National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008
Floor Speech
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008
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Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to respectfully speak against the amendment offered by my colleague from Virginia.
Let me put this in context, as I see it. One week ago, the commander of our military forces in Iraq and our top diplomat in Baghdad returned to Washington to address the Members of this Congress. What General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker offered us last week was not hype or hyperbole but the facts. They offered us the facts. What we heard from them was reality--hard evidence of the progress we have at last begun to achieve over the past 8 months--progress against al-Qaida, progress against sectarian violence, progress in standing up the Iraqi Army, progress that all but the most stubborn of ideological or partisan opponents now acknowledge is happening.
What we also heard from General Petraeus last week was a plan for the transition of our mission in Iraq which he has developed, together with our military commanders on the ground, that builds on facts on the ground, not on opinions over here, that builds on the successes our troops have achieved on the ground which will allow tens of thousands of American troops to begin to return home from Iraq starting this month.
So the question now before the Senate is not whether to start bringing some of our troops home. Everyone agrees with that point. Beginning this month, some of our troops will be coming home. The question before the Senate now is whether we are going to listen to the recommendations of our commanders and diplomats in Iraq, or instead whether we will reject them and try to derail the plan they have carefully developed and implemented and that is working. The question is whether we build on the success of the surge and the strategy of success led by General Petraeus, or instead whether we impose a congressional formula for retreat and failure.
I believe the choice is clear because we have too much at stake for our national security, our national values, and most particularly, of course, freedom is on the line and the outcome in Iraq. Are the victors going to be the Iraqis with our support and the hope of freedom and a better future for them or are the victors going to be al-Qaida and Iran and Iranian-backed terrorists? That is the choice. It is in that context that I believe the Webb amendment is a step in precisely the wrong direction. That is its effect.
The sponsors of the amendment say they are trying to relieve the burden on our men and women in uniform. I, of course, take them at their word. They have an honorable goal that all of us in this Chamber share. It is not, however, what the real-world consequences of this amendment will be.
On the contrary, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has warned us in the most explicit terms that this amendment, if enacted, would have precisely the opposite effect that its sponsors say they desire. It would create less security, more pressure on more soldiers and their families than exists now.
As many of my colleagues know, Secretary Gates is a man who chooses his words carefully. He is a former member of the Iraq Study Group. He is a strong believer in the need for bipartisan consensus and cooperation when it comes to America's national security, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. He does not practice the politics of polarization or partisan spin. So when he tells us this amendment would do more harm than good, so much harm, in fact, that he, as Secretary of Defense, would feel obliged to recommend to the President that if this amendment is adopted, the President veto the entire underlying Department of Defense authorization bill, well, then, when Bob Gates, Secretary of Defense, says that, I think we have a responsibility to listen and to listen to his words very carefully.
The reason for Secretary Gates' opposition to this amendment is not political, it is practical. As he explained in a letter to Senator Graham of South Carolina earlier this week, the Webb amendment ``would significantly increase the risk to our servicemembers''--significantly increase, not decrease, the risk to our servicemembers--and ``lead to a return to unpredictable tour lengths and home state periods and home station periods.'' Exactly the opposite of the intention of the amendment.
By injecting rigid inflexibility into the military planning process, this amendment would force the Pentagon to elevate one policy--the amount of time individual members of the military spend at home--above all other considerations, above the safety and security of those same soldiers and their colleagues when they are deployed abroad, above the impact of implementing that policy would have on our prospects for success in Iraq and all that means to our country and, I add, to our soldiers.
Secretary Gates also described a range of grim consequences that would result if this amendment is adopted.
To begin with, it would likely force the Pentagon to extend the deployments of units that are already in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond their scheduled rotations. So some of those units which are now scheduled to be there for 15 months might have to be extended beyond that because of the provision in this amendment that says you have to have an equal amount of time at home as deployed. Why? Because there aren't enough capable units to replace them that meet the inflexible requirements imposed by this amendment.
Far from relieving the burden on our brave troops in battle deployed overseas, this amendment would actually add to their burdens and keep our soldiers away from their families, certainly a goodly number of them, for even longer. It would also mean more frequent and broader callups of our National Guard and Reserve units, pulling forces into the fight that would otherwise be able to remain at home.
In other cases, this amendment will require the Pentagon to deploy units trained for one mission to go fight another mission, not because it makes military sense to do so but because they are the only ones left that meet this amendment's inflexible dwell-time rule. In plain English, we are going to be forced by this amendment to send less-capable units into combat.
In addition to imposing greater dangers thereby on our individual service men and women, this amendment would also have other baneful effects on our national security. At a time when our military is stretched and performing brilliantly, it would further shrink the pool of units and personnel available to respond to events, crises, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan but around the world. In doing so, this amendment--and again I quote Secretary Gates--``would dramatically limit the Nation's ability to respond to other national security needs while we remain engaged in Iraq or Afghanistan.'' Is that what any one of us desire? Is that what the men and women who serve us in uniform desire? No.
All of us recognize the extraordinary services our troops are giving our country and the burden that places on their family in this time of war. All of us want to do something to help relieve the burden they bear. But the answer is not to impose a legislative straitjacket on our men and women in uniform. The answer is not to impose an inflexible one-size-fits-all rule that will endanger their safety and hobble our military's ability to respond to worldwide threats. The answer is not, in our frustration, to throw an enormous wrench into the existing, well-functioning personnel system of the U.S. military. The answer is most definitely not to make it harder for us to succeed in Iraq.
I know there has been some disagreement among the supporters of this amendment about whether it is intended to be a backdoor way to accelerate the drawdown of our troops from Iraq, for which there is not adequate support in this Senate Chamber, fortunately, and thus discard the recommendations of General Petraeus and, if I may say so, put us on a course for failure instead of the course of success we are on now. My friend, the Senate majority leader, said he does not see this as a backdoor way to accelerate the drawdown. On the other hand, Congressman Murtha said that is exactly what it is supposed to do and he hopes it will do.
The fact is many in this Chamber have argued honestly and openly for months that General Petraeus and his troops were failing to make meaningful progress in Iraq and that Congress should, therefore, order them to begin to withdraw. That could be done by cutting off funding or mandating a congressional deadline for withdrawal.
I have argued against those recommendations, as my colleagues know. But I must say I respect the fact that those arguments by opponents of the war accept the consequences of their beliefs, and they are real and direct. Those in the Chamber who want to reject the Petraeus recommendations and his report of progress and impose on him their own schemes for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, I think ought to do it in the most direct way, rather than any attempt to derail this now successful war plan by indirection.
The fact is, regardless of the intention of its sponsors, the Webb amendment, if enacted, will not result in a faster drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq. The fact is the Commander in Chief and the military commander in Iraq are committed to the success of this mission. On the contrary, therefore, it would only make it harder for those troops, along with their brothers and sisters in uniform in Afghanistan, to complete their mission successfully, safely, and return home but to return home with honor to their families and their neighbors.
Yesterday, a couple of Connecticut veterans from the Iraq war were in town and came to see me. At the end of a good discussion, in which they did urge me to vote against the Webb amendment, one of them said to me: Senator, we want to win in Iraq, and we know we can win. I said to them: Thanks to your bravery and skill--and now a good plan--and with the help of God, you are going to win, so long as the American people and their representatives in Congress don't lose their will. That victory will not only secure a better future for the people of Iraq and more stability and an opportunity for a course in the Middle East that is not determined by the fanatics, the haters, the suicide bombers of al-Qaida and Iranian-backed terrorism but is determined by the people themselves who pray every day and yearn every day for a better future.
I will say something else. There are different ways to burden men and women in uniform. One is the stress of combat, another is to force them into a position where they fail. I have had many conversations with soldiers from Connecticut and elsewhere who have served in Iraq, and I have had the conversations in Iraq and here. I don't want to mislead my colleagues in what I am about to report. I don't get this in 100 percent of those conversations, but in an overwhelming number of those conversations, they are proud of what they are doing, they believe in their mission, they believe they are part of a battle that can help make the future of their families and our country more secure. They are proud. They are reenlisting at remarkable numbers. That is the best indicator of this attitude.
If you want to burden them and their families in a way we can never quite make up for, then take us from the road of success, leading to the road of victory, and force us directly, force them directly or indirectly, to a retreat and defeat. That can break the will of an army. We don't have to do it, we must not do it, and I believe this Senate will not allow this to happen. I, therefore, urge my colleagues to vote against the Webb amendment.
I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
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