Senate Floor Statement on the Levin-Reed Iraq Amendment

Madam President, tomorrow's vote in the senate is not a vote on the Levin-Reed amendment. It's a vote on whether or not the Senate will allow us to vote on the Levin-Reed amendment. It's a vote on whether or not the Senate will break a filibuster so that the Senate can express its will, which I think is totally clear and reflects the will of the American people as expressed last November.

A change in course in Iraq is critical for our national security. If you think the present course is working, if you think we're making progress as the President has said month after month, year after year, then, presumably, you will vote against the Levin-Reed amendment, if we can ever get to a vote on the amendment. But if you believe that changing course is the only hope of success in Iraq. If you believe that forcing the political leaders of Iraq to accept responsibility for their nation and to work out the political settlements which are preventing this violence from ending is the only source of hope in Iraq, then if we can get to the amendment and break this filibuster you would vote “yes.”

Madam President, it has been more than four years since the United States invaded Iraq. Despite a military victory that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq soon became victim to a Sunni insurgency, became victim to Shiite militia's bent on revenge and incursion of al-Qaeda terrorists whose actions are aimed at promoting Iraqi civil war.

As the situation on the ground has shifted, so has President Bush's rationale for our involvement. He took us into Iraq to get rid of Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, and when no WMD were found the President said we needed to stay to create a democracy. Now the President says we must stay on to fight al-Qaeda.

The President had a pre-surge strategy, a surge strategy, and now he's offered a post-surge strategy. What has remained constant in all these strategies is one thing: they all have an open-ended commitment of U.S. forces in the middle of Iraq's civil war.

That open-ended occupation of a Muslim country by the West has played right into the hands of Al Qaeda. Indeed, the intelligence community is recently reported to have concluded that the years of our occupation of Iraq have seen a surge of al Qaeda in Iraq.

It has come at a staggering cost – the loss of more than 3,600 of America’s best and bravest, seven times that many wounded, and a price of $10 billion each month. And in spite of the heroic efforts of U.S. servicemen and women, chaos and destruction have deepened in Iraq.

President Claims Progress

Yet month after month, year after year, the Administration has touted progress in Iraq and called for patience. It has been a litany of delusion. Just listen to President Bush’s repeated claims of progress:

• In October of 2003, President Bush stated: “We’re making progress about improving the lives of the people there in Iraq.”

• On September 25, 2004, the President said: “We’re making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want: completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and self-governing, and American troops can come home....”

• On April 28, 2005, the President said: “I believe we’re really making progress in Iraq….”

• On October 28, 2005, the President said: “Iraq has made incredible political progress....”

• On November 14, 2005, the President said: “Iraqis are making inspiring progress toward building a democracy.”

• On May 25, 2006, the President said: “We’re making progress on all fronts.”

• And on March 19, 2007, the President said: “There has been good progress.”

The exaggeration and the hype continue to this day. On June 28, a White House press release stated: “The Iraqi security forces are growing in number, becoming more capable, and coming closer to the day when they can assume responsibility for defending their own country.” But in the Administration’s Initial Benchmark Assessment Report released last week, the Administration reported that: “There has been a slight reduction in units assessed as capable of independent operations since January 2007,” referring to Iraqi units.

Even that turned out to be an exaggeration. Just two days later, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace told the press that the number of Iraqi Army brigades that were capable of independent operations had fallen from 10 to 6 – quite different from a “slight reduction.”

Madam President, one merely has to take note of recent incidents in Iraq as reported in our newspapers to know that things aren’t going well in Iraq and that the Administration’s assessments of progress have been consistently overblown through the years and are still overblown.

• Consider the headline of a story in USA TODAY on July 12 - “Iraqi police assisted gunmen.” The story described an Army investigation into a January attack in Karbala that killed five U.S. soldiers and our investigation concluded that Iraqi police who were supposed to be partners with American troops colluded with insurgents.

• Then there is the story in The New York Times on July 14 - “U.S. Troops Battle Iraqi Police in East Baghdad.” These are the Iraqi police that are supposed to be on our side, not attacking our forces.

• On the all-important area of political benchmarks, consider this headline in the Financial Times on June 18: “US military frustrated at lack of Iraqi reconciliation.” The story reports that General Petraeus said there had not been any “real substantial achievements in terms of political reform and progress.”
• Reuters reported on June 18 that Iraq was ranked as the second most unstable country, behind Sudan, in the 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy Magazine.

Iraqi Leaders Failing to Reach Political Settlement/Meet Benchmarks

The Administration’s recent self-assessment of benchmarks that there is progress on 8 of the 18 benchmarks would have us believe that the cup is half full rather than being half empty. As a matter of fact, Iraq is a cup with a hole in the bottom. We keep pouring in service men and women, and we keep pouring in resources, but they go right through that hole.

It is that hole that Secretary Gates addressed on June 14 in Baghdad when he said that the message he was delivering to the Iraqi people was that “our troops are buying them time to pursue reconciliation and that frankly we are disappointed in the progress thus far.” Secretary Gates was accurate that “our troops are buying [the Iraqis] time to pursue reconciliation.” But what he left unsaid is that our troops and our nation have paid, and are continue to pay, far too high a price to give the Iraqis that opportunity, and that the time is long past due for the Iraqi political leaders to accept responsibility for their own future.

Secretary Gates’ statement that we are “disappointed in the progress” was surely an immense understatement. The American people are downright incensed at the failure of the Iraqi leaders.

Everybody agrees that there is no military solution in Iraq and that the only way to end the violence is for the Iraqi political leaders to settle their differences. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki acknowledged that in November when he said – and these words should be seared in our minds when we vote, if we’re allowed to, on Levin-Reed: “The crisis is political, and the ones who can stop the cycle of ... bloodletting of innocents are the (Iraqi) politicians.”

Our servicemen and women are dying and being wounded while Iraqi leaders dawdle. The Iraqis themselves made commitments to share resources and power, amend their constitution, hold provincial elections and take over responsibility for their own security in many more places than they have. They made the commitments. They made them last year. They made them in writing. But they have not kept them.

Secretary of State Rice recently confirmed in a letter [PDF] to me that the Iraqi leaders themselves, including their Presidency Council, had approved those benchmarks and the associated timeline. This is an important point because the three members of the Presidency Council represent the three major ethnic groups -Sunni, Shia, and Kurd.

Secretary Rice wrote: "We have confirmed with Iraqi President Talabani's Chief of Staff that the benchmarks were formally approved last fall by the Iraqi Political Committee on National Security. This committee includes the Presidency Council -the President and the two Vice Presidents -as well as the leaders of all the major political blocs in Iraq."

The Iraqi leader’s record on meeting the political timelines which they themselves approved with a timeline is abysmal.

• For example, they agreed to approve provincial elections law and set a date for provincial elections by October 2006. That has not been accomplished. They didn’t do what they had promised they would do.

• The Iraqi leaders agreed to approve the hydrocarbon law by October 2006 as well. That too has not been accomplished. They didn’t do what they had promised they would do.

• They agreed to approve a de-Baathification law by November 2006. That has not been accomplished. They didn’t do what they had promised they would do.

• The Iraqi leaders agreed that the Constitutional Review Committee would complete its work by January 2007 and to hold a Constitutional amendments referendum by March 2007. They didn’t do what they had promised they would do. This is not us imposing benchmarks on them. It’s what they promised to do.

I ask unanimous consent that my letter [PDF] to Secretary Rice and her response [PDF] be included in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

While our troops have done everything and more that has been asked of them, while they have risked their all and given their all, the Iraqi political leaders remain frozen by their own history, unwilling to take the political risks that only they can take.

If there is any hope of forcing the Iraqi political leaders to take responsibility for their own country and to keep the commitments which they made to meet political benchmarks that they set and to make the compromises that only they can make, it is to have a timetable to begin reducing American forces and to redeploy those forces to a more limited support mission instead of being everybody's target in the middle of a civil war.

Levin-Reed Amendment We need to send the clear message to the Iraqi leaders that we will not be in Iraq indefinitely and that we will not be their security blanket forever.

That is what the bipartisan Levin-Reed amendment would do, if we’re allowed to vote on it. Our amendment would require the President to begin reducing the number of American troops in Iraq within four months after enactment. It would require transitioning the mission of our remaining military forces to force protection, training of Iraqi Security Forces, and targeted counterterrorism missions. Our amendment would require that the transition to those limited missions be completed by April 30, 2008. Finally and importantly, it would call for a comprehensive diplomatic, political and economic strategy, including sustained engagement with Iraq’s neighbors and seeking the appointment of an international mediator under the auspices of the UN Security Council to try to bring stability to Iraq.

Let me also be clear about what we are not proposing. We do not seek a precipitous withdrawal or precipitous reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq. We do not believe that the war in Iraq has been lost - although we believe that policies which are not succeeding need to be changed if there is any chance of success. We do not believe that the Iraqis are incapable of achieving the political compromises that are necessary for reconciliation. But we do believe that they will delay doing so until we begin to reduce and transition our forces in Iraq to prod the Iraqis to make those compromises.

Some have criticized our amendment on the grounds that it doesn't say how many U.S. forces will remain after the transition to the new missions. We do not specify that number because we don’t want the focus of the debate to be on a specific number of troops needed for the new missions that we want U.S. forces to transition to, but on the need to make that transition, when to make that transition, and why to make it.

Our military routinely decides on such numbers in any event. The civilian leadership determines what the missions should be and the military determines the tasks that are involved in performing these missions and the number and type of troops that are needed to carry out those tasks. We also believe that the twin missions of force protection and targeted counterterrorism operations will allow our forces to take action at Iraq's borders and elsewhere in Iraq, while not requiring action in the case of each and every border incursion. The intent behind our use of the term “targeted counterterrorism operations” for one of its missions is to limit the offensive operations of U.S. forces in Iraq to operations against al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda affiliated organizations and other international terrorist organizations in Iraq. The intent is to narrow the scope of offensive operations so that our forces are not caught, as they are now, in the middle of an ongoing civil war and sectarian strife.

Under our formulation, U.S. forces could launch attacks against the Iranian Qod Force members who might be infiltrating weapons, equipment and combatants that could be used against Coalition forces, personnel or their facilities in Iraq.

Our forces would also be able to take action against jihadists who were being smuggled across the Syrian border into Iraq to launch suicide attacks against us. But we certainly don't want our forces to be responsible for an open-ended mission of securing Iraq’s entire border.

No Time for Delay

Some have criticized our amendment because it contains a timeline for the completion of the transition to the new missions. We have received similar criticism in the past about the timeline for the commencement of the transition.

Timelines need to be established as the only way to force a change in course in Iraq and to force the Iraqis to accept responsibility for their own future. It is human nature to put off difficult decisions. Passage of our amendment would serve as a forcing mechanism and serve to stimulate action by the Iraqi government to reach a political settlement.

Delaying action until the receipt of the Administration's plan in September would only delay the time when the Congress applies the needed pressure. There is no indication that the Iraqi political leaders will compromise without our pressure. Indeed, there is every indication that they won't. As Secretary Gates stated in April: “Debate in Congress…has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited…. The debate itself and … the strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact … in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment.”

There is no indication that the Administration is willing to change course. For years they have deluded themselves and the nation with claims of progress while Iraq has descended into sectarian violence and chaos. On July 4th, President Bush repeated his call for “patience,” which he has made so many times over the years.

After more than four years, over 3,600 U.S. deaths, seven times that many wounded, and expenditures of $10 billion a month that we are borrowing from the future to finance the war in Iraq, the President's plea for patience not only has a hollow ring - it was exactly the wrong message. Our message should be that we are out of patience with the refusal of the Iraqi leaders to work out their political differences and that it is no longer acceptable.

Handwriting is on the Wall

Congress already attempted to respond to last November's election verdict of the American people that we need a timetable for reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq. On April 26 we adopted a bill providing for the beginning of a phased troop redeployment in no later than 120 days, and a transition to a more limited mission focusing on counterterrorism, force protection and training and logistical support for the Iraqi army. President Bush vetoed our bill shortly thereafter.

Senator McConnell made a statement that was direct and accurate when he assessed that “the handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the fall.” That Presidential veto does not wash away the handwriting on the wall; it only makes the handwriting clearer and firmer that there’s going to be a change of direction in Iraq.

So now the question is: why wait? Why not decide upon a change of course now, and save months of lost and wounded lives and huge additional expenditures of funds?

The clearer the handwriting on the wall is to the Iraqi political leaders and the quicker they read it and accept it, the greater the prospect for political settlement. The clearer the handwriting on the wall is that the open-ended commitment by President Bush is over - not just rhetorically but in reality - the greater the chance that an even wider civil war can be avoided.

There are some who acknowledge that a change of course is needed in Iraq, including U.S. troops reductions, but who then say “not now.” But surely time is not working for us in Iraq. The sooner we shift strategy to force Iraqis to take responsibility, the better. If we want to improve the chance of a positive report on political progress in September, we need to put great pressure on the Iraqi political leaders in July!

We cannot and must not continue to have the lives of American service members held hostage to Iraqi political intrigue and intransigence.

Conclusion

If we can get to the Levin-Reed amendment, if we can overcome the filibuster, and if we can pass it, we will have provided for starting the reduction of our forces in Iraq and transitioning to more limited missions no later than 120 days after enactment. If we can adopt our amendment we will have provided for the completion of that reduction and transition by April 30, 2008, and the appointment of an international mediator under UN auspices. And if we can adopt our amendment, we will have adopted the best chance of success in Iraq and the only chance to pressure the Iraqi leaders. And surely the Senate should have an opportunity to vote on that amendment.

The clock is ticking. We are losing more American lives and more American resources in Iraq every day that we delay. The time has come to set timelines for our troops to reduce our forces in Iraq, to transition to new limited missions, and to embark on a comprehensive diplomatic, political and economic strategy to bring stability to Iraq.