U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, And Iraq Accountability Act, 2007--Continued

Floor Speech

U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007--Continued -- (Senate - March 27, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Mississippi for yielding.

I rise in support of his amendment and also note that Friday of last week, March 23, was, in my view, a sad day because it was on that day the House of Representatives voted to usurp the responsibilities of the President of the United States as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Unfortunately, the Democratic majority in the Senate, rather than reject this ill-conceived and dangerous line of thinking, has chosen to endorse it.

I believe the phased redeployment language in the supplemental is wrong. Today, I ask my colleagues to stop and think about the long-term effects the redeployment language is going to have. This language will do more than redeploy troops. It will set a precedent that Congress may interject itself into the military chain of command. This is not a slippery slope, it is a straight drop to the bottom.

War requires one Commander in Chief. Every civilization, from Greece to the British Empire, has understood this basic premise, as did our Founders.

Wars are unpredictable, and they are fluid. Success in any military conflict requires energy, speed, flexibility, and adaptability. I thought the Senate understood this, particularly when we unanimously confirmed General Petraeus to be the commander of forces in Iraq.

What are our commanders in the field supposed to think? What orders are they to comply with? Are they going to conduct the surge or are they going to reorganize their forces to comply with redeploying the troops? Should we expect our commanders to read their operations orders or congressional conference reports to determine their priorities?

This effort, led by the Democratic majority, is simply a bad idea, and I hope my colleagues can see that the short-term gain they seek on this bill will lead to long-term consequences for the military.

The other reason I oppose the redeployment language is it confuses strategic policy with foreign policy. Both have the same goal: victory in Iraq and to bring our troops home. However, that goal is arrived at by very different means.

Our strategic policy is set by the President and by our military commanders. Conversely, our foreign policy is set by their diplomatic counterparts at the State Department. That is why interagency cooperation is important now more than ever. In order for the U.S. Government to effectively employ the elements of the national power, Congress must resist the temptation to intervene and ultimately make matters worse.

Redeploying our troops from Iraq on a published timeline is not going to end the war on terrorism. To me, the redeployment language in this bill is the strategic equivalent of the Maginot line.

In World War II, the French built a wall and the Germans went around it. If we publish our deployment timeline, then Shia and Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida in Iraq, and Iranian instigators will all simply wait for us to leave and then begin their efforts to undo all we have worked for over the past 4 to 5 years.

The conflict we are fighting today is unlike any other we have fought. That is why I find the Democratic talking points about how the war in Iraq has lasted longer than this conflict or that conflict to be so disingenuous. They are right on one point: This is not World War II. It is not Vietnam. It is Iraq. It is the war on terror, and our efforts in Iraq cannot be looked at in a vacuum.

Iraq is a front in the war on terror, but it is not the front in the war on terror, because this war has no front. If you want to know where the front is in the war on terror, then get in your car and drive 10 minutes over to the Pentagon. That is a front. Go to New York and look at the gaping holes in the ground. That is a front. Or visit the field in Pennsylvania where a group of brave passengers forced a plane to the ground at the expense of their own lives. That is a front. If any of my colleagues are still wondering where the front is on the war on terror, you are standing on it.

In order to deal with this phenomenon, in almost every sector of U.S. security policy we are trying to push America's enemies further away. Port security is a perfect example. We are putting inspectors in foreign ports to inspect cargo before it comes to the United States, and we are allowing the Coast Guard to inspect ships further out at sea, all for the purpose of putting the enemy farther away from us. Yet in this instance, this bill seems to invite our enemies into the very heart of our country. To me, it simply does not make sense.

Our colleagues on the other side also like to note there were no Iraqis on the planes that attacked us on September 11. Well, there weren't any Afghanis either. In fact, if we follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion about who was on those planes, then perhaps this Congress should change the 2002 authorization for the use of force and allow the President to attack Saudi Arabia, because the majority of the hijackers were Saudis.

Of course, such a line of thinking is ridiculous because this conflict is not about national identity, it is about ideology. It is about good versus evil, right versus wrong, freedom versus tyranny, and hope versus cynicism.

I will concede this administration has not handled Iraq as well as it could have, but I also believe this debate is more about our national identity or resolve than our involvement in Iraq.

I still believe that America, for all its faults, is a shining city on a hill, that our greatest export should be freedom and our greatest asset being people and ideas; that we are a beacon of hope to those who toil in the darkness of tyranny and oppression. I also believe if we pass this legislation, we are saying to the world the United States is committed to defending freedom only when it is convenient or popular. That is not the America I know. It is not the America my father, a World War II fighter pilot, taught me about or the country we should hope to become.

It is my sincere hope my colleagues will vote to support Senator Cochran's amendment to remove the troop withdrawal language from this bill. If we do not, I believe we will be doing more harm than good, despite the intentions to the contrary.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source