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Statement by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
Regarding America's Eventual Withdrawal from Iraq
March 21, 2006
It is my belief that we should withdraw
our military from Iraq as soon as we are able to ensure that our
departure will not be followed by a Rwanda or Darfur of our own
making.
While I was one of 23 U.S. Senators
who voted against going to war in Iraq, I also acknowledge that
-- once the President invaded that nation -- we inherited a moral
obligation to attempt to leave Iraq with a more peaceful and prosperous
future. While I will not and cannot defend the misleading information
used by President Bush and his administration in selling the Iraq
war to Congress and the American public, nor will I defend his
conduct of this war, their wrongs would not justify an irresponsible
departure that would ensure a full-blown civil war, widespread
ethnic cleansing, and hundreds of thousands of additional, needless
deaths. Having just returned from a visit to Iraq, I can attest
that the country is on the brink of just such a bloody civil war
and I believe we have a moral obligation to find workable options
to avoid that outcome.
To both avoid an even greater human
tragedy in Iraq and to hasten the departure of U.S. troops from
Iraq, at the very least:
1) the President must become personally
and fully engaged in efforts to mediate an equitable national
sharing of power between the Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish people;
2) the U.N., which wanted no part
of this country's invasion of Iraq, should be asked to take an
immediate role in securing peace and preventing genocide in that
country;
3) the President must unequivocally
agree to never establishing a permanent military base in Iraq;
and,
4) the Administration, with the
help of the international community, must set a far more aggressive
timetable for training adequate Iraqi security forces and devote
the necessary resources to accomplish this goal.
Morally, we have an obligation to
get out of Iraq as quickly as can be accomplished without compounding
the tragic outcome of the President's invasion by leaving in our
wake an environment ripe for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
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