Byrd Says White House Plan For Iraq A Recipe for Continued Chaos

Byrd Says White House Plan For Iraq A Recipe for Continued Chaos

U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said that the Bush Administration's "new approach" for Iraq is not new.

"The escalation of forces into Baghdad has been tried, and with little success. Efforts to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure and economy have fallen off of the map. The President has unveiled a plan that continues to chase his Iraq fantasy while ignoring the harsh realities that the rest of the world can see plain as day," Byrd said.

"The Bush Administration believed that it could create a democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun. The White House was wrong, and more guns will not make the White House right," Byrd stated. "The President's plan goes in the wrong direction. Putting thousands more U.S. troops into Iraq will likely only lead to greater chaos, violence, and death."

To date, more than 3,000 American troops have been killed in Iraq.

"We don't need a plan to send more troops to Iraq. We need a plan to begin to bring our troops home," Byrd said.

The West Virginia lawmaker has questions about how to pay for the force escalation and for the $1 billion Iraqi jobs and reconstruction plan outlined by President Bush on Wednesday night.

Already, for the war in Iraq alone, Congress has appropriated $379 billion, including more than $35.6 billion for reconstruction efforts. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, in a report updated just before the New Year, stated, "the lack of stability and the effects of the insurgency" have caused significant setbacks in the reconstruction efforts.

"The Bush Administration has brewed a cauldron of chaos, wherein reconstruction cannot take root until there is stability, and there won't be stability until there is reconstruction. Adding 20,000 more American troops on the ground will likely only cause the violence in Iraq to grow, rather than to abate," Byrd stated.

"It is time to begin to bring our troops home. We cannot continue to commit billions in Iraq when the American people are so much in need for everything from education to health care to homeland security to securing our borders," Byrd explained. "The nation deserves a White House with the integrity to take responsibility for failures, and the wisdom to change of course when change is so obviously and urgently needed."

http://byrd.senate.gov/newsroom/news_jan/iraq_troop_escalation.html