Tom Lantos For President

What follows is the opening statement of Congressman Dr. Tom Lantos at the hearing with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. I agree entirely with every word.

Two of our nation’s most capable public servants have come before us today to assess the situation in Iraq. General Petraeus, Ambassador Crocker, every single one of us wants you to succeed in your efforts to the maximum possible extent. We admire the heroism and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform and the dedication of our diplomatic corps in Iraq, and we fully understand the terrible burden on their families.

Our witnesses have been sent here this morning to restore credibility to a discredited policy. We and the American people already know that the situation in Iraq is grim, and a growing majority of this Congress and of the American people want our troops out.

In October of 2003 I flew in a helicopter with you, General Petraeus, over Northern Iraq around Mosul. As we passed over the countryside, you pointed out to me several ammunition dumps that had once belonged to the army of Saddam Hussein. “I don’t have enough troops to guard these places,” you said. “Someday, this might come back to haunt us.”

Well, General Petraeus, you saw it coming. Those unguarded ammo dumps became the arsenals of insurgency. Those weapons have been turned against us. How very typical of this war.

The Administration’s myopic policies in Iraq have created a fiasco. Is it any wonder that on the subject of Iraq, more and more Americans have little confidence in this Administration? We can not take ANY of this Administration’s assertions on Iraq at face value anymore, and no amount of charts or statistics will improve its credibility.

This is not a knock on you, General Petraeus, or on you, Ambassador Crocker. But the fact remains, gentlemen, that the Administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two Committees and the Congress that victory is at hand.

With all due respect to you, I must say … I don’t buy it. And neither does the independent Government Accountability Office or the Commission headed by General Jones. Both recently issued deeply pessimistic reports.

The current escalation in our military presence in Iraq may have produced some tactical successes. But strategically, the escalation has failed. It was intended to buy time for Prime Minister Maliki and the other Iraqi political leaders to find ways to move toward the one thing that may end this terrible civil conflict – and that, of course, is a political settlement. As best we can see, that time has been utterly squandered.

Prime Minister Maliki has not shown the slightest inclination to move in the direction of compromise. Instead of working to build national institutions – a truly Iraqi army, a competent bureaucracy, a non-sectarian police force – Maliki has moved in the opposite direction. The so-called “Unity Accord” announced with such fanfare a couple of weeks ago, is just another in a long list of empty promises.

Instead of acting as a leader for Iraq as a whole, Maliki has functioned as the front man for Shiite partisans. And he has presided over a Shiite coalition that includes some of the most notorious militias, death squads, and sectarian thugs in Iraq.

This is not what the American people had in mind. And when Mr. Maliki states, as he recently did, that if the Americans leave, he can find, quote, “new friends,” we are reminded most forcefully of his and his Party’s intimate ties to Iran.

In his recent visit to Anbar Province, the President made much of our cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda with Sunni tribal militias. This alliance may in the short run be a positive development – but it also raises some serious and profound questions.

Anbar, of course, includes just five per cent of the population of Iraq – an important five per cent, but still only five. What’s more, by arming, training and funding the Sunni militias in that province, we are working against our own strategy of building national Iraqi institutions.

America should not be in the business of arming, training and funding both sides of a religious civil war in Iraq. Did the Administration learn nothing from our country’s actions in Afghanistan two decades ago, when by supporting Islamist militants against the Soviet Union, we helped pave the way for the rise of the Taliban? Why are we now repeating the short-sighted patterns of the past?

In Iraq today, we are wrecking our military, forcing their families to suffer needlessly, sacrificing the lives of our brave young men and women in uniform. And the enormous financial cost of this war is limiting our ability to address our global security needs, as well as pressing domestic problems such as health care, crumbling infrastructure and public education. The cost of this war in Iraq will be passed along to our grandchildren and beyond.

In the last few days, General Petraeus, media have reported that you are prepared to support a slow drawdown of our forces in Iraq – beginning with a brigade or two, perhaps at the end of this year.
This clearly is nowhere near enough.

We need to send Maliki’s government a strong message, loud and clear. Removing a brigade is nothing but a political whisper – and it is unacceptable to the American people and to the majority of the Congress.

As long as American troops are doing the heavy lifting in Iraq, there is no reason – none at all – for the Iraqis themselves to step up. Military progress without political progress is meaningless.

It is their country – and it is their turn. Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi politicians need to know that the free ride is over and that American troops will not be party to their civil war.

The situation in Iraq cries out for a dramatic change of course. We need to get out of Iraq, for that country’s sake and for our own. It is time to go – and to go now.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

Transcript of the Speech of the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP

Trimdon Labour Club, Sedgefield

Monday 10 May 2007

It's a great privilege to be here with you again today and to thank all of you too for such a wonderful and warm welcome.

I'd just like to say also if I might and just a special word of thanks to John Burton. John has been my agent here for many years now. He's still the best political adviser that I've got. He's...he's all the years I've known him he's been steadfast in his loyalty to me, to the Labour Party and to Sunderland Football Club, not necessarily in that order.

You know it's been my great good fortune at certain points in my life to meet exceptional people and he is one very exceptional person. And also if I may refer to another exceptional person who's my wife, friend and partner, Cherie.

And the children of course. Euan and Nicky and Katherine and Leo who make me never forget my failings...but give me great love and support.

So, I've come back here to Sedgefield, to my constituency, where my political journey began and where it's fitting that it should end. Today I announce my decision to stand down from the leadership of the Labour Party. The party will now select a new leader. On the 27th June I will tender my resignation from the office of Prime Minister to the Queen.

I've been Prime Minister of this country for just over 10 years. In this job, in the world of today, I think that's long enough, for me, but more especially for the country. And sometimes the only way you conquer the pool of power is to set it down.

I can only describe what I think has been done over these last ten years and perhaps more important why I tried to do it, and I never quite put it in this way before. I was born almost a decade after the Second World War. I was a young man in the social revolution of the 60s and the 70s. I reached political maturity as the cold war was ending and the world was going through a political and an economic and a technological revolution. And I looked at my own country. A great country with a great history and magnificent traditions, proud of its past. But strangely uncertain of its future. Uncertain about the future, almost old fashioned.

And all that was curiously symbolised you know in the politics of the time. You, you had choices, you stood for individual aspiration and getting on in life, or a social compassion of helping others. You were liberal in your values, or conservative. You believed in the power of the state or the efforts of the individual. Spending more money on the public realm was the answer, or it was the problem. And none of it made sense to me. It was twentieth century ideology in a world approaching a new millennium.

Of course people want the best for themselves and their families, but in an age when human capital is a nation's greatest asset, they also know it's just and sensible to extend opportunities, to develop the potential to succeed for all our people not just an elite at the top. And people today are open minded about race and sexuality. They're averse to prejudice. And yet deeply, rightly, conservative with a small 'c' when it comes to good manners, respect for others, treating people courteously.

They acknowledge the need for the state and the responsibility of the individual. And they know spending money on our public services matters and they know it's not enough. How they are run and organised matters too.

So 1997 was a moment for a new beginning. The sweeping away of all the detritus of the past. And expectations were so high. Too high probably. Too high in a way for either of us. And now in 2007 you could easily point to the challenges or these things that are wrong or the grievances that fester.

But go back to 1997. Think back, no really think back. Think about your own living standards then in May 1997 and now. Visit your local school - any of them round here or anywhere in modern Britain. Ask when you last had to wait a year or more on a hospital waiting list or heard of pensioners freezing to death in the winter unable to heat their homes.

There is only one government since 1945 that can say all of the following: more jobs, fewer unemployed, better health and education results, lower crime and economic growth in every quarter. Only one government. This one .

But we don't need statistics. There's something bigger than what can be measured in waiting lists or GCSE results or the latest crime or jobs figures. Look at the British economy: at ease with globalisation. London, the world's financial centre. Visit ou8r great cities in this country and compare them with 10 years ago. No country attracts overseas investment like we do.
And think about the culture in Britain in the year 2007. I don't just mean our arts that are thriving - I mean our values. The minimum wage. Paid holidays as a right. Amongst the best maternity pay and leave today in Europe. Equality for gay people.

Or look at the debates that reverberate around the word today - the global movement to support Africa in its struggle against poverty. Climate change, then fight against terrorism. Britain is not a follower today - Britain is a leader.

It gets the essential characteristic of today's world. It's interdependent. This is a country today that fort all its faults, form all the myriad of unresolved problems and fresh challenges, it is a country comfortable in the twenty-first century. At home in its own skin, able not just to be proud of its past but also confident of its future. You know I don't think Northern Ireland would have been changed unless Britain had changed. Or the Olympics won if we were still the Britain of 1997.

And as for my own leadership, throughout these ten years where the predictable has competed with the utterly unpredicted, right at the outset one thing was clear to me. Without the Labour Party allowing me to lead it nothing could ever have been done. But I also knew my duty was to put the country first. That much was obvious to me when just under 13 years ago I became Labour's Leader.

What I had to learn, however, as Prime Minister was what putting the country first really meant. Decision-making is hard. You know everyone always says in politics: listen to the people. And the trouble is they don't always agree.

When you are in Opposition, you meet this group and they say 'why can't you do this?' And you say: 'it's really a good question. Thank you'. And they go away and say: 'it's great, he really listened'. And then you meet that other group and they say: 'why can't you do that?' And you say: 'it's a really good question. Thank you'. And they go away happy that you listened.

In Government you have to give the answer, not an answer, the answer. And, in time, you realise that putting the country first doesn't mean doing the right thing according to conventional wisdom or the prevailing consensus or the latest snapshot of opinion. It means doing what you genuinely believe to be right; that your duty as prime minister is to act according to your conviction. And all of that can get contorted so that people think that you act according to some messianic zeal. Doubt, hesitation, reflection, consideration, reconsideration; these are all the good companions of proper decision-making but the ultimate obligation is to decide.

And sometimes the decisions are accepted quite quickly; Bank of England independence was one, which gave us our economic stability. Sometimes, like tuition fees or trying to break up old, monolithic public services, the changes are deeply controversial, hellish, hard to do. But you can see we're moving with the grain of change around the world. And sometimes, like with Europe, where I believe Britain should keep its position strong, you know you are fighting opinion but you're kind of content in doing so. And sometimes, as with the completely unexpected, you are alone with your own instinct.

In Sierra Leone and to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo I took the decision to make our country one that intervened, that did not pass by or keep out of the thick of it. And then came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic September the 11th 2001 and the death of 3000 or more on the streets on New York. And I decided we should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our oldest ally and I did so out of belief. And so Afghanistan and then Iraq, the latter bitterly controversial. And removing Saddam and his sons from power, as with removing the Taliban, was over with relative ease, but the blowback since from global terrorism and those elements that support it has been fierce and unrelenting and costly. And for many it simply isn't and can't be worth it. For me, I think we must see it through. They the terrorists who threaten us here and around the world will never give up if we give up. It is a test of will and of belief. And we can't fail it.
So: some things I knew I would be dealing with. Some I thought I might be. Some never occurred to me, or to you, on that morning of 2 May 1997 when I came into Downing Street for the first time.

Great expectations not fulfilled in every part, for sure. Occasionally people say, as I said earlier, the expectations were too high, you should have lowered them. But, to be frank, I would not have wanted it any other way. I was, and remain, as a person and as a Prime Minister an optimist. Politics may be the art of the possible; but at least in life, give the impossible a go.
So of course the visions are painted in the colours of the rainbow; and the reality is sketched in the duller tones of black, white and grey.

But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong, that's your call. But believe one thing, if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country. And I came into office with high hopes for Britain's future and, you know, I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain's future. This is a country that can today be excited by the opportunities, not constantly fretful of the dangers.

And people say to me it's a tough job, not really. A tough life is the life led by the young, severely disabled children and their parents who visited me in Parliament the other week. Tough is the life my Dad had; his whole career cut short at the age of 40 by a stroke.

Actually, I've been very lucky and very blessed and this country is a blessed nation. The British are special. The world knows it; in our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on Earth.

So it has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you the British people for the times that I have succeeded and my apologies to you for the times I've fallen short.

But good luck.

Global Politics With A Nuclear Twist

The Americans have two warships in the Persian Gulf.

An Iranian website close to the Revolutionary Guard says Iran has drones capable of reaching American warships in the Persian Gulf.

The European Union is downbeat about how much enriched uranium Iran now has. They say Iran probably has enough to make a nuclear bomb.

The European Union also says economic sanctions alone will not resolve what is now a tense stand-off.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would defend itself against any US attack on its nuclear facilities.

George W. Bush insists Iran is not solely concerned with the development of nuclear power, but is trying to develop a nuclear bomb.

The stand-off is tense. Every politician of every Western nation involved is insisting diplomacy will always come before any military action, and military action is, and should always be, a last resort. But over the past few days, everything which has been said, done, and reported, is strikingly similar to the build-up to the war in Iraq. The United States is being stubborn in constantly asserting that a rogue nation under a fearsome dictator is either trying to make, or already has possession of, a nuclear weapon. The rogue nation refutes such a claim, but does not allow the Western world (either in the form of the UN or the United States) unlimited access to its 'nuclear' facilities.

Once again the United Nations seems on the sidelines, watching on, powerless to influence the things that really matter. The report of Hans Blix prior to the war in Iraq was first questioned by Donald Rumsfeld, before it was just ignored. Now, the United Nations has imposed sanctions on the rogue state, but now even the EU says economic sanctions may not be enough.

I think a lot of it comes down to who is scared, and who is scared the most. All the politicians talk tough. That does not help. Yesterday the BBC reported that Iran did not fear a US attack. That might be what Iranian officials say, but I would bet normal Iranian people have fears of a US invasion. They would not be human if they did not fear an American attack. Just across the border Iranians have seen the consequences of an American lead invasion.

Like their Iranian counterparts, the American people are scared. Nuclear bombs in the possession of a nation that is not allies with the White House scares the American people. Their fear is often expressed as an offensive gesture: Vietnam; Afghanistan; Iraq; and now Iran?

Maybe. At the same stage before the Iraq war, everybody knew the US was going to invade Saddam's country, regardless of whatever 'caution talk' was coming out of the Pentagon. I'm not so sure the United States is as gun happy as it was then for a number of reasons. Since then, one hopes that they will have learnt that overthrowing the country's leadership is only part of the problem. Rebuilding the country is far harder.

An American presence In Iraq will probably be necessary until at least 2010. More and more suicide bombings, car bombings and random shootings are occurring In Baghdad every day. Not a day goes by without innocent civilians dying at the hands of the insurgency. Killings happen so often, most news networks do not bother giving them more than a few seconds of coverage.

What is more of an issue, though, is troop numbers. The United States still has a big presence in Afghanistan. The Americans are still needed there. In January, George W. Bush announced a sharp increase in troop numbers in Iraq (because of the worsening violence). The United States of America is a big country, but it does not have an endless supply of soldiers. Thousands have died in Iraq. Thousands have died in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands still remain. Whisper this next statement quietly: they might need the draft.

Not since the Vietnam War has the draft been popular. Calling up ordinary civilians for compulsory military service is a crime against humanity. Forcing citizens to fight against their will is wrong.

How scared are the American public? How much more scared can they get? Can the White House scare them enough as so they support the reintroduction of the draft? Roughly two years ago now, one senator introduced a Bill into the US Senate which would have brought back the draft. 99 Senators, including the gentleman who introduced it, voted the Bill down. (One of the Senators was ill on the day of the vote.) This was done solely to convince Americans that bringing back the draft was not an option.

But two years is a long time. The United States has seen a lot of troops killed in Iraq since that vote. They have had to send more to troops. They have seen President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rise to power in Iran. To invade Iran, I think the White House would need to scare the American public into thinking the draft was necessary to protect American values. Undoubtedly, the region would be a safer place with a democratic regime in charge of Iran, but as we have witnessed in Iraq, a swift change is impossible. Democracy is not instantaneous, as it was sold to the Americans before the invasion of Iraq. Tell me war is not going to happen, and I will call you a liar.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright.