War in Iraq

WAR IN IRAQ

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this week, just days before the end of the fiscal year, we are going to consider the Defense appropriations bill. This is an important bill for America's national security. The chairman, ranking member, and their staffs worked long and hard on it. I appreciate their commitment and willingness to work with both sides.

Before we even take up this bill, however, we could and should have voted on the Defense authorization bill, which includes critical policy matters crucial to national security importance. As hard as it may be to understand in the midst of a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Republican leadership in the Senate pulled the Defense authorization bill from the calendar in July and replaced it with a bill that was requested by the National Rifle Association.

The gun lobby wanted a bill to excuse them from liability in lawsuits and the Republican leadership in the Senate felt that was more important than the Defense authorization bill, which considered massive policy questions involving hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform and veterans.

I do not understand that thinking. The appropriations bill we will hopefully take up this week includes $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I said, at the start of the war in Iraq, that while I felt the invasion was a mistake, I would not deny one penny to our troops in the field for body armor, medical supplies, air support, ammunition, equipment, or any other costs associated with our forces and their security.

I have always thought that if it were my son or daughter in uniform, I would not shortchange them one penny, so that they could come home safely with their mission accomplished, and that is still my pledge.

The American people should be aware of what this war is costing us. First and foremost, it continues to cost American lives. This month, while most Americans were glued to their televisions focusing on Katrina and Rita, the hurricanes that struck us in the Gulf of Mexico, 37 more American soldiers died in Iraq.

Last month, while Congress was in recess, 85 Americans were killed in Iraq. All told, 1,921 Americans have been killed as of today and 14,755 have been wounded. Many have suffered devastating permanent injuries.

Senator Harry Reid and his wife Landra went to Bethesda Medical Center yesterday. Senator Reid came to tell us this morning the sad experience he had there, where he saw a young soldier in a wheelchair who had clearly been maimed by this
are hard to believe. Having lost both legs and suffered a head injury, it is clear that his life will never, ever be the same. Senator Reid said to us again at lunch, he cannot get this image from his mind.

When we hear of injured soldiers, we should not believe that these are superficial injuries which can be easily overlooked. Many of those are life changing, life transforming.

This war has cost us in so many other ways as well. Sadly, it has undermined our war on terrorism, while it has created a new front in this conflict and an advanced training ground for terrorists. It has stretched our Armed Forces, especially our Army, National Guard, and Reserves, placing enormous strains on service members and their families. It has diminished our national credibility. That loss of credibility makes it harder now for the administration to go to the United Nations and present information that is needed about security in the world. Some of the presentations made in the lead up to the war in Iraq have cost us dearly in terms of our credibility.

A nuclear Iran is a terrible threat, but I know much of the world is probably wondering if they believe any photographs that we produce relative to that threat in Iran after the discredited photos before our invasion of Iraq. Some Americans probably are asking the same question, and their doubts are another unfortunate product of this conflict.

There are enormous costs to this war. We have already spent over $196 billion in Iraq. This week or next we are likely to approve another $50 billion, which will not cover the cost of the war next year. It is a downpayment for the beginning of those costs. We are currently spending close to $5 billion a month in Iraq, and we are acting on this bill this week in part because of the report that the Pentagon is growing short of money. The new fiscal year starts in several days, and that makes it virtually inevitable that at some point next year, maybe as early as next spring, we will be voting another supplemental appropriation to fund the war in Iraq.

I think simply staying the course under these circumstances is no longer an option. The costs in blood and treasure are too high and the progress in Iraq is not there.

The costs of this war have been brought home to my State. We have lost 77 of our sons and daughters in this war, and by one calculation it has cost the taxpayers in the city of Chicago alone $2.2 billion. Last week, the Chicago city council passed a resolution addressing the war in Iraq. They did so not because they believe that they are in charge of foreign policy but because they wanted to speak their minds. The city council's resolution honors the men and women who serve and those who have been killed or wounded. It states that through their service and sacrifice, our troops have substantially accomplished the stated purpose of the United States of giving the people of Iraq a reasonable opportunity to decide their own future.

The resolution concludes that we should, therefore, make an orderly and rapid withdrawal from Iraq. That is the conclusion of the Chicago city council; it is not mine. But I sure understand the motivations and I sure hear many people back in Illinois saying exactly those words. I think millions of Americans understand and share the sentiments.

Polls show that 63 percent of the people in this country believe we should withdraw all or some of our troops from Iraq. This past weekend, at least 100,000 people, maybe many more, marched on Washington to call for a way out of Iraq. They came from all over the country and from many walks of life. I do not think a rapid withdrawal is in the best interests of Iraq or the United States, but I understand why they came, and I understand why they are trying to raise this issue. It troubles me that we can go for days on end in the Senate without ever talking about the war in Iraq that is so much in the forefront of the minds of the American people.

I bring these charts to the floor as a reminder that as our daily business goes apace, Americans are losing their lives and suffering terrible injuries.

America cannot simply stay the course in Iraq. The administration claims its strategy is working, but there is very little evidence of that. The insurgents are getting more violent, more lethal. Their attacks are killing more people. That is the nature of insurgency. It is an insurgency against foreign occupiers. History says that this can go on for a long time. Do we possess more fire power than these insurgents or terrorists? We sure do, but we alone cannot use that military fire power to be successful.

Our military leaders tell us one cannot score a military victory over an insurgency. It is going to take a political victory. The only people who can defeat or win over Iraqi insurgents are the Iraqis themselves, not our brave soldiers. The only people who can build a sustainable government in Iraq are the Iraqis, and those military and political developments must be linked or neither will succeed.

That linkage is something we were never able to accomplish in Vietnam so many decades ago. What we saw instead in South Vietnam was a long line of corrupt governments with little legitimacy and even less popular support.

We still wait to see whether the Government of Iraq will be up to this challenge. In a few weeks, the people of Iraq will vote on a draft constitution. I hope that the October referendum on this constitution encourages a vigorous and peaceful political process and healthy voter turnout from all sectors of Iraqi society--Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and others. One vote does not make a democracy. Regardless of the outcome of the referendum, it is critical that the same people who turn out to vote engage in the state-building that must follow.

This week, according to the schedule, we are taking up the Defense appropriations bill. For the first time, more than 3 years into this bill, we are finally trying to budget for at least some of the costs of this war. Any other time we passed it by emergency supplemental appropriations.

May I say a word about that for a moment. Is it not curious that when it comes to rebuilding the devastation from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, that there are many who are arguing that we need to cut spending in other programs, such as health care for the poor or prescription drugs for senior citizens, to pay for that reconstruction in America? There was not a single member of the other political party, that I know of, who came forward and argued for setoffs when it came to the reconstruction of Iraq. Is it not odd that we do not need to set off by cutting spending to rebuild Iraq but now many of these same Congressmen and Senators are saying that before we can help rebuild America we have to cut critical programs for the needy people of this country? I do not understand their logic. It is certainly inconsistent.

We cannot budget for the human costs of war, and we cannot put a number on the possible strategic costs, but we should at least try to account for the fiscal price tag of this conflict. We have to measure those hundreds of billions of dollars which have been spent and will be spent against what we need in America to make our Nation strong.

Last month, when Katrina struck, a third of the Louisiana National Guard was deployed to Iraq. So was much of their equipment. These deployments have had real homeland security consequences. We have learned that we were not only unprepared for Katrina, but we have to learn the lessons of Katrina to be prepared, God forbid another disaster, either natural or terrorist-inspired, should occur. We owe it to our taxpayers to measure those costs. We must also measure the costs of war against the progress Iraqis are making, and I do not see a lot of progress, though I hope that changes.

One thousand nine hundred and twenty-one American soldiers have died in Iraq. Before this number hits 2,000, we have a duty to give our troops and the American people an honest appraisal of the situation and a clear plan to bring the troops home.

When the President of Iraq, Mr. Talabani, announces that by the end of this year, in a few months, 50,000 American troops can come home, the Iraqis are ready to take over that responsibility, let us hold him to that promise. Let us hold him to that responsibility. Unless and until the Iraqis feel that they have to step up to defend their own country, American lives will continue to be lost every single day. We owe our fighting men and women leadership, vision and direction.

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