Letter to United States President Gearge W. Bush

Wilson Urges a Restored Focus on Vital National Interests in Iraq

Releases Letter to President on Iraq Policy

Washington, DC - Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R-NM), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today sent a letter to President Bush urging clear goals and a restored focus on U.S. vital national interests in Iraq. Wilson, an Air Force veteran, recently returned from a fact-finding visit to Iraq and released her policy views in a January 5 policy speech at the National Press Club.

Letter text below:

The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

Over the next few months, the United States will make some of the most important national security decisions of this decade. Those decisions will play out principally in Iraq, but will affect our broader national security and foreign policy.

The American military should only be used to protect America's vital national interests, under American command, with the resources necessary to win and come home again.

Our war aims in Iraq have escalated over the last three and a half years. The Congress authorized the use of force in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein and the threat of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. These were vital national interests. We are now pursuing political goals in Iraq that are beyond our grasp at a price the American people are not willing to pay.

We need to restore our focus on America's vital interests. It seems to me there are two:

# Iraq must not become a safe haven for al Qaeda or its affiliates.
# Iraq must not be a source of instability in the region.

These vital interests are really quite narrow and probably most notably for what they do not include. Perhaps most importantly, it is not vital to America that we stop all sectarian violence in Iraq. To be sure, it is my hope that the Iraqis and their government choose to disarm the militias and restore order in Baghdad, but we cannot do this for them.

Last summer and fall, the United States increased its forces in Baghdad as part of Operation Together Forward I and II. The strategy was to reduce sectarian violence in the city with a "clear, hold and build" approach. It failed when the Iraqi Army did not show up at the levels required to "hold" neighborhoods Americans had "cleared" and the "building" never really happened at all. We cannot do for the Iraqis what they will not do for themselves.

The central government in Iraq is weak. While they say many of the right things, they have not taken the action to disarm the Shi'a militias and, in some instances, have interfered with U.S. operations to do so. No one I have talked to can explain to me why we should expect increasing U.S. forces in Baghdad at the levels being discussed would have a different outcome now than it had last summer and fall.

Going forward, the Iraqi government will be making more and more of its own decisions whether we agree with them or not. That is why it is very important for the United States to focus on our vital national interests: denying al Qaeda safe haven and a more limited goal of ensuring that Iraq is not a cause of instability in the region.

We must use U.S. Special Forces, conventional military forces and American intelligence capabilities, to target, kill or capture and detain al Qaeda leadership in Iraq. Fully half of the high value targets we are hunting have been detained and release before. A top American priority must be ending the revolving door that allows the new Iraqi justice system to release these terrorists rather than detain them.

Hunting al Qaeda leadership is necessary but not sufficient to deny al Qaeda a safe haven for the long term. Using classic counter-insurgency strategies and tactics, the United States military and intelligence services should build relationships with tribal and local leaders in the Sunni dominated regions of Iraq who will oppose al Qaeda for the long term.

With respect to ensuring that Iraq does not become a source of instability in the region, the most promising avenue is to continue to accelerate the training of the Iraqi Army. While this effort has gone slower than any of us wanted or expected, the Army offers the best possibility for the Iraqi government to consolidate its authority, quell sectarian violence, and prevent Iraq from becoming a source of instability in the region.

The US should continue to accelerate training and equipping the Iraqi Army so that they can take responsibility for internal security. We should also assist the Iraqi Army and Ministry of Defense in establishing logistics and service support for the Army.

The decisions we make about a path forward in Iraq will have long-standing consequences. This is why I believe it is time for clear goals so that America's limited resources are focused on strategies that are tied to our vital national interests.

Sincerely,

Heather Wilson
Member of Congress

http://wilson.house.gov/NewsAction.asp?FormMode=Releases