Sen. Snowe's Speech on the Iraq War

Congress to make our voices heard in a policy that has significant implications not only for our Nation and the Middle East but, indeed, the world community. I believe our bipartisan proposal would have offered a clear expression for a new strategy that would have compelled, in the words of the resolution itself, "the Iraqi political leaders to make the political compromises necessary to end the violence." Unfortunately, the measure did not generate sufficient support at the time, and now we find ourselves confronting a similar situation only 6 months later.

In May, I traveled again to Iraq , where the good news was mixed and the bad news was deeply disturbing. First and foremost, I want to say our troops were performing superbly and courageously and in an extremely complex and challenging environment. I am certain every Member of this body would agree when I say the men and women fighting for this great Nation are integral members of the most professional and dedicated military the world has ever witnessed. So there is no question--no question--of our troops' heroic commitment.

Indeed, I witnessed the improved security situation, as has been mentioned many times on the floor, in Ramadi. I was part of the first congressional group to travel into downtown Ramadi and visit a joint security post. In that city, the tribal sheiks and the Iraqi forces have begun to work in conjunction with our own forces to fight a common enemy, and that common enemy is al-Qaida. We know the success, and clearly it was a model of success and cooperation. However, we also were told that what worked in Anbar might not necessarily work in the other provinces, that the threat varies from province to province, as we have already discovered. The threat varies from city to city, and the threat is multidimensional. What we have witnessed in Anbar where the "enemy of my enemy is also my enemy" does not necessarily suggest that it can apply across the board and may not be a model that can be replicated in other provinces and in other cities. Certainly, we should use it where it can work and can be applied, but certainly it may not be possible in all of the other areas within Iraq , because the common enemy within al-Anbar was, of course, al-Qaida.

So I happen to believe it is abundantly apparent that we must send a strong message to the Iraqi Government that by linking our continued strategy in Iraq to the level of progress they made in attaining the political benchmarks they themselves had agreed to were so central to securing an Iraqi Nation. After all, by the President's own account, the Baghdad Security Plan, the surge, was designed to be the final window of opportunity for the Iraqis to institute those benchmarks. They had to know it was a window we would close if they did not act with commensurate urgency.

That is why, upon my return from Iraq , I, along with my colleague, Senator Bayh from Indiana, introduced bipartisan legislation that would have required the Iraqi Government to meet the benchmarks outlined by the Iraq Study Group and the administration. If the Iraqi Government failed to do so, our bill directed that the surge forces would redeploy and the remaining forces would transition to a far more limited mission that included the training and equipping of the Iraqi forces, assisting the deployed Iraqi brigades with intelligence, transportation, air support, and logistics, protecting U.S. and coalition personnel and infrastructure, and maintaining rapid reaction teams to undertake coun.ter.ter.ror.ism missions against al-Qaida.

I argued in May that we are at a critical juncture and that we were at a point where we must be pivoting toward a policy that responsibly brings us to a resolution on the future course of America's involvement in Iraq . I believed at the time the bipartisan legislation that I introduced with Senator Bayh would place the onus and the burden rightfully where it belongs--on the Iraqi Government and its political leaders to enact and to implement the benchmarks that, again, they themselves had pledged to achieve.

Our legislation would have required General Petraeus to come before the Congress and testify 14 days following his September report and, if the political benchmarks had not been met, to submit a plan on phased redeployment of the surge troops associated with the Baghdad security plan and a change in mission for all of the troops, consistent, again, with the recommendations set forth by the Iraq Study Group report.

Senator Bayh and I crafted the bill with the intent of garnering bipartisan support and called for not a mandate but, rather, an objective of completing the transition and redeployment 6 months later--which would have been approximately the end of March 2008.

As I said at the time, we cannot further countenance political intransigence on the part of the Iraqi Government, while our men and women are on the front lines confronting sacrifices and making sacrifices each and every day. I am pleased that many elements of the Snowe-Bayh bill were included in the measure that was drafted by our esteemed colleague Senator Warner, which was incorporated into the supplemental legislation which the Senate passed on May 24 and that became law, which established the 18 benchmarks to evaluate the performance of the Iraqi Government.

Yet here we are now, nearly 2 months from the passage of that supplemental, and coming off the bloodiest 3-month period for American troops since the war began, with 331 deaths in that period, and more than 600 since the surge began. And yet, as last week's White House interim report only underscored, there still has been no significant progress on any of the political benchmarks whatsoever.

Among other failures, they have not passed an oil law which fairly divides oil revenue among Iraq's ethnicities and religious sects. Last month, the largest Sunni political grouping announced its four Cabinet ministers were boycotting the Government and were withdrawing its 44 members from the Parliament, and there was a "no confidence" vote scheduled to take place even against Prime Minister Maliki. Perhaps most incredible, given this stunning lack of progress, is the fact that the Iraqi Parliament will not be in session for the entire month of August.

That effectively means that the Iraq Parliament--even assuming--even assuming--they can attain the required quorum to conduct their affairs given that in the past 2 months, the Parliament has had considerable difficulty obtaining a quorum and has rarely had enough members in the chamber to vote--has another 3 weeks remaining in session before the month of September arrives; all the while, our soldiers continue the battle, while the Iraqi Government will take a recess, having failed to make significant progress on any of the benchmarks included in the supplemental bill we passed 2 months ago.