Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
"How the President's Policy is Weakening America"
As Delivered From the Floor
of the United States Senate
September 29, 2005
Mr. President, I rise once again to comment on the deeply disturbing
consequences of the President’s misguided policies in Iraq. I
have spoken before about my grave concern that the Administration’s
Iraq policies are actually strengthening the hand of our enemies, fueling
the insurgency’s recruitment of foreign fighters and unifying
elements of the insurgency that might otherwise turn on each other.
But today, Mr. President, I want to focus on a different and equally
alarming issue – which is, that the Bush Administration’s
policies in Iraq are making America weaker. And none of us should stand
by and allow this to continue.
It is shocking to me that this Senate has not found the time and energy
to take up the Defense Authorization bill and give that bill the full
debate and attention that it deserves. Our men and women in uniform,
and our military families, continue to make real sacrifices every day
in service to this country. They perform their duties with skill and
honor, sometimes in the most difficult of circumstances. But the Senate
has not performed its duties – and the state of the U.S. military
desperately needs our attention.
The Administration’s policies in Iraq are breaking the United
States Army. As soldiers confront the prospect of a third tour in the
extremely difficult theater of Iraq, it would be understandable if they
began to wonder why all of the sacrifice undertaken by our country in
wartime seems to be falling on their shoulders. It would be understandable
if they -- and their brothers and sisters in the Marine Corps -- began
to feel some skepticism about whether or not essential resources --
like adequately armored vehicles -- will be there when they need them.
It would be understandable if they came to greet information about deployment
schedules with cynicism, because reliable information has been hard
to come by for our military families in recent years. And it would be
understandable if they asked themselves whether or not their numbers
will be great enough to hold hard-won territory, and whether or not
properly vetted translators will be available to help them distinguish
friend from foe. At some point, Mr. President, the sense of solidarity
and commitment that helps maintain strong retention rates gives way
to a sense of frustration with the status quo. I fear that we may be
very close to that tipping point today.
We may not see the men and women of the Army continue to volunteer
for more of the same. It isn’t reasonable to expect that current
retention problems will improve, rather than worsening. We should not
bet our national security on that kind of wishful thinking.
Make no mistake, our military readiness is already suffering. According
to a recent RAND study, the Army has been stretched so thin that active-duty
soldiers are now spending one of every two years abroad, leaving little
of the Army left in any appropriate condition to respond to crises that
may emerge elsewhere in the world. In an era in which we confront a
globally networked enemy, and at a time when nuclear weapons proliferation
is an urgent threat, continuing on our present course is irresponsible
at best.
We are not just wearing out the troops; we are also wearing out equipment
much faster than it is being replaced or refurbished. Just days ago
the Chief of the National Guard, General H Steven Blum, told a group
of Senate staffers that the National Guard had approximately 75% of
the equipment it needed on 9/11. Today, the National Guard has 34% of
the equipment it needs. And the response to Hurricane Katrina exposed
some of the dangerous gaps in the Guard’s communications systems.
What we are asking of the Army is not sustainable, and the burden is
taking its toll on our military families. This cannot go on.
Many of my colleagues, often led by Senator Reed of Rhode Island, have
taken stock of where we stand and have joined together to support efforts
to expand the size of our standing Army. But this effort – which
I support -- is really a solution for the long-term, because it depends
on new recruits to address our problems. We cannot suddenly increase
the numbers of experienced soldiers so essential to providing leadership
in the field. It takes years to grow a new crop of such leaders. But
the annual resignation rate of Army lieutenants and captains rose last
year to its highest rate since the attacks of September 11, 2001. We
are heading toward crisis right now.
Mr. President, growing the all-volunteer Army can only happen if qualified
new recruits sign up for duty. But all indications suggest that at the
end of this month, the Army will fall thousands short of its annual
recruiting goal. Barring some sudden and dramatic change, the Army National
Guard and Army Reserve too will miss their annual targets by about 20
percent. And Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, told
Congress recently that 2006 "may be the toughest recruiting environment
ever."
Too often, too many of my colleagues are reluctant to criticize the
Administration’s policies in Iraq for fear that anything other
than staying the course set by the President will somehow appear weak.
But the President’s course is misguided, and it is doing grave
damage to our extraordinarily professional and globally admired all-volunteer
United States Army. To stand by while this damage is done is not patriotic.
It is not supportive. It is not tough on terrorism, or strong on national
security. Because I am proud of our men and women in uniform, and because
I am committed to working with all of my colleagues to make this country
more secure, I am convinced that we must change our course.
As my colleagues know, I have introduced a resolution calling for the
President to provide a public report clarifying the mission that the
US military is being asked to accomplish in Iraq and laying out a plan
and timeframe for accomplishing that mission and subsequently bringing
our troops home. It is in our interest to provide some clarity about
our intentions and restore confidence at home and abroad that U.S. troops
will not be in Iraq indefinitely. And I have tried to jumpstart this
discussion by proposing a date for US troop withdrawal: December 31,
2006. We need to start working with a realistic set of plans and benchmarks
if we are to gain control of our Iraq policy, instead of letting it
dominate our security strategy and drain vital security resources for
an unlimited amount of time.
This brings me to another facet of this Administration’s misguided
approach to Iraq; another front on which our great country is growing
weaker rather than stronger as a result of the Administration’s
policy choices: the tremendously serious fiscal consequences of the
President’s decision to put the entire Iraq war on our national
tab. How much longer can the elected representatives of the American
people in this Congress allow the President to rack up over a billion
dollars a week in new debts? This war is draining, by one estimate,
$5.6 billion every month from our economy, funds that might be used
to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina recover, or to help address
the skyrocketing health care costs facing businesses and families, or
to help pay down the enormous debt this government has already piled
up.
And not only are we weakening our economy today, this costly war is
undermining our nation’s economic future because none of that
considerable expenditure has been offset in the budget by cuts in spending
elsewhere or revenue increases. All of it -- every penny -- has been
added to the already massive debt that will be paid by future generations
of Americans. For years now, this Administration has refused to budget
for the costs of our ongoing operations in Iraq that can be predicted,
and has refused to make the hard choices that would be required to cover
those costs. Instead, the President apparently prefers to leave those
tough calls to our children. In effect, we are asking future generations
to pay for this war, and they will pay for it in the form of higher
taxes or fewer government benefits. They stand to inherit a weakened
America, one so compromised by debt and economic crisis that the promise
of opportunity for all has faded.
And there is no end in sight.
In addition to that debt, the war will leave other costly legacies.
Here again, it is the members of the military and their families who
will endure the most severe costs. But even if the war ended tomorrow,
the nation will continue to pay the price for decades to come. Linda
Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard estimates that
over the next 45 years, the health care, disability, and other benefits
due our Iraq war veterans will cost $315 billion. We owe our brave troops
the services and benefits they are due. We owe it to them and to their
children and to their grandchildren to guide the course of this country
and this economy to ensure that we are in a position to deliver for
our veterans and for all Americans.
I cannot support an Iraq policy that makes our enemies stronger and
our own country weaker, and that is why I will not support staying the
course the President has set. If Iraq were truly the solution to our
national security challenges, this gamble with the future of the military
and with our own economy might make sense. If Iraq, rather than such
strategically more significant countries as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan,
were really at the heart of the global fight against violent Islamist
terrorism, this might make some sense. If it were true that fighting
insurgents in Baghdad meant that we would not have to fight them elsewhere,
all of the costs of this policy might make some sense. But these things
are not true. Iraq is not the silver bullet in the fight against global
terrorist networks. As I have argued in some detail, it is quite possible
that the Administration’s policies in Iraq are actually strengthening
the terrorists by helping them to recruit new fighters from around the
world, giving those jihadists on-the-ground training in terrorism, and
building new, transnational networks among our enemies. Meanwhile the
costs of staying this course indefinitely, the consequences of weakening
America’s military and America’s economy, loom more ominously
before us with each passing week. There is no leadership in simply hoping
for the best. We must insist on an Iraq policy that makes sense.
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