http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/videos/3-14floorspeech.mov Prepared remarks:
03/13/2007
Kerry: Cheney Needs to Stop Bad-Mouthing Democrats, Start Changing Policy
WASHINGTON D.C. - Senator John Kerry went to the Senate floor today to address his colleagues about his support for the Democratic exit strategy for Iraq. Kerry also criticized Vice President Dick Cheney for suggesting that Democrats who support a deadline for redeploying troops are telling "the enemy to watch the clock and wait us out."
Below are his remarks, as prepared:
Mr. President, I strongly support the legislation introduced by Senator Reid for Sen. Biden, Sen. Levin, and myself. More than an important step forward for our caucus, it is a critical development for our country, which has been waiting impatiently for Washington to find the right way forward for Iraq and the right policy for our troops.
Nine months ago, thirteen senators cast their votes for a one year deadline for the redeployment of most U.S. troops from Iraq. It was not a popular position. But it seemed then, as it does now, the only way to help Iraq and the Middle East emerge from a nightmarish war that has delivered chaos where it sought order, fear where it promised freedom, and open-ended escalation where the President promised us "mission accomplished." It has cost us dearly in just about every way that a nation can measure its power.
Today, Democrats stand nearly united behind an exit strategy that includes the deadline needed to force the Iraqis to stand up for Iraq. A lot has changed in the last nine months - but I am more convinced than ever that a combination of serious, sustained diplomacy, leveraged by a one year deadline for redeployment of U.S. troops, is the best way to achieve our goal of stability in Iraq and security in the region.
This strategy changes our mission to one that our troops can reasonably accomplish: completing the training of Iraqi security forces, going after terrorists, and protecting United States facilities and personnel. And it provides the President the discretion to leave the minimum number of United States troops necessary to complete that mission after March of next year.
This one year deadline is sound. It's based on the Iraq Study Group's goal of redeploying US combat forces from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008—it's consistent with the timeframe for transferring control to the Iraqis set forth by General Casey, and the schedule agreed upon by the Iraqi government itself. Even the President has said that, under his new strategy, responsibility for security would be transferred to Iraqis before the end of this year. The President has said it, our generals have said it, the Iraq Study Group has said it - now it's time for the Senate to be on record in support of this objective.
Mr. President, it is time for Iraqis to assume responsibility for their country. We need this deadline to force Iraqi politicians to confront reality and start making the hard compromises they've been able to avoid so far because of the security blanket America's presence provides.
Americans should not be dying to buy time for Iraqi politicians hoping to cut a better deal. We should be working to bring about the compromise that is ultimately the only solution to what is happening today in Iraq. And Iraqi politicians have repeatedly shown they only respond to deadlines - a deadline to transfer authority, deadlines to hold two elections and a referendum, and a deadline to form a government.
Even now, we keep hearing that the Iraqis are close to a deal on sharing oil revenues - but we still haven't seen the final agreement ratified. Without a real deadline to force a deal, there's no telling how long it will take - but we do know that American soldiers and Iraqi civilians will continue to die while their politicians wrangle over the details. And that is simply unacceptable.
We saw that again this last weekend, when Iraq's neighbors and key players from the international community finally got together at a conference in Baghdad. That was a welcome development - if long overdue. But nothing tangible came out of it, other than an agreement to meet again next month. That's why a deadline is so essential to focus everyone on the urgent need to help Iraqis reach the political solution that is the only solution.
Mr. President, this debate - the debate the Senate needs to have - offers a clear choice. A choice between a new way forward, and the old way that's taken us backwards - the old way, only escalated. Just yesterday, Vice President Cheney dared to say that: "When members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines and other arbitrary measures, they are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out."
The Vice President must be the last person in America who believes the enemy is waiting or watching the clock. No, the Iraqi politicians are the ones watching the clock - delaying - squabbling - while American soldiers come home without arms or limbs from IED's planted in a civil war where the combatants are doing anything but wait.
With each day, this Administration becomes more detached from the reality of what is happening in Iraq. Even as the British are starting the phased withdrawal of their troops, the Administration's approach is to send thousands of more additional troops into the middle of a civil war in Iraq that our own generals tell us they are powerless to end.
This is no temporary "surge." Just this weekend, we learned that the President's escalation is going to involve nearly 5,000 more troops than the 21,500 that was initially announced - and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total could eventually reach 48,000 additional troops. The original estimate of the cost was some $5.6 billion dollars - but the CBO tells us the number could reach nearly five times that. And it looks more and more like the troop increase is going to last well into next year.
Mr. President, there's a word for this kind of escalation: Vietnam. This is exactly the kind of creeping escalation that got tens of thousands of American soldiers killed for a policy that could not work. Yet still the Administration hides behind the rhetoric that dares to claim those who offer a new way forward are "undermining" our troops.
Undermining our troops? Let's have that debate - let's have that debate with a Vice President who helped send them into combat without adequate protection so they can be killed and maimed in humvees that -- five years into this war -- still do not have the armor they need. Let's have that debate with an Administration that sent them back into battle in Iraq with serious injuries and other medical problems -- including some who doctors have said are too injured to wear their body armor. Undermine the troops? How about failing to provide them with proper medical care when they come home with broken bodies and minds -- forcing them to live in run down facilities -- leaving them to fend for themselves as they deal with mountains of red tape.
But, no, Vice President Cheney doesn't have time for that debate - he doesn't have time to hold his own Administration accountable for absolutely disgraceful mistreatment of our troops - he's too busy taking aim at Democrats for proposing a plan that brings them home and actually accomplishes this mission.
Mr. President, it's time for this Senate to do what this Administration has stubbornly refused to do - to recognize that the best way to support the troops is to change a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and does a disservice to our people and our principles.
We should honor lives lost not with words but with lives saved. That starts by putting aside the hollow rhetoric and straw men that have undermined a real debate for far too long - and supporting an exit strategy that preserves our core interests in Iraq, in the region, and throughout the world. That, Mr. President, is how we support the troops - and bring our heroes home.
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