March 2007

Iraq Resolution

 

Dear friend:

As Chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, my overriding concern on every issue that comes before Congress is whether and how it supports our men and women in uniform. Every decision about equipment procurement, training, end strength or budget authorization must meet this test: Does it support our troops?

Increasing U.S. forces in Iraq by 21,500 combat troops and somewhere between 3,000 and 28,000 support personnel fails this test in every respect.

The immediate concern is that forces now being deployed as part of the “surge” will not have the equipment they need when they get there. The Army has admitted that they will have to “borrow” equipment from other units.

The long-term concern is that if other national security threats materialize, The United States, with so much of our armed forces either mired in or recovering from Iraq, are not fully prepared to respond effectively.

The House voted to oppose the strictly political decision to send 21,500 more U.S. troops into the streets and back alleys of Baghdad, and to al Anbar Province. Nearly every military expert has told us that this surge has little to no chance of making a strategic difference in the outcome of the war. It is simply a tactical convulsion by an Administration that cannot and will not admit its authorship of the greatest strategic foreign policy folly in our nation’s history.

What does history tell us? Nearly twenty-three years ago, President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, outlined, in a speech entitled, “The Uses of Military Power,” six tests that should be applied whenever the United States considers the use of combat forces abroad. In summary:

1. Never commit forces unless the particular situation is vital to our national interest and that of our allies;
   
   
2. If we're unwilling to commit the force or resources necessary to win, we should not commit them at all;
   
   
3. We should have clearly defined political and military objectives;
   
   
4. The relationship between objectives and forces - size, composition and disposition - must be continually reassessed and adjusted;
   
   
5. We must have the support of the American people and their representatives in Congress; and
   
   
6. The commitment of U.S. troops to combat should be the last resort.

President Bush's policies have failed every one of Secretary Weinberger's tests.

What are the consequences? Make no mistake; we are now engaged in a war of choice, a catastrophe conceived in ideological zeal, cloaked in misinformation and administered with breathtaking incompetence. It is an outrage that we have not had a single policy in Iraq worthy of our men and women in uniform. This "surge" is yet another misstep in this tragic journey to disaster. We need to end it - and end it now.

 

Aloha,

Neil Abercrombie

Member of Congress