[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5449-5450]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IRAQ WAR TESTIMONY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday's testimony before the Senate 
Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee afforded 
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker the opportunity to address the 
two central questions of the war in Iraq. No. 1: Has the troop surge 
brought us closer to the day when our troops can come home? Second, is 
the war in Iraq making America safer? By all accounts, the answer to 
both questions is no.
  While General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker both deserve our 
gratitude for their hard work--and this is hard work under 
extraordinarily difficult circumstances--their testimony gave our 
country no reason to believe the strategy will change. President Bush 
himself described the purpose of the surge as giving the Iraqi 
Government and its people the space to achieve reconciliation. Recent 
violence and the intensifying struggle between al-Maliki and al-Sadr 
proved beyond any doubt the window we provided may be closing.
  President Bush clings to his talking points that the surge is 
working, but he called his plan a return on success, meaning that if 
the surge worked, our troops could return home. If we have the success 
he claims, where is the return?
  Since Monday, we have had 12 American soldiers killed in Iraq. We are 
stuck in the ``Twilight Zone'' in Iraq. When violence is up, the 
President says we can't bring our troops home. When violence is down, 
the President says we can't bring our troops home.
  So it is long past time for the President to be honest with the 
American people: Under what circumstances could our troops come home? 
Under what scenario could this war end? Based on everything we have 
heard, we can reach only one conclusion with 160,000 courageous 
American troops serving in Iraq. President Bush has an exit strategy 
for one person--and that is himself--on January 20 of next year.
  Here is what three Senators had to say during yesterday's hearings. 
One Senator said:

       I think Osama bin Laden is sitting back right now looking 
     at this thing and saying, in effect, ``We're kinda 
     bankrupting this country.''

  Another Senator said:

       I think people want a sense of what the end is going to 
     look like.

  A third Senator said:

       Our patience is not unlimited.

  All three of these questions were from Republican Senators yesterday.
  To my Republican friends I say: Let's work together. We had the 
opportunity to change course in Iraq last summer, but Republicans who 
were willing to criticize the war proved unwilling to break with 
President Bush by voting against it. But it is not too late. Neither 
side is looking for a hasty withdrawal that would put our troops or the 
Iraqi people at undue risk. We want a smarter, more sustainable 
strategy that addresses all the national security challenges our Nation 
faces--from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida safe haven in Pakistan, to 
winning the peace in Afghanistan, to rebuilding full combat readiness 
of our ground forces.
  If we work together, Democrats and Republicans, we can set a new 
course that takes us responsibly out of Iraq and would focus on the 
global challenges that have gone overlooked for far too long.

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