Wednesday, February 7, 2007

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Iraq
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

I thank you, Madam President. I rise first of all to lend my support to Senator McConnell and his efforts to see to it that the Senate is able to fully express itself on the issues before it on Iraq. No one should be confused about this debate. There are very many opinions in here and every one of them deserves the right to be expressed. Secondly, I rise in support of the president's plan both in strategy and tactic, and I’m going to explain why in just a second.

But the senator from New York made a statement a minute ago that I want to open my remarks with. The senator from New York said that not many people in America are paying much attention to what we debate on the floor of the Senate. They're too busy working in their daily lives, and that may very well be right. But I want to tell you who is listening to every word.

First it's the men and women in our armed forces, their families and their loved ones. All you have to do ask go to Iraq where I’ve been many times, go to any mess hall and almost every command post and CNN and Fox are streaming constantly. Our men and women watch what we say. What we say on this floor is important. Those resolutions - binding or not - that we send should not send mixed signals.

And there's another audience that listens and that's our enemies. They listen as well. Those networks are their intelligence agencies. The messages we send should not be a message that sends a lack of confidence to our troops or to our commander-in-chief.

I’m on the Foreign Relations Committee. I spent 20 of the last 28 hours of committee meetings listens to experts from a variety of resources. And two things became quite clear. There were varying opinions on whether or not a surge would work. Some thought it would conclusively. Many thought it would not. Most gave it varying degrees of potential success. But without exception, in every one that I heard testify, when asked the question what would be the ramifications of withdrawal or redeployment, every one in one degree or another said there would be tens of thousands of lives lost and possibly millions and the sectarian violence that we are trying to quell now could spread to the region.

So, Madam President, the way I see it, we have two choices. Right now at the stage of the game we're in, choice one is an opportunity for success. Choice two is a recipe for disaster. I choose the opportunity for success. And I think the message we ought to send to our troops is that we support them. We wish them god speed. We pray for their success.

And the second message we need to send, which this debate has very helpfully done, and that is a message to al-Maliki and the assembly in Iraq and the people of Iraq, and that is we came to your country with three objectives and we've secured two of those.

One was to seek out the weapons of mass destruction the entire world believed were there. And second was to alloy a constitution to be written and free elections to be held. Both of those things have been accomplished.

The last most evasive goal that we had was to secure the nation and train the Iraqi military so it could carry on that security and let that fledgling democracy go forward. That's the third goal that has been elusive but it's gotten closer and the president's strategy to send the additional troops to Anbar and to Baghdad requires the absolute cooperation of the Iraqis and the commitment of their military to assist side by side. If they blink and they look the other way, they will have failed themselves. If we blink and we look the other way, we will have failed not only them, but we will have failed the people of our country.

Make no mistake about it; the war that we're in Iraq is not the war we entered. But it is the war we're in and that's the words of our president. And regardless of where mistakes may have been made, those of us -- and I’m one of them -- that voted to support this when we went in Iraq, we didn't vote for failure.

I hope and I pray that our soldiers will be successful, that al-Maliki and the Iraqi military will come through and will perform, and I’m going to do everything I can to give them that support. Because I choose an opportunity for success over a recipe for failure.

Now, on those mistakes that have been made, I want to be crystal clear because there's some awfully selective memories on the floor of the United States Senate. I remember what I believed when I voted to go into Iraq. I remember what the national intelligence estimate said. I remember the horror of 9/11 and the fear of weapons of mass destruction.

We voted to go in what every other member of the United Nations voted on in resolution 1441, and that was to seek out what the world thought was there. While we didn't find the smoking gun, we found a lot of the components and a lot of the evidence, and the 400,000 bodies in mass graves and the tyranny of a horrible dictator in Saddam Hussein. We accomplished our goal of deposing him and allowing the Iraqis to determine a free democratic society.

Now in the critical days of this battle, I stand forward and stand strong and give this opportunity for success that the president has proposed a chance to succeed rather than subscribe to a recipe of failure.

Madam President, these are trying times, and I respect the opinions of every member of this body expressed on this floor. But remember who our audiences are and how important it is that the message that we send not be one of a mixed message, not be one of a political message but be a message of commitment and resolve.

I will support the president. Not out of partisanship. Not out of blind loyalty. But I will support the president because the evidence submitted in all of the hearings in foreign relations told me we had two choices. We could choose an opportunity to succeed or we could subscribe to a recipe for failure. I choose success and I pray God's blessings on our men and women in the armed forces of the United States. And I yield back.