Post #64

Subject: Iraq's Future and America's Interests, Pt. II

Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave a speech before the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, advocating revisiting the original 2002 Iraq War resolution. Senator Biden also said that although leaving Iraq is necessary, we should also focus on what we leave behind. The important thing now is to manage the aftermath of the greatest blunder in our history.

Remarks prepared for delivery. My responses and additions – in [brackets]….

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"Iraq's Future and America's Interests"

The Brookings Institution

February 15, 2007

This military surge in Iraq is not a solution - it is a tragic mistake.

If we should be surging forces anywhere, it is in Afghanistan.

I'm glad the President has recognized what many of us have been saying for years: unless we surge troops, hardware, money, and high-level attention into Afghanistan, it will fall back into the hands of the Taliban, terrorists and drug traffickers. I support the steps he announced today but I hope they are the first steps - not the last - in a recommitment to Afghanistan.

[Michael Scheuer, former head, CIA Bin Laden Unit, said on “Countdown,” the central place in terms of an attack inside the United States is Afghanistan and Pakistan. When the next attack occurs in America, it will be planned and orchestrated out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda values Iraq primarily for the entree it gives them into Jordan, into Syria, into the Arab peninsula, and into Turkey. … But actually, the people who will plan the next attack in the United States are those who are in Afghanistan and Pakistan.]

We gave the President that power to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein.

The WMD were not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq.

I am working on legislation to repeal that authorization and replace it with a much narrower mission statement for our troops in Iraq.

Congress should make clear what the mission of our troops is: to responsibly draw down, while continuing to combat terrorists, train Iraqis and respond to emergencies. We should make equally clear what their mission is not: to stay in Iraq indefinitely and get mired in a savage civil war.

[Yes, for God’s sake, somebody tell us what we are doing in Iraq! From my Post #45, Senator Gordon Smith said, “And I felt duty bound to say what was on my heart, and to describe how this war had mutated from one thing to another, from taking out a tyrant and a terrorist and ridding him of weapons of mass destruction and establishing democracy, to now being street cops in a sectarian civil war. That's not what I voted for. That is not what the American people are for.”]

For our sake and for the sake of the Iraqi people, we should be focused on how we get out of Iraq with our interests intact.

Everyone wants to bring our troops home as soon and as safely as possible. But tempting as it is, we can't just throw up our hands, blame the President for misusing the authority we gave him, and walk away without a plan for what we leave behind.

So I'll end where I began.

Leaving Iraq is a necessity, but it is not a plan. We need a plan for what we leave behind. That is what I have offered.