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The war in Iraq has now entered its sixth year with the cost now estimated at $12 billion per month and a likely total cost of some $3 trillion.  There are now more than 4,000 dead American service men and women and nearly 30,000 injured.  The voters of the First District deserve to know exactly where each candidate stands on the war and what they will do to bring it to a conclusion.

Let me be clear, had I been in Congress in 2002, unlike my opponent, I would not have voted to authorize President Bush to wage his preemptive war against Iraq.

In the lead up to the war, President Bush’s justification for invading Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaida and would supply the terrorists with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which they would use against America.   Over the course of several months, culminating in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s appearance before the United Nation’s Security Council, little hard evidence was produced to support the President’s claims.

Early on, several critical failures were made in planning for the war.  There was a complete lack of understanding within the Whitehouse and the Pentagon of the difficulties that would arise in trying to unite Shia, Sunni and Kurds into a functioning, democratic nation.   Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even dismissed the recommendations of his generals that more troops would be needed to ensure Iraq’s security.

Once Baghdad fell to coalition forces, there was no effort made to stop the looting of Baghdad by criminal elements.  The Administration also authorized the disbanding of the Iraqi army which left hundreds of thousands of well-trained, heavily armed, Iraqi soldiers to join the insurgency.   Little effort was made to secure the borders of Iraq which lead to the influx of foreign jihadists and the creation of Al Qaida in Iraq.

Even after the fall of Baghdad, the Bush Administration became so obsessed with countering news reports that WMDs would not be found in Iraq that Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, provided information to reporters which exposed an undercover CIA agent.

The United States’ reputation around the world has also suffered significantly.  Immediately after September 11th, there was an outpouring of sympathy and support for the victims at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania.  However, after failing to bring stability to Iraq and the publication of photos of the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, that goodwill has now been lost.

There have been numerous revelations in the years since the start of the war which have shaken the faith of Americans that the Bush Administration had developed its Iraq policy on the basis of actual intelligence and in good faith consultation with the Congress.   We now know that much of the intelligence was filtered through a group of neo-conservative, political appointees in the Defense Department.  We have also since learned that the Whitehouse engaged in a questionable program of wiretapping the telephone calls of its citizens outside of the FISA law which provides judicial oversight.  Now, we are told by the President that unless Congress grants immunity to lawsuits against the nation’s telephone companies the government will lose its ability to incept terrorist communications.  Such hyperbole is in stark contrast to the very real problems which have been created by the Administration’s reliance on dubious legal memos to support the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as water boarding, which many consider to be a form of torture against detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Most Democrats and Republicans alike agree with America’s top military commander on the ground, Gen. David Petraeus, that the long-term stability of Iraq cannot be achieved through military means alone.  Last January, President Bush implemented a new strategy to temporarily increase the number of U.S. ground forces in Iraq.  The so called “Surge” was intended to reduce the level of violence to permit the Iraqi government to engage in reconciliation amongst the various political and ethnic factions.    The reality is that Surge has made gains in reducing the level of violence in Baghdad and throughout the country.  However, the Iraqi government has been unable to achieve the necessary political compromises, such as an agreement to equitably distribute Iraq’s oil revenue, for Americans to have confidence in its ability to effectively govern their country without the long term presence of a significant number of U.S. combat forces.   Gen. Petraeus recently testified to Congress that further withdrawals of troops be delayed in order to consolidate gains on the ground.
What to do now?  I believe it is unlikely Iraq will improve in the near future.  The current situation is likely to confront the next President when he, or she, takes the oath of office in January 2009.  Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have indicated they intend to engage in an orderly draw down of combat forces which will demonstrate to the Iraqi government that it must engage in a dialogue which their legislators have so far resisted.  I believe this is the correct strategy.  I also disagree with Sen. John McCain’s proposal to create permanent military bases throughout Iraq.   While his comment about having a U.S. military presence in Iraq “for the next 100 years” has been taken out of context for political purposes, I don’t believe it is accurate to think that the occupation of Iraq is similar to the situation our soldiers faced in post-WWII Japan and Germany or that of guarding the demilitarized zone in Korea.

I also believe that the longer our military is tied up in Iraq, the less effective our forces will be in combating a resurgent Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Finally, because we improperly lost our focus in the War on Terrorism by invading Iraq, we may be unprepared to address the increasing instability in neighboring Pakistan which holds a significant arsenal of nuclear weapons, nor may we have sufficient forces to counter the threats to global peace from such challenges as Iran’s enrichment of uranium or North Korea’s desire to export nuclear technology to rouge nations such as Syria.