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REMARKS OF U.S. SENATOR BARBARA BOXER TO THE WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
October 13, 2006
Washington, D.C. – The following are U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's remarks as prepared for delivery to the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
Thank you, Jane, for that kind introduction and for inviting me here today.
It is wonderful to be back at the World Affairs Council, which has fostered understanding and dialogue about international affairs for nearly 60 years.
I know that this organization’s founding was inspired by the birth of the United Nations in San Francisco. Nine days before that first UN Delegate meeting here, President Truman said of it:
“Today, the entire world is looking to America for enlightened leadership to peace and progress. Such a leadership requires vision, courage and tolerance. It can be provided only by a united nation deeply devoted to the highest ideals.”
We must heed those words today.
The last time I spoke to you was December 16, 2002. Congress had just given the President authorization to go to war in Iraq. And I had been one of 23 Senators who voted against that resolution, the best vote I have ever cast.
During that speech to you, I said our country faced a choice: would we pursue a go-it-alone unilateralism or lead the world community toward a century of peace and prosperity?
A few months later, the Administration made its fateful choice by invading Iraq, and we have seen the tragic consequences ever since.
Our soldiers are standing in the middle of a slow boil civil war. Nearly 24,000 of them have been killed or wounded.
The number of terrorists is growing, not falling.
America has never been at a lower standing in the eyes of the world.
And the Administration’s obsession with Iraq has left it unable to deal effectively with North Korea, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East.
Today, I want to talk to you about the consequences of the Iraq war, and the opportunity we have a month from now to change course by electing a new leadership in the Congress.
In recent days, we have seen stories of more U.S. soldiers killed, Iraqi soldiers poisoned, piles of tortured bodies discovered, and Iraqi parents forced to keep their children home from school.
So what is the President’s perspective on the current situation? He actually said that Iraq will be just a “comma” in the history books.
A comma? I think it will be considered one of the greatest foreign policy disasters in U.S. history.
The 2,749 brave U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq are not a comma.
The 20,895 brave U.S. soldiers wounded, and the countless more with psychological scars that will last a lifetime, are not a comma.
If you visit my office in Washington, you will see four large posters. On them are the names and ages of California soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are 665 names.
You know, I have been in public office for more than 30 years, but nothing could prepare me for talking to family members who fear for a son or daughter, a father or mother, a brother or sister, in war.
I met a dad this summer whose only child was in Iraq for a second tour of duty. He and his wife received a letter from their son, right after one of his friends and fellow soldiers had been killed.
Here is what their son wrote in that letter: "His death has started an uproar of emotions in the platoon. No one understands why we are here, and what our mission is."
Whatever your feelings are about the war in Iraq, I know that we can all agree that our troops deserve the best from us.
They deserve the best equipment and training while they are overseas. They deserve the best physical and mental health care when they come home. And they deserve a clear mission and an exit strategy.
They have accomplished every goal we have set for them with flying colors. But the goal posts keep shifting and the mission keeps changing.
First, the mission was to find weapons of mass destruction. There were none.
Then it was to find Saddam Hussein. He is now on trial.
Then it was to secure Iraq for elections. There have been three.
Then it was to train Iraqi forces. There are 294,000 trained.
Now, the President tells us that Iraq is the central front in the war against terrorism. But the truth is that the Iraq war is fueling terrorism.
Recently, a National Intelligence Estimate said:
“The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."
This is not Democrats speaking. This is the Administration’s own intelligence agencies.
The war is also taking a major toll on our military. Our Armed Forces are already stretched dangerously thin. Some members are already on their fourth deployments in Iraq.
A top National Guard general quoted in USA Today said that more than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready due largely to equipment shortfalls.
And yet there is still no end in sight.
With U.S. resources focused on Iraq, our priorities at home and around the world are suffering. We see North Korea testing a nuclear weapon and flagrantly ignoring the will of the world.
We see violence resurging in Afghanistan and the prospects for peace in the Middle East at their lowest point in recent memory.
We hear supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shouting “death to America” in the streets of Iran.
And Hugo Chavez standing before the United Nations calling President Bush “the devil” as our friends and allies sit quietly in the room.
You are here because you care deeply about America’s place in the world.
It is hard to believe that only five years ago, after 9/11, the whole world stood with us.
NATO declared the September 11 attacks to be an attack against all NATO members.
What Secretary Rumsfeld called our “old Europe” allies, France and Germany, were by our side. In France, a newspaper headline declared, “We Are All Americans.” In Germany, flowers were left at the front gates of U.S. military bases.
We could have used that goodwill for great purpose. We could have waged a global fight against terrorism with every country by our side.
But the President turned away from the world, and now the world has turned away from us.
The Director of Pew Global Attitudes Projects testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the war in Iraq has caused “anti-Americanism [to become] a global phenomenon in the Muslim world.”
He went on to say that “We saw anti-Americanism…grow tremendously in Africa and Asia, where previously that had not been the case.”
Even among our traditional allies esteem for America is falling precipitously.
Some of the blame for this deterioration lies not just in the President’s policies but in the arrogance with which they are carried out.
Never have I seen an Administration so unwilling to admit or correct mistakes.
I no longer hold out any hope that they will actually listen to Democrats.
But what about the American people, 60 percent of whom now oppose this war?
What about the Iraqi people, 70 percent of whom want U.S. forces to leave within a year?
What about Senator John Warner, the respected Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who said that Iraq appears to be drifting sideways?
Instead, the President simply tells us that we need to “stay the course,” and that as long as he is in charge, we will be in Iraq.
But stay the course is not a plan. It is a recipe for more death and destruction. It is, just as Bob Woodward's new book title says, a "State of Denial." But it is not a plan.
As former Secretary of State Colin Powell said recently, “stay the course isn’t good enough because a course has to have an end.”
It is time for this Administration to admit that our strategy in Iraq is not working and start redeploying our troops over the horizon so that the Iraqis can begin providing their own security.
Our troops can't force the Sunni, the Shiite and the Kurds to sit down together. That is a diplomatic mission, not a military mission.
Iraqis themselves need to make tough political choices. We can help, but it is up to them to decide if they want democracy.
There are other steps we can take as well. One is to suggest that the various regions of Iraq be given greater autonomy with an equitable division of oil resources. That’s the type of arrangement that helped end the war in Bosnia.
We should encourage the participation of other nations by convening an international or regional summit to work toward a comprehensive political agreement for Iraq.
The President should have called for such a summit when he addressed the United Nations last month, but he missed that opportunity -- just as he has missed so many others.
When I spoke here four years ago, I talked about the reasons I voted against authorizing the war. And I noted that key questions had not been answered.
Questions like: How many troops would be involved? What were the projected casualties? What is the cost to rebuild Iraq? How long would our troops need to stay there? Would those troops become a target for terrorists? What will the impact be on our fight against terrorism?
Needless to say, the Bush Administration never provided answers, and the Republican leadership in Congress never demanded them.
When Jay Garner was named director of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the Administration refused to let him testify before Congress even once.
How many times has Secretary Rice testified publicly before Congress exclusively about the Iraq war since it began? Just once.
Congressional Republicans could demand answers on Iraq. They could hold tough hearings, even issue subpoenas. They could carry on the long bipartisan tradition of Congressional investigations into the actions of the executive branch.
But they don’t.
They just continue to rubber stamp the Administration’s failed policy in Iraq.
Just as it did with the final Military Commissions bill, which will endanger our troops, lead to delays in convicting terrorists, and surrender our constitutional principles.
I have to tell you -- I have been in Congress for more than twenty years, and I have never seen a more subservient, compliant Congress than the one we have today.
Norm Ornstein, the Congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute said, “In our lifetimes, I can’t recall a greater failure on the part of a Congress to do serious oversight.”
One of our most important Constitutional principles is our system of checks and balances. It’s not surprising that our founders envisioned this kind of government. After all, it was King George’s tyranny that provoked the American Revolution.
And now we have another King George who believes he can do whatever he wants without question or dissent.
If Congress passes a law he doesn’t agree with, the President issues a signing statement saying he is going to reinterpret or ignore the parts he doesn’t like.
If Americans question the war, Secretary Rumsfeld compares them to Nazi appeasers.
That is not the kind of country we are, or the kind of leadership we deserve.
Listen to what another Republican President, Teddy Roosevelt, said in 1918:
“ To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
We must never be afraid to speak out with honest dissent—and the most powerful way to do that is in the upcoming elections.
The President and his allies in Congress want this election to be about fear. But it isn’t.
It’s about whether we will simply stay the course in Iraq, or choose a new direction.
It’s about whether we will have a Congress that acts as an independent branch of government, accountable only to the American people…or one that simply serves as foot-soldiers for an all-powerful executive branch.
And it’s about whether the entire world will once again, as President Truman said, look to “ America for enlightened leadership to peace and progress.”
Thank you.
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