Mr. President, I thank my colleague. The factual basis that this follows--I wish to thank him and I wish to indicate to my colleague from Virginia the exact background. I first saw the amendment, prepared by, I believe, Senator McCain and…
Mr. President, I thank my colleague. The factual basis that this follows--I wish to thank him and I wish to indicate to my colleague from Virginia the exact background. I first saw the amendment, prepared by, I believe, Senator McCain and Senator Graham, yesterday when it was circulated to the members of the Armed Services Committee. At that time, I promptly suggested a change in the amendment or, more specifically, an addition that a waiver be put in. I suggested the President. The draft now has the Secretary of Defense.
I say to my good friend--and, indeed, Senator Webb and I share a very strong bond of friendship. It actually goes back over 30 years, when I was in the Navy Secretariat. Senator Webb, at that time, a young--still young but anyway a bit younger--Marine captain who, fortunately for me and others in the Secretariat, was assigned to our staff. He had just finished his tour in Vietnam, where he displayed a measure of courage few in uniform in the history of our country can equal. For that he received our Nation's second highest decoration.
I stand in awe of his military career. My modest career pales in comparison to his. Nevertheless, we did form at that time a friendship and resumed it once he came here.
I would like to also say, Senator Webb and I were both privileged to serve as Secretaries of the U.S. Navy. As I look back on the good fortune I have had in life, that was a chapter--5 years, 4 months, 3 days as Secretary of the Navy--that I cherish as the very foundation for whatever I have achieved thereafter in life. It was the association, the learning I had from men and women of the Armed Forces, that gave me a certain sense of confidence and inner strength that has enabled me to go on and do other things, most humbly, I say, to serve Virginia for now my 29th year in this chamber.
I have come to know Senator Webb, of course, in the perspective of being a Senator. I said to others that he possesses the intellectual ability, the sincerity, the feeling about people to make him a great Senator. His career is before him; my career is behind me. When I leave some 14 months from now, having finished 30 years in the Senate, I leave with a sense of confidence that this fine young Senator will represent Virginia well, and they can take righteous pride in his leadership.
But the amendment by Senator Graham is one I somewhat disagree with my colleague on. It embraces the principles he put forth in his amendment, principles which led me to join him when he first laid down his amendment and vote for that amendment. So the question arises: Why, at this point in time, would I go into a very intense deliberative process of reconsidering that process? I will enumerate those reasons.
But I wish to go back again to the service we both had as Secretary of the Navy. It was the management of a force of men and women in uniform. During my period, it was somewhat larger in number than when Senator Webb was Secretary of the Navy. But nevertheless, we both learned the difficulty, the challenges of managing under the all- volunteer force the men and women of our Armed Forces.
One of the reasons I joined my good friend was the all-volunteer force. I was in the Department of Defense, as I stated, from 1969 through 1974, serving under three Secretaries of Defense, Melvin Laird being the first. He had the concept of going to the all-volunteer force. That concept was not by any means readily accepted. There was considerable and, I think, justified doubt among the uniform ranks at that time, in the White House, and elsewhere, that this daring concept, this unique concept would be able to adequately serve America, given the troubled world, not only at the time of Vietnam but subsequently and particularly at that time in the midst of the Cold War when the Soviet Union, in many respects, had challenged us potentially in terms of their military prowess. Nevertheless, in the wisdom of the executive branch, we went forward, and the Congress subsequently endorsed it.
Senator Webb's amendment, I say without any equivocation, is designed to help protect the concept of the all-volunteer force. It was for that reason that I joined him because I felt, having been in the Department of Defense at the period of time when the formative stages of that concept were developed, I had a stake in it.
I have said many times on this floor it is a national treasure that the members of today's Armed Forces, every one of them, are men and women who have raised their hands and volunteered. They were not subjected, as
previous generations had been, to a draft and compelled to go into uniform. They were there, every one of them, because they wanted to be there, they wanted to be a part of the Armed Forces that would protect our country.
If we add up all the men and women in the Armed Forces today and include the very valuable Reserve and Guard--because the Reserve and Guard are as much a part of our defense structure, more so than they have ever been--and how magnificently the Reserve and Guard have proven throughout the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, their ability to take on in every way responsibilities, dangers, and personal risk equal to the regular force.
I come back to that little chapter when both of us served as Secretary, and then he subsequently served in the Department in other capacities where Senator Webb gained a basic knowledge of personnel management, management of not only the Navy Secretariat but prior thereto, when he was looking at all the force structures of the Department of Defense. I readily acknowledge he is an expert and, in some ways, more current than I am, in terms of the management of our forces in uniform.
We have a difference, Senator Webb and I, and I will spell it out, with regard to the amendment. I endorsed it. I intend now to cast a vote against it. The reasons are as follows:
I went forward some months ago and informed the Senate and, indeed, informed the country, having returned from my 10th trip to Iraq, that I was gravely concerned about the situation over there and gravely concerned about the turbulence here at home, gravely concerned that the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps were being pushed to the limits, greatly concerned that our Guard and Reserves were being pushed to the limit. Furthermore, I felt that the surge--although I did not fully support the surge, and the record of this body, the Senate, clearly reflects my concerns--at that time, I felt that far more of the responsibility should be borne by the Iraqi forces. In January of this year, 2007, when the President announced his policy regarding the surge, I believed that Iraqi forces should take on a far greater role, particularly as it related to the sectarian violence--the criminal elements that are striking against our forces, and for nothing more than a few bucks undertaking, to put at risk the lives of our great soldiers, airmen, marines, and sailors. I thought that the Iraqi force should take on that and we should concentrate more on the security of that nation, to maintain the sovereignty and integrity of its borders and tighten the borders.
I won't go into the details, but the record is clear that I questioned the surge. Once the decision was made, I think I felt, like most Senators, that I should support the President, and I have tried to do so.
But back again to the force structure problem. At that time, I felt that we should send a signal to the Iraqi Government by putting some teeth in what the President had repeatedly said; namely, we are not going to be there forever. Our Ambassador in Iraq at that point in time had said something to that same effect. At the time that I announced the recommendation to reduce the forces and have that reduction take place so they could be home by Christmas, Ambassador Crocker had said: We are not giving you a blank check. They were just verbal statements directed at the Maliki government and all levels of the Iraqi Government to say that we are not going to be there forever, but you had to put teeth in it.
I felt if we first announced that we were going to take the first group home--and I carefully said that the President should consult with the ground commanders before he accepted any recommendation from me or anybody else to reduce force levels and begin to send people back such that they would be back home with their families before Christmas, and the President obviously did that. In his message of a week or so ago, he indicated--not necessarily agreeing with me--that he agreed with the concept; that after consultation with General Petraeus and other on- scene commanders, that they could now, based on certain successes of the operation of the surge and visible successes that the intelligence community verified. Indeed, Senator Levin and I, on our trip a few weeks ago, saw with our own eyes, where there had been measurable success of the surge--but consequently the President agreed with the thought that troops could begin to depart Iraq ahead of schedule and come home. There are further details of that well-known to Members of this body.
So first and foremost, I asked for that, the administration and the uniformed side agreed with it, and it was done. That put me in a different posture because I felt my thought that it was time to bring some people home was accepted, and therefore I could then turn to the Webb amendment and the need to go back and get a clear understanding from the U.S. military, the uniformed side, of the consequences of the well-intentioned principles of the Webb amendment.
I would like to also digress momentarily to talk about politics. The Senator felt challenged. I wasn't here for the earlier debate. I was holding a briefing with senior members of the military from the Department of Defense on this very subject--the Webb amendment. And I can tell you without any equivocation whatsoever, knowing Senator Webb as I do, that politics is not a factor in his judgment. He honestly believes--he honestly believes--based on his long experience and his current knowledge of the readiness of the situation of our Armed Forces today that we need a policy, and we need it now, of a 1-month home for every month served abroad in a combat zone.
As I said, I agreed with him. But in that subsequent period of time, I have had consultations with a lot of senior military officers and just concluded a briefing with Lieutenant General Ham, the Director of Operations of the Joint Staff and Lieutenant General Lovelace, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations for the U.S. Army. Two respected three-star generals, whom I invited to come over here and further brief me and several other Senators who were present. They are not politically motivated. They are motivated by what they have to do to be fair to those serving in Iraq today.
It is their professional judgment that if this amendment were to be adopted and become law--and I will put aside all the other issues of a possible veto, and I just don't want to see another veto scenario here right in the middle of the war, and that is another reason--but they are absolutely convinced, and have now convinced me, that they cannot effectively put into force that amendment at this time, without causing severe problems within the existing forces and those who are serving there.
One of the consequences that could change in some fashion could be the very thing I advocated--namely, let us bring some of the troops home by Christmas. That might not be feasible if this amendment were adopted. The announced schedule of withdrawals--bringing the force structure down by July 2008 to what we call the pre-surge level, announced by the President and General Petraeus that might not be achievable, the reason being that on any day, if you look at the totality of the U.S. Army, about one-third of it is globally deployed beyond our shores--some 250,000 men and women in uniform. There is a rotation in and out of Korea of roughly 20,000 a year and rotation in other areas of concentration. You just cannot simply look at Iraq or Afghanistan; you have to look at the totality of the Army.
A soldier coming out of, say, Korea, having spent a year over there and expecting to have a year back at home, joins a unit for further training, and that unit is suddenly called to go to Iraq. Well, the only recourse is to begin to pull that soldier and some others out because of their need to have 12 months back here. In fairness, that soldier should have 12 months back here, but that unit has to deploy.
These generals, again putting all politics aside, they have not been ordered to do this; they are simply trying to manage the U.S. Army today in a way that is equitable to every single soldier, and they have convinced me they cannot manage it in this time period. If this amendment were changed to be effective at, say, the beginning of fiscal year 2009--starting in October of 2008--they feel they could manage it, certainly with regard to the combat units that are going over. But they still have a problem with--for example, in Iraq today there are some 50,000 soldiers who are in what we call combat support roles, not just cooks and bakers,
although they are essential, but the people who are performing the removal of the IEDs over which the combat trucks roll to go forward to the front. If there is any single front in Iraq, and I don't think there is, the concept being they are deployed there to different parts of Iraq. Iraq is a 360-degree battle zone, in my judgment. And how well we know that the IED is causing the most severe damage to our soldiers in terms of loss of life and limb in Iraq today. They explained to me that the persons, the explosives experts who know how to go in and detect and remove these lethal weapons, are in short supply. The Army is doing everything it can, the Marine Corps everything it can, to train sufficient numbers of these individuals to come in and do these jobs, but they, too, have to be treated with a sense of fairness. They cannot be subjected to having to stay there maybe 15 months, maybe even longer, because we have no replacement for them.
So at another time, because I don't want to go into greater detail here--there was point after point these generals made in our briefing and that I have studied that clearly documents the difficulty, the unfairness, to others now serving in Iraq if this amendment were to become law.
Now, to the credit of Senator Webb and in my conversations with him-- although I don't know that I was the one who persuaded him--he went ahead and added an extension to his amendment, so that it goes into effect 120 days after the authorization bill is signed into law. Well, that still does not carry it anywhere near the October 2008 date, which is the earliest date that the Army feels it can now follow the Webb amendment and its goals. These generals told me there is no one who wants to move to the 1-to-1 ratio with any greater fervor or desire than the senior military staff of the U.S. Army and, indeed, others in the Department of Defense. They want it. They would do everything within their realm of professional responsibility to make it happen. But they simply cannot make it happen in the time frame as it is now couched in the provisions of the Webb amendment.
Mr. President, for those reasons and others--and I know I am taking generously of the time of others here--I feel I will have to cast a vote against my good friend's amendment. It is a change of vote for me, I recognize that, but I change that vote only after a lot of very careful and analytical work with the uniformed side of the Department of Defense.
The Secretary of Defense has written me on this subject, in a very detailed letter. I have a great deal of respect for him. I traveled with him this week and talked to him, and I tried to explain that possibly there are changes which could be made to the Webb amendment which would enable us to go forward and enact it into law, as opposed to a sense of the Senate, which I do hope we vote on later, but that was not achievable. I did my very best, but it was not achievable.
So I say to my good friend from Virginia, I agree with the principles you have laid down in your amendment, but I regret to say that I have been convinced by those professionals in uniform that they cannot do it and do it in a way that wouldn't invoke further unfairness to other soldiers now serving in Iraq.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Sailor, you rascal. How could you forget that?
Mr. President, if I might ask the Senator a question because, indeed, the Senator has a career of active-duty service to the country that cannot be paralleled, certainly by this humble Senator or many others. But don't you believe in your heart of hearts the Webb concept of 1 to 1 is a good one, and if it were possible for the military to achieve it they would do so, and we would all vote for this amendment?
Mr. President, on that point, I grilled these officers today very intensely. You may recall that in January, subsequent to the President's announcement of the surge, the Secretary of Defense stepped up and said: Hold everything. I am going to put in place a callup policy for the Reserve and the Guard which will enable them to have a clearer understanding of how much active service they will be called upon to do and, more important, once that active service is completed, how much time they can remain home.
Now, a reservist has to maintain two jobs, in a way: his Reserve job and his job with which he puts, basically, the bread on the table for his family, in the private sector. So they are different than the regulars.
I was told today that, if the Webb amendment became law, they would have to go back and revisit and change that policy that the Secretary of Defense enunciated for the Guard and Reserve in January, this year.
Is that your understanding?
Mr. President, I conclude my remarks by saying--others are waiting to speak--the reason I brought up Senator Webb's distinguished career as former Secretary of the Navy, and indeed in the Department of Defense in an earlier assignment, is he understands these arguments. He has looked at them. I respect his views. We have a personal difference of opinion on the professional viewpoints, that it can or cannot be done.
He believes honestly it can be done. I believe, based on what I related this
morning and that my ranking member has stated--we feel it can't be done. Therein is the problem.
I, in no way, in any way denigrate what Senator Webb is trying to do. It is just that we have an honest difference of opinion, mine based on basically the same facts that have been given to him. He has a different analysis than do I.