Re: Our Troops Must Stay

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 20:00:43 GMT, "Wayne Lundberg"
<Waynelund@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Hurray! for this one outstanding Democrat! Wish there more like him....
>

What will you say when Bush announces troop withdrawals shortly?
Thumper
>
>"Cochon Capitaliste" <bravegars@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:1133288900.452684.301890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> WSJ COMMENTARY
>>
>> By JOE LIEBERMAN
>> November 29, 2005; Page A18
>>
>> I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months
>> and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of
>> course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation
>> from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern,
>> self-governing, self-securing nationhood -- unless the great American
>> military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is
>> prematurely withdrawn.
>>
>> Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is
>> continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South
>> remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power
>> and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing
>> greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined
>> by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is
>> where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too,
>> there is progress.
>>
>> There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on
>> the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than
>> before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni
>> candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly.
>> People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy
>> in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war
>> against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military
>> there to protect it.
>>
>> It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want
>> to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000
>> terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists
>> or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set
>> back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on
>> stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will
>> allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical
>> war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the
>> outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom
>> of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us
>> directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and
>> progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American
>> national and economic security priority.
>>
>> * * *
>> Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian
>> Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region,
>> but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and
>> Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative
>> election campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud
>> self-determination after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian
>> occupiers (the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be
>> next), and the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to
>> open up their governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting
>> with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he
>> declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open,
>> democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right.
>>
>> In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million
>> Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost
>> 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in
>> October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections
>> for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis
>> have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted
>> for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000
>> terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the
>> Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution,
>> registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and
>> going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous
>> political campaign, and a large number of independent television
>> stations and newspapers covering it.
>>
>> None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the
>> coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the
>> progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those
>> forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of
>> securing the country.
>>
>> The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they
>> asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is
>> whether the American people and enough of their representatives in
>> Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by
>> Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into
>> the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more
>> worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's
>> elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress
>> in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
>>
>> Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public
>> opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and
>> increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis
>> for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they
>> are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are
>> confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they
>> are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan
>> political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will
>> and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming
>> victory.
>>
>> The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen.
>> George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling
>> vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which
>> Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis
>> themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000
>> terrorists who would take it from them.
>>
>> * * *
>> Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in
>> Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American
>> people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed
>> over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was
>> removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that;
>> but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American
>> fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The
>> administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build"
>> accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last
>> week.
>>
>> We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting
>> unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of
>> our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The
>> Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and
>> polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi
>> forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities
>> of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria.
>> Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military
>> themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a
>> mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar
>> province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.
>>
>> Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of
>> the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to
>> "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and
>> that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American
>> military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the
>> increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes
>> well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence
>> there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our
>> presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to
>> come.
>>
>> The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should
>> have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador
>> Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan --
>> Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and
>> political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18
>> provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private
>> sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build"
>> strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing
>> to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in
>> Iraq.
>>
>> These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the
>> ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about
>> their future -- and why the American people should be, too.
>>
>> * * *
>> I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying
>> most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart,
>> effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a
>> Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in
>> western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops
>> had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in
>> Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I
>> would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot
>> longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my
>> Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause,
>> not by political debates."
>>
>> Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of
>> America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our
>> nation's history. Semper Fi.
>>
>> Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut
>>
>

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Our Troops Must Stay
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