Senate Floor Speech on the Levin-Reed Amendment, SA 4320

The credibility of the United States has been proven with the loss of lives and the number of wounded we have suffered in Iraq. We have proven our credibility over 2,500 times because we have lost more than 2,500 of our troops. We have proven our credibility over 17,000 times in terms of the number of people who have been wounded in Iraq. We have proven our credibility with hundreds of billions of dollars to give the Iraqis an opportunity to have a nation. It is up to them to seize that opportunity. It is up to them to decide to make a choice. Do they want a civil war? Do they want to engage in more sectarian battles? Or do they want to reach the kind of political compromises which are essential if they are going to have a nation and end the insurgency and avoid an all-out civil war?

Our credibility has been proven thousands of times and with billions of dollars. We have given a people an opportunity that is extraordinary. We cannot make the decision for them, whether they will seize that opportunity. Only they can make that decision.

Last year we adopted, by an overwhelming vote, an amendment which said that 2006 would be a year of significant transition, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for a phased redeployment of U.S. forces in Iraq. Similar to last year's sense of the Congress, this year's sense of the Congress that we are offering is an attempt to change our policy from one of an open-ended commitment--a policy that, as the Secretary of State put it, we are there as long as they need us; as the President of Iraq, Mr. Talabani, put it, the Americans will stay with all the forces that we want for as long as we want them. That is a recipe, a formula for dependency. It is not the way in which Iraq can learn that it must, on its own, in a reasonable period of time, with reasonable notice and consultation, begin to ween itself, as General Casey put it, from overdependence on the American military.

That is the issue. That is what our amendment would urge the President to do. Our amendment does not order the President, as some on that side have actually put it. This is a sense of the Senate. This is something where we, the authors of this amendment, believe that we have a responsibility to use our best efforts to give our best advice as to what our policy should be. It is not a policy of immediately redeploying forces. There is not a precipitous nature to this amendment. It says by the end of this year, in the next 6 months, to begin the phased redeployment of American forces from Iraq.

That is what the Iraqis say their policy is. That is what their security adviser says their policy is. Their own security adviser, Mr. Rubaie, in the Washington Post 2 days ago said: We envisage the U.S. troop presence by year's end to be under 100,000. That is a redeployment of 30,000 troops. Our amendment tells the Iraqis: Stay with that. Stick to that policy. It is the right policy. You must take over your own nation and make it work and make it happen.

Then Mr. Rubaie, the National Security Adviser of Iraq, in a written document presented to the American people through our newspaper, says that "the removal of coalition troops from Iraqi streets will help the Iraqis who now see foreign troops as occupiers rather than liberators." He says, "The removal of foreign troops will legitimize Iraq's government in the eyes of its people."

Our amendment urging the President to end an open-ended commitment of our troops to Iraq and to begin the redeployment by year's end is a way of implementing what the Iraqis themselves have said they plan on doing.

All Senators want Iraq to end as a success story, every one of us. There is not one Senator who wants anything other than to maximize the chances of success in Iraq. No matter how we voted on the original resolution authorizing force, every one of the 25 or so Senators who voted against that resolution--and I am one of them--wants to maximize the chances of success in Iraq. But to do that, we must prod the Iraqis to take the responsibility for their own nation.

I thank the Presiding Officer and my dear friend from Virginia for the way in which this debate has proceeded. I hope we have made a contribution to the Senate and to the Nation.