Tuesday, November 6, 2007

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

Mr. President, I am honored to join Senator Chambliss of Georgia in paying tribute to Ed and Mary Ettel, my neighbors, as a matter of fact, in East Cobb County, Marietta, Georgia. I live about a mile and a half from their home, and my son and daughter-in-law attend Mount Bethel United Methodist Church, where they are active members, a great church with a great minister, Randy Mickler, who does such a good job inspiring his congregation to do so many good things.

Ed and Mary do a tremendous service to our men and women in harm's way. I add my praise of them to the praise of Senator Chambliss. I thank them for the example they set and the blessing they are to our soldiers.

I too want to talk for a second about Iraq, about the war in Iraq, and refresh some memories. Twice this year on the floor of this Senate, once before Memorial Day and once before the August break, we had heated 1-week-long debates of whether the United States of America should declare that we have lost and should leave Iraq. In fact, earlier this year, one Member of this body actually declared the war was lost. Well, as Senator Chambliss has acknowledged, things have turned in Iraq. And they have turned because of the sacrifice of our young men and women fighting in harm's way. They have turned because of the determination of a President who understands the threat of terrorism around the world, and the agents of terror, and those who would harbor terrorists. Iraq is turning. We cannot declare victory in the sense of a declaration of it being lost was declared earlier this year, but we can declare and acknowledge that progress has been made and the country has accomplished a number of the enumerated goals we set out to accomplish when we went into Iraq.

In fact, if everyone will recall the President's speech 4 days before we went into Iraq, he established three goals for this country going into Iraq. No. 1 was to depose Saddam Hussein, and to find those weapons of mass destruction or their components that U.N. Resolution 1441 declared were there; second, to allow the Iraqi people to hold free elections and to write a constitution of their own, and establish a government of their determination; third was to train the Iraqi military to a capability of defending that new fledgling government.

Saddam Hussein has been deposed, was tried by a jury of his peers under Iraqi law. There are those who say we found no weapons of mass destruction, but they overlooked all of the components that we found, Scud missiles buried in the sand between Damascus and Baghdad, elements of sarin gas, 4 of the 7 mobile biological labs, 400,000 bodies in mass graves; all the signs, the telltale signs of the horror and the terror of mass destruction.

Goal No. 2, the Iraqis held free elections in 14 months, wrote a constitution, established the government. Mission accomplished there.

And then, No. 3, to train the Iraqi military sufficiently to sustain peace for that fledgling government. We are not there yet, but we are moving so much closer. It should be noted that a few weeks ago, when all the press noted the British had left Basra and what a disappointment that was, nobody took note of the fact that it was the Iraqi army that replaced them, not the American army, not coalition forces but the Iraqi army, trained and capable of doing it.

Of the al-Qaida operatives who have been captured or killed in the last 6 weeks, the majority of them have been operations of Iraqi soldiers, not American soldiers. The fact is, goal No. 3, training an adequate and sufficient military to protect the fledgling government, is not at hand, but it is getting closer.

So it is time today, on the week before the Veterans Day holiday, and Veterans Day in this country, to pay tribute to the men and women who have sacrificed for this country, for freedom, and for the fight in the war on terrorism.

I carry with me a dogtag. This dogtag is SGT Mike Stokely's. Sergeant Stokely was killed in Iraq in September of 2005. I met his dad shortly after he had lost his son and, in fact, had lunch with his dad 3 weeks ago in Fayetteville, GA. I wanted to pay tribute to Mike and Noah Harris, another soldier from Georgia whose parents I have spent so much time with, and reflect for a moment on what they always tell me every time I see them. They said: Make sure you tell people that my son did not fight and die in vain, but what he sacrificed for is a country that seeks to end terror, end the threat of terror, and promote democracy around the world.

Well, to Bob Stokely, Mike's dad, to Lucy Harris, Noah's mom, I say: They did not die in vain. The evidence in Iraq across the board is proving that their hard work and their sacrifice has made a difference. If we can stay the course, support our troops, finish the training of the Iraqi military, the American forces can leave in large amount and leave the Iraqis to protect that free, self-determined government of their own.

It is time we acknowledge the success of our men and women in the U.S. military. It is time for us to say thank you for what they have done, and to look to the day that their effort makes us as Americans and the world a safer and a better place. Yes, the Iraq news is good. The war is not over. The progress is great, we need to stay the course, and finish the deal.