Mrs. Murray: Mr. President, I am here to speak on the floor today because American lives, American security, and America's future are on the line in Iraq. The American people know it. They sent a clear message last November. The Iraq Study Group has told us. They gave us honest assessments and recommendations to move forward in Iraq.
Generals have spoken out. General Casey told us in January:
The longer we in the U.S. Forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq's security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to make the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias.
General Abizaid told us in November:
I do not believe that more American troops right now is the solution to the problem.
Colin Powell has talked about it. He said:
I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purpose of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work.
The numbers speak for themselves. More than 3,300 Americans have died in Iraq and nearly 25,000 have been wounded. A few days ago, 9 more U.S. soldiers were killed in a bombing, and 20 more U.S. troops and an Iraqi soldier were injured.
Americans have heard the military experts, they have heard the Iraq Study Group, they have seen the sacrifice of our troops and their families, and now they are demanding a change in course. But, sadly, the President refuses to listen. He is ignoring the military experts, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and the American people.
It is clear the Iraqi civil war requires a political solution, not a military solution. Our servicemembers have done everything we have asked them to do. They deserve better than to be stuck in the middle of a civil war.
Four years into this war--starting the fifth year--the President is still tossing around heated rhetoric while trying to convince the American people that Democrats do not support the troops. I reject that rhetoric, and I call on him to put politics aside and begin to put our troops first. We can all agree, it is long past time for that.
Now is the time to show our troops we support them with the funds and supplies and armor they need but that we also support them enough to change direction when the current course simply is not working.
Now is the time to show our troops we respect our military, and we refuse to decimate the world's finest fighting forces through extended deployments, limited time at home, and the destruction of valuable equipment in another country's civil war.
Now is the time to show our troops their lives mean more than an open-ended commitment to an Iraqi Government that has repeatedly failed to meet deadlines and take ownership for their own future.
Now is the time to show our troops we understand that America needs them, not in the middle of an Iraqi civil war but in places such as Afghanistan, where al-Qaida is growing in strength.
And now is the time to show our troops their Government is about more than promises and rhetoric. We must stand together to say we will meet the needs of our injured servicemembers and our veterans who have paid the price for this administration's failure to plan for the war and its aftermath.
Congress is moving forward now to pass a supplemental bill that shows our troops they come first. All the President has to do is sign on the dotted line. Unfortunately, because the Bush administration failed to plan and failed to understand the centuries' old tensions in this region, we now, more than ever, need a political and diplomatic solution in Iraq.
As the past 2 months have brutally revealed, the escalation is not working. The civil war has intensified and our troops are stuck in the middle of sectarian violence and find themselves the target of insurgent attacks. It is hard to argue that the situation on the ground--both for our troops and for Iraqis--has gotten better.
Last Wednesday, the New York Times reported:
Bombs ripped through the streets of Baghdad killing at least 171 people in the deadliest day in the capital since the American-led security plan for the city took effect two months ago.
Two days ago, the Boston Globe noted:
The deaths raised to 85 the number of U.S. servicemembers who died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for American troops since December, when 112 died.
According to the Associated Press:
Outside the capital, 1,504 civilians were killed between Feb. 14 and Thursday, April 12 compared with 1,009 deaths during the two previous months.
It is time to transition our mission in Iraq from that of policing a civil war. Our troops are trained for combat, not for refereeing warring factions with a long and complex history. It is time to focus on strengthening America's security and bringing our troops home.
Transitioning the mission should center on three realistic and achievable goals for our military: Training and equipping Iraqi security forces, conducting targeted counterterrorism operations, and protecting our remaining U.S. forces and interests in Iraq.
The second part of the equation is a surge in diplomatic and political efforts. This is a necessary task the President has refused to undertake. America alone does not own the keys to Iraq's future. Iraq's neighbors must help as well. They should play a larger role in training the Iraqi military and police and in reconstruction. They should play a larger role in convincing Iraqis they must make compromises and take responsibility for their future. Without a targeted and serious regional effort to stabilize Iraq, the country's future will remain in question.
The cause of continued insecurity and destruction has not been our military, but, rather, the political and policy failures of a President who has hid in his bunker and stubbornly refused to pursue a strategy needed to bring stability to Iraq.
As we all saw vividly in November, the American people have lost patience with the President's go-it-alone strategy. It is simply wrongheaded to continue on with an open-ended commitment to an Iraqi Government that has repeatedly failed to meet deadlines and to take responsibility for their own country.
The supplemental bill we will send to the White House requires the President to send a report to Congress by July 1 of this year certifying whether Iraq is meeting responsible benchmarks. The American people deserve to know if the sacrifices made by our troops are being met by the Iraqi Government.
Specifically, the American people deserve to know if the Iraqi Government has given U.S. and Iraqi security forces the authority to pursue all extremists, including the Sunni insurgents and the Shia militias.
The American people deserve to know if Iraq is making substantial progress in delivering necessary Iraqi security forces for Baghdad and protecting those forces from political interference.
We deserve to know if Iraq is intensifying efforts to build balanced security forces throughout Iraq that provide evenhanded security for all Iraqis.
Specifically, we deserve to know if the Iraqi Government is making substantial progress in meeting reconciliation initiatives, including enacting laws to equitably share oil revenue among all Iraqi regions, whether they are adopting laws for provincial and local elections, whether they are reforming their laws banning members of the Baath party from public service, and whether they are shouldering the cost of reconstruction through allocation of oil revenue.
Those are reasonable benchmarks Americans should require of Iraq if we are asking our young Americans to put their lives on the line. That is why Congress is about to send this supplemental request to the White House with language that begins the phased redeployment of our troops no later than October 1 of this year, with a goal of removing all combat forces by April 1, 2008--with the exception of those who will remain to train and equip Iraqi security forces, to continue targeted counterterrorist operations, and to protect our remaining U.S. forces.
From sending our troops to war without critical armor, to housing them in squalor at Walter Reid, to leaving them to fend for themselves when they need mental health care, the Bush administration has utterly failed our servicemembers, our veterans, and their families.
As we rightfully change the mission of our troops in Iraq and prepare to redeploy, we cannot--and we must not--forget about our veterans when they come home. Nowhere is that failure more apparent than in the handling of what will one day become known as the signature wound of this war: traumatic brain injury. It is now estimated that 10 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have suffered traumatic brain injury during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the biggest problems with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is that it is an unseen wound. Often, because of that, it is misdiagnosed. In too many cases today, unless a servicemember is involved in an IED incident and is bleeding, he or she is not documented as even having been involved in that explosion, if he was 100 yards away or 200 yards away. So as a result, the actual number of OIF and OEF veterans with TBI could be even much higher than the statistics today even indicate.
Now, I know many of us are familiar with ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff's experience with traumatic brain injury. I personally was moved by Bob's struggle with his injury. His family had unrelenting hope for his recovery, and their ongoing work toward triumph was so apparent throughout this horrible situation. Bob Woodruff has seen a tremendous recovery from his horrendous injury, but I fear the care he received has not been duplicated today for thousands of other troops with similar injuries when they have returned home.
He detailed for us several cases of soldiers who were suffering from injuries, not unlike his own, and the lack of care they received when they left flagship care centers for our smaller, local hospitals.
Our wounded warriors and our veterans have faced massive budget shortfalls. They have faced horribly long waiting lines and sickening hospital conditions. But this administration continues to be reactive to this problem to this day. It is time for that posture to end. Taking care of our troops, taking care of our veterans, taking care of their families has to be a part of the cost of this war.
When it comes to caring for our troops and our veterans, this administration--from the White House, to the Pentagon, to the Department of Veterans Affairs--has consistently waited until conditions reached a critical stage before taking action to remedy them.
In this supplemental conference report we are sending to the President, Congress is saying: Enough is enough. We are finally providing more funding for our troops than even the President himself has sought. The bill we are sending includes over $100 billion for the Department of Defense, which I should note is nearly $4 billion more than the President's request for our troops. We provide critical funding for vehicles that will help our troops be protected from these horrible IEDs.
This military has also been brought to the brink by a President who has, time and again, extended their tours and called upon our National Guard and Reserve to join combat brigades in Iraq. This supplemental bill will rebuild our overburdened military and calls for an end to the deployment of nonbattle-ready troops. It provides $1.8 billion for the VA to provide first class health care to our wounded and $2.5 billion for military health care.
For the last 4 years, this administration has conducted this war with little regard for the tremendous strains it is placing on the VA, on our veterans, and their families. Today, we are putting an end to their neglect. The days of ignoring our wounded warriors as a cost of this war are over.
As the President acknowledged in a speech last September, our terrorist enemies are more dangerous than ever. On that point, the President is correct. Unfortunately, he fails to acknowledge that terrorists are rapidly growing and gathering strength outside of Iraq, and he fails to acknowledge that having our forces in the middle of a civil war is making Iraq sap our ability to combat terrorism in other parts of the globe. It is clear that terrorist cells with heavy anti- American bents are gaining power and continue to grow in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. If we turn a blind eye to those anti-American cells and focus only on Iraq, the consequences for America's future security are dire. By redeploying our forces, we can reconcentrate on the war on terror. We can devote our resources toward pursuing those who would do America harm.
As we deal with the situation overseas, we cannot neglect our needs at home. That is why the supplemental bill provides $1.8 billion for veterans health care; $20 million to repair Walter Reed Hospital; $6.9 billion to repair the gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina, long past due; $650 million for the SCHIP children's health program; and $2.25 billion to secure our homeland, a vital need--securing our ports and borders, transit security, screening for explosives at airports--vital needs that are included in this bill.
Somehow the White House is claiming that all of those investments are unnecessary. I think most Americans would disagree. I know most Americans want us to take care of our citizens at home.
In recent weeks we have heard some false claims about the supplemental that I want to take a moment to correct. First of all, we are moving this bill to the President at a rapid pace. In fact, we are moving even faster than the Republicans did last year and the year before that.
Secondly, we are doing our job in meeting the needs at home. Anyone who thinks that domestic needs should be ignored in an emergency supplemental ought to look at the last four supplementals, all written and passed by a Republican Congress signed by a Republican President.
The emergency supplementals approved by Republican Congresses in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 included funding for domestic needs. Interestingly, during those years, the President never complained about domestic funding in supplementals.
As our Government spends billions in Iraq, I believe it is our job to also meet our needs at home. If the President vetoes this bill, he is going to have to explain to the American people why he is delaying funding to our troops overseas, why he is blocking funding to care for our injured troops, why he is ignoring the will of military experts, the Iraq Study Group, and the American people. He is going to have to explain why he is ignoring the needs of our hard-hit communities that are struggling to recover and why he is standing in the way of security needs at home that are so critical.
Congress has agreed to a supplemental bill that shows our troops they come first. The President has repeatedly reminded Congress that he is the Commander in Chief and he is the one with the authority to make the military and policy decisions that impact not only our troops and veterans but the well-being of our gulf coast, our borders, and the future of America's security. The President is alone in his bunker. If he truly cares about getting this funding to our troops as soon as possible and providing them with the supplies and the health care and direction they deserve, he will quickly sign this bipartisan supplemental bill.
Mr. President, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is just a short distance from Capitol Hill, but if the President vetoes this sensible legislation to give our troops a successful path forward in Iraq, then he is miles away from the will of the American people whom he serves.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The Acting President pro tempore: The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized. Only 1 minute remains on the Democratic side.
