Kennedy on Fifth Anniversary of Ira War
Statement
KENNEDY ON FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF IRAQ WAR
Today, Senator Edward M. Kennedy released the following statement on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.
This week marks the 5th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war.
The human toll of this war continues to be devastating. Nearly 4,000 American troops have died, including 82 from Massachusetts. An additional 30,000 have been wounded.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured, and millions more have been forced to flee their homes.
Over half a trillion dollars has been spent fighting the war so far. Earlier this month, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Blimes estimated that the long-term cost of the war will be $3 trillion.
The American people want to know when the national nightmare of this war will end. They want to know how much longer it will take, and how much more America will have to spend in blood and treasure.
We're now spending more than $10 billion a month in Iraq. That's real money, and we know it could be used in far better ways to improve the lives of Americans and peoples throughout the world.
For the cost of one month in Iraq, we could hire over 200,000 new teachers to reduce class sizes, or provide the professional development needed to improve the skills of two-thirds of the teachers in the country.
For the cost of two weeks in Iraq, we could provide after-school programs for the 7 million children who are left unsupervised after school.
For the cost of three weeks in Iraq, we could serve all the 3- and 4-year-olds eligible for Head Start.
The war is also draining essential resources needed to protect our hard-working men and women.
For the cost of one day in Iraq, we would hire 2,700 more safety and health inspectors at OSHA and keep millions more American workers safe on the job.
For the cost of one day in Iraq, we could double the enforcement of our wage and hour laws, and guarantee that workers are treated fairly.
For the cost of one week in Iraq, we could train over 160,000 additional men and women for better jobs in the new global economy.
It's wrong to neglect priorities like these at home and pour hundreds of billions of dollars instead into the black hole the Iraq war has become.
Because of the war in Iraq, we haven't even been able to deal adequately with other critical national security challenges that face our nation. And all of those other challenges are becoming more serious every day, partly because we are neglecting them and partly because our presence in Iraq continues encouraging the terrorists and to cause increasing loss of respect for the United States by other nations of the world.
The Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, recently told the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, "Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates continue to pose significant threats to the United States at home and abroad."
He emphasized that Al Qaeda has established a safe haven in Pakistan's federally-administered tribal areas which have become "a staging ground for Al Qaeda attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the United States." Those are Admiral McConnell's words.
A recent report by the Atlantic Council makes clear that our mission in Afghanistan is faltering. It said, "Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan."
Although America was attacked by terrorists from Afghanistan and not from Iraq, it has taken a back seat to Iraq. In December, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee, "In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must."
Admiral William Fallon, who resigned this week as head of the Central Command, made a similar point in January. He said, "My sense of looking back is that we moved the focus to Iraq, which was the priority from 2003 on, and the attention and the resources focused on a different place."
Because of Iraq, our forces are now stretched to the breaking point. Many service members are on their third and fourth tours of duty.
Suicide rates of our soldiers are rising. In 2007, the Army suicide rate was the highest it has ever been. In 2006, Army suicides rose to 17 per 100,000 soldiers, and that number increased by 20 percent in 2007. That's more than double the number reported in 2001, before we sent troops to Iraq.
The Administration has also had to grant waivers at record highs to keep recruitment up. In the Army alone, waivers for mis-conduct have more than doubled since 2003, and waivers for felony convictions have increased 24 percent. Serious misdemeanor waivers have increased 168 percent. These numbers obviously highlight the strain we're placing on our Armed Forces.
After five long and bloody years, the American people and our men and women in uniform want an end to this misguided war, and they want it now.
Instead, The Bush Administration is moving forward on negotiations to sign a permanent, long-term agreement with the government of Iraq on the role of the US military in future operations, and an agreement is expected to be concluded by mid-July.
The stakes are high, and these negotiations move us in the wrong direction. America has given the Iraqi people nearly five years of blood and treasure. It's wrong for President Bush to try to bind the next president and lock the nation indefinitely into the endless quagmire that the Iraq war has become.
Iraq is not like the majority of other countries in the world. Its government is dysfunctional, and the country is at war with itself. America does not have a long-term military commitment with any other country like it on the planet, and adopting one with Iraq does not serve our national interest.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that the agreement "will not contain a commitment to defend Iraq." Hopefully, the administration's negotiators will concur with his wisdom. But as long as America maintains tens of thousands of troops in Iraq, there is little distinction.
President Bush and other administration officials are clearly attempting to downplay the significance of an agreement. They maintain that the final pact will be similar to those the United States has with many other countries, and that Congress does not need to approve it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The president has given US negotiators authority to go well beyond the type of benign agreement that administration officials are discussing in public. The document signed by Bush and Iraq's prime minister outlining the scope of the discussions plainly states that a security commitment can be negotiated, which would obligate the United States to defend Iraq if it is attacked.
President Bush knew exactly what he was authorizing when he put his signature on that document. It would be a mistake for Congress and the American public to be lulled into complacency on this critical issue simply because the administration is attempting to assure us that it is nonbinding and, therefore, will have little significance. In fact, any agreement with Iraq is significant. Even Iraq's foreign minister recognizes the significance of the future agreement and is calling it a treaty.
The United States currently has seven such treaties: the NATO Treaty of 1949; the Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security Treaty of 1952; the Southeast Asian Treaty of 1955; the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance of 1948; and bilateral security treaties with Japan in 1960, the Philippines in 1952, and South Korea in 1954. Each of these commitments was made with the approval of two-thirds of the Senate, as the Constitution requires for treaties. Such assurances, once made, cannot be easily withdrawn. They must be granted with great care, and only under extraordinary circumstances.
Even if the agreement does not rise to the level of a treaty, it should still be approved by Congress. The fact that conventional "status of forces" agreements are typically not submitted to Congress for approval is not a precedent in this case. Iraq is too important for the United States. Even consultations and classified briefings with Congress are not enough.
Congress should have the opportunity to approve or reject any agreement on Iraq, regardless of what it is called, that affects our troops or national security. With the country so deeply divided on the war and the future course in Iraq, it's wrong for the president to bypass Congress and public opinion.
In 1953, Congress ratified the status of forces agreement with NATO as a treaty, four years after ratifying the NATO treaty itself. President Eisenhower did not bypass the Congress then, and Bush should not seek to do so now.
In 1981, under President Reagan, Congress approved by legislation an agreement committing the United States to the establishment of the multinational observer group in the Sinai desert in the Middle East.
Also during the Reagan administration, Congress approved in 1986 the Compact of Free Association, granting independence to the Republic of the Marshall Islands and to the Federated States of Micronesia.
The compact included agreements in the political and economic spheres and a commitment by the United States to the defense of those two newly independent nations.
It would be a mistake, however, to search for the perfect historical analogy to guide US thinking and actions now. Iraq is unique. Any agreement with Iraq that affects the nation well into the future must have the support of the American people and be approved by Congress. Even the Iraqi government has said it will submit the US-Iraq pact to its parliament for ratification.
America has other options. The international authority for our military presence in Iraq, first granted by the United Nations in 2004, was extended for the third time in December and does not expire until the end of 2008. It could be extended again to give the next president the authority necessary to conduct operations in Iraq, pending a decision on what our future relationship with Iraq will be.
Iraq's ambassador to the United States has said that Iraq will seek an extension of the current UN mandate if no agreement is reached with the United States by the end of this year. He said, "If we cannot have an agreement by that time, we would have no choice but to go back to the Security Council."
President Bush argues that those who oppose these negotiations and seek congressional approval "need to think through exactly what they are saying." He's right about that, and those of us who opposed this war have certainly done so. But the president needs to think more clearly about the consequences of any long-term agreement he makes with Iraq that extends beyond his successor's inauguration, on Jan. 20.
President Bush gambled our national security with his reckless invasion of Iraq, and he should not be permitted to roll the dice again in these negotiations. The last thing America needs is for Bush to cement a secret deal on Iraq, without the support of Congress, that binds the next president, the military, and the nation for years to come.
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