To Revise United States Policy In Iraq--Motion To Proceec

Floor Speech

TO REVISE UNITED STATES POLICY ON IRAQ--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - March 14, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BOXER. So, Madam President, we are now debating whether to proceed to S.J. Res. 9. I am glad the Chair clarified that. I am here to speak briefly, to say I hope our colleagues will say yes and will proceed to S.J. Res. 9. I will go into why I think that would be an excellent vote for this Chamber to take. I wish to speak briefly as to where we are procedurally.

Our Democratic leader, Senator Reid, has presented to the Senate S.J. Res. 9. Its purpose is to revise the policy of the United States in Iraq, and if ever we needed to revise the policy of the United States in Iraq, it is certainly now. In my belief, it was certainly a year ago and the year before.

As someone who did not vote to give the President the authorization to go to war in the first place, I and a number of my colleagues have watched with horror as we have seen take place what we predicted.

We said the President did not consider what would happen if our troops were not greeted as liberators and, in fact, were greeted as occupiers. We asked questions about the possibility of sectarian violence among the Sunni, Shia, and others. We said it was a mistake to take our eye off capturing bin Laden and finishing our work in Afghanistan, which is crucial. We wondered why the President was doing this when the whole world was with us after the tragedy of 9/11. He turned around and went after Saddam Hussein, told us he was going to get nuclear weapons, told us he was harboring al-Qaida, and I will tell you, Madam President, all of that proved to be false.

So he took the country to war on false pretenses, and who has paid the price for that? The military families. The dead. These families have lost over 3,000 of their nearest and dearest, and they will never, ever--ever--be the same.

The wounded are suffering the worst kind of wounds. These are the folks who have paid the heavy price and who continue to pay the heavy price.

I am proud of Senator Reid and the Democratic leadership. We promised the people we would make this our No. 1 priority, and we are. We tried to debate Iraq before. The Republicans stopped us. Now we are trying to do it again.

We have a resolution I wish to share with you, Madam President.

I said it was called a Joint Resolution to Revise United States Policy in Iraq. It says, and I am going to truncate this:

Whereas, Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the troops who are serving or have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and whereas the circumstances referred to in the authorization in 2002 have changed substantially; and whereas U.S. troops should not be policing a civil war, and the current conflict in Iraq requires principally a political solution; and whereas U.S. policy in Iraq must change to emphasize the need for a political solution by Iraqi leaders in order to maximize the chance of success and to more effectively fight the war on terror; therefore be it resolved that we transition this mission away from being in the middle of a civil war toward being supportive of the Iraqi troops and training them; that we shall begin the phased redeployment of the U.S. Forces from Iraq not later than 120 days after enactment of the resolution; that we then move forward with a comprehensive strategy so that we finally resolve this Iraq quagmire--it means that it has to be diplomatic and political and economic--and that there be a report every 60 days so we know how this redeployment is going.

This is a breath of fresh air. This resolution is a breath of fresh air into a situation where you can't even breathe you are so suffocated from the tragedy, from the deaths, from the wounded, from the explosions every single day. So, yes, we are debating whether we should proceed to S.J. Res. 9, and I hope we will.

In closing, let me say this. There is a lot of talk about loving the troops, and I think every one of us in this Chamber loves the troops, so I have a rhetorical point here. If you love the troops, and I believe we all do, why put them in the middle of a civil war where they can't tell who is shooting at them? If you love the troops, why do you give them a mission they can't accomplish? They can't solve the civil war. That has to be done diplomatically, politically. If you love the troops, why would you lower the standards for their future colleagues in arms? We are stunned to see that convicted violent felons are now being taken into the military, that is how desperately stretched the military is.

If you love the troops, why would you put them in a place such as Walter Reed, where you have mold on the walls and vermin, and not give them the access when they leave Washington and go back home, not give them definitive access to the help they need?

Why would you send them, if you loved the troops, out to battle again and again and again? I met a man yesterday whose son is on his third tour. I have the charts in front of my office with the names of the California dead. He looked at that, and I saw the look on his face, and I said, what is wrong? He said, I have a son in Iraq, third tour of duty, no rest.

So why do you have a rule that says they have to have rest; they have to be properly trained; they have to have the proper equipment?

If you love the troops, why would you continue to send them over in that fashion, without being properly equipped or trained? Why would you send them out on the battlefield with post-traumatic stress and a bottle of antidepressants, if you loved the troops?

I am proud to be a cosponsor of S.J. Res. 9. This is a comprehensive solution. The other side of this debate keeps saying, well, where is your solution? Here it is. It is right there. We transform the mission to a mission that can be accomplished, not mission impossible. That mission will be to protect United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure, training and equipping Iraqi forces, and conducting targeted counterterrorism operations. Now that is a mission we can accomplish.

As for sending our troops into the middle of a civil war, that is wrong, and I don't believe anyone who voted for that resolution--and I am so proud and so glad I didn't vote for that resolution to take this country into this ill-fated war, but if you voted for it, you didn't vote to put troops in the middle of a civil war. So if that is where we are right now, we need to change it.

You know, Martin Luther King--and I read this recently--who is one of my heroes in life, said during the Vietnam war that what can happen to you when you are faced with these horrible options, these horrible choices--and by the way, the worst kind of leadership, no matter where it comes from, is a leadership that gives you no good choices, okay? But Martin Luther King said, when you are faced with that circumstance--and he was talking about Vietnam, where it was tragic, there were no good choices, what could we do--said, paralysis sets in and people can't change. What happens is the status quo prevails and it becomes a new reality: dead, dead, dead soldiers every day, suicide bombs, and we can't get out of it.

The surge isn't a new strategy. It has been tried before. We know what is happening. The enemy tells us what is happening. They are leaving, going someplace else to cause trouble; waiting it out. We know they will adjust to this.

There is only one solution, and that is why S.J. Res. 9 is so important. What is the solution? We spell it out. A comprehensive strategy shall be implemented as part of a comprehensive diplomatic, political, and economic strategy that includes sustained engagement with Iraq's neighbors and the international community for the purpose of working collectively to bring stability to Iraq.

There is no more coalition of the willing. They are all leaving, whether it is Great Britain--which now is going to have only a few thousand troops there--Italy, Spain, Portugal. I could go through the list. They are all leaving. We need to redeploy our troops and we need a comprehensive strategy. I am proud to support S.J. Res. 9, and I hope when we have this vote we will vote to proceed to this very important resolution.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source