"Webb Calls for Realistic Alternatives, Responsible Troop Withdrawal"

SaveElmer

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Wed May-23-07 09:22 PM
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"Webb Calls for Realistic Alternatives, Responsible Troop Withdrawal"

Washington, DC - Below are remarks delivered by Senator Webb on the Senate floor today with respect to his votes on Iraq-related amendments:

This is a very difficult time for those of us who have long known that the war in Iraq was a strategic error of monumental proportions, but who also understand the practical realities of disengagement. A majority of this country believes that we need to readjust our Iraq policy and to get our combat forces off the streets of Iraq's cities. A majority of our military believes that this Administration's approach is not working. A majority of the Congress believes that we need a new approach.

There are sound, realistic alternatives that could be pursued toward the eventual goal of removing our troops from Iraq, increasing the political stability of that war-torn region, increasing our capability to defeat the forces of international terrorism, and allowing our country to focus on larger strategic priorities that now have gone untended for too many years. Unfortunately, few of these alternatives seem to make it to the House or Senate floor, in the form that would truly impact policy.

With respect to the approaches that have been taken recently, let me first say that I am cynical about the stack of benchmarks that have appeared in recent bills, laying down a series of requirements to the Iraqi government. The reality is that the Iraqi government is a weak government. Like the Lebanese government twenty years ago, it has very little power, and it is surrounded by a multiplicity of armed factions which have overwhelming power in their concentrated areas of activity. Too often, the benchmarks that we, in our splendid isolation, decide to impose, are little more than feel-good measures, giving us the illusion that we are doing something meaningful. And just to make them more illusory, the language we send over on benchmarks and other policies such as unit readiness and length of deployment are couched with waivers, so that the President can simply ignore the language anyway. What does this do? How can we continue these actions and then claim to the American people that we're really solving the most troubling issue of our era? Some of these discussions remind me of what Mark Twain once wrote, saying that the government in Washington is like two thousand ants floating down the river on a log, each one thinking they're driving it.

Secondly, let me say that I admire the intentions in the bill that my colleague Senator Feingold introduced earlier today. However, I could not vote for that bill, because an arbitrary cutoff date for funding military operations in Iraq might actually work against the country's best interests in an environment where we have, finally seen some diplomatic efforts from this administration. Recent initiatives from Secretary of State Rice, Ambassador Crocker, and Admiral Fallon, the new commander of the Central Command, hold out the hope, if not the promise, that we might actually start to turn this thing around. Admiral Fallon has publicly stated that we must deal with Iran and Syria. Ambassador Crocker at this moment is arranging a diplomatic exchange with Iran. Secretary of State Rice has cooperated at the ministerial level in an environment where her Iranian counterpart was also at the table. And importantly, Admiral Fallon mentioned during his recent confirmation hearing that it is not the number of troops in Iraq that is important, but the uses to which they would be put. There is room for movement here, as long as the movement occurs in a timely fashion. An arbitrary cutoff date would, at this point, take away an important negotiating tool. Let's just hope that they use the tools we are providing them in an effective manner.

There is, however, one issue that demands our immediate attention, and which should not be delayed.

As we look at our options here in the Congress, I continue to firmly believe that we have a duty in an area that is not being properly addressed by this Administration, and which is in the proper purview of the Congress. When the supplemental Appropriations bill is returned to the President, it should contain language prohibiting this Administration from deploying Army units for longer than 12 months, and Marine Corps units for longer than 210 days. It should also prohibit sending any military individual overseas unless he or she has been home from a previous tour for at least as long as they were deployed. In other words, if you've been gone a year, you should be home a year before you're sent back.

This Administration has gone back to the well again and again, extending the length of military tours, and shortening the time that our soldiers and Marines are allowed to be at home before being sent, again and again and again, into Iraq and Afghanistan. Absent the gravest national emergency, there is no strategy in Iraq or elsewhere that justifies what has been happening with the deployment cycles of the men and women we are sending into harm's way. It has reached the point that the goodwill and dedication of our military people are being abused, by policy makers obsessed with various experimental strategies that are being conducted at their expense. These people have put their lives literally into the hands of our national leadership. There are limits to human endurance, and there are limits to what military families can be expected to tolerate, in the name of the national good.

For that reason, I urge our conferees to include language that will limit this policy in the bill that will be returned to the President.