To Revise United States Policy on Iraq--Motion to Proceed

TO REVISE UNITED STATES POLICY ON IRAQ--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - March 14, 2007)

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, recently in my home State of Vermont, the Vermont State Senate, with a very strong vote, passed a resolution in opposition to the war in Iraq and demanding that our troops come home as soon as possible. It is appropriate our legislature has done that because in Vermont we have paid a very high price for this war. In fact, in terms of per capita loss, the State of Vermont is higher, tragically, than any other State in this country.

In my home State of Vermont, and I believe all across this country, the American people are deeply concerned about the war. They want real debate here in Washington on the issue and, most importantly, they want reaction. That is why I will vote for cloture on S.J. Res. 9 and why I will then proceed, if I am allowed to, if the Republicans allow us to cast that vote, to vote for this resolution.

Let me say a word about the resolution itself, which is very clear and to my mind directly addresses the central concerns of the majority of Americans who, in the elections last November, made it as clear as they could that they want a new course in Iraq. They do not want more of the same, they want a new direction.

The joint resolution we are debating backs our troops, it fully supports our troops, but recognizes that circumstances in Iraq have changed dramatically and most importantly establishes a goal of removing U.S. combat troops by March 2008.

It requires the troop redeployment out of Iraq begin no later than 4 months after the legislation is enacted. The goal it sets of redeploying most of our troops out of Iraq, March 31, 2008, happens to be the very same date proposed by the bipartisan and well-respected Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. So this follows very closely the line of thought of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.

It allows troops to remain in Iraq for three purposes: to protect Americans still working on Iraqi reconstruction, to train the Iraqi police and their military, and to engage in counterterrorism operations.

In my view, President Bush's war in Iraq has been an unmitigated disaster. It is a war many of us understood we should never have gotten into in the first place. It is a war this administration was totally unprepared to fight, where some people in the administration were talking about how the Iraqis would be throwing flowers at our troops--not roadside bombs but flowers--and that our troops would be coming home after a ``cakewalk,' in a couple of months.

That was what they were talking about. It is a war that unfortunately and tragically has cost us terribly in terms of American blood. As of today, we have lost almost 3,200 brave American soldiers, almost 24,000 more have been wounded. Let me tell you very clearly that the evidence is overwhelming that tens of thousands more of these brave soldiers fighting in Iraq are going to be coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder or coming back home with traumatic brain injury. That is the reality of what this war has cost us up to now.

This at a time when we do not have the funding to adequately take care of our veterans, as we have seen at Walter Reed, at a time when middle-class families cannot afford to send their kids to college, at a time when this Nation has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, at a time when hunger in America is substantially increasing. This war, with the President's proposed increase, will cost us some $500 billion and that price tag is going up by $8 billion every month.

This cost is not only going to take money away from the pressing needs of the middle-class and working families of this country, but it is going to add to the $8.5 trillion national debt which this country currently has.

This is a war that has caused unspeakable horror for the people of Iraq--not just for our families who have suffered losses but for the people of Iraq. People who had suffered so long under the horrendous brutality of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship are suffering even more today. We are looking at a nation in the process of disintegration. That is Iraq today. There are estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed--some estimates go as high as 500,000--and almost 2 million Iraqis have fled their own country. In fact, anyone in Iraq who has any money at all, anyone who is part of the middle class, is trying to get out of that country as quickly as possible, and about 8 percent of Iraqis have had to flee their own country.

As I speak, President Bush is returning from a trip to Latin America. Wherever he spoke, he encountered massive protests. In country after country he discovered that people in Latin America hold our Nation in extremely low esteem, largely because of his ill-advised decision to invade Iraq and the disastrous way in which the Iraq occupation has been managed. That is certainly true not just in Latin America, it is true all over the world. How are we, as the most powerful military force in the world, going to be able to lead the world in the very important fight against international terrorism and Islamic extremism when in country after country leaders do not want to identify with us because of the policies of the President of the United States.

In the days immediately followingÐ9/11, the world rallied around the United States when we were grievously attacked; not just leaders but the huge majority of people in nations all over the world expressed their support and expressed their concern for the United States. They were on our side, not just for reasons of compassion but understanding that we had to work together as a planet, as a civilized world in addressing the attacks of extremists and fundamentalists and terrorists. We had to work together and the United States was prepared to play a leadership role.

Tragically, that reality is no longer the case. We are now held in lower esteem internationally than ever before in the modern history of America. That is not just a bad thing in the sense of our young people going to Europe and finding out they are not respected or that our country is not respected, it is a bad thing if we are serious about trying to develop an international consensus to fight the very serious problem of international terrorism.

Tragically, the Bush administration has refused to listen to the American people who, in the national election this past November, made it very clear they want a new direction in Iraq and they want this war wound down. They did not vote for an escalation in this war, they voted to wind down the war. This administration has not only not listened to the American people, they have refused to listen to the thoughtful suggestions of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This administration has refused to listen to the advice of our military leaders in Iraq who have told us that increasing troops from the United States would make it easier for the Iraqi Government and military to avoid their political and military responsibilities: Why make the hard political decisions? Why make the hard financial decisions? You don't have to do that. Uncle Sam is there to provide you with the troops. The American taxpayer is there to provide you with the money. You don't have to make those choices.

This administration has not only refused to listen to the American people, to our military, to the Iraq Study Group, perhaps most importantly they have refused to listen to the Iraqi people themselves who, according to a number of polls, tell us very strongly they believe that in the midst of all of the chaos, all of the horror that is taking place in their country, they would be more safe, they would be more secure if our troops left their country.

If President Bush will not listen to anybody, including the American people, including former generals, including the Iraq Study Group, including international public opinion, then it is up to Congress to tell him it is time to move in a new direction in Iraq. In the 2006 elections, in my view, the people of Vermont and of this Nation told us they wanted Congress to begin asserting its constitutional authority over this war and that they wanted us to rein in this administration. Most important, they told us they wanted us to begin the process of bringing our troops home as soon as possible. As a Vermont Senator, that is exactly the effort I intend to make. We must bring our troops home instead of leaving them to be embattled referees of a civil war that only the Iraqis--not our brave soldiers--can stop.

Iraq's Government and its military must step up and accept their political and military responsibilities. As the Baker-Hamilton commission said, that will only happen when we insist that the Iraqis and not American troops are responsible for the future of Iraq.

I yield the floor.

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