In case you missed it on CSPAN, here's a statement delivered by Senator Webb earlier today on the floor of the US Senate. Bolding added by me for emphasis.
This is a very difficult time for those of us who have long known that the war in Iraq was a strategic error of monumental proportions, but who also understand the practical realities of disengagement. A majority of this country believes that we need to readjust our Iraq policy and to get our combat forces off the streets of Iraq's cities. A majority of our military believes that this Administration's approach is not working. A majority of the Congress believes that we need a new approach.
There are sound, realistic alternatives that could be pursued toward the eventual goal of removing our troops from Iraq, increasing the political stability of that war-torn region, increasing our capability to defeat the forces of international terrorism, and allowing our country to focus on larger strategic priorities that now have gone untended for too many years. Unfortunately, few of these alternatives seem to make it to the House or Senate floor, in the form that would truly impact policy.With respect to the approaches that have been taken recently, let me first say that I am cynical about the stack of benchmarks that have appeared in recent bills, laying down a series of requirements to the Iraqi government. The reality is that the Iraqi government is a weak government. Like the Lebanese government twenty years ago, it has very little power, and it is surrounded by a multiplicity of armed factions which have overwhelming power in their concentrated areas of activity. Too often, the benchmarks that we, in our splendid isolation, decide to impose, are little more than feel-good measures, giving us the illusion that we are doing something meaningful. And just to make them more illusory, the language we send over on benchmarks and other policies such as unit readiness and length of deployment are couched with waivers, so that the President can simply ignore the language anyway>. What does this do? How can we continue these actions and then claim to the American people that we're really solving the most troubling issue of our era? Some of these discussions remind me of what Mark Twain once wrote, saying that the government in Washington is like two thousand ants floating down the river on a log, each one thinking they're driving it.
Secondly, let me say that I admire the intentions in the bill that my colleague Senator Feingold introduced earlier today. However, I could not vote for that bill, because an arbitrary cutoff date for funding military operations in Iraq might actually work against the country's best interests in an environment where we have, finally seen some diplomatic efforts from this administration. Recent initiatives from Secretary of State Rice, Ambassador Crocker, and Admiral Fallon, the new commander of the Central Command, hold out the hope, if not the promise, that we might actually start to turn this thing around. Admiral Fallon has publicly stated that we must deal with Iran and Syria. Ambassador Crocker at this moment is arranging a diplomatic exchange with Iran. Secretary of State Rice has cooperated at the ministerial level in an environment where her Iranian counterpart was also at the table. And importantly, Admiral Fallon mentioned during his recent confirmation hearing that it is not the number of troops in Iraq that is important, but the uses to which they would be put. There is room for movement here, as long as the movement occurs in a timely fashion. An arbitrary cutoff date would, at this point, take away an important negotiating tool. Let's just hope that they use the tools we are providing them in an effective manner.
There is, however, one issue that demands our immediate attention, and which should not be delayed.
As we look at our options here in the Congress, I continue to firmly believe that we have a duty in an area that is not being properly addressed by this Administration, and which is in the proper purview of the Congress. When the supplemental Appropriations bill is returned to the President, it should contain language prohibiting this Administration from deploying Army units for longer than 12 months, and Marine Corps units for longer than 210 days. It should also prohibit sending any military individual overseas unless he or she has been home from a previous tour for at least as long as they were deployed. In other words, if you've been gone a year, you should be home a year before you're sent back.
This Administration has gone back to the well again and again, extending the length of military tours, and shortening the time that our soldiers and Marines are allowed to be at home before being sent, again and again and again, into Iraq and Afghanistan. Absent the gravest national emergency, there is no strategy in Iraq or elsewhere that justifies what has been happening with the deployment cycles of the men and women we are sending into harm's way. It has reached the point that the goodwill and dedication of our military people are being abused, by policy makers obsessed with various experimental strategies that are being conducted at their expense. These people have put their lives literally into the hands of our national leadership. There are limits to human endurance, and there are limits to what military families can be expected to tolerate, in the name of the national good.
For that reason, I urge our conferees to include language that will limit this policy in the bill that will be returned to the President.
Very interesting - Webb calls benchmarks "feel-good measures," opposes an "arbitrary cutoff date" but supports language "prohibiting this Administration from deploying Army units for longer than 12 months, and Marine Corps units for longer than 210 days." What do you think?
For instance, the U.S. shouldn't have to provide funding for the Iraqi government, which controls the second largest oil reserves in the world.
The two key quotes from his speech
"However, I could not vote for that bill, because an arbitrary cutoff date for funding military operations in Iraq might actually work against the country's best interests "
"An arbitrary cutoff date would, at this point, take away an important negotiating tool."
Unfortunatly now it looks like he is trying to please everyone
He needs to step up (go against his loony left leadership pelosi and reid) and propose a bill about what really needs to be done in Iraq. Even better him and Warner should work together.
...we have, finally seen some diplomatic efforts from this administration. ... Recent initiatives ... hold out the hope, if not the promise, that we might actually start to turn this thing around.
The Senator is rightly suspicious of so-called benchmarks being unrelated to the actual situation in Iraq and that allow the President to waive the consequences anyway. And he is justifiably determined that our men and women in uniform be provided adequate equipment, training, rest periods, and rational tours of duty.
But I disagree strongly that setting a date to begin withdrawal of US forces is 'arbitrary' or that doing so would be a hindrance to the suddenly popular negotiations being undertaken by this Administration. The arbitrariness was getting into this travesty, not in getting out. Setting a point at which our military is removed from this quagmire is not arbitary, it is principled and reasonable.
I applaud his argument that
there is no strategy in Iraq or elsewhere that justifies what has been happening with the deployment cycles of the men and women we are sending into harm's way.I argue that there is no strategy in Iraq or elsewhere that justifies continuing the unending presence of the U.S. military in Iraq at all.
But regardless of how it started, we have to be very careful about what we do now. Many things that might have worked early on are not possible now.
We were able to walk away from Vietnam and the Vietnamese stopped fighting us. Now that we've stirred up this hornets nest, and in effect given thousands of jihadists OJT in advanced murder and mayhem, I doubt we can just walk out without leaving grave consequences for the mideast and the US.
Timelines put the military in very difficult position. They were a bad idea when Clinton was fighting in the Balkans and they are a bad idea now. I'm not saying don't pressure the Iraqis, and we should make clear we don't intend to remain forever.
If we really want a deadline, we should promise a date certain to turn over control of the large permanent bases we've been constructing to the Iraqi government (assuming there is an Iraqi government). Jim Webb was right about that too.
Otherwise, its all too apparent to the Iraqis that our invasion was about expanding our empire.
Let's make the Democratic party be known as the party that pushed for and demanded responsible approaches to this mess, not as the party that grabbed at the simplest short term solution that left a long-term disaster (even if we can rightly blame the disaster on Bush). We certainly don't want to harm our country further than his administration has already done.
I chose the subject line because I want to encourage other Democrats who share my concerns about a hasty unplanned Iraq exit to speak up loudly.
I respect those arguing for immediate withdrawal, but I think its important for the public to know that there are Democrats who want to find a way to succeed in Iraq.
The press and right wing blogs spotlight the strongest anti-war voices, so people can get the incorrect idea that the entire Democratic party stands for running away from this problem that the US created.
** Last comment, I wish some of the politicians who are so loudly against the war now had had the spine to speak up before the invasion -- when they could have prevented this disaster. It was obvious we were being sold a bill of goods from the beginning -- to anyone brave enough to see it.
Kudos to Jim Webb and most of the House Democrats at the time for trying to prevent this war. I wish I could say the same about most of the Senate Democrats.
I'll let others comment on the Republican members.
Here are three scenarios when September rolls around
What do you do if the surge isn't working at all?
The surge is working?
and the hardest one... the surge is kind of working?
Looking forward to your responses
Real quick here are mine
1. Think about leaving but only if the UN steps into the region (dont really know if this is practical from a UN standponit)
2. Easy keep going
3. The toughest and what will propably happen. Get the Iraqi government to agree to strong benchmarks and as quickly as possible give control to the Iraqi Army and Police. (This is our basic strategy already with the U.S. trying to provide security help to the Iraqis)
P.S. kudos to Webb for trying to fix the troop rotation issues
Scenarios in bush talk:
1) The surge is working or is kind of working. Either event will be interpreted as the surge is working. We can't leave now, we are on the verge of winning. Those evil old liberals just want us to loose.
2) The surge is not working. We can't leave now. If we leave we are surrending to al-qaeda. The terrorists will follow us home. The chaos will expand from Iraq and involve the whole middle east. Iraq will end up in a civil war because we are the only thing holding the country together.
But I'm unpersuaded by his argument that arbitrary cut off date for funding is against our interests. This occupation has gone on long enough. Likely, we'll leave a bloodbath behind us whenever we pull out -- next week, next year, in 2 or 10yrs time. The only difference willbe that, if we pull out in 2yrs, Bush will have gotten off scot-free on the whole fiasco. And his buddies will have the extra time to make out like bandits, on the blood of our military and on the taxpayers' dime.
We might as well pull out with all possible speed. The military pull-out doesn't mean that all political/diplomatic process has to cease -- why should it? It might even have a better chance of success, if we're not there in force, constantly reminding the Iraqi why they should hate us.
And hate us they do... The little chart (Fraying Nation, Divided Opinions) in WaPo's Sunday Outlook section was quite chilling; no matter which region of Iraq, everyone thinks it's more OK to kill Americans than it is to kill other Iraqi. In the Anbar province -- worst -- the percentage is 100%(OK to kill Americans) to 29%(OK to killother Iraqis) in the Kurd area -- the best, Kurds being our friends and the area relatively peaceful-- it's still 3% to 1%.
But we'll never be ready to pull out, unless we work on it. And there's no incentive to the malAdministration or the Repubs in Congress *to* work at it, if they're not prodded, constantly. The Feingold bill was just such a prod.
Shorter libra: I'm disappointed in Webb's vote today. Very.
Look, in a perfect world we could do it exactly like Webb wanted. But we can't. Because Bush is president. And it comes down to the vote and the power of the purse. We need to put more and more pressure on Bush and the Republicans with the tools we have.
I am disappointed in Webb today. I cannot tell a lie.
but most the country and ok (most of Raising Kaine :-p) doesnt fit that category
although sometimes its hard to tell based on the diary topics and content
Now personally, I basically disagree with everything the group stands for. But just because I disagree doesn't give me the right to call you guys crazy how about misguided :-p.
Moreover, the policy positions taken by those "loonies" Reid and Pelosi are supported by roughly sixty percent of the American population. Under any honest definition of the term "middle," Reid and Pelosi fall in the middle of America's political spectrum and are in tune with mainstream American views.
Considering that the general tone of the original posting invites us to be proud of the way he voted; considering that the earlier comments followed the lead and considering that "swimming upstream" of majority is always more difficult psychologically... I think having a third of respondents express their *un*-happiness is not a picture of "pretty happy". Besides, Raising Kaine isn't the be-all and end-all of "netroothood"; there are other blogs "out there" which also had a lot riding on the results of Virginia elections. And,like beachmom says, they're definitely not happy campers.
beachmom; like you, I hope the issue will continue to be hammered at and that, eventually, more Congresscritters will be chipped away from the granite bloc.
Also, I'd add that while I'd love to get out of Iraq, I do not want to do it in a way that harms US national security or creates additional instability in the Middle East. For instance, I don't want to see a Turkey-Kurdish war, increased Iranian influence over Iraq, or a broader Shi'a-Sunni conflagration in the Middle East. I also don't want to see Iraq becoming a haven for Al Qaeda, like Afghanistan used to be. How do we prevent these things from happening? I don't know exactly, but that's why I worked so hard for Webb - because he's got a great head on his shoulders, tremendous national security experience, and I trust his judgment. Thank goodness Jim Webb's in the US Senate, that's all I have to say.
As distasteful to me as it is to keep troops in Iraq, it is going to be a reality for a while. I think Webb recognizes you can't make a weak government act with authority, and that's what we're dealing with in Bagdad--a weak government.
Powell warned us early on if we break it, we've bought it. I think that's right where we are. Benchmarks are feel-good propositions. They can't make this government any stronger or better at governing. We will have to be deliberate and careful how we get out of Iraq, and just as importantly, we must prevent this war spreading into other countries in the region.
What we can do is try to get as many American soldiers out of the firing line as much as possible and give them realistic tours of duty, with as much time between deployments as possible.
Sadly, we wouldn't be talking about this at all if this damned fool president and his stooge Cheney hadn't been playing at General.
I don't have all the answers, but we're gonna be there for a while. As for the netroots, I respect the sentiments, but if they expected Jim Webb to be a netroots lapdog, I'm afraid they'll be sorely disappointed. McJoan at Daily Kos sorta gave Webb a pass on this one, as he's the only Senator with a son in this war. I thought that was proper. But we all knew going into this deal that Webb was always going to be his own man.
For those who want to turn their back on him now for this one vote, let me remind you, Jim Webb gave Democrats the Senate. He ran on a platform that was more about economic fairness than the war. Talking about poor people is not nearly as sexy as talking about the war but look back at his WSJ piece written shortly after he was sworn in. That's the real Jim Webb, looking at the health of the country from the bottom up, instead of the stock market down.
As for his vote on benchmarks--I see his vote as the vote of a thinking adult with considerable experience in the area. Sometimes we have to trust the good Marine or the good soldier to know more about war than the good professor or the good activist. I'll continue to trust Jim Webb to do the right thing for Virgina and for the country.
Maybe I'm not getting what benchmarks are. I think they are conditions that must be fulfilled for the Iraqis to get or continue to get financial and other support from the U.S. Webb is probably absolutely right that the Congress is now going overboard in trying to impose such benchmarks, especially where they intrude upon military matters where the enemy gets a vote on what happens.
Still, it would be foolish not to put conditions on financial grants or loans to them. For instance, we shouldn't grant or loan them capital to develop their oil fields if they are not willing to crack down on what appears to be substantial theft/black marketeering of their crude.
http://www.nytimes.c...