Nomination Of General David Petraeus

NOMINATION OF GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS -- (Senate - January 29, 2007)

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I regret that commitments in North Dakota prevented me from voting on the nomination of David H. Petraeus to be promoted to the rank of General in the U.S. Army and to be commander of Multinational Forces Iraq.

If present, I would have voted in favor of General Petraeus's nomination.

I believe General Petraeus is well-qualified to command in Iraq. He was unanimously approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee because of his leadership skills and his operational experience. And he is widely recognized as one of the military's top experts on counterinsurgency operations.

He is an excellent choice to be entrusted with the operational command and welfare of over 130,000 American servicemembers who are in the middle of a bloody sectarian battle over the future of Iraq. He is familiar with the situation in that country from his experiences as an infantry division commander during and immediately after the invasion of Iraq, and from his tenure as the commander of U.S. efforts to train and equip Iraqi security forces. Altogether, he has served 27 months in Iraq since the war began.

I was impressed by the fact that General Petraeus promised to regularly update Congress on whether the President's new plan in Iraq is working and on how much progress the Iraqi Government is making toward assuming responsibility for security.

But my support for General Petraeus's nomination should not be taken as support for the President's decision to send additional soldiers and marines to Iraq and to escalate our military involvement there.

I am very skeptical that the President's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq is going to work.

I have listened to what President Bush and his advisers have said about the subject, and I listened to what General Petreaus said during his confirmation hearing. But I do not think they have adequately explained away the Senate testimony given less than 2 months ago by General Abizaid, the top commander of American troops in Iraq. In November General Abizaid said:

I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey. We all talked together. And I said, ``In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does that add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?' And they all said no. The reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon us to do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.

Has that changed? Has something changed in 2 months? The question for us now is: Should American troops be in the middle of that civil war? Should we send additional troops to that circumstance? If so, for what purpose? And why the change only two months after General Abizaid said the commanders do not believe additional troops will be effective?

That issue is going to be debated here in Congress in the coming weeks. All of us in that debate want to find the right solution for this country to support our soldiers, make the right choices for them, and make the right judgments for our country's long-term interests. I believe that sending General Petreaus to Iraq will help accomplish that. I wish him well and Godspeed.

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