Iraq - Staying the Course

Iraq - Staying the Course
Denton, Texas, Dec 2 -

The last few weeks has certainly seen a great deal written about the conflict in Iraq. The middle of next month will see the third popular election held in the country of Iraq this year.

Stay the course -- or pull out now. These seem to be the two recurrent themes debated in the Halls of Congress and on editorial pages across the country.

Our military action, which was never popular with the press, has been portrayed in the most negative possible fashion for the past 2 1/2 years. The result is declining popular support for the military activity in Iraq in this country, and the very real possibility that the United States will lose its political will to complete the mission in Iraq. This would be truly tragic, as we are so tantalizingly close to success in this effort.

I was not a member of Congress when the vote was taken to provide the president the necessary authority for military action in Iraq. I do believe it was the right decision, and I believe I would have voted affirmatively had I been there. I do not recall ever believing that it would be easy, but I do recall believing that it was justified and necessary.

When the House and Senate considered and approved the resolution authorizing the President to use military force to bring Saddam Hussein in compliance of United Nations resolutions, several strong reasons made of the foundation of this decision: weapons of mass destruction, a gathering threat, violations of the no-fly zones, targeting our aircraft, endangering our pilots, violations of UN sanctions, violations of terms of surrender from the first Gulf War in 1991, failure to account for Kuwaitis taken prisoner during 1991 war, failure to make restitution to Kuwait, mass murder, mass graves, and the only world leader who had used chemical weapons in an offensive a fashion.

These were the details of the resolution supported by a bi-partisan majority of members of Congress. The policy of the United States, as laid out by law in 1998 was to effect regime change in Iraq. In 2002, by approving this resolution, the U.S. Congress and President Bush were finally enforcing this long-standing U.S. foreign policy goal in an environment radically changed by 9/11 and the gathering threat that Iraq and other rogue nations represent to the safety and security of the American people.

The failure to find warehouses stockpiling weapons of mass destruction has now somehow morphed in to allegations that the president misled the American public.

Opponents of this war argue that President Bush and other leaders mislead the American people through dishonorable misrepresentations of intelligence data on Iraq. But these allegations are in fact lies, refuted and discredited. This type of representation has only emboldened our enemies to target U.S. personnel overseas. Debating how the war has been executed is a debate we should be having as a country, but attempting to change the facts about the lead-up to the war is disingenuous and has more pernicious ramifications than temporary political advantage.

I have been to Iraq four times in the past two years. It is my impression that one day the big story will be that the press missed the big story in Iraq. What you see in the country of Iraq, and what is reported in the press in this country are two completely different worlds.

Each time I have traveled to Iraq I have been struck by how much progress has been made by American troops, coalition partners and the Iraqis since my preceding visit. Each time I have traveled to Iraq I have been moved by the dedication of our military and their commitment to complete their mission.

My first visit to the Baghdad Airport in August of 2003 left me thinking that the place looked like the city dump. During visits in January and August of this year, the Airport was a clean environment with obvious evidence of commercial aviation having resumed.

Visiting the power plant in Baghdad in August of 2003 showed just now badly deteriorated the Iraqi infrastructure was. Ancient generators were in multiple pieces scattered across concrete floors while Iraqi engineers were attempting to rebuild them.

In August of 2005 a visit to the power plant in Kirkuk showed a facility with a modern gas turbine generator that was just about to go online adding 20% to Iraq's daily generating capacity. The Iraqi engineers present had been trained to install and maintain this equipment, and were trained to standards such that they would be capable of working anywhere in the world on similar equipment.

During that first visit in August of 2003 we were given a briefing in one of Saddam's old offices. Members of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the State Department, as well as General Ricardo Sanchez outlined the plan for reconstituting the Iraqi government and rebuilding civil society.

This plan involved selecting Iraqi citizens to compose an interim constitution, leading to the institution of a provisional government, which would then set the stage for electing representatives to the Transitional National Authority, who would write the final Iraqi constitution which would then culminate with the election of the new Iraqi government. All but the last step have now been accomplished basically adhering to the timeline set out by the Administration and form Coalition Provisional Authority in August 2003. The only deviation was a condensing of the timeline at the insistence of the cleric Al-Sistani.

Remember the naysayers of a year ago? The election could not possibly happen; Iraq was spiraling out of control and headed for civil war. Two weeks before the election last January I was in a briefing at the Prime Minister's office in Baghdad regarding the upcoming election. The UN monitor for the election, Carlos Valenzuela, still not believing what he was seeing, told us the elections would be strikingly successful.

There is no question that there are those in the country of Iraq who feel they would be better served by continued chaos in that region. This is not the position of most of the people who live in the country of Iraq.

The insurgency, the Iraqi terrorists, hold no tactical advantage, they hold no territory currently. This is a fight which they know they cannot win on tactical grounds. The only way for us to lose this conflict is for us to lose our political will at home.

We want our soldiers home. They want to be home. But they also understand the importance of their mission and wish to see that mission concluded, and do not wish to see Congress undercut the progress that they have made of the last two and half years.

We're very close to having the third and final election for this year. We're very close to having sufficient Iraqi security forces trained and equipped to participate in their own security operations. Our soldiers are very close to having completed their mission. Congress must not desert them now.

http://burgess.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=37521