Iraq War Resolution

Floor Speech

IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION -- (House of Representatives - February 14, 2007)

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Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, in this debate, our first care should be for the safety and morale of the men and women serving in the American Armed Forces. Whatever the way forward, nothing said here should be heard by friend or foe as disrespect for the work and sacrifice of those who willingly fight our battles in a very dangerous world.

It took the United States and coalition forces less than 3 weeks to topple a brutal Iraqi regime that had held an iron grip on power for almost 30 years. Since then, they have battled a growing insurgency and rampant sectarian violence with professionalism and bravery. Of all the instruments of national power we could and should be discussing today, diplomacy, economic policy, intelligence and warfare, our military is the only one that has performed predictably, consistently, and well.

Still, knowing what we know today, after almost four years of attempted nation-building on the shifting sands of Iraq, the plan to put 21,000 more Americans in harm's way there has to be viewed with a cold-eyed skepticism born of that hard experience. Putting American troops between feuding Sunni and Shia in the middle of Baghdad, in my judgment, is a mistake. This is the appropriate place for Iraqis, not Americans.

The Iraq Study Group concluded that, ``Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation.'' They quoted a U.S. general who said that if the Iraqi Government does not make political progress, ``all the troops in the world will not provide security.'' I agree.

Like many Members, Republicans and Democrats, I voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq, just as I supported President Clinton's decision to take military action against the former Yugoslavia. Four years ago, we were trying to persuade Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations resolutions on disarmament and weapons inspections. Only a credible threat of force could possibly convince him that it was finally in his interest to respect the lawful demands of the international community.

Voting to support the President strengthened his hand in the diplomatic effort to get the Iraqi regime to comply peacefully. Saddam Hussein chose not to comply, and when diplomacy fails, and military action becomes necessary, politics should stop at the water's edge and every American should stand behind the Commander in Chief.

But no grant of authority is a blank check. Today, naive notions about a quick or tidy victory in Iraq have given way to far grittier options on how best to achieve our strategic goals in that nation, in the region, and in the global struggle against Islamic extremism.

We want the President to succeed, but we are disappointed our hopes and good intentions for Iraq remain unrealized. Many are frustrated by the mistakes and missed opportunities that plagued this noble but star-crossed effort. Poor planning for occupation and reconstruction of a devastated nation, and missteps by the Coalition Provisional Authority, allowed the insurgency and long-simmering factional hatreds to erupt and to take root.

At this point, it seems clear to many that only Iraqi interests, not ours, can be advanced on the streets of Baghdad. U.S. and coalition forces were tasked as protectors of Iraq's hard-won sovereignty, not referees in unchecked sectarian vendettas. From here, the surge looks much more like the status quo on steroids than a serious alternative policy to reach a realistic goal. Some way must be found to cut the Gordian knot that ties us to an Iraq strategy that says we can neither win nor leave.

Moreover, so long as American troops are the ones on the ground, taking the fire and being objects for sectarian terrorist hatred, other stakeholders who have more at stake in the region than we will refuse to step forward.

But whatever else it might accomplish, this resolution still does not do enough to illuminate a new, sustainable strategy in Iraq. It offers us few alternatives, and I am disappointed in that. The profound and complex issues central to our international position today cannot be reduced to simplistic political statements. We took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, not just strike poses on how that duty applies to the key questions before us as a Nation. In the end, these are purely political statements, when the debate we really need to have is about the most apolitical subject of all: national security in a time of global peril.

Today, the House sends a purely symbolic message to the President. It is a message that will also be heard by our troops, by the Iraqi Government, by the Iraqi people who have relied on us, and by our enemies who are hoping we will quit the fight soon. It does not say enough. We should be debating the elements of an effective policy to stem the tide of jihadism infecting growing swaths of the globe. This resolution says only what some Members are against, nothing about what we are for.

The Iraq Study Group report put forth 79 specific recommendations, many focused on the need for far greater engagement of regional powers, friends and foes in taking realistic steps to stabilize Iraq. I joined my colleague, Frank Wolf, in supporting creation of the Iraq Study Group, and I wish he and others were allowed to offer those recommendations for discussion by the House. Those are the debates and the votes I had hoped to participate in today.

The lack of substantive alternatives before us, particularly on the question of adequate funding for deployed troops, betrays the majority's empty, conflicted positions on Iraq: against the President, but for nothing. The Senate majority attempted to straddle the same contradictions recently, confirming without dissent the new commanding general for Iraq, while at the same time claiming to be against the very same mission they know he has been ordered to undertake.

On the genuine questions of security and strategy in Iraq, we cannot remain, as Winston Churchill admonished, ``decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.''

Mr. Speaker, we must decide, and I have decided, to support this resolution because it is the only option that has been made in order by the majority today to engage the House in formulation of Iraq policy, but once troops are committed by the Commander in Chief and we are engaging the enemy, symbolic gestures like this must confront the more complex realities of how to support those forces in the safe and speedy completion of their mission.

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