National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
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Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman from Utah.
Members of the Committee, a test of a great democracy is its capacity to make the grave decision to send its citizens to war. Such a decision was made after the attack on September 11 of 2001. It was a bipartisan decision. It was made for the right reasons at the right time and for the right result.
Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden planned and executed theÐ
9/11 mission from Afghanistan. And we sent our soldiers to war. Vermont soldiers and soldiers from all around the country sacrificed bravely and served well.
But an equally grave challenge and test for a democracy is whether once that machinery of war has been put in gear, when circumstances change as the national security requires, can that democracy amend its decision, amend its policy as conditions have changed?
We are at that moment today. It is a bipartisan question that faces us all. And the amendment that Mr. Chaffetz and I offer suggests that the policy that we are now pursuing, nation building in Afghanistan, is no longer the policy that is either financially sustainable nor in our best national security interests.
There are three reasons: number one, the threat of al Qaeda has diminished in Afghanistan; the threat of terrorism in the world has not. This is not a nation state-centered threat. It is dispersed and decentralized. Mr. Chaffetz and I say let us have a decentralized and dispersed response.
The tactics that were so successful in eliminating Osama bin Laden, excellent and coordinated intelligence and excellent and fierce special forces, was successful. Mr. Chaffetz and I, in our amendment, believe it is time for America to move from nation-state building to coun ter ter ror ism.
Second, the situation in Afghanistan with an unreliable partner, incredible corruption that has been going from bad to worse, does not allow our military or our taxpayers to have any confidence that that nation-building strategy can be successful.
So we call upon Congress to face this grave national security question from the perspective of is it time to change.
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