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Lets not forget who was talking about timetables and benchmarks 1 year ago.
"The Path Forward"
Senator John Kerry
Georgetown University
October 26, 2005
A few weeks ago I departed Iraq from Mosul. Three Senators and staff
were gathered in the forward part of a C-130. In the middle of the
cavernous cargo hold was a simple, aluminum coffin with a small American
flag draped over it. We were bringing another American soldier, just
killed, home to his family and final resting place.
The starkness of his coffin in the center of the hold, the silence
except for the din of the engines, was a real time cold reminder of the
consequences of decisions for which we Senators share responsibility.
As we arrived in Kuwait, a larger flag was transferred to fully cover
his coffin and we joined graves registration personnel in giving him an
honor guard as he was ceremoniously carried from the plane to a waiting
truck. When the doors clunked shut, I wondered why all of America would
not be allowed to see him arrive at Dover Air Force Base instead of
hiding him from a nation that deserves to mourn together in truth and in
the light of day. His lonely journey compels all of us to come to grips
with our choices in Iraq.
Now more than 2,000 brave Americans have given their lives, and several
hundred thousand more have done everything in their power to wade
through the ongoing internal civil strife in Iraq. An Iraq which
increasingly is what it was not before the war -- a breeding ground for
homegrown terrorists and a magnet for foreign terrorists. We are
entering a make or break six month period, and I want to talk about the
steps we must take if we hope to bring our troops home within a
reasonable timeframe from an Iraq that's not permanently torn by
irrepressible conflict.
It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in
constant danger. I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I
returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so
because I believed strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives
to speak truth to power. We still do.
In fact, while some say we can't ask tough questions because we are at
war, I say no - in a time of war we must ask the hardest questions of
all. It's essential if we want to correct our course and do what's right
for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over
again. No matter what the President says, asking tough questions isn't
pessimism, it's patriotism.
Our troops have served with stunning bravery and resolve. The nobility
of their service to country can never be diminished by the mistakes of
politicians. American families who have lost, or who fear the loss, of
their loved ones deserve to know the truth about what we have asked them
to do, what we are doing to complete the mission, and what we are doing
to prevent our forces from being trapped in an endless quagmire.
Some people would rather not have that discussion. They'd rather revise
and rewrite the story of our involvement in Iraq for the history books.
Tragically, that's become standard fare from an administration that
doesn't acknowledge facts generally, whether they are provided by
scientists, whistle-blowers, journalists, military leaders, or the
common sense of every citizen. At a time when many worry that we have
become a society of moral relativists, too few worry that we have a
government of factual relativists.
Let's be straight about Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who
deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not the reason
America went to war.
The country and the Congress were misled into war. I regret that we were
not given the truth; as I said more than a year ago, knowing what we
know now, I would not have gone to war in Iraq. And knowing now the full
measure of the Bush Administration's duplicity and incompetence, I doubt
there are many members of Congress who would give them the authority
they abused so badly. I know I would not. The truth is, if the Bush
Administration had come to the United States Senate and acknowledged
there was no "slam dunk case" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction, acknowledged that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, there
never would have even been a vote to authorize the use of force -- just
as there's no vote today to invade North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or a host of
regimes we rightfully despise.
I understand that as much as we might wish it, we can't rewind the tape
of history. There is, as Robert Kennedy once said, 'enough blame to go
around,' and I accept my share of the responsibility. But the mistakes
of the past, no matter who made them, are no justification for marching
ahead into a future of miscalculations and misjudgments and the loss of
American lives with no end in sight. We each have a responsibility, to
our country and our conscience, to be honest about where we should go
from here. It is time for those of us who believe in a better course to
say so plainly and unequivocally.
We are where we are. The President's flippant "bring it on" taunt to the
insurgents has found a meaning beyond his wildest expectations, a
painful reality for troops who went for too long without protective
armor. We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less
secure, and the mission the President once declared accomplished remains
perilously incomplete.
To set a new course, we must be strong, smart, and honest. As we learned
painfully during the Vietnam War, no president can sustain a war without
the support of the American people. In the case of Iraq, their patience
is frayed and nearly to the breaking point because Americans will not
tolerate our troops giving their lives without a clear strategy, and
will not tolerate vague platitudes or rosy scenarios when real answers
are urgently needed.
It's time for leaders to be honest that if we do not change course,
there is the prospect of indefinite, even endless conflict - a fate
untenable for our troops, and a future unacceptable to the American
people and the Iraqis who pray for the day when a stable Iraq will
belong to Iraqis alone.
The path forward will not be easy. The administration's incompetence and
unwillingness to listen has made the task that much harder, and reduced
what we can expect to accomplish. But there is a way forward that gives
us the best chance both to salvage a difficult situation in Iraq, and to
save American and Iraqi lives. With so much at stake, we must follow it.
We must begin by acknowledging that our options in Iraq today are not
what they should be, or could have been.
The reason is simple. This Administration hitched their wagon to
ideologues, excluding those who dared to tell the truth, even leaders of
their own party and the uniformed military.
When after September 11th, flags flew from porches across America and
foreign newspaper headlines proclaimed "We're all Americans now," the
Administration could have kept the world united, but they chose not to.
And they were wrong. Instead, they pushed allies away, isolated America,
and lost leverage we desperately need today.
When they could have demanded and relied on accurate instead of
manipulated intelligence, they chose not to. They were wrong - and
instead they sacrificed our credibility at home and abroad.
When they could have given the inspectors time to discover whether
Saddam Hussein actually had weapons of mass destruction, when they could
have paid attention to Ambassador Wilson's report, they chose not to.
And they were wrong. Instead they attacked him, and they attacked his
wife to justify attacking Iraq. We don't know yet whether this will
prove to be an indictable offense in a court of law, but for it, and for
misleading a nation into war, they will be indicted in the high court of
history. History will judge the invasion of Iraq one of the greatest
foreign policy misadventures of all time.
But the mistakes were not limited to the decision to invade. They
mounted, one upon another.
When they could have listened to General Shinseki and put in enough
troops to maintain order, they chose not to. They were wrong. When they
could have learned from George Herbert Walker Bush and built a genuine
global coalition, they chose not to. They were wrong. When they could
have implemented a detailed State Department plan for reconstructing
post-Saddam Iraq, they chose not to. And they were wrong again. When
they could have protected American forces by guarding Saddam Hussein's
ammo dumps where there were weapons of individual destruction, they
exposed our young men and women to the ammo that now maims and kills
them because they chose not to act. And they were wrong. When they could
have imposed immediate order and structure in Baghdad after the fall of
Saddam, Rumsfeld shrugged his shoulders, said Baghdad was safer than
Washington, D.C. and chose not to act. He was wrong. When the
Administration could have kept an Iraqi army selectively intact, they
chose not to. They were wrong. When they could have kept an entire civil
structure functioning to deliver basic services to Iraqi citizens, they
chose not to. They were wrong. When they could have accepted the offers
of the United Nations and individual countries to provide on the ground
peacekeepers and reconstruction assistance, they chose not to. They were
wrong. When they should have leveled with the American people that the
insurgency had grown, they chose not to. Vice President Cheney even
absurdly claimed that the "insurgency was in its last throes." He was
wrong.
Now after all these mistakes, the Administration accuses anyone who
proposes a better course of wanting to cut and run. But we are in
trouble today precisely because of a policy of cut and run. This
administration made the wrong choice to cut and run from sound
intelligence and good diplomacy; to cut and run from the best military
advice; to cut and run from sensible war time planning; to cut and run
from their responsibility to properly arm and protect our troops; to cut
and run from history's lessons about the Middle East; to cut and run
from common sense.
And still today they cut and run from the truth.
This difficult road traveled demands the unvarnished truth about the
road ahead.
To those who suggest we should withdraw all troops immediately - I say
No. A precipitous withdrawal would invite civil and regional chaos and
endanger our own security. But to those who rely on the overly
simplistic phrase "we will stay as long as it takes," who pretend this
is primarily a war against Al Qaeda, and who offer halting, sporadic,
diplomatic engagement, I also say - No, that will only lead us into a
quagmire.
The way forward in Iraq is not to pull out precipitously or merely
promise to stay "as long as it takes." To undermine the insurgency, we
must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the
withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible
benchmarks. At the first benchmark, the completion of the December
elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by
withdrawing 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays.
The Administration must immediately give Congress and the American
people a detailed plan for the transfer of military and police
responsibilities on a sector by sector basis to Iraqis so the majority
of our combat forces can be withdrawn. No more shell games, no more
false reports of progress, but specific and measurable goals.
It is true that our soldiers increasingly fight side by side with Iraqis
willing to put their lives on the line for a better future. But history
shows that guns alone do not end an insurgency. The real struggle in
Iraq - Sunni versus Shiia - will only be settled by a political
solution, and no political solution can be achieved when the antagonists
can rely on the indefinite large scale presence of occupying American
combat troops.
In fact, because we failed to take advantage of the momentum of our
military victory, because we failed to deliver services and let Iraqis
choose their leaders early on, our military presence in vast and visible
numbers has become part of the problem, not the solution.
And our generals understand this. General George Casey, our top military
commander in Iraq, recently told Congress that our large military
presence "feeds the notion of occupation" and "extends the amount of
time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become
self-reliant." And Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird,
breaking a thirty year silence, writes, ''Our presence is what feeds the
insurgency, and our gradual withdrawal would feed the confidence and the
ability of average Iraqis to stand up to the insurgency." No wonder the
Sovereignty Committee of the Iraqi Parliament is already asking for a
timetable for withdrawal of our troops; without this, Iraqis believe
Iraq will never be its own country.
We must move aggressively to reduce popular support for the insurgency
fed by the perception of American occupation. An open-ended declaration
to stay 'as long as it takes' lets Iraqi factions maneuver for their own
political advantage by making us stay as long as they want, and it
becomes an excuse for billions of American tax dollars to be sent to
Iraq and siphoned off into the coffers of cronyism and corruption.
It will be hard for this Administration, but it is essential to
acknowledge that the insurgency will not be defeated unless our troop
levels are drawn down, starting immediately after successful elections
in December. The draw down of troops should be tied not to an arbitrary
timetable, but to a specific timetable for transfer of political and
security responsibility to Iraqis and realignment of our troop
deployment. That timetable must be real and strict. The goal should be
to withdraw the bulk of American combat forces by the end of next year.
If the Administration does its work correctly, that is achievable.
Our strategy must achieve a political solution that deprives the
Sunni-dominated insurgency of support by giving the Sunnis a stake in
the future of their country. The Constitution, opposed by more than two
thirds of Sunnis, has postponed and even exacerbated the fundamental
crisis of Iraq. The Sunnis want a strong secular national government
that fairly distributes oil revenues. Shiites want to control their own
region and resources in a loosely united Islamic state. And Kurds simply
want to be left alone. Until sufficient compromise is hammered out, a
Sunni base can not be created that isolates the hard core Baathists and
jihaadists and defuses the insurgency.
The Administration must use all of the leverage in America's arsenal -
our diplomacy, the presence of our troops, and our reconstruction money
-- to convince Shiites and Kurds to address legitimate Sunni concerns
and to make Sunnis accept the reality that they will no longer dominate
Iraq. We cannot and should not do this alone.
The Administration must bring to the table the full weight of all of
Iraq's Sunni neighbors. They also have a large stake in a stable Iraq.
Instead of just telling us that Iraq is falling apart, as the Saudi
foreign minister did recently, they must do their part to put it back
together. We've proven ourselves to be a strong ally to many nations in
the region. Now it's their turn to do their part.
The administration must immediately call a conference of Iraq's
neighbors, Britain, Turkey and other key NATO allies, and Russia. All of
these countries have influence and ties to various parties in Iraq.
Together, we must implement a collective strategy to bring the parties
in Iraq to a sustainable political compromise. This must include
obtaining mutual security guarantees among Iraqis themselves. Shiite and
Kurdish leaders need to make a commitment not to perpetrate a bloodbath
against Sunnis in the post-election period. In turn, Sunni leaders must
end support for the insurgents, including those who are targeting
Shiites. And the Kurds must explicitly commit themselves not to declare
independence.
To enlist the support of Iraq's Sunni neighbors, we should commit to a
new regional security structure that strengthens the security of the
countries in the region and the wider community of nations. This
requires a phased process including improved security assistance
programs, joint exercises, and participation by countries both outside
and within the Middle East.
Ambassador Khalilzad is doing a terrific job trying broker a better deal
between the Iraqi parties. But he can't do it alone. The President
should immediately appoint a high level envoy to maximize our diplomacy
in Iraq and the region.
Showing Sunnis the benefits that await them if they continue to
participate in the process of building Iraq can go a long way toward
achieving stability. We should press these countries to set up a
reconstruction fund specifically for the majority Sunni areas. It's time
for them to deliver on their commitments to provide funds to Iraq. Even
short-term improvements, like providing electricity and supplying diesel
fuel - an offer that the Saudis have made but have yet to fulfill - can
make a real difference.
We need to jump start our own lagging reconstruction efforts by
providing the necessary civilian personnel to do the job, standing up
civil-military reconstruction teams throughout the country, streamlining
the disbursement of funds to the provinces so they can deliver services,
expanding job creation programs, and strengthening the capacity of
government ministries.
We must make it clear now that we do not want permanent military bases
in Iraq, or a large combat force on Iraqi soil indefinitely. And as we
withdraw our combat troops, we should be prepared to keep a
substantially reduced level of American forces in Iraq, at the request
of the Iraqi government, for the purpose of training their security
forces. Some combat ready American troops will still be needed to
safeguard the Americans engaged in that training, but they should be
there to do that and to provide a back stop to Iraqi efforts, not to do
the fighting for Iraqis.
Simultaneously, the President needs to put the training of Iraqi
security forces on a six month wartime footing and ensure that the Iraqi
government has the budget to deploy them. The Administration must stop
using the requirement that troops be trained in-country as an excuse for
refusing offers made by Egypt, Jordan, France and Germany to do more.
This week, long standing suspicions of Syrian complicity in
destabilizing Lebanon were laid bare by the community of nations. And we
know Syria has failed to take the aggressive steps necessary to stop
former Baathists and foreign fighters from using its territory as a
transit route into Iraq. The Administration must prod the new Iraqi
government to ask for a multinational force to help protect Iraq's
borders until a capable national army is formed. Such a force, if
sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, could attract
participation by Iraq's neighbors and countries like India and would be
a critical step in stemming the tide of insurgents and money into Iraq.
Finally, and without delay, we must fundamentally alter the deployment
of American troops. While Special Operations must continue to pursue
specific intelligence leads, the vast majority of our own troops should
be in rear guard, garrisoned status for security backup. We do not need
to send young Americans on search and destroy missions that invite
alienation and deepen the risks they face. Iraqis should police Iraqis.
Iraqis should search Iraqi homes. Iraqis should stand up for Iraq.
We will never be as safe as we should be if Iraq continues to distract
us from the most important war we must win - the war on Osama bin Laden,
Al Qaeda, and the terrorists that are resurfacing even in Afghanistan.
These are the make or break months for Iraq. The President must take a
new course, and hold Iraqis accountable. If the President still refuses,
Congress must insist on a change in policy. If we do take these steps,
there is no reason this difficult process can not be completed in 12-15
months. There is no reason Iraq cannot be sufficiently stable, no reason
the majority of our combat troops can't soon be on their way home, and
no reason we can't take on a new role in Iraq, as an ally not an
occupier, training Iraqis to defend themselves. Only then will we have
provided leadership equal to our soldiers' sacrifice - and that is what
they deserve.
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