National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2008

Floor Speech

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (Senate - July 16, 2007)

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, today we are facing a critical juncture regarding our operations in Iraq. We can continue with a policy that is straining our military, putting excruciating strain on our military and their families, which is diminishing our standing in the international community and which is rapidly losing the support of the American public--in sum, a policy that cannot be sustained--or we can change, we can make a transition of this mission to focus on objectives that are feasible, to begin a reduction in our forces which will relieve the stress on our military and their families, to initiate complementary and comprehensive diplomatic, political, and economic efforts to engage Iraq's neighbors and the rest of the world in bringing a degree of stability to that country.

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I believe it is time for such a change. That is why I have joined many of my colleagues, particularly Senator Levin, to propose an amendment to do that. This amendment would first call for a beginning of a reduction of American military forces 120 days after the passage of the legislation. It would give the President the flexibility to pick the precise moment and the precise number of forces and to develop a timetable for their departure. Then it would call for the transition to specific missions by next spring, and those missions would include counterterrorism operations, since we can never give up in our attempts to preemptively attack and destroy terrorist cells--not just in Iraq but in, unfortunately, many other parts of the world.

Second, it would allow the American forces to continue to train Iraqi security forces.

Third, it would clearly state we will protect our forces wherever they are, particularly in Iraq.

It also talks about a very comprehensive diplomatic effort. One of the dramatic failings of this administration has been a one-dimensional policy--military force alone, in most cases unilateral military force. That one-dimensional policy defies strategy, it defies the operational techniques of counter insurgency, and effectively, I think, has led us, in large part, to Iraq today where we are in a very difficult situation.

As all of our commanders have said persistently over the course of this entire conflict: Military operations alone will not lead to success. They will buy time, they might provide some political space, but they will not lead to success. They are merely a complement and a prelude to the economic, to the political, to the nonmilitary forces that are essential to prevail in a counter insurgency, stabilize a country, and to ultimately prevail in the type of operation we are witnessing in Iraq.

I believe the President had an opportunity last January to chart a new course. The American people spoke very clearly in the November elections. They wanted change. The Iraqi Study Group, a combination of some of the most gifted minds on both sides of the aisle with respect to foreign policy, gave a framework that talked about and hoped for a redeployment of American forces and significant engagement in diplomatic activities. All of this was at the hands of the President. He essentially said, no, we are going to do a lot more of the same--or a little more of the same. I think at that point, frankly, the American people understood the President wasn't listening or, if he was, it was not getting through.

As a result, I think they began to become very much disenchanted with the course of action of this administration. I don't have to tell anyone in this Chamber or across the globe that this is a decisive turning point in their demands that we act, that this Senate and the House of Representatives take significant action. We are trying to respond to that legitimate concern of the American people by the Levin-Reed amendment that we have proposed.

The President said the goals for the surge were to support Iraqi efforts to quell sectarian violence, ensure territorial integrity and counter Iranian and Syrian activity, encourage strong democratic institutions, and foster the conditions for Iraqi national reconciliation.

The heart of it, as he suggested and others have, was to give the Iraqi leaders the ability to make tough political decisions which were essential to their future and to our continued engagement in Iraq.

Principally among them was to jump start the reconciliation process, bring the Sunni community into government and the civic life of Iraq, to pass legislation to fairly distribute the proceeds of oil revenue, the major source of revenue in that country, and to take other steps--including provincial elections. None of that has been effectively accomplished.

So if the premise of the surge was to create tactical momentum for political progress, some tactical momentum may be there but very little, if any, political progress. That, I believe, is the reality.

These goals, this effort was difficult for an extra 30,000 troops to accomplish. But it was made much more difficult because of a series of fundamental operational mistakes and strategic flaws that this administration has been engaged in since the beginning of their operations in Iraq. We know that soon after we arrived in Baghdad, after a very successful conventional attack, there were insufficient forces to occupy the country and chaos broke out. The Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA, embarked on a debaathification program that

denied employment and livelihood and, in a sense, hope to thousands of individuals--teachers, bureaucrats--who had been part of the prior regime, mostly because it was the only way they could hold their jobs, and left, particularly the Sunni community, in a situation where they questioned whether there was a place for them in the new, emerging government.

The CPA disestablished the Army; 500,000 individuals with training suddenly found themselves without a future and very quickly many of them found themselves in the insurgency, for many reasons. The Government, the administration, failed to garner support from regional powers to help.

Then the administration embarked on a series of elections. These elections demonstrated the procedure of democracy. But what they failed to grasp, the administration particularly, is that elections alone are insufficient unless there is a governmental capacity to translate those elections into an effective government that serves the needs of its citizens. So we have demonstrations of thousands of Iraqis, hundreds of thousands, millions going to the polls. But what happened is they didn't elect a functioning government. They became even more frustrated when they recognized that the Government in Baghdad today doesn't work for them.

All of this was summed up, I think very accurately, by former Secretary of Defense William Perry, on January 25, before the Armed Services Committee, where he stated:

We may never know whether our goal of achieving a democratic stable government in Iraq was in fact feasible, since the administration's attempts to do so were so burdened with strategic errors.

So we start now in a real strategic deficit. Unfortunately, I think the President continues in that vein. The President announced the surge in January: 30,000, roughly, additional forces. It took them many months finally to get in place. The administration claims that since June 15 they have been in place. This was not a surge in the classic military sense of overwhelming force applied rapidly. It was a slow, gradual escalation of a limited force because our force structure limits what we could do. From the very beginning, the ability of this force, deployed in a slow manner, to decisively influence the action on the ground was highly questionable.

I had the opportunity a few days ago to go to Iraq. Many of my colleagues have gone. I was able to travel not only into Baghdad but to get into the countryside to visit forward-operating bases, patrol bases, company-sized bases that are the new disposition of our forces.

First, let me say, as always, I was impressed with the extraordinary professionalism and commitment of the soldiers and marines, the sailors and the airmen who serve us so well. They are doing a superb job. But my conclusion, after spending these 2 brief days in the field, was their tactical momentum, changing the nature of the battlefield, has not, as I said, translated into the political progress needed to truly bring security and stability to Iraq.

And then something else too, the nonrebuttable fact that I see constantly; that is, this surge will come to an end later next spring, not because we have succeeded, not because we have achieved our objectives, but simply because we cannot continue to deploy 160,000 troops in that country. That is a function of our limited forces. Unless the President is prepared to adopt Draconian personnel policies, not 14- to 15-month tours but 18- to 20-month tours; unless he wants to continue to rely upon significant stop-loss, where individuals who are able to leave the service are prevented from doing so; unless he is prepared to do those things, then by next spring the surge ends.

So I think it is appropriate, if we are seeing a situation where just months from now we are going to lower our forces, that we should start thinking
right now of how we do it in a way which will enhance the security of the United States, which will represent to the American people a new direction which they are clamoring for, and which can be sustained, not only in terms of material and personnel but in terms of the support of the American people.

In my opportunity to visit Iraq, I had a chance to sit down with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. They have suggested that they consciously recognize the limitations of our overall infrastructure. They also indicated that they were ready, probably sooner than September, to make a declaration of their advice to the President. I do not think we should wait, either. I think this debate is timely, the legislation is timely, and we should move forward.

Now, we received additional information just a few days ago in the nature of the interim report with respect to the status of the benchmarks. There is an appearance that the military situation in terms of the reliability of Iraqi Army units is encouraging to a degree. But there is still a great deal of work to do with the police force, which is a major component of any type of stable society.

In addition, I think if you drill down below the superficial, there is still the nagging question of the reliability, the political reliability, the professional reliability, of these forces, particularly their leadership. That is something which I think is still in great doubt.

But if you look at most of the political area, there is a string of unsatisfactory grades. The President's report found unsatisfactory progress of enacting and implementing legislation on debaathification reform. Essentially, what we are seeing is a huge conflict between the Sunni and Shia communities, and this conflict is not being abated by the wise action of the Government, a Shia government, to allow Sunnis fuller participation in the civic life and the political life of Iraq.

We are seeing unsatisfactory progress on enacting and implementing major legislation to ensure equitable hydrocarbon resources, distribution of oil and petroleum proceeds. We are seeing unsatisfactory progress on establishing a provincial election law, establishing provincial council authority, and setting a date for provincial elections.

One of the problems that has been nagging in the election process for the last several years in Iraq is that the Sunni community did not participate in significant elections, and therefore they are not adequately represented in certain areas. So, as a result, they haven't got this sense of participation of ownership that is so necessary. Until we have provincial elections, this will continue and further provide excuses, if not real reasons, for Sunnis not to participate fully and not to cooperate fully with the Government and with our forces in the field.

The report also talked about unsatisfactory progress toward providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to make tactical and operational decisions in consultation with U.S. commanders without political intervention, to include the authority to pursue all extremists, including Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. Here is that very-difficult-to-measure factor about the subjective quality of these commanders and leaders--whether they can operate without political interference or whether they are wittingly or unwittingly extensions of the political party.

Just today, if you saw the New York Times, there was an interesting article about how our American forces in Anbar Province were making progress with Sunni tribes, previously our enemies, our opponents, who now were rallying, not necessarily because they agree with us but because they recognize how ruthless and how much al-Qaida is targeting them in going after them. Now, that is progress we should recognize.

But what is disconcerting is the report that the regular Iraqi brigade in that region, primarily Shia, is actually trying to interfere, even in some cases suggest an attack on those Sunnis tribespeople because they see this as a force that will threaten them as they go forward--another example of this Sunni-Shia divide, which is a very difficult political chasm to try to bridge in a short period of time, and that is what we face today in many parts of Iraq.

We also saw unsatisfactory progress in ensuring the Iraqi security forces are providing evenhanded enforcement of the law and unsatisfactory progress as far as limiting militia control of local security. It is a very difficult situation in many respects.

Now, military operations--our military operations are critically important, but here is another reality that I think escapes so many people. Ultimately, only the Iraqis can provide a solution to these political problems, to these sectarian divides. We can suggest what they should do, but unless they do it, these divides will continue to paralyze this country and continue to undermine our efforts to help them stabilize their own country.

I don't think, given the fundamental nature of those issues, that the next 6 weeks until September

15 will make a profound difference. It has been suggested by many commentators that the ability of the Iraqi Government to function--even participate over the next several weeks is limited. So for those people, my colleagues, who call: Wait for September 15, I don't believe or hope that they are suggesting that those profound political problems will be somehow miraculously cured in the next 6 weeks.

As I said before, the inescapable fact, to me, is that by next April, we won't be able to generate 160,000, that somehow our military, sooner rather than later, will have to declare that there is a new strategy that rests not on the surge but on a much smaller force or at least a smaller force, and that force has to deal with these problems or has to deal in a way which the American people will support their continued presence in Iraq. That signal is today for a change in policy, not in September, not next spring, but today.

Now, I alluded to the lack of public support. Some would suggest, well, that is not important. You know, tough leaders have been in situations where the public did not support them. Well, the reality that I learned a long time ago, serving in the military, going to West Point, is that public support is a critical and necessary element of any national security strategy; you can only go so far and so long without it.

We are reaching a point where the American public is clearly declaring that they are deeply concerned about what is going on, deeply distrustful of the President's policy, and my fear, frankly, is unless we take prudent action today, unless the President takes prudent action, that their tolerance for any significant engagement might erode completely by next spring, leaving us with fewer options then than we have today.

A July 6 through 8 Gallup poll found 62 percent of Americans felt the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq. A July 11, 2007, Newsweek poll found that 68 percent of Americans disapproved of the way President Bush was handling the situation in Iraq. This is significant because I suggest it undercuts the necessary ingredient of public support for any major military strategic policy. As the President continues to be intransigent and as many of our colleagues give him the luxury of that intransigence, I fear that the American public becomes increasingly disheartened, increasingly desperate, and increasingly unwilling to listen to policies that will provide for a phased and orderly transition of our mission in Iraq.

We also understand the huge cost of this war. We have appropriated $450 billion. As many of my colleagues point out, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that we are spending about $10 billion a month. That, too, is very difficult to sustain because most of this is being financed, if not all of it, through deficit spending, which means we are passing on to the next generation of Americans a huge bill.

But, also, these are real opportunity costs. How are we going to reestablish, in a very narrow vein, our military, in terms of the personnel, their equipment, when the effort is essentially completed one way or the other? How are we going to provide for the next generation of military equipment, the next generation of military tactics and techniques and support personnel if our budget is in such disarray as it is now? I am not even beginning to comment on the huge costs that are unmet in this society in terms of health care, in terms of education, in terms of those forces and those ingredients of national power, broad national power that are so essential.

As I said earlier, these operations are posing an excruciating stress and strain on military forces. The high operational tempo is really taking its toll on the troops and on their families. Since 2002, 1.4 million troops have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nearly every nondeployed combat brigade in the Active-Duty Army has reported that they are not ready to complete their assigned war mission. These are the troops who have come back from Iraq, from Afghanistan. They are not ready to perform their mission.

We all can remember--I can, at least--Governor Bush talking up before a large crowd in his election campaign and criticizing the Clinton administration because two divisions, as he said, were not--if they were asked to report, they would say: Not ready for duty, sir, to the President. That pales in comparison to the lack of readiness we see today in our military forces. Nearly 9 out of every 10 Army National Guard forces that are not in Iraq or Afghanistan have less than half of the equipment needed to do their job. Their job now is to provide support for Governors in disasters, in problems that are related to their home States.

As I said again and again, military planners do not see how we can sustain 160,000 troops beyond next April. We also recognize that our policies of go-it-alone, our policies of virtually unilateral action are increasingly alienating opinion throughout the world. Once again, to accomplish anything significant, to rally diplomatic forces, to rally all of the forces throughout the world to help us achieve our end, you have to start on the basis of at least understanding and support. We have seen that deteriorate.

We have seen also the situation where, because of our concentration in Iraq, al-Qaida now is resurgent. That is the conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate that was talked about in the press just last week. We are seeing a situation where Iran is increasing its strategic power. One major factor is the fact that we are tied down with 160,000 troops in Iraq. We are tied down in a way in which many of the individuals in the Iraqi Government whom we depend upon to do and take the actions where it is essential to our success have close personal and political ties to the Iranians. They talk to them on a weekly basis. They take certain directions from them. We are in a situation where our position in Iraq--unwittingly, perhaps--has strengthened the Iranians. We cannot effectively talk about another major military operation when we are having a very difficult time supplying and supporting this operation.

We have effectively taken out two of their traditional opponents in the region, and most difficult and dangerous opponent, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. They now have strategic space. They are using it. They are using it to encourage Hezbollah and Hamas. They are using it to try to achieve nuclear fuel cycles and, on many days we all feel, perhaps, even a nuclear weapon. So what we have seen also is that as these developments take place, the world's opinion is rapidly turning against us.

We are seeing disturbing events in Pakistan and elsewhere where there is a concentration of al-Qaida leadership. I, like so many of my colleagues, was most disturbed a few weeks ago when American news broadcasters were showing films of a graduation ceremony of hundreds of individuals somewhere in Pakistan who were leaving to go off and pursue their jihadist terrorist activities around the world. That is a frightening but real situation.

As a result, Senator Levin and I have worked with our colleagues and have proposed an amendment that responds to these different issues and different threats and also the reality of the situation at home and in Iraq. I am pleased we are supported in our efforts by so many, including our colleagues, Senators Hagel, Smith, and Senator Snowe. This is a bipartisan amendment. It recognizes what the American people are demanding, a change in direction, and what the status on the ground and the status of the military require also, a change in direction. It calls for protecting U.S. and coalition forces, continuing our fight against terrorism, and training Iraqi security forces to step up and discharge their responsibilities. It calls for a beginning of a phased reduction of forces, 120 days after enactment of the legislation. It also calls upon us to begin to take up the issue of real proactive, complimentary diplomatic, and political action that is so necessary to stability in the operation.

One of the factors the President talked about last January, and was alluded to by the Secretary of State and others, was the civilian surge to match the military surge--a surge in advisers, technicians, those people who can help the Iraqis organize their political processes at the city level, the provincial level, and their economic processes. That is not taking place as rapidly as necessary. We are at a critical moment, a moment not to delay but to take appropriate action, a moment to change the direction in Iraq, not simply to wait and wait and wait until events dictate we have to draw down forces. I hope we can prevail our colleagues to support our efforts. I will have more to say. I believe many of my colleagues will have much more to say tomorrow.

I urge passage of the Levin-Reed amendment.

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