Sen. Isakson's Speech on the Iraq War

Noah Harris was a young man who, on September 11, 2001, was at the University of Georgia and a cheerleader. The day the incident, terrible incident took place in New York City, Noah Harris went straight to Army ROTC as a junior ROTC, applied for ROTC, studied to become a commissioned officer, solely because of the inspiration he had gotten from seeing that tragedy and knowing that he wanted to represent his country and do something to pursue terrorism.

He went in the Army in 2004, was on the ground in Iraq , became known as the Beanie Baby Soldier because in the one pocket he carried bullets, in the other he carried Beanie Babies. He befriended the Iraqi children.

Noah died tragically. I went to his funeral. I paid respect to his parents. I have listened to Lucy, and I have followed her comments in the 2 years that have passed since his tragic loss.

This week, on July 15, in the Columbus newspaper in Georgia and other newspapers in a syndicated article, Ms. Harris was interviewed regarding the current debate that we are having on the floor of the Senate. I would like to quote two quotes from that article. First quote from Lucy Harris:

"They should just defer to Petraeus,'' Lucy Harris said of GEN David Petraeus, the commander of forces in Iraq . "It's a political game.''

Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this entire article.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. ISAKSON. Then, secondly, at the end of the article, I think a paragraph that all of us should hear: Lucy said the following:

We're talking about boots on the ground, real people. When I think about my son who could have done anything with his life, but he fought because he believed in his country and what we are doing in Iraq . ..... I just don't want it to have been in vain.

Well, I want to say to Lucy Harris and the parents of every soldier and the loved ones of every soldier who has been deployed, and especially those whose lives have been lost, we don't want them to be in vain, nor do we want them to be deployed in an endless occupation. We have a benchmark going to September 15, a general who had the unanimous support of this body, and operating under a funding mechanism that received an 80-vote margin in May.

Let's end the quibbling at this moment on what we do and give the plan a chance to have its final merits judged and weighed by the man who is on the ground.

As I said at the outset of my remarks, I can completely respect the statements everybody made and the opinions of everybody here. But this is a very serious question. And we should vote, and will vote, tomorrow at 11. When we do, I will not vote for cloture because I want to continue the commitment that was made by this body in the middle of May on the funding of the Iraq supplemental, the timetable for reports to come back, and the conditions upon which we would change, a new way forward, if and only if, those benchmarks were not met and progress was not being weighed.

I think we owe it to Lucy Harris. We owe it to the legacy of the sacrifice her son made and the sacrifice made by the countless men and women who are in Iraq and those who have served before them.

I yield the floor.