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She Rivals Joe Biden as Biggest Blowhard at Petraeus Hearing

By Bluey Posted in War — Comments (31) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-MoveOn) wastes 7 minutes, 39 seconds and 1,282 words to launch one barely coherent broadside after another at Gen. David Petraeus today. She ran out the clock, leaving no time for Petraeus to respond to her diatribe. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden –- probably with a tinge of jealousy in his eye after witnessing the grandstanding –- could only ask Petraeus to submit his answer in writing.

Boxer's diatribe is on the jump ...

SEN. BOXER: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, thank you for your service. I represent 37 million people, so you can imagine how many letters I get about the Iraq war. I get letter after letter, asking me how long we'll be in Iraq.

I tell them it depends on who the president is and how many votes there are in the Congress to change course. And as for my own views, I tell them this war is the biggest foreign policy mistake ever.

It took our eye off defeating the terrorists, led by Osama bin Laden, who killed out people, six years ago today; the greatest mistake because it strained our military, our National Guard -- in California, Gentlemen, we are short 50 percent in our equipment to respond to an earthquake, and the secretary of the Army said we'd be in trouble if there was a major earthquake -- the greatest mistake because we've lost so many of our own and so many are wounded, who we will be dealing with for years and years.

It breaks our hearts, all of our hearts.

The biggest mistake because we've lost the support of the world, when we had the whole world in our hand after 9/11.

So I want to go back to when I first met you, General Petraeus. We had a good meeting. I don't know if you remember it; I sure do. And I have a picture of Senator Reid, Murray, and myself, Senator Durbin. At that point, you were in charge of training the troops, the Iraqis.

You were so upbeat, general. You told me, I will never forget it, we were sitting in a armored vehicle, you said, You're about to see some terrific troops. We're going to have them ready to go. You talked about over 100,000 of them at that time. And the fact is I was very upbeat after that meeting. I have all of the documentation. I ask unanimous consent to put in all the documentation...

And so the point was the Iraqis were going to take this over and you were as optimistic as anyone I have ever seen on the point.

Now, that's what the Brits have done and that's what Senator Kerry talked about. They said they were redeploying out of Basra, because they said, quote, It makes sense to hand over to Iraqi forces. They went outside and redeployed to the perimeter -- to the airport.

In my visit to London, two weeks ago, the foreign policy people told me that they had to get out because they were viewed as occupiers, not liberators, and they were targets. They said 90 percent of the violence, they felt, was coming because they were there.

Now, let's look at some of our casualties since the surge. It's been referred to by several colleagues. I have them on a chart.

To me, this speaks volumes about this. The deadliest summer for U.S. forces in Iraq -- since the surge began.

Now, I think the notion of being seen as occupiers is key. And this is what you said about being seen as occupiers -- if we could hold that quote up by General Petraeus. I'm rushing through this because of time limits. I'm sorry.

You said in '03, We want to be seen as an army of liberation, not an army of occupation. There's a half life on our role here. You wear out your welcome at some point. It doesn't matter how helpful you are. We aren't here to stay.

Now, let's see what the seven sergeants and staff sergeants said in an article referred to by Senator Hagel: We need to recognize our presence may have released the Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but it's also robbed them of their self-respect, their dignity. And they're calling us what we are, an army of occupation and force our withdrawal. Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins, but let them resolve their own differences.

I don't consider the surge a nuanced policy. It's killing our soldiers at a great rate.

I think that we need to look at reality. Senator Biden talked to you about what the comptroller general said, and you're going to argue about it? I think the comptroller general ought to be listened to. He says you're cherry picking your numbers in terms of the overall violence.

Let's listen to what General Casey has said. And I'd ask -- well, we have consent to put that in the record. He says that, in essence, the surge has only a temporary tactical effect.

Let's look at the poll both of you tried to discredit yesterday. ABC, BBC, a Japanese station, 42 percent of Iraqis say their children will have a worse life, 25 percent say it will be no better, that. 67 percent say that their kid's life will not be better than their own, 70 percent say the surge is making matters worse.

Is that what our troops are dying for?

I ask you to take off your rosy glasses. You had them on in '05. I believed you. I thought for sure we were going to see the Iraqis take over their own defense.

Now, the president is the commander in chief. If anyone disagrees with that, let me know. The commander in chief is the president. He makes the policy. You carry it out. And if you don't want to carry it out, I think you just need to leave your post.

Now, this is the president who said mission accomplished and thousands of our own died. Then he said, bring it on, and more and more died. And just the other day he was quoted in the Australian press as saying, We're kicking A-S-S in Iraq. And since then, six days, we lost 28 soldiers in six days, since this president said that.

Who wants to keep this course? Not the Iraqis, not the American people, not the majority of the Senate and the House. Seventy percent of the Iraqis say the surge is making matters worse. Ninety percent of the Sunnis want us gone. Eighty percent of the Shia want us out.

So we are sending out troops where they're not wanted, with no end in sight, in the middle of a civil war, in the middle of the mother of all mistakes.

So, please, General, I ask you, please don't do what you did in '04, when you painted a rosy scenario in an op-ed piece, that turned out to be wrong; like you did in '05, when you told us, and we believed you, that the Iraqis were just about there; they were going to take over their own defense.

And please consider that others could be right, the Brits, General Casey, Comptroller General, Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean, who just wrote -- just wrote -- in an op-ed piece -- just wrote -- that our presence in Iraq is recruiting terrorists for Al Qaida.

Listen to the Iraqi people, the American people, the majority of the Congress.

My question is, and I know I've run out of time, so I will have to take it in writing, but it's a very important one. Don Rumsfeld said, no more than six months would this war last.

How long will it take, now that we've spent $20 billion and we've trained 350,000 Iraqis in counterinsurgency -- when, General Petraeus, can they take over their own defense?

Call me old-fashioned. You have a country; you defend it. Thank you.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you very much. If you could respond to that in writing, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.