Congressman John D. Dingell

March 18, 2008

Dearborn, MI - On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI15) made the following remarks. The Congressman voted against giving President Bush Congressional authorization for the war (P.L. 107-243) and has introduced legislation (H.R. 3938) that would require President Bush to withdraw troops before January 20, 2009.

“The war in Iraq has now dragged on longer than any other conflict in American history apart from Vietnam, and has cost more than all but World War II.  On this grim milestone it is worth remembering how we got into this situation, and thinking about how best we can get out. 

“This war was started because President Bush told us that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction, and that he was giving assistance to al Qaeda.  This war has continued because the President vetoed legislation tying funding for the war to identifiable benchmarks for progress, and rejected the findings of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report asking us instead to place our trust in his troop surge strategy.  As a result, when the President leaves office there will be 145,000 troops in Iraq, the same number as were in Iraq when the troop surge began, and the Iraqi government has made little progress towards any of the goals it set for itself almost two years ago. 

“Meanwhile, the costs of this war continue to mount.  Nearly 4,000 American men and women have given their lives, including 148 from Michigan, and tens of thousands more carry physical and mental scars that will last a lifetime.  Our best and brightest soldiers are leaving the military, unable to balance the desire to raise a family with the reality of multiple deployments.  At least tens of thousands of Iraqis have died, and millions more have been forced to flee their homes, creating one of the largest displacement crises in the world. 

“Saddam Hussein is now long gone.  The al Qaeda operatives who fled into the country after we invaded have in large part been vanquished.  The President has not explained what our remaining goals in Iraq are.  The tasks that remain in Iraq – to bring an end to sectarian conflict, to devise a way to share political power, and to create a functioning government that is capable of providing for the needs of the Iraqi people – are tasks that only the Iraqis can complete. 

“And I’m afraid we are making a promise to the Iraqis that we will not be able to keep – not because of lack of will, but because there does come a moment when we can no longer afford to wage a war of questionable strategic interest. This war costs more than $9 billion per month, more than $305 million a day, more than $12 million per hour, more than $212,000 per minute and amazingly more than $3,000 per second! How can we explain to the poor in our cities, the victims of Katrina in New Orleans and the uninsured children in our country that this war – which may have created more terrorists than it captured – is the right war for us to fight?

“In their book ‘The Three Trillion Dollar War’, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and co-author Linda Bilmes report that the true cost of the war in Iraq will be at least $3 trillion, and could surpass the cost of World War II, which they put at $5 trillion after adjusting for inflation. Bilmes cited the annual U.S. budget for autism research -- $108 million -- which our figures show is spent in less than a day in Iraq. A trillion dollars could have hired 15 million additional public school teachers for a year or provided 43 million students with four-year scholarships to public universities, the book says.

“When I hear Vice President Cheney state that the last five years has been a “successful endeavor,” when I hear Senator McCain suggest that our troops could stay in Iraq for one hundred years, or when I hear the President say that the surge has been a success even though we are no closer to political reconciliation than we were when it began, I worry that they have taken the view that staying in Iraq is a victory in and of itself.  I am hopeful that this is not the case because the Democratic Party’s slim majorities in the House and Senate require any solution to the problem in Iraq to have strong bipartisan support.

“Still I can not help but worry about what the future holds if the Bush-McCain vision prevails in the year ahead. How can they argue that staying the course is a viable option? How can they argue that this war is a model for other incursions? Does this mean we could in fact see an expansion of this conflict into other nations? Such a prospect is truly frightening.

“While I have serious reservations about the past performance and vision of our civilian leaders, I will say that our troops’ performance has been tremendous. Any accomplishment in Iraq should be attributed to the skills and fortitude of our men and women fighting in Iraq. They have fought brilliantly, represented our country honorably and showed courage that should make all of us proud. To the families who have watched, waited and worried while this war wages on, we thank you again. There is no way to honor your ongoing commitment to our nation, except to say that we will do everything we can to bring your family and friends home safely.

“We will always remember and honor those who gave their lives when our nation asked them to fight. I do hope that those families who lost loved ones take comfort knowing we all suffer when America loses brave and honorable people. We miss them, love them and they will always be our heroes.”