Whitehouse: The Senate Must Debate the President's Escalation Plan
Rhode Island's Junior Senator Delivers Second Floor Speech on the Iraq War
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of thousands of Rhode Islanders who have talked with me about the need for a new direction in Iraq and the need to bring our troops home.
I speak on behalf of the veterans' families who traveled here to Washington to speak to me about their memories of war and the need for this one to end.
I speak on behalf of the brave men and women serving in Iraq who have sacrificed so much and whose families anxiously await their return.
I speak on behalf of mothers I met who felt they had to buy body armor for their sons and daughters headed for Iraq because they could not trust this administration to provide what was needed.
The Senate may have been muzzled in recent days, but Rhode Islanders certainly have not been. More than 2,000 of them have reached out to my office in frustration, in anger, and in concern -- and in the hope that this new Democratic Senate will listen to them and hear them, as this administration will not.
I want to share some of what they have written me:
I was at Michael Weidemann's funeral.
Mr. President, Michael was a 23-year-old Army sergeant from Newport, killed in an IED blast in Anbar Province last November.
The letter continues:
Please, if nothing else, take care of things, so that we do not have to go through what we went through at that funeral. Michael and my son...were in the JROTC together....He is on his second tour of Iraq. Please, don't make yesterday a dress rehearsal for me. I want my son to come home, safely.
From Johnston, Rhode Island:
My son...is presently serving in Iraq and on his second tour of duty there....The President's plan ignores the American people who voted for change in November, and who continue to demand we bring our troops home....The people made their voice heard, and if the President isn't going to listen, the Democratic Congress will. The President's policies have failed!
From Portsmouth, Rhode Island:
President Bush has ignored the advice of experience, lied to us all, lacked any plan and seems to be expecting his successor to solve the problems. It is our only hope that you, as a member of Congress, can work toward bringing our troops home soon.
From Kingston:
I am appalled at the loss of life -- today it was reported 20 more service people were killed. The Kurds are deserting rather than fight in Baghdad....We are not just losing people, we are losing big money. We have seven grandchildren. What kind of debt are we placing on those future generations?
From Warwick:
We never should have begun this war, let's now have the sense to end it, not prolong it. Please do whatever you can to stop the president's initiative to increase our military presence in Iraq...., to spend even more money waging a war that your constituents have indicated they no longer support.
From North Kingstown:
We are looking to you to do whatever is in your power to stop the U.S. escalation of troops in Iraq. I and many in our nation feel this will only make a bad situation worse, widen what is essentially a civil war and lead to further casualties and costs without contributing towards a political solution....We are counting on you and your colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand up and be counted and forge a bipartisan solution to end this war.
And finally, a woman from Cumberland forwarded me a message she sent to President Bush:
My nephew...is in the 82nd Airborne serving our country in Iraq. He is the bravest person I have ever known, along with all the other men and women serving this country. I am proud to be an American! Please, please, on behalf of my family and the families of all U.S. troops -- bring them home now!
Mr. President, these voices will not be unfamiliar to anyone in this body. In every State, we have heard similar voices. You have heard them in Colorado, Mr. President. My friend, Senator Sanders, has heard them in Vermont. People all across America are speaking to all of us, and it is time for us to listen and to show that we have heard and to start to bring our soldiers home.
The President has not heard these voices. He wants to send tens of thousands more troops to Iraq. He calls this a surge. We consider it a grave mistake.
Tomorrow, our vote can stop the parliamentary maneuvers that have stalled us, and this great deliberative body can begin to debate the most pressing question of this day.
Let's talk for a moment about that question. The other side wishes to debate every question, any question -- any question but the escalation by this President of our troops in Iraq by over 21,000 men and women. But this question we want to debate is not a question selected by Democrats for political reasons. It is possible here to choose self-serving questions and to force a debate on those questions just to make a political point. But we have not done that.
This question, whether to escalate the war in Iraq, is not an invention of the Democratic Party. It is not an invention of the Senate. It is President Bush, who proposed to send tens of thousands more troops into harm's way and to escalate this conflict, who has presented this question. This question is what was presented to us by President George W. Bush, and by him alone, and it is the pressing question of today.
For weeks, we on this side of the aisle have emphasized and reemphasized our strong commitment to having a real debate -- a debate to a vote -- to telling the American people where we stand and to casting our votes on the precise question the President of the United States has presented to America. But we have been impeded, obstructed, maneuvered away from this critical question.
The other side argues that to dispute this President's judgment is to fail to support the troops -- even though that judgment has failed the troops and has failed our country and has left us with few good options. But that is a false choice, Mr. President. And this hour demands better of this institution.
There are ways to accomplish the change America demands, and that reason and good conscience dictate. For instance, I believe that rather than send a single additional American soldier into the sands and marshes of Iraq, this President can announce clearly and unequivocally that our troops will be redeployed from Iraq and will soon come home.
The most powerful motivating force at our country's disposal today is the prospect of our redeployment out of Iraq. Let me repeat that. The most powerful motivating force at our country's disposal today is the prospect of redeployment out of Iraq. Using this power wisely, deftly, and thoughtfully would accomplish three critical objectives that, as I have said, would make great strides toward security in Iraq and stability in the region.
First, a clear statement of our intent to redeploy our troops from Iraq would eliminate the sense there that we are an Army of occupation. This in turn would quiet the nationalist sentiment of the Iraqi people, now aroused against us. Many Iraqis are now so opposed to our presence they think killing American soldiers is acceptable.
Second, without America's intervening presence, the world community would have to face directly the consequences of the situation in Iraq. The prospect of our departure would compel the world to take a more active role to work together with America to bring peace and stability to the region. We cannot continue as we are now, in every meaningful way completely alone.
Third, Iraq's neighbors will be obliged to assume greater responsibility for averting the risk of a Sunni-Shiite conflict igniting in Iraq and spreading beyond Iraq's borders. Without us in Iraq as a police force for a civil war, neighboring nations will have an enlivened incentive to avert a wider war.
Finally, the Bush administration's preoccupation with Iraq leaves us weakened in our capability to address other obligations around the world, from the changing situation in North Korea, to the ongoing battle for Afghanistan, to the serious threat posed by Iran's nuclear program.
Mr. President, these are serious matters, and they deserve the serious and sustained attention of the Senate. I hope tomorrow's vote will allow us to bring this question that attention.
Mr. President, I will support that vote tomorrow. I ask other Senators, who hear our fellow Americans' genuine and sincere concern about our national interest, will do the same.
I will support not only the resolution disapproving of the President's escalation plan and supporting our troops, but also other, stronger measures that will follow, and that will continue to put pressure on this administration to finally bring our troops home.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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