America Competes Act

Floor Speech

AMERICA COMPETES ACT -- (Senate - April 25, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS BILL

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in the next day or two, the House and Senate will consider the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill. This is the fifth year of our war in Iraq. This is the seventh time the President has come to Congress for an emergency supplemental bill.

In the ordinary course of events, a President and administration will submit to Congress an appropriation. We carefully review it, consider amendments, vote on it, and send it back to the President for signature.

The exceptions to the rule I just gave are for emergency situations, unanticipated situations, such as natural disasters, situations that came upon us so quickly that we could not have anticipated them. But for 5 straight years now this administration has insisted that this ongoing war is an unanticipated expenditure. I wish that were true, but we have known now for more than 4 years that this war is costly; first, in terms of human life, and, second, in terms of the Treasury of this country. Despite that, the President continues to send us emergency bills, unanticipated appropriations.

This time, almost $100 billion is to be added to the expenses of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total cost to date is somewhere in the range of $500 billion. We have appropriated that money. We have given the President every penny he has asked for and more. Members of Congress and the Senate with serious misgivings about this policy in Iraq have said to the President as Commander in Chief responsible for our men and women in uniform: We never want to shortchange them in battle. We want them to be safe. We want them to come home safe.

I was one of 23 Senators who voted against this invasion of Iraq. I thought this was a serious mistake from the start, but I have never said no to the President's request for the funds for those troops. As I have said often, and I will repeat now, if it were my son or daughter in uniform, I would want them to have everything they need to come home. I may think this is the worst foreign policy decision in our time, but it is not to be taken out on our troops. They shouldn't be the bargaining chip in this important debate which is going on in Washington.

Now comes the President with another supplemental, about $100 billion that he wants for the troops to have in the months to come. He will receive that money. There is no doubt that he will receive it. The Democratic majority in the House and Senate has already pledged to provide all the money our troops need. But we cannot ignore the obvious. It is time for us to have a serious discussion in this country about this war.

The day before yesterday, nine American lives were given up in Iraq. Nine soldiers and marines lost their lives while many of us were in the safety of our homes or at our workplace.

Whether it is on Sunday with the Stephanopoulos show or every day in the Washington Post, I try to make a point of reading the names and ages and hometowns of these soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen who are casualties. I do that because I don't want their loss to become a numbing statistic. I want to try to visualize that 19-year-old soldier, that 23-year-old sergeant, that corporal in the Marine Corps who was 20 years old. I want to try to visualize them in terms of my family and the people I love. I think every Member of Congress needs to do the same thing--and I hope they do the same thing--to remember that it isn't just 3,320 lives, these are 3,320 sons and daughters and husbands and fathers, mothers and wives, loved ones. These are real people and real lives.

So now we are in this debate about how this war is going to end. It is well overdue that we have this debate.

When we went into this war, we were told by the President that there were reasons for doing it. I think most Americans recall it. I recall the litany very well.

First, the administration told us that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be used--chemical and biological weapons--in a terrorist mode to kill innocent people in the Middle East and around the world.

Second, we were told they were developing nuclear weapons in Iraq, nuclear weapons that could destabilize the Middle East and even attack America. The leaders in this administration were giving speeches about mushroom clouds from these nuclear weapons.

Then we were told that Saddam Hussein had some connection to the al-Qaida terrorists who caused the 9/11 tragedy in America.

Then we were told that this madman, this dictator, was so ruthless that he even killed and gassed his own innocent civilians, his own people in Kurdish regions.

The Senate came to debate this, listening to the speeches by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice, and the debate engaged. At the time of this debate, I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I would read the headlines in the paper in the morning and watch the television newscasts and shake my head because, you see, just a few hundred feet away from here in a closed room, carefully guarded, the Intelligence Committee was meeting on a daily basis for top-secret briefings about the information we were receiving, and the information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it. Members of this administration were in active, heated debate over whether aluminum tubes really meant that the Iraqis were developing nuclear weapons. Some in the administration were saying, of course, not, it is not the same kind of aluminum tube; at the same time, members of the administration were telling the American people to be fearful of mushroom-shaped clouds.

I was angry about it. Frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the Intelligence Committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress. We can't do that. We couldn't make those statements. So in my frustration, I sat on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq thinking the American people are being misled, they are not being told the truth. That is why I joined 22 of my colleagues in voting no. I didn't believe at the time that the American people knew the real facts.

So what happened? We invaded, turned loose hundreds, if not thousands of people scouring Iraq for these weapons of mass destruction and never found one of them. We looked for nuclear weapons. There was no evidence whatsoever. We went into our intelligence files and said: OK, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida--let's get this linkage put together once and for all. There was no evidence at all of a linkage.

The American people were deceived into this war. That doesn't take a thing away from the men and women in uniform who answered the call. They stand and fight. They don't make the policy. The policy is made in Washington. And they have shown extraordinary courage.

Now, in this supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq, we want to engage the White House and the American people in an active discussion about where this war is going. I don't want to wake up every single day and read a headline about 5 more Americans, 9 more Americans, 10 more Americans losing their lives in the middle of a civil war. We are saying to the President: It is time for you to accept the reality of the situation, and the reality is, as good as our military is--and it is the best in the world--it cannot win a civil war in Iraq. This war dates back 14 centuries. Two sects of the Islamic religion in pitched battle for 1,400 years about who is the legitimate heir of the great Prophet Muhammad, and our soldiers are in the middle of this fight?

Is that what we bargained for? Had the President come to us and said: We want to send in 150,000 American soldiers to risk their lives in the hopes that these two warring religious sects will reach an agreement in Iraq, he wouldn't have had two votes in favor of that. But that is where we are today.

Meanwhile, this Iraqi Government, a Government which we have had a great deal to do with creating, continues to fail us.

The supplemental appropriation we will send to the President of the United States starts talking about bringing American troops home, not all at once, not immediate, not a hasty withdrawal that would be dangerous for everyone, but in a systematic way. Many of us believe that is the only way to convince the Iraqis to stand up and take responsibility for their own country, to make the important and tough political decisions for their own future. Unless and until we do that, I am afraid we will continue to see the casualties grow and we won't see the stability we seek.

This congressional action which we are sending to the President with this supplemental appropriation is not about really sending a message to the President, unfortunately. He is not listening. We know he has ignored his generals, and they are lined up to say the policy and strategy in Iraq is not succeeding. He has ignored the American people, who overwhelmingly believe it is time for American soldiers to start coming home. And he has refused to accept the realities of this war.

Sadly, this administration is the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in recent memory. The President has led the best military in the world into a desperate civil war. He has spent American treasure at a record rate, driving us deeply into debt, and, unfortunately, there is no end in sight.

The poor judgment of this administration has led to the invasion of Iraq, which has cost us over 3,300 American lives, over 25,000 injured, as many as 10,000 seriously injured with amputations and traumatic brain injury. His failed leadership has sent too few soldiers into too many battles without the training, the equipment, and the rest they need. And now he is extending the tours of duty of these men and women. I can't imagine that family back home marking the days off the calendar, reading the e-mails in anticipation of dad coming home, being told: You have to stay 90 days longer.

Do you know, Mr. President, that this extension of the tour of duty for National Guard members is the largest extension since World War II? We are pushing these men and women to the limit. We are asking more of them than has been asked in 40 or 50 years. It is obvious that this administration had no idea at the time of this invasion of the extreme cost of ending this war, and frankly, they still don't.

This failed policy in Iraq may not change until this President has left the White House, but that doesn't mean congressional action and congressional debate are any less important. If President Bush is not listening, then we trust that the Iraqis will listen. They should know this Congress will continue to work to make one thing very clear: American troops are coming home. The Iraqis have to stand up for their own country.

I commend to my colleagues and all those who follow this debate an article from the New York Times of April 4 this year, just a few weeks ago, written by Leon Panetta, a former colleague of mine in the House of Representatives--a great personal friend, I might add, a man who has served this Government at the congressional level and then again in the Clinton White House and most recently was a member of the Iraq Study Group.

What he basically says in this article of April 4 is, What about those other Iraq deadlines? What he does is he goes through and lists all of the deadlines the Iraqis agreed they would live by, the things they said they would achieve. As you go through them, you can understand the frustration many of us have about the current situation.

The Iraqis promised to achieve by the end of 2006 or early 2007 the approval of a provincial election law. So far, no progress on that.

The approval of a law to regulate their oil industry and share revenues--a very hot political topic, and while the Council of Ministers in Iraq has approved a draft, it has yet to be approved by their Parliament.

They agreed by the end of 2006 or early this year to approve the debaathification law, to reintegrate officials of the former regime and Arab nationalists into public life. No progress at all.

They agreed to approve a law to rein in sectarian militias. No progress at all.

By March, the Government promised to hold a referendum on constitutional amendments. No progress at all.

By May, the Prime Minister of Iraq committed to putting in place the law controlling militias. No progress at all. The approval of an amnesty agreement--no progress at all. The completion of all reconciliation efforts--clearly no progress.

By June, the Iraqi Government promised to hold provincial elections. No date has been set.

By April, the Iraqis want to take over total control of the Iraqi Army. Not likely based on the current situation.

By September, the Iraqis want to be given full civil control of all the provinces. Today, they control 3 out of the 18 provinces.

By December, the Iraqis, with U.S. support, want to achieve total security self-reliance. It is too early to tell, but does anyone believe that will occur?

What Leon Panetta spelled out here is promises by Iraqis; that if we continue to risk American lives, if we continue to spend $8 billion to $10 billion a month, they will tackle the tough political issues in their country, and time and time again they have failed. How long will we wait? How many American lives will we offer up while they twiddle their thumbs thinking about political possibilities?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the April 4 op-ed by Leon Panetta.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this debate is long overdue. It is time for us to let them know we are coming home. It is time for them to understand in Iraq that they have received more from the United States than any nation should ever ask or hope for. We have offered up our best and bravest men in uniform. We have brought home those broken in body and spirit and said we will stand by them the rest of their lives, knowing in the process the sacrifices that have been made by them and their families.

We have spent $500 billion, which might have been spent in this country for a lot of things we desperately need--health care, paying for No Child Left Behind, medical research, basic investments in this country's future.

We have given up on them because we had to spend the money in Iraq, and we continue to.

When it comes to this bill, which we hope to send to the President, he has already dismissed it with a wave of the hand. I am going to veto this bill, he says. Well, he is going to be vetoing a bill which is critically important. It is important to tell the Iraqis they have to accept responsibility for their own future. It is important because it adds billions of dollars for medical care for our veterans, billions of dollars we need so we don't face that shameful situation at Walter Reed that was reported a few weeks ago, billions of dollars so our veterans hospitals can truly take care of these soldiers who are coming home with injuries that were unimaginable just years ago; a billion dollars for the National Guard to buy more equipment which has been destroyed or left behind in Iraq so they can keep America safe while they prepare for their next redeployment.

These are dollars that are critically necessary for America. For the President to just, with the back of his hand, say: I'm going to veto this because this is just a political game, is to ignore the obvious. There is no political gamesmanship in this bill. This is a critical, life-and-death debate about a lot of our brave Americans whose lives are on the line today.

I urge my colleagues, when this bill comes to the Senate, to search their hearts and ask, how many more days can we stand reading about nine Americans losing their lives? How many more funerals? How many more broken bodies returning from Iraq? How many more families heart broken that their soldiers are going to have to stay on and on and on in a war that has no end? This foreign policy decision is one that will haunt America for a generation. We need to do our part to speak for America, to speak for the families who have no other voice, and to speak for those soldiers. If we truly support those soldiers, support their coming back home to the heroes' welcome they deserve.

I yield the floor.

Source