Afghanistan

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I will yield to my friend from South Carolina.

Mr. GRAHAM. As I understood the situation, in the last couple of months casualties among American forces are at an all-time high since the invasion. Do you agree with that, I ask the Senator?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. That unfortunately is true.

Mr. GRAHAM. It is also my understanding that IED attacks by the enemy have gone up about 1,000 percent and in reaction to that, Secretary Gates has sent 3,000 people over to deal with the IED problem. From my understanding of the testimony yesterday, Admiral Mullen said the force structure we have in place, between the combination of coalition forces and Afghan forces, is not enough to reverse the trends and to regain lost momentum. I thought it was pretty clear that he was telling us something has to change beyond training the Afghan Army.

Would you agree that the longer we leave people in that environment, where the momentum is on the enemy's side, we are doing a great disservice to the 68,000 people who are there? And if you are going to send troops, send them while it matters, send them in enough number to save lives and get the job over sooner rather than later? That is what I think all three of us are saying.

Mr. President, we appreciate your commitment in Afghanistan. Sending troops to get the election conducted was a wise move. Understanding that Afghanistan is the central battle in the overall war on terror now is a deep understanding on the President's part. The only thing we are saying, the three of us and I think others, is that our military commanders have told us we have lost momentum and the only way to get it back in the short term is more combat power, and every day that we wait makes it much harder for those who are in theatre, and they are dying at levels and being injured at levels we have not known before. That is what drives our thinking. Would you agree with that?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I am totally in agreement with my friend from South Carolina. This in fact is the lesson we should have learned and I think did learn in Iraq. When did the number of American casualties in Iraq begin to go down? It was when we sent more American troops there. Because the addition of American troops, and a new strategy--not just the numbers but a new strategy, a strategy quite similar to the new strategy we have in Afghanistan--protects the civilian population, gives them the confidence that we are not leaving. When you do that, something significant happens. It happened in Iraq and it will happen in Afghanistan. When we commit more troops, the people in the country decide we are not going to cut and run.

The Afghan people despise the Taliban. The progress the Taliban is making in controlling more land in Afghanistan is totally the result of violence and intimidation. The Afghan people, however, are watching us and wondering are we going to begin to pull back? Should they hedge their bets? Should they be careful not to join the fight against the Taliban?

If we begin to sound an uncertain trumpet--you remember that phrase from Scriptures: ``If the sound of the trumpet is uncertain, who will follow into battle?'' I will tell you one group that will not follow into battle if America begins to sound an uncertain trumpet in Afghanistan is the people of Afghanistan. We have a desire now that most everybody here shares. Let's break some of the Taliban away, the ones who are not zealots, the ones who, in a sense are foot soldiers, followers. They are the comparable group to the Sons of Iraq in Anbar Province. But when did the Sons of Iraq decide they were going to turn against al-Qaida? When we convinced them we were going to stay in Anbar and protect them.

In fact, how did we convince them? By sending more troops. It was after that the Iraqi security forces grew in capability, that the American casualties went down.

I would say to my friend, he has touched a very important point here. The only way we will reduce American casualties, which are now going up, and create an environment in which more Afghans will join the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida is for us to give them the confidence we are not going to leave. The best way we can do that and provide the security to do that is by sending more troops.

Incidentally, a final word and then I will yield to my friend from South Carolina. There are those, including my dear friend and respected chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin, who are focused on sending more Americans only for training purposes, not combat troops. But here is something else we learned in Iraq. The fact is you need more than trainers to train the indigenous forces. One of the great tactical breakthroughs in Iraq that General McChrystal wants to put into effect in fact has begun in Afghanistan: There is no better way to train the Afghan forces than to partner them with American and coalition forces in Afghanistan. It is not just sending somebody to a school run by Americans to train them; it is having the Afghan units out there in the field, side by side, working with, fighting with, living with American soldiers that is the best source of training.

I couldn't agree with my friends from South Carolina and Arizona more. The situation in Afghanistan is a vital national interest. Everybody agrees with that. You can't listen to ADM Mike Mullen yesterday and decide the initiative is ours now. It is not. It is slipping away from us. The best way to regain the initiative is to send as many troops as we can. Listening to General McChrystal, a lot of them have to be combat troops, and to do so as quickly as possible.

I said ``the weather'' a moment ago. The winters are harsh in Afghanistan. That is not to say all conflict stops, but there is a fighting season in Afghanistan. This year, we did not have adequate forces there until the new wave the President, President Obama, deployed got there. They didn't get there until June. We were together in Helmut Province with GEN Larry Nickelson, an extraordinary Marine general, a patriot, great soldier, great fighter, great leader. Those Marines are turning back the tide against the Taliban there because they have the numbers.

And that is exactly what we have to do throughout the country. I thank my friend. I am glad to yield the floor to him at this time.

Mr. GRAHAM. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 5 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). The Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. GRAHAM. I would like to pick up where my colleague, Senator Lieberman, left off. The question to ask is, how did the Taliban regain momentum? How do a bunch of fighters, who do not have one airplane, no navy, no heavy weapons to speak of, how could they have regained momentum and begun to reoccupy parts of Afghanistan?

The only answer I can come up with is a vacuum has been created. That vacuum has two components to it: the lack of governance and not enough troops to prevent the Taliban from coming back in some areas of Afghanistan.

I would submit this: If we wait to train the Afghan Army as the only way to stabilize Afghanistan, we are going to waste 2 or 3 years. It is going to get so bad we cannot stand the casualties, and the American people will not tolerate a 2- or 3-year period of where we are just training the Afghan forces, sending them from the training cycle into combat. They are going to fold, just like they did in Iraq. We cannot train an army and have them fight at the same time. We need a little bit of breathing space.

So this idea that we are going to train the Afghan Army, that is the way we will regain momentum against the Taliban, quite frankly will not work. I think Admiral Mullen understood that. What will work is to send more combat power to clear the Taliban from the areas that the Taliban have reoccupied. The Marines are telling us in no uncertain terms, with the right mix of troops they are delivering punishing blows to the Taliban. But we can send 1 million troops to Afghan and still not deal with the fundamental problems they face and the world faces, the legitimacy of the Afghan Government in the eyes of the Afghan people. That is why the Taliban have come back because the Afghan Government has failed. They have failed in almost every respect to give the Afghan people the governance and the hope they need to stand up to the Taliban.

So this is one Senator who believes the way to regain lost momentum is to add more combat power and, yes, train the Afghan Army and police force with a new strategy which we now have in place.

It is labor intensive. It is going to take a lot of time. We have to understand, if we get the Afghan Army up to 400,000, the whole budget of Afghanistan is $800 million a year. It will take $5 billion a year to maintain that army. We are going to end up paying. I hope the American taxpayer understands that. But it is cheaper for us to do that than it is for us to be the 400,000-person army.

So when it comes to cost, it is better to train them and help them with their training and funding than it is for us to stay over there in large numbers forever. But we are going to have to plus up to regain lost momentum. Then we are going to have to focus on the real cause of the deterioration--governance.

The Karzai government has failed in many ways. Corruption is rampant. If, in the next 6 months, some major figures in Afghanistan are not prosecuted for ripping off the Afghan people, then nothing will ever change over there.

I have been a military lawyer serving as a reservist in Afghanistan. I can tell you that everyone who has looked at the Rule of Law Programs will tell you that corruption, narcotics corruption, is rampant in that country. They need a legal system in Afghanistan that can stand up to the corruption. That means we have to protect the judges from being assassinated; we have to build capacity.

There are less than 500 lawyers in all of Afghanistan. There are 16,000 people in jail. Most of them went to jail without ever seeing a lawyer. We have our work cut out for us. We need benchmarks and measurements so I can go back to South Carolina and every Senator can go back to their constituents and say: We are not throwing good money after bad. We are going to push the Afghan Government to prosecute corruption, to provide security for judges, to find a way to empower the economy beyond the drug trade, and start making hard decisions about how tribal justice systems can be incorporated into the formal justice system.

There are so many decisions that politicians in Afghanistan have failed to make that have allowed the Taliban to come back. We need to put them on notice that with new resources and new troops, a new dynamic will be in place, and they will be making the decisions necessary to provide governance to their people. If they fail to do that, then they will not have our support because, at the end of the day, they have to want it more than we do.

Senator Lieberman is right about this. The good news amidst all of this bad news is the Taliban is very much reviled and hated in the country. But put yourselves in one of these villages out in the middle of Afghanistan. What would you do, knowing that by night the Taliban comes in and rains terror? We have to replace that dynamic and give the people assurance that we are not only going to provide them security but the Afghan Government is going to provide them schooling and education, health care, and some hope.

Finally, I cannot tell you that we will succeed with more troops. I can tell you, we will fail if we do not send more troops. It is so much harder in Afghanistan than in many ways it is in Iraq. We are not the Russians. We are not the British. This is not Vietnam. This is not Iraq.

This is Afghanistan where 9/11 was planned and executed. We can get this right.

Mr. McCAIN. Would the Senator yield so I can ask a question? I see we have one of our colleagues waiting to speak.

I wonder what the Senator thinks. We held a hearing yesterday with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is highly regarded. He conveys to every questioner, no matter which Member it is, a sense of urgency because of his belief and that of our military commanders on the ground that we are not winning.

In fact, in the words of Admiral Mullen: Time is not on our side.

Yet today, the President of the United States came out, after meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, and basically said he is--after his spokesperson said he is going to take weeks and weeks to make a decision, he came out and basically said there is not a sense of urgency; that the strategy that was developed in March was not the operative strategy, even though Admiral Mullen said the March strategy was the operative strategy, and all we need to do is fill in the resources and the strategy.

My question to my friend from South Carolina is, how do you account for this apparent contradiction or difference in view about the sense of urgency that exists in the conflict in Afghanistan?

Mr. GRAHAM. Well, the one thing I can tell you is Admiral Mullen is going to be reappointed with probably every person in this body voting for him because he has gained our trust, and it speaks well of the President that he would renominate him. So he has obviously gained the President's trust.

I am not a military commander. But I do not have to be much of a military expert to understand his testimony. His testimony was pretty clear: We have lost momentum. The Taliban is reemerging, stronger than ever, and the capability of the coalition forces and the Afghan Army and security forces combined cannot reverse the momentum. Something new has to happen.

When we put on the table training the Afghan Army without additional combat power, how long would it take before they could have enough numbers to change things? Two or three years.

What would happen during that training period? It would deteriorate further.

What did he tell us? The pathway forward is that we have a new strategy, it needs to be properly resourced. I think what he was telling us more than anything else is that time is not on our side. Casualties in July and August were at an all-time high. We have 68,000 people wearing our uniform in Afghanistan who are getting killed in larger numbers than ever, and the dynamic on the ground will not change the momentum. To do nothing puts them in an environment where they are going to get killed in higher numbers, and what Admiral Mullen is telling us, and I hope the President will listen, is that time is not on our side, but, more importantly, it is not on their side.

This decision about troops, to me, is pretty easy. We need more, but troops alone will not fix Afghanistan. But without more troops in a hurry and with a sense of urgency, we are going to let the Taliban get stronger, the Afghan people are going to get weaker in their resolve, and more Americans are going to die than if we had more troops.

That is what I got out of the hearing. I hope the President is listening.

Mr. McCAIN. Again, I also would ask my colleague, have we forgotten the lessons of history? We were there and we assisted the Afghans in driving out the Russians. Our assistance was critical. The Russians left and we left.

When we left, it left a vacuum that ended up with the fighting between warlords, and the Taliban filled the vacuum, the Taliban had an arrangement with al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, and the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11--which we just commemorated--were able to be trained in Afghanistan.

I hope our memories are not so short that we are willing to risk a repetition of that kind of threat, which the President, during the campaign, seemed to recognize very accurately; called it the ``good war.'' He said it ``was a war we had to win,'' ``do what is necessary to win.''

Now I worry--I wonder if my colleague does--that every day we delay doing what we all know is necessary puts the lives of young Americans who are already there at risk and makes it a longer period of time before we can prevail.

Mr. GRAHAM. The last thought about that: I think our memory, the event that we need to remember is even later than 9/11. It is actually in Iraq. I remember very well this whole debate, and I would urge this administration not to do what the last administration did. That is exactly what is going on in Afghanistan right now. It is as if we have learned nothing.

It is clear, just as it was in Iraq, that we did not have enough combat power to secure the country, not enough mentoring programs to actually train the Iraqi Army, and only when we changed the strategy of adding more troops and gave the Iraqi people and the army some breathing space, the politicians, from the violence did things change. It is exactly the same thing here.

But right now we have a dynamic on the ground that is not much different from Iraq the first 3 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It is clear that Admiral Mullen recognizes that. The new strategy in March is a counterinsurgency strategy, and Senator McCain, the one thing I remember is numbers matter. We need enough troops per population center to effect change, and we do not have the ratios to enact an effective counterinsurgency strategy unless we add more troops, and that means more than just trainers.

So my frustration is, as you said yesterday: We have seen this movie before. We are putting 68,000 troops in harm's way, and unless we properly resource them, give them more assistance, more people to help them fight, they are not going to change the battle momentum, and they are going to get killed in the process.

There is not enough people to effect the counterinsurgency strategy, just like there was not enough in Iraq. Have we learned nothing? So let's act.

Mr. President, we will support you to the nth degree to get the combat power and the trainers and the civilians into Afghanistan to turn this place around. But the sooner you act, the quicker we can do it, and the sooner we will come home and the less lives we will lose in the long run. That is our message.

We respect you. You are the Commander in Chief. You won the election. But you have an opportunity, and it is clear to me that we are losing momentum. This is not a time to deliberate. This is a time to act.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.

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