Obama's Plan for Iraq

Barack Obama's realistic, visionary plan for peace in Iraq, outlined in an important speech delivered on September 12, 2007 in Clinton, Iowa.

TURNING THE PAGE IN IRAQ

A few months ago, I met a woman who told me her nephew was leaving for Iraq. As she started to tell me about how much she'd miss him and how worried she was about him, she began to cry. "I can't breathe,' she said. "I want to know when I am going to be able to breathe again.'

I have her on my mind when I think about what we've gone through as a country and where we need to go. Because we've been holding our breath over Iraq for five years. As we go through yet another debate about yet another phase of this misguided war, we've got a familiar feeling.

Again, we're told that progress is upon us. Again, we're asked to hold our breath a little longer. Again, we're reminded of what's gone wrong with our policies and our politics.

It was five years ago today - on September 12, 2002 - that President Bush made his case for war at the United Nations. Standing in front of a world that stood with us after 9/11, he said, "In the attacks on America

Then he talked about Saddam Hussein - a man who had nothing to do with 9/11. But citing the lesson of 9/11, he and others said we had to act. "To suggest otherwise," the President said, "is to hope against the evidence."

George Bush Was Wrong about Iraq

George Bush was wrong. The people who attacked us on 9/11 were in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq didn't exist before our invasion.

The case for war was built on exaggerated fears and empty evidence - so much so that Bob Graham, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, decided to vote against the war after he read the National Intelligence Estimate.

But conventional thinking in Washington lined up for war. The pundits judged the political winds to be blowing in the direction of the President.

Despite - or perhaps because of how much experience they had in Washington, too many politicians feared looking weak and failed to ask hard questions. Too many took the President at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves.

Congress gave the President the authority to go to war. Our only opportunity to stop the war was lost.

I made a different judgment. I thought our priority had to be finishing the fight in Afghanistan. I spoke out against what I called "a rash war" in Iraq. I worried about, "an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences." The full accounting of those costs and consequences will only be known to history. But the picture is beginning to come into focus.

Nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed in Iraq. Five times that number have suffered horrible wounds, seen and unseen. Loved ones have been lost, dreams denied. Children will grow up without fathers and mothers. Parents have outlived their children.

That is a cost of this war.

Iraq War Cost: Over a Trillion Dollars

When all is said and done, the price-tag will run over a trillion dollars. A trillion dollars.

That's money NOT spent on: homeland security and counter-terrorism; providing health care to all Americans and a world-class education to every child; investments in energy to save ourselves and our planet from an addiction to oil. That is a cost of this war.

The excellence of our military is unmatched. But as a result of this war, our forces are under pressure as never before. Our National Guard and reserves have half of the equipment they need to respond to emergencies at home and abroad. Retention among West Point graduates is down. Our powers of deterrence and influence around the world are down.

That is a cost of this war.

America's standing has suffered. Our diplomacy has been compromised by a refusal to talk to people we don't like. Our alliances have been compromised by bluster. Our credibility has been compromised by a faulty case for war. Our moral leadership has been compromised by Abu Ghraib.

That is a cost of this war.

View the original article here