fallen to us. By working together, 
I believe we can achieve more in Iraq than many people think.
  And I will say this, while we are being very serious about the 
challenges we face. I have had personal meetings with Secretary Gates, 
the new Secretary of Defense, and an extended meeting with GEN Peter 
Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and I had a good long 
conversation with General Petraeus, the new commander in Iraq, and 
Admiral Fallon, who is going to be the Central Command, commander. I 
have asked them, and each one of them stated to me that they fully 
understand their responsibility to give us their best military advice, 
and if at any time this conflict in Iraq becomes untenable, if at any 
time they conclude that putting more soldiers into harm's way will not 
be successful and will not achieve the aims which we are seeking there, 
they will tell us.
  I asked Peter Pace that in an open hearing, and he said: ``Yes, sir, 
Senator, I understand that.'' Secretary Gates cut in and said: 
``Senator, I fully understand that, and I feel like that is my number 
one responsibility.'' I asked General Petraeus that, and he said the 
same. And I asked him if he believed he could be successful. Remember, 
this is the man who spent over 2 years in Iraq. He is the best of the 
best. He has written a manual on how to confront and defeat an 
insurgency. His answer to whether he can be successful, in sum, was: 
``Senator, I do, and I wouldn't be going over there if I didn't think I 
could be.''
  I know people are worried about this conflict. I am worried about it. 
I talked to a widow yesterday, whose fabulous husband was killed in 
Iraq, and I don't take it lightly at all. But we are a nation that has 
been attacked and we have a responsibility to defend our just national 
interest, and our just national interest would be greatly served by a 
prosperous, free, democratic Iraq, where terrorists do not find haven 
and which is not subverted by hostile forces. We have a national 
interest in that, as well as a humanitarian interest.
  I think we need to give General Petraeus a chance. I think we may 
find that progress in Baghdad can occur, even when it is dark, as it 
did in Al Anbar Province a few months ago. I was feeling pretty 
discouraged about what was happening there, but great progress has been 
made in the last few weeks there. It is time for us to stick together.
  I don't think this resolution is good. If we are going to vote on it, 
we ought to vote on the Gregg resolution and we ought to vote on the 
McCain resolution. Because only together will that convey to the world, 
our allies, and our soldiers the real feelings and insights of this 
Congress. As I have said from the beginning, I don't favor any 
resolution. We have done what we have to do. We sent General Petraeus 
and we sent money to execute the policy. I don't know why we have to 
have a resolution at all.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to voice my strong support for 
the motion to invoke cloture to proceed to S. 574 so the Senate can 
undertake a full, vigorous, and honest debate on the future course of 
American policy for the war in Iraq.
  As we speak about and debate the war, let us never forget our troops 
in battle, those troops in battle on the streets in Baghdad, in Anbar 
Province, or other areas of Iraq. We also remember, as we debate this 
issue, their families and their sacrifice. Finally, today, and in all 
the days we debate this critically important issue to our country, we 
honor the sacrifice of those soldiers and marines who gave, as 
President Lincoln said at Gettysburg, ``the last full measure of 
devotion to their country.'' We pray for them today and always, and we 
pray for ourselves that we may be worthy of their valor.
  At this time in the Senate we are confronted with two simple 
questions: First, does the Senate agree with President Bush's plan to 
escalate our military involvement in Iraq by deploying some 21,000 more 
troops? Second, will the Senate vote tomorrow to allow debate to go 
forward?
  Just those two questions confront us today and tomorrow. There will 
be further debate about our policy in Iraq in

[[Page 4422]]

the weeks and months ahead, but for the next few days it is those two 
questions.
  As I have stated before, I oppose this escalation, but I also support 
debating it. The grave question of war must always be--always be--the 
subject of vigorous debate, especially in the Senate. As a Senator from 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a State that has lost 150 young men 
and women in combat, I have a solemn obligation to speak out about the 
escalation.
  Many of these brave Americans from Pennsylvania come from small towns 
such as Rockport and Connellsville and Beaver Falls, and from cities 
such as Bethlehem and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. I have an obligation 
to speak out against those policies that only increase the likelihood 
that even more of Pennsylvania's sons and daughters will die or be 
grievously wounded on behalf of a flawed strategy.
  I had hoped, like many in this Chamber, we could have moved forward 
with the debate on Iraq 2 weeks ago. The American people don't 
understand why the Senate isn't debating this war when all of America 
expects us to do so. Perhaps a rare Saturday vote will help this body 
realize the importance as this debate moves forward.
  We owe it to the troops, their families, and to those who have loved 
and lost someone dear to them in this war to debate our Iraq policy and 
to clearly express our opposition to the President's escalation. The 
American people have clearly voiced their strong support and their 
desire for their elected representatives to address this issue. The 
elections last November turned in large part on the failure of the 
previous Congress to engage in adequate oversight of the administration 
and ask the tough questions when it came to the execution of the war. 
Debating is essential to good oversight.
  We know that recent polls conducted across America reveal Americans 
consider the war as one of the two most important problems facing our 
Nation. An overwhelming 63 percent of respondents in a recent national 
poll expressed concern that the Senate had been unsuccessful to date in 
attempts to hold a debate on the war in Iraq. We have an obligation to 
act, and that begins with a full debate.
  S. 574 is short but eloquent. It respects and honors our troops who 
are serving or who have served with distinction in Iraq, and it 
communicates our disapproval of the President's escalation of the war. 
It mandates--mandates--additional reporting requirements so there is 
transparency with regard to military, political, and diplomatic 
operations in Iraq. This resolution deserves our support because it 
sends the right message to the President to change course in Iraq.
  In the first 5 weeks of this new Congress, as a member of the Foreign 
Relations Committee, I have listened carefully to more than 25 
witnesses over the course of a dozen hearings, some 50 hours of 
testimony from generals and other military experts, diplomats and 
foreign policy experts, the cochairmen of the Iraq Study Group, and so 
many others. I have asked tough questions, and I have listened to 
statements and questions from my colleagues, some of whom have had 
decades of experience in foreign affairs and the oversight of military 
operations. After all these hearings, I am even more certain that this 
escalation is the wrong strategy.
  The National Intelligence Estimate--we know it by the acronym NIE--
released in January on Iraq's prospects for near-term stability paints 
a dire picture. The unclassified version describes a growing sectarian-
based polarization, ineffective security forces with questionable 
loyalties, and an all-but-certain rise in communal violence in the 
coming months. The National Intelligence Estimate clarifies that Iraq's 
violence today is primarily driven by ``the self-sustaining character 
of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics.''
  Reading the key judgments of the NIE, I can only conclude that 
political reconciliation between the respective leaders of Iraq's 
varied populations is the best way and probably the only way to reduce 
the violence and to begin to create a stable state that is not a threat 
to its neighbors. Escalating military conflict by inserting additional 
U.S. troops in Iraq is not the answer.
  As Chairman Biden remarked during the Foreign Relations Committee's 
deliberations on a related resolution, this effort is not inspired by a 
desire to embarrass or isolate President Bush. Rather, it is an attempt 
to demonstrate to the President that his approach is flawed and will 
not result in the outcome he seeks. The President is still searching 
for a military solution when, in fact, it is time for a political 
solution led by the Iraqis themselves. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-
Maliki himself declared last November, ``The crisis is political, and 
the ones who can stop the cycle of aggravation and bloodletting of 
innocents are the politicians.''
  What we need is not just a political strategy; we need sustained and 
vigorous diplomatic engagement that I would argue has been lacking. The 
President and his senior officials have failed to make the case that 
the so-called new way forward in Iraq is, in fact, new or promises 
significant changes needed to achieve real victory. Instead, the 
President's escalation strategy risks repeating mistakes already made. 
It inserts more American troops into the crossfire of growing sectarian 
conflict, and it ignores the urgent need to reorient the mission of 
U.S. forces in Iraq toward those objectives which offer our best chance 
to leave behind a secure and stable Iraq.
  In spite of all the rhetoric from the White House in recent weeks, I 
believe, and many in this Senate believe, that the President's policy 
is more or less more of the same: Stay the course. The United States 
today has approximately 137,000 troops in Iraq, growing by the day and 
by the week. Sending an additional 21,000 troops will not fundamentally 
change the current dynamic in Iraq.
  The reality is that more American troops is not the answer in Iraq. 
General Abizaid, the outgoing U.S. Central Command commander, testified 
in November that the unanimous opinion of his top subordinates was that 
more American troops would only perpetuate the dependence of Iraqi 
troops and would not offer a positive solution. No matter how many 
troops we send, they cannot provide lasting security on the streets of 
Baghdad or other Iraqi cities. Only fully equipped, trained, and 
dedicated Iraqi military and police forces--those who do not pick and 
choose sides among sectarian groups--only they can provide the type of 
permanent security that will enable the Iraqi political and civilian 
life to emerge and the nation to embark on a path to reconciliation.
  We heard from former Congressman Lee Hamilton during our Foreign 
Relations Committee hearings. He noted in his testimony before that 
committee that the money, time, and attention we are devoting to 
escalating the level of U.S. forces in Iraq must not detract from what 
should be a primary mission for the United States: training Iraqi 
security forces to enhance their capability to take the lead and allow 
U.S. forces to redeploy out of that country.
  Congressman Hamilton and so many others have placed the primacy on 
the question of training. Instead, by adopting the President's 
strategy, I fear we are sending an additional 21,000 troops without a 
more focused mission and lacking a solid plan to accomplish it.
  I fear we are still investing too much trust in the Maliki 
government, a regime that has failed to demonstrate it is acting on 
behalf of all Iraqis and may be focused only on one sectarian group. I 
fear American forces will continue to serve as a bull's-eye target for 
those resentful of a prolonged U.S. occupation in Iraq. In short, I 
fear, and many in this Senate fear, we are sending more American men 
and women into Iraq without a new blueprint for victory and without the 
essential political, diplomatic, and international groundwork required 
to succeed.
  The President has based his troop escalation on the hope--the risky 
hope, I would argue--that this time the Maliki regime will carry 
through on its commitments and deliver the required Iraqi forces to 
help U.S. forces secure neighborhoods throughout Baghdad and, more 
important, then remain to allow reconstruction to proceed and normal 
life to return. Yet the record is

[[Page 4423]]

not encouraging. In Operation Together Forward, Prime Minister Maliki 
had pledged six battalions, but only two were sent. Some of those Iraqi 
units suffered subsequent serious attrition rates. Many of those forces 
have been infiltrated by the very sectarian militias they are now being 
asked to disarm.
  We are already seeing troubling signs in the initial stages of this 
latest escalation. The New York Times, January 22, the Washington Post, 
USA Today, and so many other news articles which I will not repeat here 
today have talked about the problems with Iraqi security forces showing 
up late or not showing up at all, not serious about their mission, not 
trained, not focused, and frankly not helping enough in terms of 
helping American forces. Americans are dying because of that 
incompetence. The fact remains that it is very difficult to rely on 
Iraqi forces when you have to ask them to deploy outside of their 
normal areas of operation and their ethnic strongholds.
  I also retain real doubts when the President insists that this time, 
this time it will be different, that Mr. Maliki now means it when he 
says Iraqi forces will truly crack down on all troublemakers, whether 
they are Shia or Sunni. The Government of Iraq has promised repeatedly 
to assume a greater share of security responsibilities, disband 
militias, consider constitutional amendments, and enact laws to 
reconcile sectarian differences and improve the quality of essential 
services for the Iraqi people. Yet, despite those promises, little has 
been achieved by the Iraqis.
  Moreover, I am skeptical of this escalation of U.S. troops because we 
have seen it before. We have seen it before, tried over and over again. 
Operation Together Forward in 2006 represented a similar escalation; 
12,000 additional U.S. troops were introduced into the city of Baghdad, 
only to see U.S. and Iraqi casualties spike considerably without a 
sustained reduction in sectarian violence. We have seen similar efforts 
to ``flood the zone'' with additional U.S. troops in places such as 
Fallujah and Ramadi, only resulting in temporary gains. If more troops 
have not worked in the recent past, why should we have any reason to 
believe it will work this time?
  I am concerned, as are so many others, about the dual-chain-of-
command concept that is being introduced as part of this escalation. 
Recently, Prime Minister al-Maliki's commander in the region and the 
capital itself has been trying to carry out part of this strategy. At 
the same time, there will be a separate or parallel U.S. command headed 
by MG Joseph Fil, Jr. Both commanders will have ultimate control over 
their own national troops, but this ``partnered'' command could create 
serious complications if there are disputes between U.S. and Iraqi 
military forces over specific operations. A unified chain of command is 
one of the hallmark principles that have long governed deployment of 
U.S. forces abroad.
  Finally, I oppose this escalation strategy because I fear it will 
only exacerbate the longstanding strains on our Nation's military 
overall. Seven years ago, President Bush declared that his predecessor 
was leaving office with a military in decline. He alleged that the 
previous administration had not adequately funded our Armed Forces 
while simultaneously deploying those forces in excessive engagements 
around the world. It is one of the most tragic ironies that this 
President is himself now stretching our military to a genuine breaking 
point, as he pursues a misguided strategy in Iraq.
  The Washington Post recently published an important article 
documenting the impacts of this proposed troop escalation. According to 
the Post, the Army and Marine Corps already lack thousands of necessary 
vehicles, armor kits, and other equipment needed to supply the extra 
forces. Diverting 21,000 troops from other essential missions around 
the world will only further deteriorate the readiness of our overall 
ground forces, making it more difficult to respond quickly and 
decisively in the event of other military contingencies, and raise the 
likelihood of greater U.S. casualties.
  Our Nation's military is facing a genuine crisis. The war in Iraq has 
exacted a heavy toll--in casualties, first and foremost, but also in 
terms of combat equipment that undergirds our fighting men and women. 
Our National Guard and Reserve troops in particular are paying a heavy 
price. Army data shows that the Army National Guard units today only 
have, on average, 40 percent of their required equipment--40 percent. 
National Guard combat brigades are being involuntarily mobilized, and 
reservists are being sent back to the command theater on a repeated 
basis.
  Representative John Murtha, a decorated marine from my home State of 
Pennsylvania, painted a distressing picture of our military's 
readiness--or I should say lack thereof--during recent testimony before 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As he noted:

       At the beginning of the Iraq war, 80 percent of all Army 
     units and almost 100 percent of active combat units were 
     rated at the highest state of readiness. Today, virtually all 
     of our active duty combat units at home and all of our guard 
     units are at the lowest state of readiness, primarily due to 
     equipment shortages resulting from repeated and extended 
     deployments in Iraq.

  Chairman Murtha then went on to cite recent House testimony from a 
senior Pentagon official that our country was threatened because we 
lacked readiness at home.
  I welcome, as so many do, the President's intention to expand our 
military--permanently elevating the Army and Marine Corps' Active-Duty 
ranks over the next 5 years. But that is only a long-term solution. Our 
current forces are badly overextended, and an escalation in strategy in 
Iraq will only worsen that condition. Our Nation faces growing 
challenges around the world. We must ensure that our military forces 
receive adequate training, are fully equipped, and retain the necessary 
flexibility to quickly respond to contingencies wherever they may 
arise. Pouring more troops into Iraq does not make those requirements 
any easier to meet.
  Just listen to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group on this matter:

       America's military capacity is stretched thin; we do not 
     have the troops or equipment to make a substantial sustained 
     increase in our troops presence.

  The Iraq Study Group goes on to say:

       Increased deployments to Iraq would also necessarily hamper 
     our ability to provide adequate resources for our efforts in 
     Afghanistan or respond to crises around the world.

  So says the Iraq Study Group.
  For all these reasons, I am proud to stand here today in support of a 
bipartisan effort to send the President a message that the troop 
escalation in Iraq is the wrong choice for our Nation. Instead, our 
Iraq strategy should emphasize a new direction, encouraging Iraqi 
leaders to make political compromises that will foster reconciliation 
and strengthen the unity of the Government, laying the groundwork for 
an improved security situation, and redeploying our military forces in 
Iraq so they can focus on maintaining that nation's territorial 
integrity. We also must deny al-Qaida and other terrorists a safe 
haven, conduct counterterrorism operations, promote regional stability, 
and, most important, train and equip Iraqi forces to take the lead in 
security and combat operations. The President's escalation strategy of 
throwing more U.S. troops into Iraq's burgeoning civil war undercuts 
and detracts from each of these objectives: A campaign of escalation is 
incompatible with securing a new and better direction in Iraq. For 
those who argue that supporting this resolution only offers criticism 
but does not offer specific alternatives, I urge you to listen to what 
I and others have said in these days and what we will say in the next 
couple of days especially.
  We have heard from the opponents about what this all means. I will 
not go into their opinions today. But I will say this: Every Member of 
this Chamber in both parties honors our troops, no matter which way we 
stand on escalation. We honor their sacrifices--the sacrifices they and 
their families make on a daily basis. But we must examine--we have an 
obligation to examine our national policies which we are asked to carry 
out and to be supportive of or in opposition to. If we disagree

[[Page 4424]]

with the broad strategic direction in which the President is taking our 
Nation, it is our duty to speak out. To remain silent or passive in the 
face of an approach we believe is misguided and not in the national 
interests is an abdication of the responsibilities of our offices.
  Our military forces and their loved ones have paid a heavy price for 
this mission in Iraq. As I have noted before, at least 150 
Pennsylvanians have given their lives, with hundreds more suffering 
from serious and lifelong injuries. PFC Ross A. McGinnis of Knox, PA, 
was one of those killed in action. He was 19 years old. He died of 
injuries on December 4, 2006, after a grenade was thrown into his 
vehicle in Baghdad. Private McGinnis has been nominated by his 
commanders for the Medal of Honor. He was manning the gunner's hatch 
when a grenade was thrown into his humvee. He could have jumped out to 
save himself, but he threw himself on the grenade to save the lives of 
his crew members. We must always remember this debate we must have must 
not have a focus on abstract policy matters. This has real implications 
for our men and women in the Armed Forces. We cannot forget the lessons 
and the life of Private McGinnis or any of the more than 3,000 
Americans who have died during this conflict. Our troops are deserving 
of our support and the support of all the American people.
  Mr. President, I conclude with this: A troop increase will only 
endanger more young Americans in Iraq without any clear hope of 
success. For that reason, I support honest and open debate on the 
merits of the President's plan and an opportunity for the Senate to 
declare its views. I will vote to allow this important debate to 
proceed, and I will vote in favor of S. 574.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
  Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I must say I am disappointed the 
Democratic leadership continues to preclude the Senate from debating 
and amending the insufficient resolution sent over from the House of 
Representatives. This denies the Senate from robustly debating other 
alternatives, including the bipartisan Warner resolution.
  The strategy is to avoid controversial procedures that split the 
Democratic caucus regarding cutting off funding for the troops and 
capping the deployment of troops in Iraq. We have the same kind of 
split to a degree in the Republican caucus. The Warner resolution 
represents a negotiated agreement that reflects a bipartisan approach 
to the war and deserves to be debated and voted upon.
  This is the second piece of legislation this week that Democratic 
leaders have brought to the Senate floor straight from the House with 
no amendments for debate allowed, and I think this is setting a 
dangerous precedent and frustrates the role the Constitution envisions 
for the Senate.
  I will continue to back the minority's right to bring up amendments 
and participate in real debate, even if I don't agree with those ideas. 
I tried to support that when we were in the majority. The American 
people want Congress to play a role in the way this war is being 
handled. The first step is to demand a better plan, and we owe the 
people more than 10 lines in the House Resolution. You can't even begin 
to address a real solution to a complex situation in 10 lines.
  I wish to emphasize to my colleagues that there are 15 cosponsors of 
the Warner resolution, 6 of whom are Republicans and 9 are Democrats. 
The resolution has the support of the Democratic chairman of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, who has been here for many 
years--a very wise individual. It has the support of the Democratic 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin. It also has the 
support of the No. 2 ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, Senator Chuck Hagel. I mention this because I wish to stress 
that the Warner resolution is believed to be a fair and reasonable 
resolution that is broadly supported by both Republicans and Democrats. 
I believe, if given the opportunity, that resolution will attract over 
60 votes of the Senate.
  That is why tonight I wish to share some of my thoughts about our 
current situation in Iraq. I wish to stress that had we received 
better, more comprehensive prewar intelligence and done our homework 
about what would be needed after the military offensive, we could have 
entered Iraq adequately prepared to win the war and secure the peace. 
We would have been more adequately prepared. Both the administration 
and Congress should have recognized that by removing Saddam Hussein 
from office, we would shift the balance of power within the country 
from Sunni to Shiite and change the contour of the region. Our 
intelligence errors, our lack of troop preparation, and the bungling of 
the initial efforts on the ground, specifically disbanding the Army and 
isolating former Baathists--in spite of advice from people such as GEN 
Jake Garner and others--is unacceptable. And today, we are paying the 
price for that, which means all of us have to pay a lot more attention 
to every decision and plan we endorse from here on out.
  I cannot support the proposed troop surge. In spite of meetings at 
the White House, two with the President, private-session briefings as a 
member of the Foreign Relations Committee, and a meeting with General 
Petraeus for over 40 minutes, I am not convinced the additional troops 
who are proposed is the best means toward success in Baghdad. That is 
why I have decided to support the Warner resolution.
  A military solution is not sufficient to win the peace in Iraq. As I 
will get into it, Iraq faces political problems, a power struggle, and 
primal hate between the fighting sects. More troops alone cannot solve 
these problems. That being said, I continue to have the highest praise 
for the generals and, more importantly, for their troops who have 
remained steadfast in their efforts to secure Iraq. I am grateful to 
those who have served and continue to serve our Nation in a time of 
need. I am especially indebted to those who made the ultimate sacrifice 
and whose families have suffered and who will grieve and those whose 
lives have been changed forever, as well as some 25,000 men and women 
who have been wounded over there, 13,000 of them not able to go back 
into the service.
  Winning this war, securing peace in Iraq and stability in the region 
requires a comprehensive approach and the use of different tools, the 
most important of which is the will of the Iraqis. At this point, I am 
afraid we have focused disproportionately on the military component of 
this war, and we have not adequately stressed the nonmilitary arm of 
our strategy.
  Moving forward in Iraq, we must focus on strengthening our 
nonmilitary or political tactics. That is why now, more than ever 
before, I am concerned about Iraq's willingness to bring an end to the 
violence. As the Warner resolution states:

       The responsibility for Iraq's internal security in halting 
     sectarian violence must rest primarily with the government of 
     Iraq and Iraq security forces.

  I recently met with a young man from Ohio out of Bethesda who had 
completed three tours of duty in Iraq and who was wounded by an IED. I 
asked him what he did. He said: My main goal, Senator, every day was to 
keep my men alive and keep peace in the neighborhood.
  We have to ask ourselves: How long can we continue to do this? Even 
if the surge is successful, how long will we have to stay before the 
Iraqis can handle the situation themselves? Even when I talked with 
General Petraeus, he did a good job in Mosul--they secured the 
neighborhoods--but when the Iraqis came in and they left, they lost it. 
How many American lives will be lost in what is best described as a 
civil war between Sunni and Shiite that has 1,400 years of Sunni 
domination over Shiite at its root? More of our Members of the Senate 
should read about the history of Iraq and the people who are there.
  After many closed-session briefings with the National Security 
Council, four meetings at the White House, including two with the 
President, and as I mentioned, 40 minutes with General

[[Page 4425]]

Petraeus, and after hearing hours of witnesses testifying before the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I can feel confident saying it is 
time for the Iraqi people and their leadership to stand up to the 
sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite. They need to recognize 
that all Iraqis and the future of the Nation of Iraq is threatened by 
this constant bloodshed, and their future is in their hands, not our 
hands.
  U.S. Central Commander GEN John Abizaid, who the President relied 
upon to lead the ground campaign in Iraq, testified to Congress on 
November 15:

       I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the 
     Corps commander and General Dempsey. We all talked together. 
     And I said, ``In your professional opinion, if we were to 
     bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably 
     to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?'' They all said 
     no. The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It 
     is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work. I 
     believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from 
     doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own 
     future.

  That is General Abizaid. If we don't follow the advice of our 
generals and other military people I have talked to, we run the risk of 
helping one side at the expense of another, and the Sunnis could 
interpret our offensive as part of a larger effort to do the dirty work 
of the Shiite. And don't you think the Sunnis would not spin it that 
way.
  The reality we face today is that an overwhelming majority of the 
Muslim population in Iraq, be they Shiite or Sunni, look upon us as 
infidels and occupiers. They do. And our presence there is exploited 
every day by our enemies. In fact, one poll claimed 60 percent of the 
people in Iraq said it is OK to kill Americans. While we cannot even 
begin to capture what is happening in the hearts and minds of the 
Iraqis with one poll, it sends a striking message about what additional 
troops might face there.
  We have to consider the reliable information we have that suggests 
the surge could ignite an even more aggressive countersurge, in which 
every martyr--every martyr--in the country is drawn to Baghdad to 
defeat the infidels, as the Sunnis were drawn to Mecca on Ramadan. We 
could see a terrible situation there, and I don't want--I wish to make 
clear I am not analogizing the Sunnis going to Mecca on Ramadan. I am 
saying it would bring lots of people into Baghdad.
  The fact of the matter is we cannot stop the sectarian violence with 
combat brigades and more forces alone. Implementing martial law in Iraq 
would be impossible because of the sheer number of Iraqi citizens and 
our commitments elsewhere around the globe. At this point, we wouldn't 
begin to have enough forces.
  Mr. President, the only way to bring stability to Iraq is by 
addressing a number of serious political problems that lie at the root 
of this violence. Before the war, Iraq was united by Saddam's reign of 
terror, as Slobadan Milosevic kept everybody under his control or, 
before him, Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia. When he was removed from 
office, the major power struggle ensued, and it is not surprising. In 
fact, it should have been expected. In fact, as we later found out, 
many academics and intelligence officers did predict this. In the 
aftermath of Saddam's regime, many different sects and local leaders 
realized a power shift was taking place, and they wanted to come out on 
top. They knew the greatest source of potential power is in oil. That 
is why the critical component of the political solution must be to 
reach a decision on how the oil can be distributed to all sects and 
communities in Iraq. It is absolutely critical that Prime Minister 
Maliki moves quickly--tomorrow--to pass the legislation that guarantees 
that all Iraqis will benefit from oil. If he can do this, it will show 
the sects how the power in Iraq will be dispersed in the future.
  Recently, I met with the Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister of 
Turkey. The Foreign Minister agreed that the oil situation is the most 
important issue today and the one that will have profound impact on the 
long-term stability of Iraq. This must be a component of the overall 
national reconciliation plan to unite Iraqis and give them confidence 
in their Government.
  A second key political priority must be the reintegration of the 
Sunni Baathists into society. When we went into Iraq, we cut the 
Baathists out of the military and security forces. The result of the 
policy was they had nowhere to go. They were frightened about their 
futures. They could not feed their families. They were angry. They were 
resentful. So they went to the streets. Before long, they became part 
of the problem, joining with militias and other fighters to resist the 
Shia government. So a major political priority must be to develop a 
plan to reintegrate the former Baathists and it needs to happen now. It 
is essential that the Iraqi Government work toward provincial elections 
so there is more equal representation of the different sects.
  The third vital component of our nonmilitary strategy must be greater 
regional diplomacy. We must work to encourage Iraq's neighbors to get 
involved in containing the violence. Specifically, these neighboring 
countries have the ability to put pressure on the different sects and 
local leaders to help unite the Iraqi Government. They have the ability 
to pass debt relief, participate in border control, and help avoid a 
potential refugee problem. I don't think people realize that there have 
been over 3.5 million refugees who have come out of Iraq.
  In December 2006, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group issued their 
recommendations for a successful United States strategy in Iraq. A core 
component of their proposal was that the United States act immediately 
to undertake a ``diplomatic offensive'' consisting of ``new and 
enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region.'' The 
recommendation called on the administration to engage the international 
community, the Arab League, traditional United States allies in the 
Middle East, and all Iraq's bordering neighbors in order to address 
regional conflicts and jointly bring stability to Iraq. They advised 
the administration to work quickly to convene a regional conference--it 
has not happened--which would complement the Iraq Compact undertaken by 
the United Nations. We need to embrace the study group's 
recommendations on this issue and act now to increase diplomatic 
engagement with the international community.
  Without a broad political strategy, our military objectives, no 
matter what the tactic, will be pursued in vain. These political 
elements must be the focus of our plan in Iraq. And that said, I agree 
there is a military component here, as well. I want to be very clear 
that I do not support a military withdrawal from Iraq nor do I support 
disengagement from the Middle East.
  As we debate this issue, we must consider our broader national 
security interests in the Middle East. We are only focusing on Iraq. We 
have to start thinking about the whole greater Middle East area. 
Despite one's views about the current situation in Iraq, it is in our 
country's vital security interest to pursue a strategy of diplomacy and 
military action in the region. To put it simply, the stakes are too 
high for us to sit on the sidelines. We must remain active players in 
the Middle East to maintain regional stability, to protect vital energy 
supplies, and to guarantee peace and security at home.
  We have had long-standing economic and military interests in the 
Middle East and we were involved in the region long before we decided 
to challenge Saddam Hussein for his defiance of the U.N. Security 
Council. But today, with conflicts brewing in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, 
between Israel and the Palestinian territories, it is even more 
critical we remain steadfast in our commitment. Despite what one might 
believe about the President's strategy in Iraq, we cannot confuse 
debate over tactics with the nonnegotiable need to remain engaged in 
the Middle East.
  Currently, the greatest threat to the stability in the Middle East is 
the possibility of failure in Iraq which threatens to destabilize the 
region and poses a critical national security risk to the United 
States. A premature withdrawal from Iraq will signify in essence that 
we are abandoning the region in its entirety. Our departure could 
greatly

[[Page 4426]]

damage, if not sever, relationships with key allies, resulting in dire 
political and social consequences throughout the world.
  The long-term security interests of the United States will be best 
served by a peaceful Iraq that can sustain, govern, and defend itself. 
That is why we must figure a way forward and why we cannot withdraw 
from Iraq.
  The National Intelligence Estimate which was just released 
underscores the danger of withdrawal, stating succinctly:

       If coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term 
     of this estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would 
     lead to significant increase in the scale and scope of 
     sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the 
     Iraq government, and have adverse consequences for national 
     reconciliation.

  They conclude that the immediate withdrawal of United States troops 
likely would lead the Iraq security forces to unravel, encourage 
neighboring countries to engage openly in the conflict, and lead to 
massive civilian casualties and population displacement. It is also 
very likely, were the United States to pull out of Iraq prematurely, 
al-Qaida would use Iraq as a training ground to plan future attacks, 
and this escalation of violence could ultimately prompt Turkey to 
launch a military incursion of its own. These are outcomes we cannot 
afford to risk.
  I will refer to a few of the experts whom I have met or who have 
testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in recent 
weeks.
  Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger testified that ``withdrawal 
is not an option'' and continued that:

       An abrupt American departure would greatly complicate 
     efforts to stem the terrorist tide far beyond Iraq: Fragile 
     governments from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf would be tempted 
     into preemptive concessions. It might drive the sectarian 
     conflict in Iraq to genocidal dimensions, beyond levels that 
     impelled U.S. interventions in the Balkans.

  Think of that. It might drive sectarian conflict in Iraq to genocidal 
dimensions beyond levels that impelled United States intervention in 
the Balkans.
  The new Ambassador from Jordan sat next to me at the prayer 
breakfast, and we started talking about Iraq and the Middle East. He 
told me that if you do not handle this right, we could see a schism 
between the Sunni and Shiite that extends from Malaysia to Indonesia.
  Another reason I back the Warner resolution is it does not in any way 
threaten to reduce or jeopardize critical funding for United States 
troops serving in Iraq. In fact, the resolution states explicitly:

       Congress should not take any action that will endanger the 
     United States military forces in the field, including the 
     elimination or reduction of funds for troops in the field, as 
     such an action with respect to funding will undermine their 
     safety or their effectiveness in pursuing their assigned 
     missions.

  A decision to cut funding would be a serious, irreversible mistake.
  Last month, this Senate confirmed General Petraeus as the commanding 
general of the multinational force in Iraq without a dissenting vote. 
He is carrying out the orders of the President. It is critical that 
General Petraeus get the resources and equipment he believes are 
necessary to complete the mission and keep his forces safe in the 
field. I spoke to General Petraeus and I told him to make sure to ask 
for what he needs to be successful. He is concerned about receiving the 
equipment and other nonmilitary resources he will need to be 
successful, such as contributions of the State Department and other 
agencies. We cannot send our forces into the field without the 
necessary equipment. We did this at the beginning of the war. Our 
soldiers were underequipped. It was despicable. It cannot happen again. 
We have the resources in this country to ensure that our men and women 
have everything they need in combat.
  We also must provide the funding to reset the equipment when it comes 
home and to keep the Armed Forces from breaking under the strain of the 
war. We must ensure that soldiers have the proper training before they 
leave and we must fund the mobilization centers and other military 
facilities at home so we can undergo the necessary training.
  In my State of Ohio, I met this week with the head of the Ohio 
National Guard who is now being told he is going to have to train the 
troops in Ohio because they do not want to send them someplace else 
because they want them trained fast so they can get them to Iraq and 
Afghanistan. The fact is, he said:

       I don't have the additional funds or equipment to do this.

  We have lost 150 Ohioans, 150 in Iraq. In terms of the States, we are 
probably two or three in the United States in the number of members 
lost. We lost two because humvees rolled over and they were not trained 
to drive those humvees. Now they are much heavier than they were 
before.
  The Warner resolution makes it clear that we must guarantee the 
troops what they need when they need it. And the Gregg amendment 
underscores the point further. The best exit strategy for United States 
troops is a multifaceted and comprehensive strategy focused on creating 
an Iraq for the Iraqis. We must focus on training the Iraqi security 
forces so the Iraqis can defend and protect themselves. The Iraqi 
people must understand they will be given the full responsibility of 
defending and rebuilding their country. We must remove any ambiguity in 
the minds of Iraqis about our intention and desire to lead and make it 
clear we do not want to be there. In fact, they need to understand we 
want to bring our troops home and we want to help them develop the 
political and military tools necessary to carry on this mission without 
us.
  Bringing stability to Iraq will require our best minds, our 
resources, and our bipartisan cooperation. We need a massive 
improvement in interagency coordination, better communication, better 
reporting to Congress, and the help of our allies and friends 
throughout the region.
  This is my responsibility as a Member of Congress, to exercise 
oversight and to contribute to our national security. That is why I 
support the bipartisan Warner resolution. Again, I am confident that 
given the opportunity, over 60 Members of this Senate will support it.
  Last but not least, all of us who represent the people of this 
country should get down on our knees and ask the Holy Spirit to 
enlighten the President and us in our decisionmaking because the impact 
of Iraq will not only affect Iraq, the Middle East, and world peace, 
but it will impact dramatically the national security of the United 
States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, from the gravity of the terms 
with which the senior Senator from Ohio has spoken, I know the Senator 
speaks from his heart. This Senator certainly concurs it is of the 
utmost importance of the interests of the United States that we are 
successful in Iraq because of the threat to the security interests to 
our country in that region of the world.
  If someone will look at a map, we have the Persian Gulf, and on the 
eastern portion of the Persian Gulf is the Strait of Hormuz, which is 
only 19 miles wide, through which most of the super oil tankers of the 
world have to flow out of the Persian Gulf, or if you are from an Arab 
country, the Arabian Gulf into the great oceans of the world to an oil-
thirsty world. That is clearly one interest.
  Another interest is clearly the fact that Iran wants to build a 
nuclear weapon. What an enormously destabilizing situation that would 
be to put in a rogue nation's hands that is not unaccustomed to 
peddling things to itchy fingers that like to exact mischief on the 
rest of the world. You put a nuclear weapon in those itchy fingers, and 
we have a whole new kind of threat to the stability of the civilized 
world.
  But there are other reasons--the reasons of countries that have been 
in enormous strife, countries that have been very favorable to the 
United States, as the country of Jordan and

[[Page 4427]]

all of the internal turmoil they have. I could go on and on, but there 
are so many reasons why it is very necessary that the United States 
have success in that part of the world.
  But what we are coming down to is a momentous decision tomorrow, at 
1:45 p.m., on whether we are going to continue a policy of this 
administration of stay-the-course or whether we are going to change 
that course. This Senator believes we should change that course and 
that the President's decision to put additional troops into Baghdad is 
not changing the course, it is more of the course. It is putting more 
American lives into a sectarian violence caldron where the temperature 
is so high that we see the reports every day of more and more killings.
  Now, this violence did not just start. This violence started 1,327 
years ago, when, after the death of Mohammed, the prophet, there was a 
power play, and his grandson was eliminated as one of the natural heirs 
to the Prophet Mohammed, and the power was controlled within the 
clerics who had succeeded Mohammed. It was in that grandson's clan that 
they then started a resistance born out of revenge, and that then 
started the separation of the Shiites from what are today the Sunnis. 
And that has happened for 1,327 years. In the midst of that full-scale 
civil warfare, this Senator does not believe it is in the interest of 
our country to put in an additional 17,500 American lives. This Senator 
believes we ought to force the Iraqis to stop killing each other and to 
start working out their differences.
  Now, at the same time, as recommended by the Iraq study commission, 
it is clearly important that we have a vigorous international 
diplomatic initiative to engage all the countries in the region to help 
bear upon Iraq and that sectarian warfare to get them to try to come to 
their senses, to try to start striking peace instead of warfare, 
because all of the countries in the region clearly understand that is 
in their interest. You take a country such as Saudi Arabia. One of the 
worst things in the world would be if Iraq was just completely 
enveloped in chaos; the same with Jordan--two of our friends in the 
region.
  It is in the interests of the United States to conduct this 
diplomatic initiative in a way that it has not been done in the last 4 
years: engaging people whom we have refused to engage, listening and 
learning in the process, instead of always imposing or giving the 
perception of imposing ourselves on everybody else, and at the same 
time letting the forces that are there stabilize instead of putting 
more American lives at risk.
  So we come to a momentous decision that will come tomorrow afternoon: 
Do we keep the same course or do we start changing the course with new 
and fresh ideas, with ideas that have clearly been laid out in the Iraq 
study commission? It is the conclusion of this Senator that we ought to 
send a very strong message to the White House that the time for 
changing the stay-the-course policy is now.


                         Tribute to Dan Shapiro

  Mr. President, I want to make note, in the presence of my longtime, 
very faithful staff member, Dan Shapiro, who has served me so ably for 
over 6 years as legislative director, that the needs of providing for 
his little family have called upon him to leave the public sector, 
where he has been engaged for years, to enter into the private sector. 
I want to say on behalf of the people of Florida and the people of the 
Nelson office that we are grateful for his public service.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of thousands of Rhode 
Islanders who have talked with me about the need for a new direction in 
Iraq and the need to bring our troops home.
  I speak on behalf of the veterans' families who traveled here to 
Washington to speak to me about their memories of war and the need for 
this one to end.
  I speak on behalf of the brave men and women serving in Iraq who have 
sacrificed so much and whose families anxiously await their return.
  I speak on behalf of mothers I met who felt they had to buy body 
armor for their sons and daughters headed for Iraq because they could 
not trust this administration to provide what was needed.
  The Senate may have been muzzled in recent days, but Rhode Islanders 
certainly have not been. More than 2,000 of them have reached out to my 
office in frustration, in anger, and in concern--and in the hope that 
this new Democratic Senate will listen to them and hear them, as this 
administration will not.
  I want to share some of what they have written me:

       I was at Michael Weidemann's funeral.

  Mr. President, Michael was a 23-year-old Army sergeant from Newport, 
killed in an IED blast in Anbar Province last November.
  The letter continues:

       Please, if nothing else, take care of things, so that we do 
     not have to go through what we went through at that funeral. 
     Michael and my son . . . were in the JROTC together. . . . He 
     is on his second tour of Iraq. Please, don't make yesterday a 
     dress rehearsal for me. I want my son to come home, safely.

  From Johnston, Rhode Island:

       My son . . . is presently serving in Iraq and on his second 
     tour of duty there. . . . The President's plan ignores the 
     American people who voted for change in November, and who 
     continue to demand we bring our troops home. . . . The people 
     made their voice heard, and if the President isn't going to 
     listen, the Democratic Congress will. The President's 
     policies have failed!

  From Portsmouth, Rhode Island:

       President Bush has ignored the advice of experience, lied 
     to us all, lacked any plan and seems to be expecting his 
     successor to solve the problems. It is our only hope that 
     you, as a member of Congress, can work toward bringing our 
     troops home soon.

  From Kingston:

       I am appalled at the loss of life--today it was reported 20 
     more service people were killed. The Kurds are deserting 
     rather than fight in Baghdad. . . . We are not just losing 
     people, we are losing big money. We have seven grandchildren. 
     What kind of debt are we placing on those future generations?

  From Warwick:

       We never should have begun this war, let's now have the 
     sense to end it, not prolong it. Please do whatever you can 
     to stop the president's initiative to increase our military 
     presence in Iraq. . . . , to spend even more money waging a 
     war that your constituents have indicated they no longer 
     support.

  From North Kingstown:

       We are looking to you to do whatever is in your power to 
     stop the U.S. escalation of troops in Iraq. I and many in our 
     nation feel this will only make a bad situation worse, widen 
     what is essentially a civil war and lead to further 
     casualties and costs without contributing towards a political 
     solution. . . . We are counting on you and your colleagues on 
     both sides of the aisle to stand up and be counted and forge 
     a bipartisan solution to end this war.

  And finally, a woman from Cumberland forwarded me a message she sent 
to President Bush:

       My nephew . . . is in the 82nd Airborne serving our country 
     in Iraq. He is the bravest person I have ever known, along 
     with all the other men and women serving this country. I am 
     proud to be an American! Please, please, on behalf of my 
     family and the families of all U.S. troops--bring them home 
     now!

  Mr. President, these voices will not be unfamiliar to anyone in this 
body. In every State, we have heard similar voices. You have heard them 
in Colorado, Mr. President. My friend, Senator Sanders, has heard them 
in Vermont. People all across America are speaking to all of us, and it 
is time for us to listen and to show that we have heard and to start to 
bring our soldiers home.
  The President has not heard these voices. He wants to send tens of 
thousands more troops to Iraq. He calls this a surge. We consider it a 
grave mistake.
  Tomorrow, our vote can stop the parliamentary maneuvers that have 
stalled us, and this great deliberative body can begin to debate the 
most pressing question of this day.
  Let's talk for a moment about that question. The other side wishes to 
debate every question, any question--any question but the escalation by 
this President of our troops in Iraq by over 21,000 men and women. But 
this question we want to debate is not a question selected by Democrats 
for political reasons. It is possible here to

[[Page 4428]]

choose self-serving questions and to force a debate on those questions 
just to make a political point. But we have not done that.
  This question, whether to escalate the war in Iraq, is not an 
invention of the Democratic Party. It is not an invention of the 
Senate. It is President Bush, who proposed to send tens of thousands 
more troops into harm's way and to escalate this conflict, who has 
presented this question. This question is what was presented to us by 
President George W. Bush, and by him alone, and it is the pressing 
question of today.
  For weeks, we on this side of the aisle have emphasized and 
reemphasized our strong commitment to having a real debate--a debate to 
a vote--to telling the American people where we stand and to casting 
our votes on the precise question the President of the United States 
has presented to America. But we have been impeded, obstructed, 
maneuvered away from this critical question.
  The other side argues that to dispute this President's judgment is to 
fail to support the troops--even though that judgment has failed the 
troops and has failed our country and has left us with few good 
options.
  But that is a false choice, Mr. President. And this hour demands 
better of this institution.
  There are ways to accomplish the change America demands, and that 
reason and good conscience dictate. For instance, I believe that rather 
than send a single additional American soldier into the sands and 
marshes of Iraq, this President can announce clearly and unequivocally 
that our troops will be redeployed from Iraq and will soon come home.
  The most powerful motivating force at our country's disposal today is 
the prospect of our redeployment out of Iraq. Let me repeat that. The 
most powerful motivating force at our country's disposal today is the 
prospect of redeployment out of Iraq. Using this power wisely, deftly, 
and thoughtfully would accomplish three critical objectives that, as I 
have said, would make great strides toward security in Iraq and 
stability in the region.
  First, a clear statement of our intent to redeploy our troops from 
Iraq would eliminate the sense there that we are an Army of occupation. 
This in turn would quiet the nationalist sentiment of the Iraqi people, 
now aroused against us. Many Iraqis are now so opposed to our presence 
they think killing American soldiers is acceptable.
  Second, without America's intervening presence, the world community 
would have to face directly the consequences of the situation in Iraq. 
The prospect of our departure would compel the world to take a more 
active role to work together with America to bring peace and stability 
to the region. We cannot continue as we are now, in every meaningful 
way completely alone.
  Third, Iraq's neighbors will be obliged to assume greater 
responsibility for averting the risk of a Sunni-Shiite conflict 
igniting in Iraq and spreading beyond Iraq's borders. Without us in 
Iraq as a police force for a civil war, neighboring nations will have 
an enlivened incentive to avert a wider war.
  Finally, the Bush administration's preoccupation with Iraq leaves us 
weakened in our capability to address other obligations around the 
world, from the changing situation in North Korea, to the ongoing 
battle for Afghanistan, to the serious threat posed by Iran's nuclear 
program.
  Mr. President, these are serious matters, and they deserve the 
serious and sustained attention of the Senate. I hope tomorrow's vote 
will allow us to bring this question that attention.
  Mr. President, I will support that vote tomorrow. I ask other 
Senators, who hear our fellow Americans' genuine and sincere concern 
about our national interest, will do the same.
  I will support not only the resolution disapproving of the 
President's escalation plan and supporting our troops, but also other, 
stronger measures that will follow, and that will continue to put 
pressure on this administration to finally bring our troops home.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). The Senator from Vermont is 
recognized.

                          ____________________