National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2008
Floor Speech
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (Senate - July 12, 2007)
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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, I wish to thank both my colleague from Michigan, who does such a profoundly great effort on these proposals and these bills, for the thought and the care and the sensibility that goes into it. I also wished to say that my colleague from Washington, I wished to add my voice, she has been a clarion voice, talking about veterans and their needs and their care long before the issue was front and center, long before the Walter Reed scandal emerged, long before we were able to take over the Senate and put the money of this Nation where its voice has been, and that is behind our veterans.
Now, the amendment that was offered that my colleague from Washington talked about, the dignified treatment of wounded warriors, to honor those who serve us with medical care and treatment they need is another opportunity to demonstrate our support for our troops.
I hope my colleagues will all join us in this amendment and do what is right for those who serve. Unfortunately, yesterday, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle blocked another effort to support our troops with appropriate time at home between deployments. Yesterday they blocked Senator Webb's amendment addressing the serious challenges our military is facing both abroad and home.
I am disappointed that most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle felt it was more important to simply go along with the wishes of the President than support our troops, the brave men and women who are fighting for us in Afghanistan and Iraq.
We are putting our most valuable military resource at risk by failing to provide our troops with the resources they need to complete their mission. By that, I mean we are not allowing them enough time to recover in between their deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
My State is home to one of the Nation's finest military academies, if not the finest in the United States, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. West Point produces many of our military's finest leaders.
But while West Point continues to produce excellent soldiers, the Army is unable to keep them. Unfortunately, graduates of West Point are leaving the military at five times the rate they did before the Iraq war. Roughly half of the West Point classes of 2000 and 2001 have left the Army. That is an extremely severe indictment of the President's policies in Iraq.
When these patriots, these young men and women who want to serve their country and enroll in this great institution leave so quickly, which has been uncharacteristic, it says something very severe about the wrong direction our Nation's military policy is pursuing.
That is not all. This January, 3,200 members of the valiant 10th Mountain Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, stationed in Fort Drum, NY, learned that their tour had been extended by 4 months. They had been fighting in Afghanistan for nearly 12 months and found out, right as they were to come home, they would have to remain in Afghanistan for an additional 4 months.
That is why I supported Senator Webb's amendment. We have asked so much our of our brave men and women who continue to sacrifice their lives and place themselves in harm's way to defend our Nation. At the current troop rotation rate, we are simply running our troops into the ground.
This hurts us at home, both in declining retention rates and the rise of mental health issues associated with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
As I have said before, I am disappointed that some have felt it was more important to support the President than to support the troops, the brave men and women who are fighting for us in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But despite the refusal of the other side to join us in the Webb amendment, Congress will not stop supporting our troops, as we carry on the fight to transform our failing policy in Iraq to a mission that reflects the current situation on the ground.
When the President vetoed our supplemental spending bill, we vowed that we would continue to ratchet up the pressure as the President becomes more and more isolated in his views. Well, here we are. This week we in Congress continue to work toward a solution in Iraq that changes our mission from policing a civil war to more on what should be our first and foremost goal, counter terrorism. Now the pressure on this administration is rising as the people speak out and demand change and more and more Republicans are joining with us and the Democratic Congress in looking toward a change in mission for our troops.
As more Republicans join us in our fight to transform the mission on the ground, the President has only responded with threats and empty rhetoric. So let me be clear: President Bush has to realize we are not going to give up our goal of changing our mission. We will not back down, we will not be deterred, we will not rest until the mission changes; that mission that costs $10 billion a month, because this administration has continued to pursue its policy in fear, empty words, charges that people are not patriotic, charges that people are not supporting the troops, even though that is exactly what we are trying to do here and have been doing. That is not going to work. This debate is not going away.
Even though the President continues to stall, telling the country to wait until September when his general issues a report that everyone else in our country and around the world already seems to know, that our current policy in Iraq is not working, we will move now to change the course in Iraq.
The President would be wise to work with us to change the mission now, not wait until September when this report is issued. If the report had any degree of honesty or integrity, it will show that the mission is not working.
I speak to soldiers all the time, from NCOs and privates to one- and two-star generals. So many of them, when they talk to you privately, believe the mission is not, cannot, and will not work. It seems almost everyone knows this. There are many in the military, particularly in the higher ranks, who are loyal to the President, as they should be; he is the Commander in Chief, but in the hearts and minds of so many of our soldiers, they know the policy is not working.
Every day that we wait, our troops continue to be caught in the dangerous crosshairs of a civil war; every day that we wait, the American people grow more dissatisfied with our failed strategy; every day we wait, more members of your party realize we must change course and call for it.
So the Senate, led by Chairman Levin and our great military expert in this body, the only West Point graduate in this body, Senator JACK REED of Rhode Island, the Senate has an opportunity to send the President even tougher language regarding our policies regarding Iraq.
This amendment does all the right things. It changes the current mission to force protection, training Iraqi security forces, and performing targeted counter terrorism operations. But it also calls for a substantial reduction in our forces in Iraq by next April, and it requires these changes. It is not laudatory, wishful thinking such as some of the other amendments. It is the only amendment that is before us that requires a change of course in Iraq.
That is the right policy for many reasons. First, our troops are caught in the middle of a civil war in Iraq. They patrol the streets of Baghdad, while Sunnis and Shias shoot at one another. Our soldiers are caught in the crossfire. That is not where they belong; a point that I, along with many of my colleagues, have been making for a long time.
It is clear the Sunnis, the Shias, and the Kurds dislike each other more than they like any central government of Iraq. No number of American troops will change that no matter how hard they try and how valiant they are. The Sunnis, Shias and Kurds also have to work this out for themselves.
Second, we need to focus on Afghanistan, where the planning for 9/11 took place, where al-Qaida is growing in strength. We are not nearly doing enough in Afghanistan to counteract the ever-increasing production of opium there, a problem that threatens the ever fragile Government.
Not only does opium production fuel the heroin trade around the globe, but the heroin funds terrorists who aim to attack the United States and our allies around the world.
Our soldiers have fought long and hard to rid Afghanistan of terrorists and Taliban. However, as the drug trade continues to surge and consume the Nation, their heroic efforts may be undone. The Taliban draws its strength from the drug trade in order to prevent them from reclaiming the country. We need to crack down on the drugs that fuel their regime.
Secretary Chertoff's report said al-Qaida is stronger today than it was before 9/11. That is as severe an indictment of the President's Iraq policy as there could be. The very forces who struck us on 9/11 are growing stronger in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and around the world, while we are bogged down in Iraq.
Could there be any fact that demands change more than that? We were attacked on 9/11 by al-Qaida. The next day, 2 days, 3 days later, I was there as the President stood on that pile of rubble and took the megaphone from the firefighter and said: We will beat al-Qaida and we will beat the terrorists.
They are now stronger than they were before that day. What is wrong? Characteristically and depressingly, the President said al-Qaida is actually weaker than before 9/11, contradicting the report released by his Secretary of Homeland Security.
The President says al-Qaida is weaker. The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a report saying they are stronger. This is so typically unfortunate of this administration. This is a rerun of the weapons of mass destruction issue that occurred long ago. Make up your mind on what you want to do, ignore all the facts, and no matter what the people around you say, no matter what the American people say, vote for it.
Unfortunately, we have become bogged down in a civil war in Iraq no one has bargained for, as al-Qaida grows stronger in other parts of the world. Being caught in the crosshairs of a sectarian struggle not only puts our troops in harm's way, it means we are not focusing our resources, our energy, and our soldiers on what is the most important thing, which is defeating al-Qaida and terrorists.
Our mission today was not the original mission, and that is why we must change, why it must change to put the focus back on counter terrorism each day we continue to follow the President's Iraq policy is another day al-Qaida can strengthen.
That is not just my assessment. That is the feeling of this Congress, including more and more Members on the other side of the aisle; it is the feeling of a majority of the American people and so many in the intelligence agencies.
Today, the President claimed there are some signs of success in Iraq. But this administration's sign of success is very different than most peoples'. The Government of Iraq has failed to meet few of the legislative benchmarks set out by the administration itself. Violence in Baghdad and across Iraq continues unabated. Thousands of refugees are fleeing Iraq every day. Iran continues to support efforts to destabilize the region. Yet the administration still refuses to admit we need to change our failing policy in Iraq.
President Bush and his few remaining allies continue to cling to the fiction that our present course can somehow turn the situation around. The American people know better. This Congress knows better. That is why we keep pushing and pushing and pushing to change the mission in Iraq to one that reflects the reality on the ground.
I urge all my colleagues to support the Levin-Reed amendment. It is the only amendment that requires a change in direction in Iraq. All of the others have good intentions, but they are hortatory. They are offered with good intentions, but they allow people to say: I want a change in policy, but I am not going to force the President to do so. The American people know better. They know that if you really want to change the course of what we are doing in Iraq and change the course in the war on terror, then you must support Levin-Reed. You can't stand for something that says: Well, please, Mr. President, consider doing this, as the other amendments do, because the President won't. The President has been intransigent despite all of the facts on the ground. It is clear this administration has lost its way in Iraq, and this amendment charts the right course forward and requires them to follow it. Despite the stubbornness of the administration, despite their continuing to ignore what is happening in this world, we need to transform our mission in Iraq, and we must do it now.
I hope, I pray, for the future of our war on terror and for the future of this country, that the Levin-Reed amendment gets the required 60 votes and we move forward as a nation together and set our policy right once and for all.
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