Remarks by Congressman Marty Meehan
"Iraq: Finding a Responsible Exit"
It has been nearly two years since we invaded
Iraq
and removed one of the world's most brutal regimes.
But two years later,
America's armed forces are confronting a far more resilient enemy - a growing
insurgency that has plunged
Iraq
into violence and chaos. The
elections are drawing closer, but peace and stability seem to be moving farther
and farther away.
How we got to this point in time
has been the subject of extensive debate. How
did our intelligence fail us so badly about
Iraq's WMD? Was intelligence
deliberately manipulated by the Bush Administration in the rush to war?
Why didn't the Administration give the UN inspectors more time?
How did we allow so much chaos to grow out of Saddam's downfall?
Why didn't we have a better plan to secure the peace?
Many of us have strong views about these issues, and many of us have been
quite vocal in expressing them. Unfortunately,
when you have a hotly contested presidential campaign, the national debate often
descends into starkly partisan terms. I
believe this is what has happened to much of the debate about our policy in
Iraq
.
In Congress the partisanship was especially bad.
Most Republicans saw it as their responsibility to defend the
President's policies, however flawed. Most
Democrats viewed their role as questioning and criticizing all that went wrong
without necessarily offering policy alternatives.
The result has been a failure to forge a bipartisan consensus and develop
answers to the pressing questions about our involvement in
Iraq
. By rallying behind the
Administration's policies, the Republican Congress failed in its
responsibility to lead - and not just follow - on issues of war and peace.
At the same time, many Democrats who opposed the war from the beginning
have spent more energy lamenting the past than thinking about solutions for the
future.
A substantive, non-partisan reassessment of
America
's goals and options in
Iraq
is long overdue. The time has come
for us to change our focus from the missteps of the past to the challenge that
confronts us in the immediate future. When
I visited our soldiers on the frontlines, they weren't focused on the mistakes
of last year. They were concerned
about what we're doing today and tomorrow.
Now more than ever, with our current policy going nowhere,
America
needs to forge bipartisan consensus behind a responsible strategy for
Iraq
.
Today I challenge my colleagues in Congress to work together to develop
answers to the most urgent question facing our country today:
How can the United States put Iraq on a path toward self-sufficiency and
begin to bring our troops home in a way that advances our strategic interests?
We owe it to the American people. And
we owe it to the brave men and women who are putting their lives on the line
every day.
All of us in Congress have met with families of Guardsmen and Reservists
whose deployments have been extended. We
have spoken with too many mothers of soldiers - and attended too many funerals
- to leave these fundamental questions unanswered.
We must stop looking backward and thinking defensively.
We must start looking forward and developing proactive ideas about the
next steps in
Iraq
.
It's clear that the Administration has no endgame in sight.
It's time for Congress to reassert its role in foreign policy and to
take the lead in providing an exit strategy in Iraq.
The Situation
in
Iraq
The first step toward an
Iraq
exit strategy is an honest assessment of the facts on the ground there.
It's time to take off the rose-tinted glasses, put aside our partisan
hostilities, and start with the basics: What's
good and what's bad? What's
still possible in
Iraq
? And how do we get there?
In search of answers to these
questions, I returned to
Iraq
earlier this month with several of my congressional colleagues from the Armed
Services Committee. The last time I
was in
Iraq
was August of 2003 - four months after the fall of
Baghdad
.
Iraq
was hardly a safe place then. But we were able to walk the streets and
talk with average Iraqis, something I had hoped to do this time.
Unfortunately, the threat of
violence was simply too high.
Baghdad
is still a war zone. My colleagues
and I traveled in heavily armored military convoys, zigzagging through the
streets to avoid ambushes. In
Iraq
today, the expectation is that any American or anyone associated with the
Americans will be attacked.
The
United States
has spent more than $150 billion on military operations in
Iraq
, with another $80 billion forthcoming. In
today's news it was reported that the Army is planning on continuing these
troops levels until 2007. We've
maintained between 100,000 and 150,000 troops there for two years.
Over the past year,
America
has sent more soldiers and more money to
Iraq
, but we have seen only more violence. As
Iraq
prepares to hold elections five days from now, the violence is worse than it
has ever been.
All of us hope that the elections will proceed peacefully, safely, and
with maximum participation. But we
should be realistic that regardless of who votes or who wins, the insurgency
will continue. When Saddam was
captured, we hoped the insurgents would give up.
When we transferred sovereignty, we hoped the violence would end.
When we routed the insurgents in Fallujah, we hoped it would break their
back. With each milestone, the
insurgency has come back stronger and more deadly.
Attacks on
U.S.
forces have grown steadily, both in frequency and sophistication.
Attacks on Iraqi security forces, civilians, and infrastructure are also
on the rise. Michael O'Hanlon and
others here at Brookings have developed an index that distills the situation in
Iraq
into raw numbers. According to the
"Brookings Index," Coalition forces have been killing and capturing 1,000 to
3,000 insurgents every month for more than a year.
But over that same time, the insurgency has quadrupled its ranks from at
least 5,000 to at least 20,000. More
troubling is the network of Iraqi civilians - 200,000 by some estimates -
who offer both active and passive support: arms, materiel, sanctuary, and most
importantly, intelligence. In many
instances, better intelligence than our forces have.
It is time to accept that one of the basic assumptions held by the Bush
Administration - and many of its critics - no longer applies.
More troops do not mean more security in
Iraq
. Despite 150,000 boots on the
ground and tactical victories in Fallujah and elsewhere, the insurgency is only
growing in size and lethal capacity.
It may have been possible at one point in time to
pacify
Iraq
with an overwhelming American force. Had
we gone in with "several hundred thousand troops" like General Shinseki said
we would need, perhaps the insurgency never would have developed.
We'll never know for sure. But
whatever chance we had is gone now. Ramping
up our troop presence now will not turn the tables in
Iraq
, and it would probably make the situation worse.
The undeniable fact is that the insurgency is being fueled by the very
presence of the American military.
Back in July of 2003, Gen. John Abizaid called
Iraq
a "classic guerrilla war." But
we have continued to wage war as if we were fighting a conventional army.
The result has been that the "center of gravity" of any
counter-insurgency - the civilian population - has moved further and further
away from us. The growing hostility
is palpable when you're in
Iraq
, and it is measured in polls taken of Iraqis by our own government.
In November of 2003, only 11 percent of Iraqis said they would feel safer
if Coalition forces left
Iraq
. Six months later, 55 percent did.
In the most recent poll that asked the question, 2 percent viewed the
United States
as liberators, and 92 percent as occupiers.
Iraqis have grown tired of an occupation that has provided them neither
security nor meaningful sovereignty. Iraqis
were apprehensive of
America
's intentions to begin with, and every time President Bush signals that our
forces will remain in
Iraq
"for as long as it takes" it reconfirms their suspicion that we intend a
permanent presence. Every time Iraqi
citizens see a Bradley fighting vehicle rolling through their streets or a
Blackhawk helicopter overhead, it undermines our assertion that
Iraq
is already sovereign. Every time
Iraqi bystanders are killed in Coalition actions, it further erodes the good
will we earned by ridding them of Saddam. And
even when innocent Iraqis are murdered by insurgents, the
United States
is blamed for failing to provide security.
If the world's most potent army cannot make the streets safe, Iraqis
are asking, is that really what we're there for?
The first step in achieving stability in
Iraq
is recognizing that the
U.S.
presence has become inherently destabilizing.
We also need to recognize the fact that for the most part, we are
fighting not foreign terrorists or former regime loyalists but indigenous
factions within
Iraq
who have united to against us. It's
a native insurgency, fueled by a combination of volatile ingredients:
A population of 25 million, 5 million of them Sunnis, with a median age
of 19 years old; A national jobless rate of 30-40 percent, with pockets of
extreme unemployment; 400,000 skilled and experienced army soldiers, dispersed
throughout the country with their weapons but without their salaries or
pensions; 4,000 shoulder-fired missiles left over from the old regime; and
250,000 tons of unsecured explosives.
The insurgency's size and strength are unlikely to decrease anytime
soon. Attempting to kill or capture
every last insurgent is an impossible task.
And as long as that is the thrust of our strategy we will continue along
a downward spiral.
An Exit
Strategy
Confronted with a growing, native
insurgency,
America
is left with three options - and two of them are not really options at all.
The first option is to withdraw immediately.
Given the current state of Iraqi security forces, this option is a
non-starter. Even if you believe
that the
United States
should never have entered
Iraq
, it doesn't follow that we should leave now.
The chaos that would result would be much worse than the vacuum of
authority left by the downfall of Saddam and the human consequences could be
even greater. From a strategic
standpoint, immediate withdrawal undermines
America
's credibility and destabilizes the entire region.
The second option is to stay on the same path, as the President says
"for as long as it takes." I
believe that this course of action would only cause the problem to grow worse.
As late as May of 2003, the Administration was predicting that only
30,000 troops would remain in
Iraq
by the fall of that year. Twenty
months later, five times that many remain. The
most compelling reason not to continue down the same path is that the occupation
has become counterproductive to stability and progress in
Iraq
. With
U.S.
forces serving as a focal point for tensions and violence, factions within
Iraq
have turned against us when they should be confronting each other peacefully in
setting up a new Iraqi government. The
indefinite
U.S.
presence is forestalling the political compromises that are ultimately
necessary to end the violence in
Iraq
.
I am proposing a third option, that President Bush and Prime Minister
Allawi announce a timetable for a phased drawdown of
U.S.
forces in
Iraq
.
Changing the dynamic in
Iraq
means handing the security of the Iraqi people back to the Iraqis and bringing
an end to the occupation. Under this
proposal, the
United States
would draw down the majority of our forces by the end of this year.
Only a small and mobile force would remain by mid-2006, two years after
the transfer of sovereignty.
Announcing a timetable for a phased withdrawal over the next 12-18 months
will change the underlying dynamic in
Iraq
in several ways.
First, it would help win the support of the Iraqi people for a political
process and a government untainted by the appearance that the
U.S.
controls them.
Second, announcing a drawdown would splinter insurgent groups who have set
aside their own differences to unite against the
United States
. Foreign jihadists, Sunni
nationalists, and Shiite extremists have little in common except their
opposition to the
U.S.
presence in
Iraq
.
Third, a timetable for withdrawal would encourage the Iraqi government and
the factions within
Iraq
to deal with each other in setting up a new Iraqi government rather than
relying on American troops to make the sacrifices.
A withdrawal could be structured in such a way as to create incentives
for violent factions within
Iraq
to come to the negotiating table rather than engaging in armed insurrection.
Fourth, renouncing any long-term presence in
Iraq
would enhance
America
's legitimacy throughout the world. It
would be the first step in putting the divisions we've had with our allies
behind us so we can focus on the war on terror.
Fifth, the central political question in
Iraq
is not whether the
United States
should leave, but how soon. The
politics in
Iraq
are such that the incoming government - whoever it is - will demand the
U.S.
's withdrawal as soon as it is confident of its own survival.
Finally, a timetable for withdrawal would be that light at the end of the
tunnel for our military, which has been severely overstretched and unfairly
deployed. While in
Iraq
, I met with many of our soldiers and Marines.
Their spirits are high and morale is strong.
They are prepared for any mission. But
they and their families want a reasonable expectation of when this mission will
end. From a standpoint of readiness,
a phased drawdown in
Iraq
would forestall what could otherwise soon become a recruiting and retention
crisis in the armed forces.
A Realistic
Strategy
We can withdraw the vast majority of our forces from
Iraq
by the end of this year under a realistic plan.
This is not a cut and run strategy but a phased drawdown that would leave
a small, mobile, and low-profile
U.S.
presence in
Iraq
for a reasonable timeframe. This
smaller contingent of approximately 30,000 troops could continue to fill
specialty roles, such as training Iraqi forces and engaging in quick strikes
against insurgent or terrorist infrastructure that minimize the risk of civilian
casualties. A smaller, more remote
presence wouldn't patrol Iraqi cities but it would be enough to prevent
outbreaks of civil warfare.
Two factors will allow
Iraq
to move forward while our troops come home.
First, our highest priority must be on training high-quality Iraqi
security forces. For too long, the
Bush Administration assumed that Americans would bear an indefinite burden of
security in
Iraq
. But lasting security can only be
provided by Iraqis. In the words of
President Bush, "ultimately the success in
Iraq
is going to be the willingness of the Iraqi citizens to fight for their own
freedom." With the
U.S.
providing an open-ended guarantee for security, there's little urgency for
Iraqis opposed to the insurgency to take charge and fight it.
In addition, the training program was set back for months by a focus on
quantity over quality. As Peter
Khalil and others have observed and pointed out, a couple weeks training is not
nearly enough.
While in
Iraq
, I met with General Petraeus and surveyed the training of Iraqi security
forces. General Petraeus gets it.
He knows that to fight a sophisticated insurgency these Iraqis will need
to be highly skilled. Despite the
rocky start, the training program is moving forward.
I believe 12-18 months is enough time to train Iraqi security forces with
the skills they'll need to confront the insurgency.
As important as training Iraqi
security forces is creating jobs for Iraqis.
It is outrageous that of the $22 billion that Congress has committed to
Iraq
reconstruction, only $4 billion has actually been spent.
And a huge percentage of that money has gone to provide security for
foreign contractors. When General
Petraeus took the 101st Airborne into
Mosul
, he used riches from Saddam's palaces to keep Iraqi army soldiers on the
payroll. He invested in local
reconstruction projects that put people to work immediately.
It was one of the reasons that
Mosul
was relatively quiet for so long. It
may not be a model of free market capitalism but it is a model for success in a
country that is desperate for jobs. It's
worth replicating. As the
U.S.
begins to reduce our military involvement in
Iraq
, our investment in
Iraq
's reconstruction must endure.
Conclusion
Last week, President Bush spoke eloquently about
America
's special responsibility to spread freedom around the globe.
But his Inaugural Address did not include a single mention of the actual
war we are fighting - the war that 150,000 of our servicemen and -women are
fighting, every day, in one of the most volatile and violent places on Earth.
In the realm of rhetoric and abstraction, President Bush has clearly
defined ideas about the struggle for human freedom.
But his policy in
Iraq
has not yet included a clear plan for when or how we'll leave.
Our national conversation about
Iraq
needs more realism, and more focus on the future rather than the past.
We need to refocus on our original goal - a stable
Iraq
that does not threaten its neighbors, develop WMD, export terrorism, or
terrorize its own people. Hard
experience and tragedy have taught us that prolonged military occupation in
Iraq
will not end the insurgency, stabilize
Iraq
, or bring us closer to our strategic goals.
It will only bring more casualties, and more hatred toward
America
within
Iraq
and beyond.
Iraqis want freedom. They also
want control over their daily lives and their country's future.
The best hopes for a stable, peaceful, democratic
Iraq
are achieved by making it clear to Iraqis that the occupation is not indefinite
- that soon they will bear the burden of creating a responsible, democratic
state.
Iraq
's political development is occurring on a clearly defined timetable -
elections this Sunday, a constitution drafted by August 15, an election to
ratify the Constitution by October 15, new elections before December 15, and a
permanent government in place by the end of December.
Iraq
needs a similar timetable for taking responsibility for its security.
By laying out a timetable for a phased withdrawal, the
United States
sends a clear message to Iraqis and all citizens of the world:
We believe
Iraq
is capable of governing itself and making decisions about its future.
The removal of Saddam Hussein was a victory for the
United States
. But lasting success in
Iraq
won't be achieved until the country is stable - and the last American
soldiers have come home.
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