I would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure and isolate Saddam Hussein -- who was weak and getting weaker -- so that he would pose no threat to the region or to America.
The president's insistence that he would do the same thing all over again in Iraq is a clear warning for the future. And it makes the choice in this election clear: more of the same with President Bush or a new, smarter direction with John Kerry that makes our troops and America safer. That's the choice.
(APPLAUSE)
It is time, at long last, to ask the questions and insist on the answers from the commander in chief about his serious misjudgments and what they tell us about his administration and the president himself.
In Iraq, we have a mess on our hands. But we cannot just throw up our hands, we cannot afford to see Iraq become a permanent source of terror that will endanger America's security for years to come.
All across this country, people ask me and others, what we should do now every stop of the way. From the first time I spoke about this in the Senate, I have set out a specific set of recommendations from day one, from the first debate until this moment. I have set out specific steps of how we should not and how we should proceed.
But over and over, when this administration has been presented with a reasonable alternative, they have rejected it and gone their own way. This is stubborn incompetence.
Five months ago in Fulton, Missouri, I said that the president was close to his last chance to get it right. Every day this president makes it more difficult to deal with Iraq, harder than it was five months ago, harder than it was a year ago, a year and a half ago.
It's time to recognize what is and what is not happening in Iraq today and we must act with urgency.
Just this weekend, a leading Republican, Chuck Hagel, said that, We're in deep trouble in Iraq. It doesn't add up to a pretty picture, he said, and we're going to have to look at a recalibration of our policy.
Republican leaders like Dick Lugar and John McCain have offered similar assessments.
We need to turn the page and make a fresh start in Iraq.
First, the president has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone.
Last spring, after too many months of delay, after reluctance to take the advice of so many of us, the president finally went back to the U.N., and it passed Resolution 1546. It was the right thing to do, but it was late.
That resolution calls on U.N. members to help in Iraq by providing troops, trainers for Iraq's security forces and a special brigade to protect the U.N. mission, and more financial assistance and real debt relief.
But guess what? Three months later, not a single country has answered that call, and the president acts as if it doesn't matter.
And of the 13 billion that was previously pledged to Iraq by other countries, only $1.2 billion has been delivered.
The president should convene a summit meeting of the world's major powers and of Iraq's neighbors, this week, in New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General Assembly, and he should insist that they make good on the U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors specific but critical roles in training Iraqi security personnel and in securing Iraqi borders. He should give other countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, is this more difficult today? You bet it is. It's more difficult today because the president hasn't been doing it from the beginning. And I and others have repeatedly recommended this from the very beginning.
Delay has only made it harder. After insulting allies and shredding alliances, this president may not have the trust and the confidence to bring others to our side in Iraq.
But I'll tell you, we cannot hope to succeed unless we rebuild and lead strong alliances so that other nations share the burden with us. That is the only way to be successful in the end.
(APPLAUSE) Second, the president must get serious about training Iraqi security forces.
Last February, Secretary Rumsfeld claimed that -- claimed that more than 210,000 Iraqis were in uniform. This is the public statement to America.
Well, guess what, America? Neither number bears any relationship to the truth.
For example, just 5,000 Iraqi soldiers have been fully trained by the administration's own minimal standards. And of the 35,000 police now in uniform, not one -- not one has completed a 24-week field training program.
Is it any wonder that Iraqi security forces can't stop the insurgency or provide basic law and order?
The president should urgently expand the security forces' training program inside and outside of Iraq. He should strengthen the vetting of recruits, double the classroom training time, require the follow-on field training. He should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He should press our NATO allies to open training centers in their countries.
And he should stop misleading the American people with phony, inflated numbers and start behaving like we really are at war.
(APPLAUSE)
Third, the president must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people, all of which, may I say, should have been in the plan and immediately launched with such a ferocity that there was no doubt about America's commitment or capacity in the very first moments afterwards. But they didn't plan.
He ignored his own State Department's plan, he discarded it.
Last week, the administration admitted that its plan was a failure when it asked Congress for permission to radically revise the spending priorities in Iraq. It took them 17 months for them to understand that security is a priority, 17 months to figure out that boosting oil production is critical, 17 months to conclude that an Iraqi with a job is less likely to shoot at our soldiers.
(APPLAUSE)
One year ago, this administration asked for and received $18 billion to help the Iraqis and relieve the conditions that contribute to the insurgency. Today, less than $1 billion of those funds have actually been spent. I said at the time that we have to rethink our policies and set standards of accountability, and now we're paying the price for not doing that.
He should use more Iraqi contractors and workers instead of big corporations like Halliburton.
