BIDEN, JOSEPH: Madam President, I share the frustration of my friend from Pennsylvania. I remember when my colleague, Senator Byrd, whom I still call the leader, was leader when I got here after
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Senator Mansfield that the way in which , how things have changed in many ways.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: One of the things that has changed is what we saw take place today. Here the single most critical issue facing the United States of America today--the carnage that's taking place in Iraq, the fact
BIDEN, JOSEPH: that our blood and treasure is being spilled with no apparent end in sight, the notion that we would have to resort to a filibuster to stop a vote of a majority, clear majority of United States
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Senators who believe there is an urgent need to change course in Iraq is not only dismaying but the consequence of it, I believe, is to kick the can down the road another 2 to 3 months. In the
BIDEN, JOSEPH: meantime, many Americans are going to be injured and killed, who, I believe can be avoided.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Ever since the Democrats took back the Congress, we have been working to build pressure on the administration and, quite frankly, a number of our Republican colleagues to change course in Iraq
BIDEN, JOSEPH: because I don't believe there are a dozen Republican Senators who agree with the President's present position. I don't believe there are a dozen Republican Senators who believe that the results are
BIDEN, JOSEPH: going to be fundamentally different on September the 5th than they are today, although I respect the fact that they have concluded they want to wait to give the President every opportunity to
BIDEN, JOSEPH: demonstrate his plan can work.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: But here is the problem, Madam President, with all due respect. The problem is that we are faced with two false choices in the Congress. One is the one put forward by the administration and sustained
BIDEN, JOSEPH: by a minority of votes that are overwhelmingly Republican that says we should continue to do what we are doing and hand off the problem to the next President. I don't know anybody who believes that
BIDEN, JOSEPH: through escalating this conflict, adding American forces, there is any reasonable prospect that would bring about the only thing that will end this war in our interest, that is a political settlement among the Iraqis.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: And then there are a number of Democrats who have a view, out of frustration, that we must begin to get out of there, get out and hope for the best. And their premise, some of them as well, that
BIDEN, JOSEPH: look, there isn't any reasonable prospect of us being able to do this militarily, and the hope is that somehow if we get out, the Iraqis, the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shias will have a bit of an
BIDEN, JOSEPH: epiphany, as we Catholics would say, that they will get together and say: Oh, my goodness, America is leaving and we better get together and settle our differences here or things are going to completely implode.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Well, the fundamental flaw in all of that thinking, Madam President, in my humble opinion--I know I am like a broken record, I have been saying it for over 3 years and have laid out a concrete plan
BIDEN, JOSEPH: over a year ago--the fundamental flaw in this is there is no possibility in the lifetime of any Member of this Senate for there to be a coherent central government in Baghdad that has the ability to
BIDEN, JOSEPH: gain the faith and trust of the people of Iraq and the ability to govern that country. It will not happen. Mark my words. There is no possibility of that happening. Never, to my research, have I
BIDEN, JOSEPH: found ever has there been a situation where there has been a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian violence, a self-sustaining civil war, which is exactly what we have now in Iraq, that it has ever
BIDEN, JOSEPH: ended in any other than one of four ways: a major power goes in and occupies the country for a generation or more, not an option available for us, nor is it in our DNA to do that. We are not the
BIDEN, JOSEPH: British Empire; we are not the Ottoman Empire; we are not the Persian Empire; nor do we want to be.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Second option is: Install a dictator. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony for the
BIDEN, JOSEPH: United States of America to install a dictator?
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Third option: Pick a side. Wage in on one side of the sectarian violence, wipe out the other side. Not a good option. A, it would be immoral; B, it would take a couple years and; C, it would ignite a
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Sunni-Shia revolution from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: There is a fourth way where it's ended, and that is establish a federal system within the country separating the parties, giving them control of the fabric of their daily lives, their own security
BIDEN, JOSEPH: forces in their own neighborhoods, their own laws relating to religion, education, marriage, divorce, property, jobs, a federal system.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: And coincidentally, that is exactly what the Iraqi Constitution calls for in article I. It says: We are a decentralized federal system. And so, absent a political settlement, there is no way--I will
BIDEN, JOSEPH: make the prediction I shouldn't make because I have been around here long enough to know that everything you say on this floor you are reminded of if you turn out to be wrong. If you are right, you
BIDEN, JOSEPH: are never reminded of it. If you turn out to be wrong, you are reminded of it whether it is 6 months, 6 years or 12 years later.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: I honestly believe, absent a radical change in course resulting in a federal system existing in Iraq, the only option the next President of the United States is going to have is going to be a
BIDEN, JOSEPH: reenactment of the scene in Saigon, with helicopters lifting people off the roofs of the embassy in the green zone. That is how it is going to end, in disaster.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: I not only don't want my son who is a captain in the U.S. National Guard going to Iraq, I don't want my grandson going or my granddaughter. How we leave Iraq, what shape we leave it in, what prospect
BIDEN, JOSEPH: for a political settlement exists will determine whether my grandson goes back 15 years from now.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: So, Madam President, all we did today was take what was originally called the Biden-Hagel resolution that we introduced in January, then the Biden-Levin resolution, then the Levin-Reed-Biden, et al,
BIDEN, JOSEPH: now the Levin-Reed amendment. They all do the same thing. There is not a dime's worth of difference.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: And what they all said was this: Mr. President, the first thing you do when you are in a hole is stop digging; stop digging us deeper into this disaster. Cease and desist from placing our troops in
BIDEN, JOSEPH: the midst of a civil war. We are in the midst of a civil war. The quote ``success'' we are having in Anbar Province, what is it doing? It is making the Shia conclude we are arming and engaging with
BIDEN, JOSEPH: the Sunnis and the former Baathists, making it harder for us to get the Shia to agree to action on the oil law, which would be the thing to get the Sunnis to buy into a united Iraq.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: We are in the midst of a civil war, and the whole thesis of the idea we came forward with as early as January and we voted on again today is to say: Get out of that civil war. Use American forces for
BIDEN, JOSEPH: only three express purposes: One, train the Iraqi Army; two, deny al-Qaida occupation of large swaths of territory, particularly in Anbar Province; and three, protect our diplomats there.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues in the Senate, last week we heard President Bush give a progress report on Iraq. It reminded me of a guy who jumps off a 100-story building and as he passes the
BIDEN, JOSEPH: 50th floor, somebody yells out: How's it going? And he yells back: So far so good. That's the summary of the President's report, except that it s not even going well so far and the outcome is
BIDEN, JOSEPH: absolutely certain: continued disaster.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Also, last week, Bob Woodward revealed that back in November, the CIA Director Michael Hayden made the very point I have been making for 2 years in a private meeting with the Iraqi Study Group. He said, quote :
BIDEN, JOSEPH: "The inability of the central Government to govern is irreversible." End of quote
BIDEN, JOSEPH: There is, quote ``no milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around.'' End of quote. Our director , the CIA, director of Intelligence then went on to say, quote:
BIDEN, JOSEPH: "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government ..... that cannot function." End of quote.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: What more do we need? I ask my colleagues, what more do you need? Our own intelligence community has been saying since last November that the inability of the central government to govern is irreversible irreversible.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues, nothing has happened since General Hayden made his remarks to change that assessment. The time now is to stop digging that hole, redeploy our forces, save
BIDEN, JOSEPH: American lives, and begin to push a political settlement.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: I conclude by saying yesterday, Madam President, yesterday's release of the unclassified key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on, quote``The Terrorist Threat to the United States
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Homeland'' end of quote, highlights the urgency of changing our course in Iraq. The so-called NIE is a devastating indictment of the administration's failure to accomplish its most important
BIDEN, JOSEPH: mission--destroying al-Qaida and the threat it poses.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: It confirms what was reported last week, that the al-Qaida we failed to finish off in Afghanistan and Pakistan, because we went into Iraq, has, quote ``regenerated,'' and it remains intent on
BIDEN, JOSEPH: attacking us at home. That should put to rest once and for all this administration's false refrain that we are fighting over there so we don't have to fight them over here. That's rubbish and our own
BIDEN, JOSEPH: intelligence, the NIE--that is all the intelligence agencies in the United States Government coming to a consensus position.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: It spotlights the danger posed by al-Qaida in Iraq, a group independent but now affiliated with al-Qaida of bin Laden. Al-Qaida in Iraq, Madam President, is a Bush-fulfilling prophecy. I will say it
BIDEN, JOSEPH: again. Al-Qaida in Iraq is a Bush-fulfilling prophecy. It did not exist in Iraq prior to our invasion. But the failed policies, failure to deal with an administrative policy, a political solution,
BIDEN, JOSEPH: what it does now is to help the al-Qaida energize extremists around the world, raise money for new recruits, and become stronger.All the more reason we must act now, Madam President, to refocus our
BIDEN, JOSEPH: energy and resources on al-Qaida and start to get our troops out of Iraq's civil war, while limiting the mission of those who remain to denying al-Qaida in Iraq a safe haven.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Finally, Madam President, I say to my colleagues, regardless of one's view on the war and how to end it, there is one commitment each and every one of us should make. That commitment is so long as
BIDEN, JOSEPH: there is a single a single--American troop in Iraq a single American troop in Iraq that we should do all that is needed to give them the best possible protection this country can provide, and
BIDEN, JOSEPH: the way to start that is with these mine-resistant vehicles, to replace the humvees with these mine-resistant vehicles that in our last supplemental I was able to convince our colleagues to add 1.7
BIDEN, JOSEPH: billion more dollars to build them. These vehicles have a V-shaped hull and they can reduce casualties from roadside bombs by up to 80 percent and right now, 70 percent of all the casualties taking
BIDEN, JOSEPH: place in Iraq is because of roadside bombs.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Madam President, I will offer an amendment to the Defense bill when we get to it to make clear, with absolutely no ambiguity, that Congress will provide every single dollar needed and every authority
BIDEN, JOSEPH: necessary to build these vehicles as quickly as possible because our kids are dying, our kids are dying, and it can radically reduce the number of casualties.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: So let me conclude, Mr. President, by saying our Republican colleagues say--all of whom I respect, but the one I particularly respect like Senator Lugar--that they expect the President to voluntarily change course.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: Mr. President, I have absolutely no faith, none whatsoever, in this President being able to voluntarily do what should be done. The only way it is going to happen is when our Republican friends stop
BIDEN, JOSEPH: voting with the President and start voting to end this war by supporting our troops.
BIDEN, JOSEPH: I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.