U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, And Iraq Accountability Act, 2007

Floor Speech

U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007 -- (Senate - March 28, 2007)

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Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I would like to first express my profound appreciation for the majority leader's words today. Senator Reid likes to say he is not a speaker of eloquence, but I have rarely heard such eloquence of words on this particular issue. They were from the heart, they touched me deeply, and also they were humbling. But most importantly, having the majority leader stand here and bring words to the floor today, as my colleague, Senator Hagel, and I are attempting to do, in an attempt to inject a reality, a responsible reality to this debate that in many cases has been lacking, is greatly gratifying to me.

I also would like to thank and congratulate my good friend and colleague, the Senator from Nebraska. I greatly respect his service to our country. I greatly admire his courage and his willingness to speak out on this issue over the past several years. I would point out that he and I began our Government service many years ago as people who had come back from a different war and decided we would devote a good portion of our lives to trying to take care of those who had served.

The motivation behind the amendment he and I have worked so assiduously on over the last couple weeks is that same motivation that began nearly 30 years ago. I have seen a lot of comments over the past 3 months, some of it accusatory with respect to people who are trying to bring a different focus to our situation in the Middle East, saying that the people who are doing this were somehow hurting the troops.

The question becomes, how do you support the troops? What does it mean to support the troops? Who is really speaking for the troops? We have a good many Members of this body--and I respect them all--who have come back from multiple trips to Iraq. They have sat down with the military leaders who are charged with the responsibility of carrying out our policies. They have heard in many cases optimistic predictions. In too many cases, they have come back and basically said: If you want to do something different, you are affecting the options of the Commander in Chief, and you are being disloyal to the troops.

Who is really listening to the troops? On the one hand, the people who have been serving in this war are justifiably proud of their military service. On the other, they are carrying out the policies of our political process. If we look at polls--our best way of trying to figure out how the average military person feels about this war--we will see they share the same concerns in the aggregate as everyone else in the country. A little more than a year ago, when I announced for the Senate, there was a poll of our Active-Duty people actually serving in Iraq. Seventy-two percent of those people believed the United States should withdraw from Iraq by the end of last year. This included 70 percent of the Regular Army and 58 percent of the regular Marine Corps.

Our motivation today is to try to put a formula together that will respect the policies of the United States and truly show the best way to take care of the troops.

I note with some irony that the bill before us is called an emergency supplemental appropriation. Beginning the fifth year in this war, we are now calling it an emergency that we need to bring more money to the table. Why? There are a lot of different possibilities, but let's start with this: This has been a war which has been fought without a strategy. You do not have a strategy unless you can clearly articulate the end point of your military operations. I have been saying this for more than 4 years. But what we have had instead of a strategy is the plan of the week. We have had a lot of flailing around from the political leadership that has spilled over into the military leadership--let's try this; let's try that; let's extend our troops; let's deploy our troops early; let's send them back before they have had a chance to rest, recuperate, and refurbish. We are seeing now, as my good friend from Nebraska mentioned, the military cost of that kind of policy. We are also seeing a human cost. Who pays for this lack of clarity? The troops pay. They are sacrificing. They are proud to serve their country, and they can't plan their lives. They have kids being born, weddings to go to, people to visit, holidays to enjoy--all a part of the plan when they were deployed.

This amendment goes to that point, the proper utilization of our military. The first thing that it does is it establishes clearly, as Senator Hagel and I and others have been saying for a long time, that the primary U.S. policy objective in Iraq should be a political solution that can be obtained through increased, concerted regional and international diplomacy. We have seen the seeds of that over the past couple of months. We are stating that this should be recognized as our primary goal.

The second point is that we are putting in, as the Senator from Nebraska mentioned, legally binding restrictions calling for the certification of any unit in the U.S. military that is going to be deployed, that it be fully mission capable. We have a reality check in this provision. We understand that in terms of heavy equipment, many units deployed fall onto equipment inside the theater of operations. We are not requiring that they have that equipment with them when they first deploy. We also have Presidential waivers in terms of possible national emergencies that might occur. Other than that, we should have unit-ready deployments.

The third portion of this amendment goes to extending deployments. We are basically saying Army units that deploy for a year should come back in 365 days. Marine units that are deployed for 7 months should come back at the end of 210 consecutive days with certain, again, realistic exclusions.

The fourth provision goes to the minimum period between deployments. You are not going to deploy military units until they have been home at least the amount of time they previously were deployed. This goes for individuals as well as units. It is quite possible in today's military for an individual to come back from deployment and, after a very short period of time, be backfilled into another unit that is going. Technically, the unit may have been back here for a year or 7 months, but the individual has not. That has to stop.

We are also saying in terms of the Guard and Reserve that they need a one for five. They need to be able to be home for five times the length of time they have been deployed. On this one-to-one cycle for Active Forces, the military itself, the Commandant of the Marine Corps has said they would like to have a two-for-one cycle--for every year you have been gone, 12 years home. In my experience in the Pentagon, as Assistant Secretary of Defense and as Secretary of the Navy, we looked at a two-for-one ratio for our ships, for our troops, a period of time deployed, a period of time to come back, get reacquainted with your family, get some down time, and then an equal period of time to refurbish and get ready to go again. All we are asking for here is a one-for-one.

If you look at what has happened in the conduct of this war, it has not been operational demands that have created the situation for our troops; it has been a lack of proper leadership. There is nothing in Iraq that would require this sort of chaotic planning. There is no emergency right now that can justify the unpredictability we have built into these deployments.

At the right time, when the Senator from Nebraska is able to negotiate this with the leadership--and I will pursue this as well--we want a vote. We are working to get a vote.

I urge all of my colleagues to support the amendment.

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