‘This isn't Hollywood, this is real life’



Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday regarding the Senate’s overnight session to consider the Levin Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act.



“Mr. President, our Democratic friends thought they were going to teach Republicans a lesson today on how to proceed in Iraq. Instead, Americans got an object lesson on why Democrats have failed to accomplish any of their goals over the last seven months.



“As to this fanciful notion that we've never had 60-vote thresholds on votes, Democrats agreed just this year to 60-vote thresholds on at least five Iraq-related votes: the Reid Sense of Congress on Iraq, the Murray Sense of Congress on Iraq, the Gregg Sense of Congress on Iraq, the Hagel Amendment to H.R. 1585 relating to deployment time, and the Graham Amendment to H.R. 1585 related to deployment time. At least five Iraq votes that have been subject to 60 votes.



“Now, Republicans have repeatedly offered Democrats the opportunity to have a vote on the Levin Amendment, according to the traditional 60-vote threshold. Democrats themselves have insisted on 60-vote thresholds for judges, for example.



“We could have had the vote this morning and moved on to other business, like finishing this very important underlying bill. And getting the men and women in the military what they need and deserve.



“What's at stake here, Mr. President? Iraq’s Foreign Minister Zebari recently told reporters, the dangers could be a civil war dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state. The same sentiment has been echoed recently by leading political figures from the Sunni-Arab community, which had been the least supportive of the U.S. presence after the collapse of Saddam's Sunni-dominated government. Foreign Minister Zebari has also credited multinational forces from keeping Turkey from occupying northern Iraq. This is what he recently had to say.



He said ‘tomorrow another country will set its sights on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and others have certain interests, ambitions and interferences. Ironically, it is this presence that is preserving Iraq’s unity. This deterrence is preventing the outbreak of an all-out sectarian civil war and perhaps regional wars as well.’



“Now, the National Intelligence Estimate released today said al-Qaeda will leverage their contacts and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq, its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack us here in the United States. And yesterday the U.N. Secretary, Ban Ki-Moon, warned that an abrupt withdrawal may, ‘lead to a deterioration of the situation in Iraq.’



“Now, what are the terrorists themselves -- what are they saying, the terrorists themselves? The Islamic State of Iraq announced during our last Iraq debate in April that certain Members of Congress had declared the war in Iraq hopeless. Those are the words of the terrorists themselves.



“And here's Osama Bin Laden himself quoted from an Al-Jazeera broadcast just last April. This is what Osama Bin Laden had to say:



‘The epicenter of these wars is Baghdad. The seat of the Caliphate rule. They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the U.S. failure in Iraq, the failure of the U.S. their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all of their wars and a beginning to the receding of this Zionist crusader tied against us.’



“That from the lips of Osama Bin Laden.



“Now, our Democratic friends have tried to have it both ways on Iraq for too long. They voted to send General Petraeus to Iraq by unanimous vote, even as many of them undercut his mission and the morale of our troops by declaring it a failure.



“They voted to fund that mission even after working for more than three months to undercut it through legislation that would render it impossible to carry out. And now they've taken the unprecedented step of hijacking a defense authorization bill to undercut the framework they agreed to when they funded the mission back in May. So let's take a look, my friends and colleagues, at what we agreed to back in May.



“The conference report that 80 senators voted for in May required a benchmarks report in July and a report from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in September. We chose July for the benchmarks report because the Baghdad Security Plan would be fully manned and we wanted the Iraqi government to know we expected their cooperation and sacrifice in exchange for ours.



“We chose September because that's when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker planned to give the President an update on the counterinsurgency plan currently underway. We thought it reasonable that we get the same assessment to form an appropriate legislative response. The Congress decided in May that one month of a fully manned surge was insufficient to call the Petraeus Plan a failure. We wrote that decision into law.



“Since May, we've learned that progress is mixed. Many of the military tasks assigned have been achieved, but we've not seen sufficient progress on the political benchmarks. Some of our colleagues have refrained from calling for a change in strategy until they hear what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have to say in September.



“Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus deserve an opportunity to be heard when these significant reports come out in September.



“So I would ask our colleagues on the other side to think of the tangle we're in. Republicans have asked repeatedly to move up the cloture vote on the Levin troop withdrawal amendment. They've blocked us every time because they prefer the theater of the all-nighter. We were elected to legislate, not to strut across a stage. This isn't Hollywood, this is real life here in the Senate.



“Much depends on how we conduct ourselves right here and how we conduct ourselves in this debate. We've heard the warnings from people who know the dangers that lurk in Iraq and now I have a warning of my own to my colleagues on the other side: our commanders, our troops, and the millions of brave men and women who've stood with us in Iraq and who live in danger at the creeping prospect of a precipitous withdrawal deserve a lot better than they are getting in this debate. They deserve our resolve and at the very least they deserve us to keep the pledge we made as recently as last May.



“It's time to put an end to this charade. The stakes are entirely too high. Mr. President, I yield the floor.”



###