U. S. Troops 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)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, last December, 10 of America's most distinguished senior statesmen and -women made public a blueprint for success in Iraq and in so doing opened up the possibility for the administration and the Congress to come together on a bipartisan basis to begin a new direction in Iraq. The Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, presented our Nation with a fully bipartisan Iraq strategy--a strategy that all of America could get behind, with clearly defined benchmarks, realistic goals, and a sensible approach for protecting U.S. security interests.

Today, the U.S. Senate is finally considering legislation that would help take us in the direction outlined by the Iraq Study Group, over 3 months ago. Under the leadership of Senator Byrd, the Senate Appropriations Committee has presented this body with a chance to get the mission right, namely by beginning the phased redeployment of our combat units from Iraq.

Thanks to additional language spelling out a clearly defined benchmarks for Iraqi authorities to meet, from Senator Ben Nelson, Congress has finally put the Iraqi Government on notice that it is time for them to step up to their responsibilities. It is time for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to start providing for Iraq's own security and making the difficult but necessary political compromises to bring all parties in Iraq to the table, thereby ending the untenable situation of American troops being forced to referee a civil war there. Iraqi compromises will only emerge through serious diplomatic engagement by the U.S. State Department, Iraqi politicians, and neighboring countries in the region.

But this isn't just my view. This is also the view of Iraq Study Group cochair, Congressman Lee Hamilton. Before the Senate bill was made public in its entirety, Congressman Hamilton had an opportunity to comment on the House's version of the supplemental appropriations bill. In a Washington Post op-ed, he pointed out that ``The House Bill lays out the steps that the Iraqi Government must take ..... At issue is the conditionality of U.S. support. Time and again, Iraqis have missed deadlines. Time and again, deadlines have been extended, and U.S. political, economic and military support has continued and even increased. The House bill breaks that cycle.''

Most crucially, Congressman Hamilton went on to say that the House bill, ``by tying continued U.S. support--including the presence of U.S. troops--to benchmarks, uses the strongest possible leverage to press Iraqi leaders to meet their commitments.''

Clearly, in the view of Cochair Hamilton, the current majority in Congress is taking the necessary steps to address our national security needs, and doing so in a manner consistent with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.

Without such a strategy, U.S. Iraq policy amounts to little more than an open-ended commitment which has not translated to progress on the ground in Iraq; and is causing significant long-term costs to our military and to our national security.

We have already lost over 3,200 brave American servicemembers in Iraq, and regrettably, that number continues to grow.

We have spent over $400 billion since the war began, with an additional $121 billion in the underlying bill being debated today.

And our Armed Forces have been left so depleted of combat gear due to the war in Iraq, that vast segments of our military are reporting ``not ready'' for duty--including two-thirds of the Army in the United States and nearly 90 percent of our National Guard.

As these figures demonstrate, our Armed Forces and America's national security simply cannot afford the Bush administration's ``stay the course'' policy in Iraq any longer. It is quite literally breaking our military. And it is endangering our Armed Forces' ability to respond to future challenges to America's national security--whether on the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East, or elsewhere in the world.

As Army Chief of Staff GEN Peter Schoomaker testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee: ``We have a strategy right now that is outstripping the means to execute it.'' His deputy, GEN Richard Cody, further stated: ``The readiness continues to decline of our next-to-deploy forces.''

Yet, today, we find the administration still engaging in its smoke and mirror campaign to purposefully downplay the monetary and human costs of this war. They do it by forbidding the taking of photos of our honored fallen heroes coming back to Dover Air Force Base and by funding the war through emergency supplementals that are used to obscure the war's impact on our budget deficit. They do so by shamefully neglecting the needs of our returning heroes, too many of whom have come home broken in body or spirit.

Despite all of these efforts, the impact of the Iraq war has been so transparently damaging to America's security that it has been impossible even for this White House to keep the facts from the American people--particularly in terms of our military's combat readiness.

According to a March 19 Washington Post report, ``it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a `death spiral,' in which the ever increasing pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.''

We are over 4 years into this war, and the administration is still decrying those of us trying to help address these serious concerns. And all the while, it is the administration who is still continuing to propose budgets, with too few resources for our deployed troops.

In fact, the President and the Vice President have continued their disingenuous claims that Democratic proposals would actually cut funding for our troops even while they are the ones proposing budgets with shortfalls in critical combat equipment, military hospital upkeep, and veterans health priorities.

It is time for Congress to finally say ``enough is enough.''

The Iraq Study Group was very clear on the need to restore our own military's combat readiness, as spelled out in recommendations 48 and 49 of its report. According to that report, ``the defense budget as a whole is in danger of disarray, as supplemental funding winds down and reset costs become clear. It will be a major challenge to meet ongoing requirements for other current and future security threats that need to be accommodated together with spending for operations and maintenance, reset, personnel, and benefits for active duty and retired personnel. Restoring the capability of our military forces should be a high priority for the United States at this time.''

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.

As my colleagues know, since the war began in 2003, I have to come to the Senate floor time and again to offer amendments to spending bills to address shortfalls in the administration's proposed budget--largely over the objections of the White House and its congressional allies.

In 2003, I offered an amendment to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill to add $322 million for critical protective gear identified by
the Army that the Bush administration had failed to include in their budget. But it was blocked by the administration and their allies.

In 2004 and 2005, I authored legislation, signed into law, to reimburse troops for equipment that they had to purchase on their own because the Rumsfeld Pentagon failed to provide them with the body armor and other gear they needed to stay safe.

And last year, working with Senators INOUYE, REED, and STEVENS, I offered an amendment to help address a $17 billion budget shortfall to replace and repair thousands of war battered tanks, aircraft, and vehicles. Without these additional resources, the Army Chief of Staff claimed that U.S. Army readiness would deteriorate even further. This provision was approved unanimously and enacted in law. But much more remains to be done.

A recent report by the independent National Guard Commission says that 88 percent of our National Guard is reporting ``not ready'' for duty. To address this concern, I introduced S. 756 to provide the $38 billion over the next 5 years the National Guard says it needs to restock its depleted equipment inventories and restore its preparedness, for both wartime and homeland security missions. Doing so is critical to our national security, and we owe our country and our troops no less.

Thankfully, here again, Senator Byrd and the Appropriations Committee have demonstrated their leadership by adding $1 billion to address critical equipment shortfalls for our National Guard in 2007. This is a good first step as we work to ensure that America's citizen soldiers are fully prepared to fight our enemies abroad and respond to domestic emergencies here at home. I am joining my colleagues, Senators LEAHY and BOND, in offering an amendment to add another $1 billion to meet other immediate National Guard short-term needs. In addition, I intend to work throughout this year to ensure that we address all of the Guard's critical equipment needs.

In the meantime, this supplemental appropriations bill will begin to put us on the right track, to reverse 4 years of the administration's mismanagement of a war, and 6 years of its reckless battering of America's great Armed Forces. We should have no higher priority than the safety and well-being of our troops. Plain and simple.

But a great deal more remains to be done. We need to redeploy our combat forces out of Iraq's urban areas to Kurdistan, other rural areas of Iraq, and to bases in Kuwait and Qatar, where they can focus on counterterrorism operations, train and equip Iraqi security forces, and offer force protection to U.S. personnel and infrastructure which remain in Iraq after the redeployment of combat forces has been completed early next year.

But more than that, we need to stop allowing ourselves and our Nation to be cowed by the administration's fear-mongering. We must embrace the many recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and engage in a ``New Diplomatic Offensive'' in Iraq and the wider region because, as the Iraq Study Group wisely concluded, only a political solution which the Iraqi people buy into can salvage Iraq.

Mr. President, the United States has a moral obligation to assist Iraqi and Afghan refugees and those internally displaced by violence. I commend the Appropriations Committee for beginning to effectively do so, by increasing such assistance by $50 million for Iraq, and $18 million for Afghanistan.

The Brookings Institution estimates that nearly one-quarter of all physicians have fled Iraq. There are nearly 2 million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. These refugees have placed a tremendous strain on the essential social services and infrastructure of those two countries, which have begun to close their border crossings. Emergency funding is necessary to provide these individuals with basic medical care, food, housing and to ensure that their children are able to attend school.

We cannot afford to miss another opportunity to change our course in Iraq and to support the men and women sacrificing their lives there--opportunities this administration has resisted at every step of the way. The new Democratic majority in Congress has already begun doing so. The passage of this bill will represent another step toward a stronger and safer America, and more secure and stable Iraq.

If President Bush is wise he will reconsider his threat to veto this measure and begin to embrace the call for change embodied in this legislation. If not, I will continue to do all that I can to keep the pressure on the administration. I know that the majority of the Members in this body will as well. That is our responsibility as the people's representatives.

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