Posted by
cehwiedel on Friday, July 07, 2006 2:07:47 PM
Dianne Feinstein, senior Senator from California, has responded to my email concerning the recent votes in the Senate in regards to Iraq:
The Senate vote on the resolution to authorize the use of
force in Iraq was difficult and consequential. It was based on
hours of intelligence briefings from Administration and
intelligence officials, as well as the classified and unclassified
versions of an important National Intelligence Estimate that
comprehensively assessed Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD) program. It was also based on trust that this intelligence
was the best our nation's intelligence services could offer,
untainted by bias, and fairly presented. In this case it was not.
The bottom line is that Iraq did not possess nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons in 2003 when the war began.
Saddam Hussein did not have an active nuclear, chemical or
biological weapons program. Considering the statements that were
being made by the Administration, and the intelligence that was
presented to Congress which said otherwise, this points once again
to major failures in the analysis, collection and use of intelligence.
I have said many times that "had I known then what I know now, I
would not have voted to authorize the President to use force."
On top of these intelligence failures, the Administration's
war planning was shortsighted and ill-conceived. By failing to
provide adequate troop levels to secure Iraq and its borders and
ignoring requests from General Shinseki and others to increase
troop levels, the Administration placed the entire mission in Iraq in
jeopardy.
Now that Iraq has adopted a constitution and has voted for
permanent leadership, the time has come to change our role and
downsize the presence of our troops. Logistics support and
training of police and military along with helping to rebuild Iraq
and its infrastructure remain top priorities. But I believe that the
force structure should be downsized this year and either
repositioned outside Iraq or brought home.
In my view, 60,000 American troops in Iraq ought to be
redeployed in the region or brought home by the end of 2006.
Most of the remaining troops could be withdrawn by the end of
2007 or sooner. Iraqi forces must take primary responsibility for
the security of their country - and soon.
America cannot withdraw all forces immediately without a
chaotic result, but we can begin to change the mission, and over a
short period, bring our men and women home.
To further this effort, it is time to change course and bring
in a new team to run our military, starting with the resignation of
Secretary Rumsfeld. While it is true that, ultimately, the President
is responsible for the failures in Iraq, no Bush Administration
official was closer to the war planning than Secretary Rumsfeld.