[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2517-2520]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak against the measure 
introduced by Senator Feingold.
  It has been only a year since GEN David Petraeus arrived in Baghdad 
and took command of American forces in Iraq. But in these brief 12 
months, he and the American and coalition troops under his command have 
brought about a tectonic shift in Iraq that has altered the course of 
the war there and, with it, the future of at least two great nations--
Iraq and the United States of America--and the lives of hundreds of 
millions of people in those two nations and so many others threatened 
by violent jihadist terrorists in the Middle East and beyond.

[[Page 2518]]

  When the surge first began a year ago, many doubted that the violence 
then raging in Iraq could be brought under control. Even as American 
troops began implementing this bold new counterinsurgency strategy, 
some opponents of the war inside and outside of Congress declared that 
the war in Iraq was already ``lost,'' that the surge had already been 
``tried and failed,'' and that it mattered more, frankly, that we get 
out of Iraq than that we succeed in Iraq.
  They could not have been more wrong. Thanks to the surge, the bravery 
and skill of American and Iraqi troops and the will of the Iraqi people 
to be free from terrorists, conditions on the ground in Iraq have been 
totally transformed from those of a year ago.
  A year ago, al-Qaida in Iraq was entrenched, in control of, 
exercising murderous control in Anbar Province and Baghdad. Now those 
evil forces of Islamist extremism are facing their single greatest and 
most humiliating defeat since 2001.
  This is not just my opinion. It is a matter of fact. In Baghdad, a 
fact: sectarian killings are down 95 percent in the last year; suicide 
bombings are down nearly 70 percent; IED attacks have been cut nearly 
in half.
  In the face of those extraordinary improvements in Iraq--and many 
more I will speak of in a moment in the social and political and 
economic life of that great country--however, antiwar forces here in 
America have reacted not with sighs of relief and gratitude but, 
instead, by doing everything in their power to downplay or diminish our 
hard-won gains in Iraq.
  Rather than admit the possibility that they had been wrong about the 
surge and about the capability of reestablishing security in Iraq, 
they, instead, reached for another rationale for retreat. What they 
argued was the lack of political progress in Iraq and, therefore, that 
the surge had failed.
  But this argument has also now been defeated by facts on the ground 
in Iraq.
  In the first place, the Iraqi people have taken over their local and 
provincial governments in a grassroots up democratic revolution. At the 
national level, a response is occurring. It took too long, but it is 
now significant. Benchmark legislation has surged forward in the Iraqi 
Parliament. The budget law, passed; the debaathification law, passed; 
the provincial powers and election law, passed; the amnesty law, 
passed.
  Thanks to the surge, the Sunni Arabs, who once constituted the core 
of the insurgency, have now risen, because we stood by them, to join 
with us and go ahead on their own to fight against al-Qaida and put al-
Qaida--the same al-Qaida that attacked us on 9-11-01--on the run.
  Thanks to the surge, the Shiites, who had turned in desperation to 
militias and death squads for protection from al-Qaida and Iranian-
backed extremists, are now rejecting those militias, death squads, and 
extremists. They want a better, more peaceful life for themselves and 
their families. And the American-led surge has put that within their 
reach.
  Last week, Moqtada al-Sadr announced he is extending his unilateral 
cease-fire. He did not do this as a favor to the United States of 
America or the Maliki Government in Baghdad. He did it because in Iraq 
today, thanks to the surge, and all that has been part of it, the rules 
of the game have changed. Violence and extremism are no longer the 
clear path to power in Iraq. In fact, they are becoming the path to 
political oblivion in Iraq. The people of Iraq want peace and stability 
and hope.
  What then has been the reaction of antiwar groups here at home to 
these enormous achievements in Iraq? Are they now ready to admit they 
were wrong about the surge? Even if they were opposed to the war in 
Iraq in the first place, are they now ready to acknowledge that we are 
there, we are succeeding, and it would be wrong and hurtful to the 
United States for Congress to force a retreat now that would, in 
Churchill's terms, ``snatch defeat from the jaws of victory''?
  To judge by the resolution now before us, the answer to that question 
is no. On the contrary, even as the facts on the ground have changed so 
much for the better, the resolution before us offers the same familiar 
prescription for retreat and surrender--ordered by Congress, not by our 
military leaders in the field or here at home--and it orders that, no 
matter what the consequences for the freedom of the Iraqi people, the 
future of the Islamic world, and the future national security of the 
United States of America.
  Some claim the war in Iraq is a distraction from the ``real'' war on 
terror. Al-Qaida disagrees. And so do I. Al-Qaida's leadership has 
repeatedly made clear they consider Iraq to be the central front of 
their campaign against us and most of the rest of the civilized world. 
According to our intelligence agencies, al-Qaida in Iraq remains al-
Qaida's most visible and capable affiliate worldwide and the only one 
known to have expressed a desire to attack the American homeland--us 
here at home.
  I know there are some who hear these arguments, watch what is 
happening, and say: Oh, no. The sponsors of this legislation certainly 
understand exactly how much political and military progress we are 
making against al-Qaida and Iranian-backed extremists in Iraq and how 
much is riding on the line there for America and most of the rest of 
the civilized world faced by this threat of violent jihadist terrorism. 
But this argument goes that the sponsors of this kind of resolution 
feel compelled to offer it to show antiwar groups in the United States 
that they have not forgotten them.
  I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe--I do not believe it--
that my colleagues would so trifle with the honor of American soldiers 
who have served and are serving in Iraq--too many of whom have given 
their lives in that service--or they would play such a political game 
with our national security. I respect my colleagues too much to take 
this legislation as anything other than what it says. It orders a 
retreat within 120 days.
  It actually imposes so-called caveats on American forces after that 
120 days, which are exactly the kind of caveats, limitations, on what 
they can do that we are now arguing with our European allies to stop in 
Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, some of our NATO allies are there, but 
they can only do certain things. They cannot enter into battle, et 
cetera. They cannot go out into the field with the Afghani National 
Army. We are saying you cannot fight a war that way.
  Listen to what one section of this matter before us offered by the 
Senator from Wisconsin says. Our troops, after the 120 days, can 
provide training to members of the Iraqi Security Forces ``provided 
that such training does not involve members of the United States Armed 
Forces taking part in combat operations or being embedded with Iraqi 
forces.''
  That is a caveat, a limitation, exactly what we are arguing with our 
European allies to stop doing in Afghanistan.
  The fact is, the legislation, this measure now before this Chamber, 
flies in the face of the recommendations of our proud and tested 
commanders on the ground in Iraq. If enacted, it would unravel all the 
hard-won gains our troops have made in the past year. It would hand 
victory to the suicide bombers and fanatics who are now on the run. It 
would betray the millions of Iraqis who are standing with us today 
because they desire a better, freer life for themselves and their 
children. And it would endanger the lives of and hopes of hundreds of 
millions more who live in the Middle East and throughout the Islamic 
world who yearn for a life of peace and justice, not a life of 
extremism, death, and primitivism that al-Qaida offers them.
  I wish to close, if I may, with a word directed to my colleagues on 
this side of the aisle, the Democratic Members of this Senate. I have 
thought a lot about this war, and I cannot help but wonder, in a moment 
such as this, what some of the political heroes of my youth, who were 
Democrats, would think if they were here and could see and listen to 
this debate and read this resolution.
  I think of President Kennedy, who declared:


[[Page 2519]]

       We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, 
     support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the 
     survival and the success of liberty.

  In my opinion, that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq today.
  I ask my colleagues: Do these words have meaning, have significance 
or are these just words?
  I think of President Harry Truman, who proclaimed, at the outset of 
the Cold War:

       It must be the policy of the United States to support free 
     peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed 
     minorities or by outside pressures.

  Are these too just words? Isn't that exactly what is happening in 
Iraq today? The people of Iraq, liberated from the terrible 
dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, hoping to secure a better future for 
themselves, now, with our assistance and encouragement, ``are resisting 
attempted subjugation by armed minorities''--read here: al-Qaida--``or 
by outside pressures''--read here: Iran. Are these just words? I hope 
not. I do not believe they are.
  There was a time when these were not just words, but they were the 
convictions that lay at the heart of the Democratic Party's foreign and 
national security policy.
  The legislation now before this Chamber, if implemented, would not, 
in my opinion, only betray our friends in the Middle East, it would not 
only betray America's own vital national interests against our 
deadliest enemies, al-Qaida and Iran, it would also betray the best 
ideals of the Democratic Party that I joined decades ago.
  They were strong and liberal ideals, and I use those words 
intentionally. Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy, great 
Democratic Senators such as Hubert Humphrey and ``Scoop'' Jackson, 
believed that the party stood for being liberal at home and liberal 
abroad. What did that mean? Liberal in the classic sense of the term 
``freedom,'' which is what America is all about: The self-evident truth 
that we are all endowed by our Creator with the rights to life and 
liberty.
  So I wish to appeal particularly today to my Democratic colleagues in 
the Senate to reject this resolution, and in that sense to return to 
what I believe are the strongest, proudest, most purposed moments of 
the history of the Democratic Party in recent decades on matters of 
foreign and national security policy.
  In sum, a year ago, the Bush administration acknowledged its mistakes 
in Iraq and changed course there. It is now time for opponents of the 
war and the surge to do the same. It is time for them to admit that the 
surge has worked and that America's security and freedom are on the 
line in Iraq today, that we are winning there, and it would be a 
disastrous mistake to impose the policies ordered by this resolution, 
this amendment, which would deprive our brave American men and women in 
uniform and the brave soldiers of other countries, including Iraq, of 
the victory that they are winning now for the people of Iraq, the 
people of America, and the cause of freedom, which is America's cause.
  I implore my colleagues, vote against this resolution.
  I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me, first of all, commend our 
colleague who just spoke. Senator Lieberman is very knowledgeable. It 
has been such an honor for me, in the years I have been in the Senate, 
to be serving on both the Armed Services Committee with him as well as 
the Environment and Public Works Committee.
  I very much am opposed to Senator Feingold's bills. But I wonder, in 
this short session, in the short time we have left--we have such things 
to debate: the budget, housing, energy, consumer product safety, 
education, farm programs--and I have to ask: Why are we wasting 
valuable time on these bills? And why at this time do we need another 
report?
  The National Security Strategy was written in 2006, and another will 
be required 150 days after the new administration comes in. The 
National Military Strategy review has been completed, and the Chairman 
of the Joint Chiefs is conducting his own additional review. The 
Quadrennial Defense Review will be out later this year. And the 
National Defense Strategy is also mandated by law. We currently have 
the strategy in place to win the global war on terror.
  The study prescribed by S. 2634 ties the hands of our military by 
telling them to outline a strategy that does not let them utilize the 
full extent of their resources.
  Furthermore, the substance of Senator Feingold's bills has been 
debated and defeated. On December 18, 2007, we voted against an 
amendment of the same nature as S. 2633 from the very same Senator, 
Senator Feingold. It was a troop withdrawal amendment, it was No. 3875, 
and it was defeated 71 to 24. We have already done this. Senator McCain 
said it best when he said that a majority had, by December 18, engaged 
in no less than 40 legislative attempts to achieve the misguided 
outcome of precipitous withdrawal. This makes Nos. 41 and 42. All of 
these 40-odd, time-wasting attempts have been defeated. Why? Because we 
are doing the right thing in Iraq.
  We did away with the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, where mass 
graves, torture, and rape were normal and everyday occurrences. We did 
away with terrorist training camps in Samarra, Ramadi, Sargat, Salmon 
Pak--and incidentally, Salmon Pak, in that training camp, they had a 
fuselage of an old 707 there, teaching people how to hijack airplanes. 
I guess we will never know whether the perpetrators of 9/11 were 
trained there. But nonetheless, there were four training camps there. 
They are gone now. They are closed.
  We helped the Iraqi people create a free and Democratic country, 
where representation and the rule of law are replacing coercion and 
terror. The Iraqi Parliament has passed legislation that has reformed 
the de-Ba'athification, enacted pension reform that allowed former 
Ba'athists to collect their pensions. They enacted a law defining the 
provincial and central government roles and responsibilities. They 
passed the 2008 budget--faster than we are doing it, actually--and 
enacted an amnesty law that could lead to the release of thousands of 
detainees, removing a stumbling block standing in the way of 
reconciliation.
  We have done the right thing, and we are winning.
  It is interesting. A lot of the people who were the defeatists come 
back now--Katie Couric is an example--who says we are actually winning. 
Less than half the al-Qaida leaders who were in Baghdad when the surge 
began are still in the city. They have either fled or were killed and 
captured.
  In addition to the list Senator Lieberman talked about and in terms 
of the successes, there has been a 75-percent reduction in religious 
and ethnic killings in the capital, they have doubled the seizure of 
insurgents' weapons caches, there has been a rise in the number of al-
Qaida killed and captured, they have knocked out six media cells, 
making it harder for al-Qaida to spread their propaganda, and Anbar 
incidents of attacks are down from 40 a day to less than 10 a day. 
There has been economic growth, markets are open, and the streets are 
crowded.
  We have been over there and we have seen it. You didn't used to be 
able to do that. The Iraqi Army is performing well.
  The Iraqi citizens formed a grassroots movement called Concerned 
Citizens Leagues. This is interesting because this is allowing 
citizens, as we have in Washington, DC, and in Tulsa, OK--we have 
groups that go out there to protect ourselves, and that is what these 
people are doing. They are unarmed. They are going out now with paint 
cans and drawing circles around undetonated IEDs and unexploded 
ordnance.
  COL Tom James, one of the commanders of the 3rd I.D. in Iraq, said 
last Friday, February 22:

       The current security situation is stable and I am 
     optimistic about the future. Sunni extremists are severely 
     disrupted. They no longer find sanctuary and support from the 
     population.


[[Page 2520]]


  We are winning because we are supporting our war fighters with a 
fundamental advantage, allowing them to command and control their 
forces--not doing it from here. Senator Feingold's amendment serves to 
tie the hands of our commanders on the ground.
  S. 2633 legislates defeat. There is no other way to put it. The 
amendment legislates defeat. Secretary Gates said: If we were to 
withdraw, leaving Iraq in chaos, al-Qaida most certainly would use 
Anbar Province . . . as another base from which to plan operations not 
only inside Iraq, but first of all in the neighborhood and then 
potentially against the United States.
  I must remind Senator Feingold and the cosponsors of this amendment 
that al-Qaida is not the only threat to America and to our ideals. 
Ahmadinejad said on August 28--this is very interesting. He said:

       Soon we will see a huge power vacuum in the region.

  A power vacuum.
  He said this expecting our defeatism--he is talking about these 
resolutions--he said:

       Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap.

  Now here is Iran, a country which recently declared a doubling of its 
uranium enrichment program and has been testing ballistic missiles, 
talking about filling this gap, the void that would be created.
  A lack of a secure and stable Iraq means instability in the Middle 
East and a clear avenue for terror and oppression to spread, and 
already has spread, into Africa.
  I have had occasion to be in what we refer to as the CENTCOM and now 
AFRICOM and EUCOM some 27 times since 9/11. A lot of that time is down 
in areas such as Djibouti and in the heart of Africa, where we have our 
forces down there, because with this squeeze taking place in the Middle 
East, there is a lot of the terrorist traffic going into Africa. As for 
S. 2634, as the one before it, it is a thinly veiled attempt to end the 
war in Iraq by legislating defeat.
  The bill proposes to micromanage military strategy by forcing the 
administration to narrowly define the future movement and employment of 
military personnel. It attempts to define the type of missions the 
military can conduct and places constraints on the length of time the 
military can deploy. It falsely presumes our professional warriors 
would be better served by limiting their deployments rather than 
supporting their victory over the enemy.
  By the way, all these people who now talk to me about the long 
deployments--and I agree the deployments are too long--I wonder where 
they were in the 1990s when we cut down the size of our military, when 
we brought the number of divisions down from 18 to 10. I can remember 
being on the floor saying this day was going to come and that some day 
we were going to say: Why did we cut back so far?
  Again, COL Tom James, speaking about our recent successes, said:

       It all goes back to this window of security being opened, 
     and being able to exploit that window of opportunity through 
     governance and economics and building the capacity of the 
     Iraqi security forces. This has all been enabled because of 
     the surge.

  Proposing specific deployment and dwell times would limit the 
flexibility of our commanders to conduct operations in the field and 
infringe on the President's authority as Commander in Chief.
  So this is the same flexibility that allowed the Commander in Chief 
to surge forces and turn the tide in Iraq. I am one of those who 
personally observed the changes that took place in Iraq with the surge. 
It was about a year ago right now. I recall a report where our 
intelligence was actually attending all the weekly Friday mosque 
meetings, and at that time, my recollection is 85 percent of those 
messages given by the imams and the clerics were anti-American 
messages. That stopped in April, and they realized things are working 
there. There is so much talk about the political leaders, I kind of 
look at the religious leaders as part of the reason for the successes 
we have had.
  So I think we have already voted on these. They have been voted down, 
and we don't need to waste any more time on it. I think common sense--
when we sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, as we did this 
morning, and we looked at the brilliant generals who were testifying 
before us, such as General Casey, these people spend a lifetime knowing 
what is going on and how to negotiate wars. We are winning. Things are 
good right now. I have often thought--I was honored in 1991 to be on 
the first freedom flight back to Kuwait. At that time, the Iraqis 
didn't know the war was over. They were still burning the fields. I 
remember going into one of the houses that actually was the Ambassador 
to the United States from Kuwait, a family of nobility, going into 
their home. They wanted to see what it looked like. Saddam Hussein had 
used it for one of his headquarters, and the little daughter going up 
to her bedroom to see what it looked like, they had used her bedroom 
for a torture chamber. The unimaginable things that were going on over 
there: Looking into the mass graves. I would think that those 
individuals on the other side, if nothing more--if that were all there 
were to it--would say we have to finish. It is our humanitarian 
responsibility.
  We are experiencing a victory, the surge is working, and I hope we 
will be able to dispose of, in a very quick way, these two bills 
authored by Senator Feingold.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________