Scroll down for his speech; classic elder-statesman Byrd, pulling no punches.
Demand A Plan petition:
http://www.byrd2006.com/action/demandaplan_petition.cfmDear Friend,
As you know, over three years ago I voted against the Iraq War resolution. I did not believe that Iraq posed an imminent threat, I did not believe the case for war was made, and I did not believe the Congress should have handed such a blank check to this Administration. I was not alone in my skepticism; many other patriotic Americans were concerned that the case for war was being built on selective intelligence.
Sadly, our fears have come true.
Our soldiers have been in Iraq for three years, four months, and two weeks. As of July 27, 2,564 American troops have given the ultimate sacrifice and $318 billion has been drained from our treasury.
Yet, the violence in Iraq appears to have entered a new phase. Two and a half months after the killing of the terrorist leader, Zarqawi, an average of 100 Iraqis are being killed each day. This new wave of violence is the result of Iraqis fighting Iraqis -- a civil war that has been brewing since we first opened this Pandora's Box by invading Iraq in March of 2003.
The question is, what are our troops doing in the middle of this civil war?
On Thursday I spoke on the Senate floor and asked the tough questions that demand answers before more of our troops are sent to Baghdad as the President announced last week.
I hope you will take a moment to read this speech. And I hope you will sign the petition to demand a plan from this Administration about how to deal with the civil war in Iraq. As Americans, we must never surrender the right to question our government.
Sincerely,
Robert C. Byrd
United States Senator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full text of Senator Byrd's speech:
Civil War in Iraq
July 27, 2006
Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Iraq addressed a Joint Meeting of Congress. In his speech, he stressed his view that great progress has been made in his country in the past months, and equated the violence in Iraq to the Al Quada attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
With the Prime Minister's comments in mind, it is worth taking stock of how this war began three years, four months, and one week ago. The war in Iraq was initiated on the false promise of securing our country from the threat of weapons of mass destruction. There have been many efforts to try to rewrite history and try to find a new justification for the invasion of Iraq, but one need look no further than the use of force authorization passed by the Congress on October 11, 2002.
That resolution contains 23 whereas clauses -- you can count them. Ten of those whereas clauses pertain to Iraq's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. The idea that Iraq could threaten our country with WMD was the keystone of the argument for war. It was the one allegation at the center of nearly all the cases that were made for war.
But we now know that there was no imminent threat from Iraq. The agencies that produced the intelligence to build the case for war have admitted that they have made massive errors. Intelligence was massaged to remove most dissenting views. Congress, in 2004, even rushed to reorganize the CIA and the rest of our intelligence agencies based upon these massive failures -- failures which built a flawed and discredited case for war.
I did not buy into the hype and the rush to war. I did not believe that Iraq posed an imminent threat. I did not believe that Congress should have passed the resolution to allow the President to decide where, when, and why to launch an attack on Iraq. I do not believe that one man should be handed authority to decide, on his own, to shed the blood of America's sons and daughters.
But at this point, the American people should pause and reflect on where our nation stands in this war in Iraq. As of today, July 27, 2,564 American troops have been killed. Upwards of $318 billion has been drained from our treasury. Talk persists of more than 100,000 of our troops remaining in Iraq for many years to come.
Most ominously, the violence in Iraq appears to have entered a new phase. Two and a half months after the killing of the terrorist leader Zarqawi, an average of 100 Iraqis are being killed each day, according to a new report by the United Nations.
Who is responsible for this violence in Iraq? Is it Osama bin Laden or some other nefarious outside force? Is it the same terrorists who plotted the attack on the World Trade Center? Is it the same miscreants responsible for the train bombings in London and Madrid?
The answer is no. This wave of violence that has crashed over Iraq is the result of Iraqis fighting Iraqis. Militias and death squads are carrying out a brutal campaign of violence against fellow Iraqis. Shiites are fighting Sunnis. Sunnis are killing Shiites. The Kurds of the North are under attack. No one is safe from these indiscriminate killings: not doctors, not teachers, not even children. Iraq is being ripped apart from the inside out.
Can there be any doubt that there is a civil war in Iraq? According to statistics gathered by the Iraqi government, 2,669 Iraqi civilians were killed in May, and another 3,149 were killed in June. Government figures show that 14,338 civilians were killed in Iraq in the first six months of this year. At least 150,000 Iraqis are refugees in their own country.
Yes, there is a civil war in Iraq. It is a civil war that has been brewing since we first opened this Pandora's Box by invading Iraq in March of 2003. The question is, what are our troops doing in the middle of this civil war?
The American people should take notice of what is happening in Iraq. Our troops are increasingly being thrust into this fighting with no plan for success. It is time to stop, look, and listen, and ask questions about where we are headed.
Are our troops on the way out of Iraq, or are they being drawn deeper into this civil war? Is there any chance for our troops to win a decisive victory on the battlefield, or are the fates of our soldiers tied to the political fortunes of untested Iraqi politicians? Does anyone in the Administration have a plan for how to deal with the civil war in Iraq?
These are important questions. But instead of telling the American people how we are going to disentangle ourselves from the sectarian violence in Iraq, we learn this week that more American troops are being sent into Baghdad to take sides in the Iraqi-on-Iraqi fighting that is tearing that country apart.
The President announced on Tuesday that he is sending thousands more U.S. troops into Baghdad, which is the center of the storm of violence. Is this our plan for dealing with an Iraqi civil war? When I asked Secretary Rumsfeld at an Appropriations Committee hearing on March 9 about his plan if civil war were to break out in Iraq, he said, "The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the... Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to."
The plan to have Iraqis deal with their own civil war appears to be on its way out the window. The Iraqi Prime Minister's attempts to pacify Baghdad with Iraqi troops has failed. In fact, the Prime Minister, in his speech to Congress, pleaded for more foreign aid and urged our troops to stay until Iraqis are ready to take up the fight to defend their government.
Sending more U.S. troops to deal with domestic strife is not the right course. What we are seeing in Iraq is mission creep of the worst kind - the mission to overthrow Saddam Hussein is transforming before our eyes into a mission to take sides between warring ethnic factions. This is a plan for disaster.
Our troops have bravely served in Iraq for more than three years. They have done everything that has been asked of them. Our troops did not ask to be sent to war, but the call to service has gone out and our service members have responded. They have fought and bled and died for what our country has asked them to do.
But we owe it to our troops to be judicious in what we ask them to do. We owe it to our troops not to send them headlong into fighting when there is no plan for victory. We owe it to our troops not to send them into the center of a civil war without raising so much as a question about whether they belong there.
We cannot allow the escalating war in Lebanon to distract us from the deteriorating situation in Iraq. The fighting between Israel and Lebanon has dominated our attention, but the Administration is on the verge of making irreversible decisions about how deeply our troops will be involved in Iraq's civil war.
Before more of our troops are sent to Baghdad, the Senate should ask tough questions of Secretary Rumsfeld and our military commanders about whether they have a plan for dealing with the civil war in Iraq. The Armed Services Committee must have a chance to exercise its oversight responsibilities before more of our troops are ordered to take sides in a fight that is pitting Iraqi against Iraqi.
We have seen before the disastrous consequences of ordering our troops into the middle of civil wars. Let us remember the 241 Marines who were killed in Beirut in 1983. Let us remember the bloody battle in Somalia in 1993. Let us have more wisdom, more caution, and a coherent strategy, before we marshal our forces to send them once more into the breech in Baghdad. We owe that much to our brave troops, and to their moms, dads, wives, and children anxiously awaiting their safe return home.
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