Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
Why a Timeframe for the U.S. Military Mission in
Iraq Will Improve Our National Security
Read from the Senate Floor
October 25, 2005
Mr. President, today I come to the floor to talk about why we need
a timeframe for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. I don’t
mean a rigid timetable, nor do I mean a timetable that isn’t
connected to clear and achievable benchmarks. What we need is a public,
flexible, realistic timetable that will tell people when and how we
expect to finish the military mission in Iraq.
As my colleagues may know, I have suggested a target
date of December 31, 2006 for the completion of our military mission.
Today I want to explain why a flexible timetable for withdrawal will
help make the U.S. stronger and our enemies weaker.
Some have argued that a timetable is designed to appeal
to the American public, but that it has no relationship to our security,
or to achieving policy goals in Iraq. Actually, it is just the opposite
– I proposed the timeframe because it has everything to do with
improving our national security strategy.
Our fundamental national security goal must be to combat
the global terrorist networks that attacked and continue to threaten
the United States. An increasing number of military experts and members
of the public have concluded that our military presence in Iraq is
not consistent with that goal – and that it is in fact undermining
that goal.
It's becoming increasingly clear that we have created
a breeding ground for terrorism in Iraq and that the indefinite presence
of tens of thousands of U.S. troops is often fueling, not dampening,
the insurgency in that country.
Melvin Laird, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin
who was defense secretary under Richard Nixon, said, "We owe
it to the rest of the people back home to let them know that there
is an exit strategy. And more important, we owe it to the Iraqi people.
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 insurgents."
General George Casey, the commanding general of the
allied forces in Iraq, made a similar point in testimony to Congress
last month. He testified that “getting Iraqis into leading the
counterinsurgency effort as they are capable will allow us to gradually
reduce the visibility of coalition forces across Iraq and, ultimately,
as conditions warrant, to begin to reduce our presence in Iraq, taking
away an element that fuels the insurgency; that is, the perception
of occupation.” He went on to call reducing the visibility and
presence of coalition forces “a key element of our overall counterinsurgency
strategy.”
Melvin Laird and General Casey know that our presence
has fed this insurgency, making it easy for the insurgents to convince
recruits that we are there to stay. That’s not the fault of
our men and women in uniform, who are serving courageously. It’s
the fault of the Administration for sending them into battle without
a clearly defined or well thought-out mission.
In February, I asked one of the top allied military
commanders in Iraq, what would happen if we suggested to the world
that there is a timeframe for achieving our military mission? His
response to me, which of course was off the record, was that nothing
would take the wind out of the sails of the insurgents more than providing
a clear public plan and timeframe for a remaining U.S. mission.
The President himself in June told the nation that he
didn't support putting more troops into Iraq because “sending
more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever.”
That same logic applies to his refusal to issue a public timetable.
To the extent we don't explain what our military goals
in Iraq are and when we hope to achieve them, we play into the hands
of the insurgents. The insurgents are motivated by our presence, and
they feed off conspiracy theories and suspicions regarding American
intentions. And, of course, our brave servicemembers and their families
deserve some clarity about how long they are likely to remain in Iraq.
The President is one of an ever-narrowing group of people
who believe that a timetable works against our goals in Iraq. Military
experts, people I talked to in Iraq, and the American people increasingly
agree that the Administration’s refusal to even suggest a timetable
for meeting our military goals in Iraq is feeding the insurgency.
The lack of a timetable doesn’t just feed the
insurgency -- it also discourages Iraqi ownership of their own political
process. By making it clear that the U.S. will not be there indefinitely,
we will help the Iraqis move toward the real political independence
they need and dispel some of the cynicism about American intentions
that empowers some of the more extreme elements of Iraqi society.
Finally, a timetable is important because it enables
us to devote more resources to the other national security issues
that demand our attention. To fight the global terrorist networks
that threaten the U.S., we need to focus energy and resources on countering
emerging terrorist tactics, dealing with the threat of “loose
nukes,” and repairing the damage to our Army, to name just a
few urgent priorities. Drawing down U.S. troops in Iraq will allow
us to focus on these priorities. It’s time to make sure that
our Iraq policy is advancing, not undermining, our national security
goals.
The Administration and its allies have offered various
arguments as to why they can’t or won’t come up with a
clear plan and timeline for military success in Iraq.
One argument has been that the U.S. pullouts from Somalia
in the 1990s and Lebanon in the 1980s emboldened terrorists and others
who oppose American interests. To pull out of Iraq without having
put down the Iraqi insurgency once and for all would supposedly be
another sign of American weakness.
Mr. President, our decisions about national security
shouldn’t be made based on conjecture about the “message”
that some might perceive. No one, including the Bush Administration,
can know how the insurgents in Iraq might feel about the withdrawal
of U.S. troops from Iraq. We do know, however, that right now we are
making the insurgency stronger with our indefinite presence in Iraq,
and our failure to articulate a timetable for military withdrawal.
We also know that our commitment of resources – money, troops,
time – to Iraq is detracting from our ability to focus on our
most pressing national security goals and stretching our military
to the breaking point. Terrorists will not feel particularly emboldened
about us putting our Iraq policy on track so that we can focus our
attention on eliminating them. The President suggests that if he issues
a timetable for how long he expects U.S. troops to remain in Iraq,
our enemies will think that we are weak. But without a plan to finish
our military mission, our enemies will know that we have fallen into
a trap and we can’t figure out how to get out.
When I pressed Secretary Rice on the need for a timetable
last week, she responded that “we’d like our discussions
of withdrawal and of bringing down the numbers of forces to be results-based
rather than time-based.” Mr. President, of course a timetable
should be results-based. As I have said over and over, any timetable
needs to be flexible and needs to be tied to achievable benchmarks.
The point is to have some idea of when those benchmarks, those results,
can be achieved. Without such a timetable, and without clear, realistic
benchmarks, we cannot hold ourselves accountable for meeting our goals.
Nor can we give our troops and the American people the clarity they
deserve about their mission.
The Bush Administration, with all these arguments,
has succeeded in one thing: in intimidating people into not uttering
the words timetable, or timeframe, or target date for finishing the
military mission.
But with the words of Republicans like Melvin Laird and military leaders
like General Casey, more and more people understand that having a
flexible timetable will strengthen our national security. This is
not a timetable where the objective is troop withdrawal – the
objective is to focus on our national security needs and the timetable
is one step towards that goal. A timetable is not about domestic politics
– it’s about undercutting insurgency recruiting and unity,
encouraging more Iraqi ownership and responsibility, and creating
space for other important U.S. national security efforts.
I again emphasize that the timeframe I have proposed
is a flexible one -- not a drop-dead date, not a deadline, not a formula
for “cut and run.” It is linked with a call for more clarity
about what we want the U.S. military to achieve in Iraq.
And, Mr. President, please note that I am only referring
to a timeframe for the military mission in Iraq, not for our broader
political and other missions in Iraq. We all understand that our engagement
in Iraq won’t end with the U.S. military mission. We will still
have a great deal of tough diplomatic work to do in Iraq well after
the bulk of U.S. troops leave, and probably some serious security
cooperation as well.
We will continue to devote resources to Iraq, without
a doubt. But as it stands today, we have focused on Iraq to the exclusion
of critically important national security priorities. And we have
done so at great cost to the outstanding men and women of the U.S.
military, and to their families. When I speak to servicemen and women
in Wisconsin and in Iraq, and when I speak to their families, their
pride in their service is evident and it is well earned. But their
frustration with this open-ended commitment, with the stop-loss orders
and the multiple deployments, with the extensions and the uncertainties,
is equally evident, and it is painful. We can do better by them, by
insisting on clarity, by insisting on accountability, and by assuring
them that we have a plan with clear and achievable goals.
Mr. President, we must stop feeding the insurgency in Iraq, and focus
on the fight against the terrorist networks that threaten the security
of the American people. A timetable can make us stronger, and our
enemies weaker. That is the strategy we must pursue, and I look forward
to working with colleagues here in the Senate to move such a proposal
forward.
Read Previous Statements of Senator Feingold's Regarding
Iraq:
September 29, 2005 - "How the President's Policy is Weakening America"
August
23, 2005 - Senator Feingold speaks at the Town Hall Los Angeles
Association
July
27, 2005 - "The Lack of a Coherent Policy in Iraq"
