Congress Leading The Way For A New Direction In Iraq
Monday, April 23, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delivered the following speech today at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Reid laid out a critique of President Bush's record and current Iraq policy; outlined a sound strategy to fund our troops, change course in Iraq and bring the war to a responsible end; and discussed the impact on U.S. security of staying the current course in Iraq. As conditions deteriorate in Iraq, Reid said, we must choose a new direction. Congress is offering a sound strategy that reflects the advice of military leaders and the will of the American people.
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Today, our House and Senate Conference Committee is meeting to hammer out the details of the bill that we will send to President Bush.
It will contain the elements I have JUST outlined :
http://reid.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=272810&This plan is a strategy for success. President Bush's response has not been to rebut our plan on the merits, but rather to attack us for developing a new plan. And
in an all too familiar tactic, he has deployed the Vice President as chief attack dog.
This is the same Vice President who said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction -- that we would be greeted as liberators -- and that we know Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda. To suggest he lacks credibility would be an understatement.
The Vice President demeans himself and diminishes his office by offering wildly irresponsible and inaccurate attacks on us and our strategy. He seems more interested in sound bites than sound policy - and his record shows it.You deserve to know the facts:
First, our strategy is a responsible, strategically-driven redeployment, not a precipitous withdrawal. Troops in harm's way will always have the resources to do the mission their leaders ask of them.
Second, it ensures that Al Qaeda remains on the run, addresses refugee and humanitarian crises, and launches the diplomatic and political "surges" necessary to prevent regional instability.
It allows us to provide the longer-term investments in the political solutions that are needed in Iraq. It prevents the jihadists from being able to claim victory over America, and begins to restore America's prestige, power and influence in the region.
In the supplemental spending bill, we are sending the Administration a strong message that the American people want a new direction. Nonetheless, I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January.
But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief - and this is his war.
We have made tremendous progress this year, but it has come with a slim majority of 51 in a body that requires 60 to do business.
That means every step forward has required the cooperation of Republicans who are willing to put partisanship aside.
But there have only been a few of them - and every day we hope to find a few more by forcing them to
make the choice of sticking with an isolated president or standing on the side of the American people.As long as the President remains obstinate and his Republican allies stick with him, we will continue to face an uphill climb. But the American people deserve to know that we hear them and we're standing up for them.
The president has had a long time to dig the ditch we're in, but we're working very hard every day to dig out of that ditch.The Iraq supplemental bill is only one step in that process, and we have used our new majority to change course at every opportunity.
We passed the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission in two months, something the previous Congress couldn't do in more than two years.
After five years of silence from Congress, Iraq is now openly debated on the Senate floor and as a result, bipartisan majorities supported two resolutions expressing our determined opposition to the President's war policy.
And we have finally administered real oversight. The founders mandated checks and balances in our Constitution for good reason, but until this year, Congress gave the president a rubber stamp and a blank check.
As Thomas Ricks wrote in his book Fiasco, a searing indictment of the Iraq war, "There were many failures in the American system that led to the war, but the failures in Congress were at once perhaps the most important and the least noticed."
No more will Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush Administration's incompetence and dishonesty.
We have already held more than 50 hearings on Iraq, we have already exposed the false and misleading evidence the administration sold the world and the American people as it swaggered toward war.We may not be able to prevent President Bush from vetoing our supplemental bill, but we can and will keep trying to change his mind.
What a shame that after five and a half years, so many lost lives and so much treasure depleted, President Bush hasn't budged from the shoot-first, talk-never style that one national magazine described as "cowboy diplomacy" -- that got us into this mess in the first place..Winning this war is no longer the job of the American military. Our courageous troops have done everything asked of them and more. They routed the Iraqi military, captured Baghdad in days, deposed and then captured the dictator.
The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential.The president has dug in his heels in this fight, but it doesn't have to be that way. Only through accommodation, on both sides, and some degree of compromise, can we make progress.
We are anxious to have that conversation, but so far the President is not. Democrats are reaching out to Republicans in Congress in hopes of bipartisan cooperation.
Only the President is the odd man out, and he is making the task even harder by demanding absolute fidelity from his party.
We don't have meetings with the President - not real, substantive meetings. He holds carefully scripted sessions where he repeats his talking points.Yes, he is our President, but we are the people's representatives. We will meet with him any time he calls upon us to discuss war policy.
But he owes it to us to listen as we represent the American people.
Our timetable is fair and reasonable. We have put our plan on the table. If the president disagrees, let him come to us with an alternative.
If he believes more time is needed, let him tell us why. If he has new benchmarks to finally hold Iraqis accountable, let him propose them. He says repeatedly that we cannot leave until we have achieved victory. Let him define victory.
Instead of sending us back to square one with a veto, some tough talk and nothing more, let him come to the table in the spirit of bipartisanship that Americans demand and deserve . . .
full text of the speech:
http://reid.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=272810&
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