The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
In light of the recent debate over the direction of US policy in
Iraq, and specifically comments made yesterday by the head of the
Republican National Committee, I am writing to re-emphasize how
important it is to our servicemen and women, and to the American
public, that you lay out a coherent strategy for US military engagement
in Iraq. I urge you to use your State of the Union Address, at the
latest, to put forth such a plan. This strategy should contain a
series of specific objectives and benchmarks that are tied to a
public, flexible timetable for meeting those benchmarks, completing
our military mission, and withdrawing our troops. Unfortunately,
your “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" fails to
do this.
I introduced a resolution in June calling for such a flexible timetable
and have spent much of the past six months, along with an increasing
number of members of Congress, military and intelligence experts,
and members of the public, repeating that call. I am therefore surprised
and disappointed that the head of the Republican National Committee
yesterday suggested that I actually agree with your Iraq plan. Allow
me to set the record straight: your “National Strategy for
Victory in Iraq" is not a strategy for success and is not a
substitute for a well thought-out plan to defeat the global terrorist
networks that threaten the United States.
A flexible timetable for achieving specific benchmarks and withdrawing
our troops will help us to succeed in Iraq, and allow us to redeploy
forces globally to re-engage in the global war on terror. Your “National
Strategy" does not say how we will determine whether we are
succeeding in Iraq, within what timeframe we expect success, and
how we will eventually extract our military forces and hand off
responsibility for governance and security to the Iraqis. Your strategy
also shows that you continue to view Iraq as the central front in
the war on terror, even though Al Qaida is the smallest of disparate
insurgent groups there and even though it has a presence in more
than 60 countries across the globe.
We need a strategy that recognizes that our ongoing operations in
Iraq are not serving our national security interests and are in
fact hurting our ability to pursue the global terrorist
networks that threaten us. Focusing exclusively on Iraq, at great
cost to our military and our budget, will not help us defeat the
global terrorist networks that threaten us. What we need is a global,
integrated, and aggressive strategy that utilizes all facets of
American power and strength against a diffuse, determined, and elusive
enemy. While you continue to focus your attention on Iraq, terrorist
networks are strengthening around the globe and we are losing critical
opportunities to counter these networks and defeat the most significant
threat to the American people.
Mr. President, we need clarity about what we are trying to achieve
in Iraq, a goal of when we can complete the military mission there,
and a strategy for redeploying our national capabilities to engage
in the fight against global terrorist networks.
Sincerely,
Russell D. Feingold
U.S. Senator
