Ms. Stabenow: Mr. President, I rise this evening being greatly disturbed by what happened on the floor of the Senate, after a tremendous amount of good-faith effort and very hard work by our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, bringing together a resolution to offer to this body for a debate, for a full debate on the question of escalating the war in Iraq. What we have seen from the minority is a filibuster that has stopped us from even proceeding--from even proceeding to be able to take up the resolution.
Our majority leader offered to take up other resolutions, some contradicting the one that we wished to have brought forward, to have equally debated resolutions, the same amount of time, the same amount of votes that are needed in order to be able to bring forward the resolutions and possibly pass them.
Every effort by the majority leader was turned down. Every time he brought up a possible solution to be able to bring forward these resolutions and have a full debate, which the American people are demanding that we do, he was told "no." No, no, no. So we are now in a situation where the minority has voted down the ability for us to even go to a resolution or multiple resolutions dealing with the issue of Iraq, which we are all so deeply concerned about.
Right now it is after midnight in Baghdad, and we have over 130,000 American troops who are settled in for another long night half a world away from home. They are living, working, fighting in the most difficult conditions anyone can imagine. They are patrolling crowded streets. They are standing guard on lonely posts. They are reaching out to Iraqi citizens and putting themselves constantly in harm's way to protect their fellow soldiers. They are there because their Government called them. They come from every corner of this great Nation. They represent every color, creed, religion, and political voice in this country.
I have been to Iraq--many of us have--and I have talked to our men and women in the field and they are the best this country has to offer. For our entire history, they have answered when called. They have gone where we sent them. They have fought when we have asked them to do so. They have dedicated their lives to preparing for wars they did not want, and when asked, they have executed their training with pride, bravery, and an unwavering spirit.
We are blessed this evening to sleep under the blanket of freedom they provide. And no one--no one in this Chamber--is questioning the job they are doing. We are all patriots in this debate--all of us--with differing views, strongly held views about the best way to move forward. We are all patriots.
I have listened intently over the past weeks, and I have heard colleagues and representatives of the administration state time and again that those of us questioning the President are somehow undermining the morale of our troops. I find that insulting, not only to me and to my colleagues who care deeply about this and who have worked together in a bipartisan way to bring forward this resolution but to our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, and marines. Open and honest debate about the execution of this war is not only what our armed services expect, it is what they deserve. Our citizen soldiers demand our best, and our best is not idle silence. Our best is not a filibuster that stops a resolution from even coming to the floor so that we can have an open, honest debate about it. Our citizen soldiers are on the frontlines. In this Chamber, we use words, but those words have real-world consequences, and no one lives those consequences more than our troops on the ground. Debate in a democracy does not undermine the morale or the will of our armed services. The lack of a clear, measurable, and achievable mission does undermine what they are doing. That is what we are all wanting to see happen. That is what we want to see developed for them.
They need to know that their leaders have based their orders on reason, not on wishful thinking and on a misguided adherence to a failed strategy. They need to know that their leaders have sensibly considered all of the options available and that those considerations are grounded in fact, not in rhetoric or posturing.
On October 11, 2002, 23 of us in the Senate cast a lonely vote against this White House effort to go to war because the evidence was not clear enough--it just wasn't there--to warrant going to war. I cast that vote because I believed that the pretense for war was based not in definable evidence but on predetermined conclusions. War is a tool of last resort, a decision that should be made with great trepidation when our country is at risk and other options have been exhausted.
From day one, the reasoning for this war has been unclear and inconsistent, from the initial lack of preparedness for securing Baghdad to the most recent call for escalation. We have seen a strategy based on the best-case scenario calculations of politicians, not on the wholly realistic conclusions of career military officers. Mistakes have been made at every turn, and 4 years and over 3,000 American lives later and hundreds of thousands of lost lives and injuries of Iraqis, we are still paying the price.
Some have insisted this resolution is a ploy to embarrass the President. This is clearly not our goal. This is not a discussion about politics. It is a debate about policy. Any soldier will tell you there are no politics in a foxhole. The American people, Republicans and Democrats, are asking us to look long and hard at what we are doing in Iraq. We were not elected to stand silently by while our fellow citizens demand answers.
We can't even have a full debate because of the vote that happened. The American people are asking us not only to debate but to come to the right answers, the responsible answers for the direction and strategy in Iraq. Our soldiers deserve that, and we have in front of us a resolution that we couldn't even get enough votes to bring up to discuss, to debate it fully and have a vote. I believe the simple fact is very clear that escalation is not the answer, and I want the opportunity to vote on that, to say that on behalf of the people of Michigan. Putting more Americans in harm's way will not bring our men and women home any sooner. Why would we go further down the path that has led us to this point? Why would we repeat our previous mistakes and call it a new strategy?
A free and stable Iraq can only be secured by the Iraqis. They must embrace responsibility for their collective future and decide that living and dying at the hands of sectarian violence is not the future they want for their children and their grandchildren. We must support their efforts--and I do--but we cannot substitute American troops for Iraqi resolve. With the freedom of self-determination comes the responsibility of collective security.
We must continue to train our friends in Iraq. We must equip them and provide sensible military support based on the advice of our generals and military experts. We must lead them by example, by embracing the realities of our own democratic process as we attempt to collectively solve the challenges in the war in Iraq. How can we be talking to them about the democratic process when that process is stopped right here in the Senate in the ability to openly debate and vote on the resolution?
I stand in support of the Warner-Levin resolution and to say that escalation is a grave mistake. I am certain when judged by our fellow Americans, the votes that many Members will cast, if we have the opportunity to do so, to say "enough is enough" to this White House will be greeted with sober support.
With heaviness in my heart, I am also sadly confident that when judged by history, those who have questioned the reasoning and the execution of this war will have our concerns justified.
We can't change how we got here. We can't change the fact we are in Iraq. That chapter of history is written, set in stone, and paid for with the lives of Americans and Iraqis, and the lives of many other individuals around the world. However, we can learn from the path we have walked. We have the ability to reassess and to change course, to get it right, to put forward our collective best wisdom from everyone who has been involved. On behalf of our soldiers, they deserve that. They deserve a full debate in the Senate, to be able to state our positions on policy, on policy that right now at this moment they are carrying out in Iraq. They deserve the very best debate and very best decisions.
That is what this is about. That is what we were hoping to get tonight, the opportunity to go forward, to work together in a bipartisan way to put forward a statement that says we believe there is a better way, a better strategy than what the President has begun to execute.
I hope we will have an opportunity to vote on this resolution. I welcome other resolutions that colleagues have put forward in good faith. I may not agree with them--and that is all right; that is how the process works--but they deserve debate just as our resolutions deserve debate.
In Iraq, we are talking about their setting up a democracy, the ability to fully debate and participate in their government. We need to show by example that we are not afraid of debate, of involvement, we are not afraid to stand and say what we think and put our own vote and opinions on the line on something so critical to the future of our country, most particularly to our men and women in the armed services and their families, and, frankly, to the world.
We need the opportunity to vote. We need the opportunity to debate. The American people are calling on the Senate to do nothing less. Tonight was not an example of our listening.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The Presiding Officer: The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. Sanders: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The Presiding Officer (Mr. Whitehouse): Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. Sanders: Mr. President, in my home State of Vermont and all across this country, the American people are deeply concerned about the war in Iraq. They want real debate here in Washington on this issue and, more importantly, they want real action.
Frankly, I have a hard time understanding why some of my colleagues, regardless of what their position on the war might be, would try to prevent a vote on what is at best a very modest proposal that was brought forth this afternoon. If you like the Warner bill, you should vote for it. If you do not like it, you should vote against it. But in fairness to the American people, we should have a serious debate and a vote on this issue.
Let me be very clear in giving you my perspective on this war. In my view, President Bush's war in Iraq has been a disaster. It is a war we were misled into and a war many of us believed we never should have gotten into in the first place.
This is a war which the administration was unprepared to fight. The administration has shown little understanding of the enemy or the historical context or the cultural context in which we found ourselves. Who will forget President Bush declaring "mission accomplished" aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln when, in fact, the mission had barely begun? Who will forget Vice President Cheney telling us that the insurgency was in its "last throes," just before some of the bloodiest months of the war took place? Who will ever forget those Bush advisers who predicted that the war would be a cakewalk--nothing to worry about--and that we would be greeted in Iraq as liberators?
This war in Iraq has come at a very, very high price in so many ways. This is a war which has cost us terribly in American blood. As of today, we have lost some 3,100 brave American soldiers, twenty-three thousand more have been wounded, and tens of thousands will come home with post-traumatic stress disorder.
This is a war which, with the President's proposed increase, will cost us some $500 billion, with the price tag going up by $8 billion every single month. This cost is going to add to the huge national debt we are already leaving to our children and grandchildren. And it is going to make it more difficult for us to fund health care, education, environmental protection, affordable housing, childcare, and the pressing needs of the middle class and working families of our country, not to mention the needs of our veterans, whose numbers are rapidly increasing as a result of this war.
This is a war which has caused unimaginable horror for the people of Iraq. People who had suffered so long under the brutality of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship are suffering even more today. There are estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or wounded and almost 2 million have been forced to flee their country--some 8 percent of their population.
While civil war tears neighborhoods apart, children are without schools, and the Iraqi people lack electricity, health care, and other basic necessities of life. The doctors and nurses, teachers and administrators who have provided the professional infrastructure for the people of Iraq are now long gone.
This is a war which has lowered our standing in the international community to an all-time low in our lifetimes, with leaders in democratic countries hesitant to work with us because of the lack of respect their citizens have for our President. Long-time friends and allies are simply wondering what is going on in the United States today. This is a war which has stretched our active-duty military to the breaking point, as well as our National Guard and Reserve forces. Morale in the military is low, and this war will have lasting impacts on the future recruitment, retention, and readiness of our Nation's military. This is a war which has in many respects lowered our capability to effectively fight the very serious threats of international terrorism and Islamic extremism.
Five years after the horrific attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden remains free. Using the presence of United States troops in Iraq as their rallying call, al-Qaida's strength around the world continues to grow and the situation in Afghanistan is currently becoming more and more difficult.
Tragically, this administration has refused to listen to the American people who, in this last election, made it very clear that they want a new direction in Iraq, and they want this war wound down, not escalated.
This administration has refused to listen to the thoughtful suggestions of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which included two former Secretaries of State, including President Bush's own father's Secretary of State, as well as a former Presidential chief of staff and a former Secretary of Defense, that it was time for a change in direction. This administration has refused to listen to the advice of our military leaders in Iraq who told us that increasing troops from the United States would make it easier for the Iraqi Government and military to avoid their political and military responsibilities.
This administration has refused to listen to the Iraqi people who, according to a number of polls, have told us very strongly that they believe, in the midst of all of the horror and turmoil and violence within their country, that they would be safer and more secure if our troops left their country.
In fact, this administration has tragically refused to listen to almost anybody except that same shrinking inner circle, led by the Vice President, who has consistently been wrong on this issue from day one.
As most everybody understands and as the recent National Intelligence Estimate has confirmed, the situation today in Iraq is extremely dire. The sad truth is there are now no good options before us; there are simply less bad options. In Iraq today, according to Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, there are now at least four separate wars being fought, wars that our soldiers who have fought with incredible bravery and skill find themselves in the middle of.
Let me quote Secretary Gates, who has recently stated:
I believe there are essentially four wars going on in Iraq. One is Shia on Shia, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Baghdad but not solely. Third is the insurgency, and fourth is Al Queda.
The reality today, as described by the Secretary of Defense, has nothing to do with why President Bush got us into this war in the first place. In March of 2002, he told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they were poised to use those weapons against us. That was not true and certainly has no relevance to the war today. In 2002, the President told us Iraq was somehow linked to al-Qaida and bore some responsibility for the horrific 9/11 attack against our country. That also turned out not to be true and has no relevance to the situation we find ourselves in today.
In the 2006 elections, the American people, in a loud and unmistakable voice, told us they no longer had confidence in the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. In my view, they told us they wanted Congress to begin asserting its constitutional authority over this war, and they wanted us to rein in the administration. Most importantly, they told us they wanted us to begin the process of bringing our troops home as soon as possible. And as a Vermont Senator, that is exactly the effort I intend to make.
In my view, the Warner resolution is far too weak. It is a baby step forward. Whether it is passed or not, it must be followed with much stronger legislation, legislation that has real teeth. Instead of just voicing our disapproval of President Bush's escalation of the war with a nonbinding resolution, we should now be considering legislation that provides for the safe and orderly redeployment of virtually all of our troops out of Iraq within the next year, even as we continue to give support to the Iraq Government and their military for the purpose of helping them accept their political and military responsibilities. That is the legislation we should be debating. That is the legislation we should be passing.
How can we accomplish this withdrawal and redeployment? Regardless of what happens with the nonbinding Warner bill, in the very near future we must bring forth legislation on to the floor of the Senate that would prohibit the use of funds for an escalation of United States military forces without a specific new authorization from the Congress. Secondly, we must consider legislation to require a schedule for the return home of a majority of American forces and the redeployment of the rest of the American forces from Iraq to other places. Finally, we must vote against any additional funding to increase troop levels. In addition, we must set conditions in any future funding bill so that the President is obliged to begin winding down this war.
We are mired in a war that has gone on longer than American involvement in either the First World War or the Second World War. We will spend more money on this war in real dollars than we spent on either the Korean war or the war in Vietnam. Our standing in the international community has declined, and our ability to combat international terrorism has been seriously compromised. It is time to say no to this ill-conceived escalation. It is time to deploy our troops out of harm's way. It is time to end this war.
