Posted by Damozel | Hillary made an excellent and crucial speech at George Washington University on the Iraq War, some of which I've excerpted below.
Hillary began by expressing my view: the surge can't be said to be working unless its goal is achieved: political reconciliation within the Iraqi government. Otherwise, we are simply policing Iraq's civil war."
If elected, she said:
I will start by facing the conditions on the ground in Iraq as they are, not as we hope or wish them to be. President Bush points to the reduction in violence in Iraq last year and claims the surge is working. Now, I applaud any decrease in violence. That is always good news. But the point of the surge was to give the Iraqis the time and space for political reconciliation. Yet today, the Iraqi government has failed to provide basic services for its citizens. They have yet to pass legislation ensuring the equitable distribution of oil revenues, yet even to pass a law setting the date of provincial elections. Corruption and dysfunction is rampant....
Pointing out that neither Petraeus nor the Iraqis are satisfied with the progress toward reconciliation, Hillary pointed out that it is not feasible for the US to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely simply to keep down the violence. We simply cannot afford to police Iraq's civil war without mounting threats "to our national security, our economy, and our standing in the world."(GWU speech)
That President Bush seems to want to keep as many troops there after the surge as before and says that doing otherwise would endanger our progress is a clear admission that the surge has not accomplished its goals...The lives of our brave men and women are at stake. Nearly 4,000 of them have, by now, made that ultimate sacrifice. Tens of thousands more have suffered wounds both visible and invisible to their bodies, their minds, and their hearts.
The strength of our military is at stake. Only one of our army brigades is certified by the army to be ready. Our armed forces are stretched to near the breaking point with many of our troops on their second, third, or fourth tours of duty....
Our economic security is at stake. Taking into consideration the long-term costs of replacing equipment and providing medical care for troops and survivors' benefits for their families, the war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over $1 trillion. That is enough to provide health care for all 47 million uninsured Americans and quality pre-kindergarten for every American child, solve the housing crisis once and for all, make college affordable for every American student, and provide tax relief to tens of millions of middle class families...
Our ability to win the war in Afghanistan is at stake. When I first visited Afghanistan in 2003, I was greeted by a soldier who said, "Welcome to the forgotten front line in the war on terror." Since then, the Taliban and al Qaeda have continued to gain new footholds throughout the country, and as a result, the overall terrorist threat, as our own intelligence community has noted, is growing.
Finally, our leadership in the world and our ability to front global challenges, present and future, is at stake. From extremism in Pakistan, to nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, to troubling antidemocratic trends in Russia and Latin America, to the threat of global epidemics and global warming and to the rise of China. The more the world regards us with suspicion rather than admiration, the more difficult it is to confront these challenges. (GWU speech)
She countered Bush's and McCain's argument that a withdrawal is equivalent to a defeat. Withdrawal is not risk-free, she said, "but the risks of remaining in Iraq are certain."(GWU speech)
We simply cannot give the Iraqi government an endless blank check. Each passing month we stay in Iraq gives the Iraqi government more time to avoid the hard decisions on how to split the oil money and how to share political power....
[L]et's be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years. Defeat is straining our alliances and losing our standing in the world. Defeat is draining our resources and diverting attention from our key interests.(GWU speech)
She outlined the experience that qualifies her to get troops out of Iraq in a responsible fashion, focusing not only on service on the Armed Services committee, but also on legislation that she has sponsored and support she has received from military officers. In pertinent part, she said:
For the past five years, I have served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan three times. I have met with our soldiers and military leaders. I have met with Iraqi, local, regional, and national elected and other influential officials. Here at home I’ve attended countless meetings and committee hearings where I have challenged high-ranking Pentagon officials and military leaders investigating the situation in Iraq, probing the facts presented, and demanding real answers to tough questions. And I am honored that more than 30 of America’s most esteemed former admirals and generals, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and five retired officers of the four-star rank have endorsed my candidacy.
The American people don't have to guess whether I’m ready to lead or whether I understand the realities on the ground in Iraq or whether I’d be too dependent on advisers to help me determine the right way forward. I’ve been working day-in and day-out in the Senate to provide leadership to end this war. That’s why I cosponsored legislation with Senator Robert Byrd to reauthorize the war, legislation that would actually end the president's authority to fight it.
That’s why I’ve started laying the ground work for a swift and responsible withdrawal beginning in early 2009 by demanding that the Pentagon start planning for it now. I’ve introduced legislation ensuring that Congress would be briefed on those plans and that's also why I’m working to block President Bush's effort to keep this war going after he leaves office. I’ve introduced legislation banning him from unilaterally negotiating a long-term security commitment to Iraq, including the possibility of permanent bases.
I believe what matters in this campaign is not just the promises we've made to end the war; what matters is what we've actually done when it came time to match words with action. Because more than anything else, what we've done is an indication of what we'll do.(GWU speech).
She discussed her plans for bringing home---and caring for---the troops.
The most important part of my plan is the first step, to bring our troops home and send the strongest possible message to the Iraqis that they must take responsibly for their own future. No more talk of permanent occupation, no more policing a civil war, no more doing for the Iraqis what they need to be doing for themselves. As president, one of my first official actions will be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my Secretary of Defense and my National Security Council and direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to start bringing our troops home within the first 60 days of my taking office. A plan based on my consultation with the military to remove one to two brigades a month, a plan that reduces the risks of attack as they depart.
As we bring our troops home, I will ensure we are fully prepared to take care of them and their families once they have returned. I will direct the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to prepare a comprehensive plan to provide the highest quality of health care, disability benefits, and social services for every single service member including every member of the National Guard and Reserve as well as their families, and I will make sure this plan is promptly implemented.(GWU speech).
She discussed legislation that she has cosponsored in Congress that is designed to assist returning troops.
She also discussed the steps she would implement to secure the region as the troops are withdrawn.
The second part of my plan involves working to secure stability within Iraq as we bring our troops home, stability that will be key to a successful withdrawal of our troops. I believe it's really quite simple, greater political and economic stability means safer conditions for our departing troops and a smoother disengagement from our military's actions across Iraq. Right now no one doubts that the Iraqi government is failing its citizens. Government officials refuse to take the steps need to order to advance a solution, improve the economy, quell sectarian violence and better the lives of ordinary Iraqis. These failings are, in part, the fault of the Iraqis and in part due to the Bush administration's failure to match military efforts with political ones.
When I’m president, we will pursue a more integrated strategy. We’ll empower local leaders and use U.S. and international influence to press the Iraqis to reach political reconciliation, and I will call on the United Nations to strengthen its role in promoting this reconciliation. Not having been a party to the mistakes of the path five years, the U.N., which has already provided valuable technical assistance in Iraq, is far more likely to be viewed as a neutral, honest broker than the United States, especially when it acts on behalf of a broad coalition of concerned states and the international community. The new United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has indicated he is willing to play a key role in assisting the Iraqis.
I will also work with China and Russia to ensure that the U.N. envoy in Iraq has the necessary authority by obtaining the Security Council’s explicit endorsement of a strengthened U.N. mandate to promote reconciliation. I will also call upon the U.N. to help oversee the resettlement of the millions of refugees who have fled Iraq or have been displaced internally. Many are living in desperate conditions creating not just a humanitarian crisis but one affecting regional stability that poses direct threats to our security here at home which we must address immediately.
While we focus our efforts on improving conditions so Iraqis don't have to flee in the first place, we have to recognize our moral obligation to help those we have put at risk in Iraq, the interpreters, soldiers who have assisted our troops. We will work with governments in both the Middle East and the west, including of course the United States, to find places for asylum seekers, and we will work with the U.N. to develop a plan to help them return, if possible, to Iraq once the country has stabilized.
She also promised to crack down on the misuse and diversion of oil revenues.
I would further seek to stabilize Iraq by insisting that the country's oil revenues, instead of U.S. taxpayer dollars, increasingly be used to fund Iraq’s reconstruction. When President Bush began this war, his administration claimed that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction. Well, the Iraqi government has now earned tens of billions of dollars from oil. Some estimates indicate that revenues this year will top $55 billion. Yet since the beginning of the war, the U.S. has allocated roughly the same amount of money as Iraq for reconstruction, $47 billion from us versus $50 billion from them. And now it is even clearer that the Iraqi government is not spending its oil money on reconstruction. There are reports that Iraq spent less than a quarter of oil funds set aside for reconstruction in 2006, and the U.S. Comptroller General testified that as of November 2007 the capital expenditure rate for the central ministries in Iraq was only 7%. Oil profits are showing up in foreign banks even as Iraqi citizens lack basic services.
As president I would immediately direct the Inspector General for Iraq to appoint a special council to investigate and make recommendations directly to me for how to ensure Iraqi oil revenues and U.S. taxpayer dollars on a declining trend are used to rebuild Iraq. It is unacceptable that these oil revenues go unused or worse end up in private accounts while citizens lack electricity and clean drinking water. We will support Iraq’s efforts to rebuild their country, but we will not permit our money or theirs to be thrown away.
I will work to crack down on the black market for oil in Iraq. According to recent news reports, insurgent groups a profiteering from a substantial black market in oil. The money they make is going in part to pay for IEDs, car bombs, and other tools of terror. (GWU speech).
Much of what she is proposing is similar to the plan proposed by the British Iraqi Commission this summer which---like Hillary---agreed that there were no easy solutions to Iraq if the goal was to act responsibly. Like Hillary, Baroness Margaret Jay suggested that a responsible withdrawal could be achieved through diplomacy and through cooperation with the UN and that a key focus must be the humanitarian crisis and the resettlement of refugees.
The third and final part of my plan to end the war involves replacing our military force in Iraq with an intensive diplomatic initiative in the region. Over the past four years, we've learned the hard way about the need for a truly multilateral approach in Iraq, one built on sound strategy and long-range planning, not ideology and wishful thinking. the president's go it alone strategy has diminished our position in the region and around the world, and that diminished position, in turn, has made it increasingly difficult for us to bring about a political solution. Our friends and allies in the region have an especially large stake in building a stable Iraq, but until now in part because of the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war, they have lacked leadership and gotten a free pass. That must end.
Ten months from now we will have a new opportunity to reach out and engage our allies. One of my very first international meetings as president would be with our treaty allies and our friends in the region including the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, and our European allies. Over the course of my career I have known and worked with many of these leaders already, and I will send them a very clear message - what happens in Iraq affects all of our interests, and it is all of our responsibility. It’s time we did our part and paid our fair share. I will then convene a regional stabilization group composed of these key allies, other global parties, the states bordering Iraq. The mission of this group will be to develop and implement a strategy to create a stable Iraq. I would include in this regional stabilization group Iran and Syria. We must convince all countries in the region and beyond to refrain from getting involved in the Iraqi civil war, to hold themselves and others to their past pledges to provide funding in Iraq, and to support the central role for the United Nations.
These will be critical first steps toward establishing a new American approach in the world, one that draws on the strength of our alliances and the power of our diplomacy, and uses the greatest military force on earth as a last, not a first, resort. (GWU speech).
In the course of discussing withdrawal from Iraq, Hillary ripped into the president's use of private contractors, again focusing on steps that she has already taken in Congress to end this abusive and ruinously expensive practice.
In addition to removing American troops from Iraq, I will also work to remove armed private military contractors who are conducting combat-oriented and security functions in Iraq. For five yeas their behavior and lack of supervision and accountability have often eroded our credibility, endangered U.S. and Iraqi lives and undermined our mission. Now, Senator Obama and I have a substantive disagreement here. He won't rule out continuing to use armed private military contractors in Iraq to do jobs that historically have been done by the U.S. military or government personnel. When I am president I will ask the Joint Chiefs for their help in reducing reliance on armed private military contractors. With the goal of ultimately implementing a ban on such contractors.
I’ve already cosponsored the Stop Security Outsourcing Act requiring that security services for personnel at any U.S. diplomatic or consular mission be provided only by federal government personnel.
I’ve already cosponsored the Stop Security Outsourcing Act requiring that security services for personnel at any U.S. diplomatic or consular mission be provided only by federal government personnel.
It’s also a time we put an end, once and for all, to the no-bid contracts that squander taxpayer money while lining the pockets of the president's cronies. Between 2000 and 2006, spending on no-bid contracts more than doubled, representing half of all federal procurement spending. (GWU speech).
An outline of her plan is set out here.
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