"But let's assume for the moment that we would have been able to do it...Then the question comes [of] putting a government in place of the one you've just gotten rid of; you can't just sort of turn around and walk away--you have now accepted the responsibility for what happens in Iraq. What kind of government do you want us to create in place of the old Saddam Hussein government? Do you want a Sunni government, or a Shi'a government or maybe it ought to be a Kurdish government, or maybe one based on the Ba'ath Party or maybe some combination of all of those? How long is that government likely to survive without U.S. military forces there to keep it propped up?

We would have been in a situation once we went into Baghdad where we would have engaged in the kind of street by street house to house fighting in an urban setting that would have been dramatically different from what from what we were able to do in the gulf...

You would have been fighting in a build up urban area, large civilian population and much heavier prospects for casualties.

You would have found as well I think the disintegration of the arab coalition that signed on to support us in our efforts to eject the Iraqis from Kuwait but never signed on for the proposition that the United States would become some kind of quasi permanent occupier of a major middle eastern nation.

If you get into the business of committing U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq, to occupy the place, my guess is I'd probably still have people there today instead of having been able to bring them home...The bottom line question for me was: How many additional American lives is Saddam Hussein worth? The answer: not very damn many."

The question is whether Vice President Dick Cheney even asked himself those question in 2003.

General Petraeus is not just coming back not just as a guy who is going to give us his take on the Iraq situation, but as the leader of more than 160,000 American personnel in uniform in Iraq. And they're not only watching his testimony, but they're watching our testimony. They're watching how we treat them.

And General Petraeus, when he testified before the Senate back in January:

Senator, I seriously doubt that our troops are sitting watching C-SPAN 3 in Iraq right now.

Video coming shortly. (Update-Added)

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Democrats remain committed to working with Republicans for a new direction in Iraq that does not put additional troops in the middle of this civil war and makes it clear to the Iraqi people that they must take responsibility for their country's future. Democrats in Congress will do nothing to jeopardize the safety of our troops, but will ensure that Congress continues to exercise its Constitutional authority to hold the President accountable for a change of course that turns Iraq over to the Iraqis and allows for our troops to come home.

To sum up:

• No troop surge,


• Iraqi people must take responsibility,


• Democrats will not jeopardize troop safety,


• But, Congress will hold the President accountable.

1. Ignoring the lessons of history by increasing troop levels is not the answer.

"Operation Forward Together," a strategy begun in August 2005 under which "U.S. military officials stripped troops from elsewhere to boost manpower in Baghdad by several thousand troops," is instructive. "As the Pentagon recently conceded in a report to Congress, the effort did produce a reduction in insurgent and sectarian attacks in August, but it proved temporary, with attacks rising to record levels in September and October even as the operation continued." The plan was a "failure." [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Editorial, 1/10/07]

2. Blaming the military for the President's own mistakes is not the answer.

Despite repeated assertions that he is listening to the "commanders on the ground," Bush's new strategy is to blame the military and ignore their expertise. The Washington Post reported in December that the Bush Administration was moving forward with its "plan" despite the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimous disagreement. When Bush doesn't like what he hears from his commanders, he shows them the door. General Abizaid was replaced after arguing that an increase in troops was not the answer. [Los Angeles Times, 12/23/06]

3. Ignoring the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission Recommendations, including an emphasis on diplomacy, is not the answer.

After saying for months that his Administration would wait for the committee's suggestions before submitting a new proposal for Iraq, President Bush dismissed their conclusions. Without a significant change of course, the report "warned of a 'slide toward chaos.'" [AP, 12/6/06] What is needed is an increase in diplomacy - a political solution, not more boots on the ground.

4. Ignoring the will of the American people is not the answer.

The President's plan also ignores the American people who voted for change in November. The latest USA Today/Gallup poll found that the American people oppose "the idea of increased troop levels by 61%-36%" and only 26 percent approve of Bush's handling of the war. The same poll also found that "by 2-to-1, Americans say they want congressional Democrats, not Bush, to have more influence over the direction of the nation." [USA Today, 1/9/07]

5. Ignoring the Congress is not the answer.

Despite saying he would consult with Congress to find solutions to the Iraq war, President Bush has ignored the views of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress. Today, Senate Leader Reid and House Speaker Pelosi will meet with the president on Iraq - but this meeting comes only after his "plan" was established and after his speech was written. And Even Bush's Republican allies are opposing his proposal for an increase in troops. According to UPI, "Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., has called Bush's plan 'Alice in Wonderland,' while Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn said: 'I will stand against any plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq.'" [UPI, 1/8/07] And, Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, "who voted in favor of the Iraq war and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is 'absurd' and 'may even be criminal.'" [AP, 12/8/06]

Ethnically speaking, the country of Iraq is predominately Arab, but also has a sizable population of Kurdish citizens - about 20%. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's forces killed thousands of Kurds before a no-fly zone was instituted over Kurdish areas in the north after the Persian Gulf War.

(Information gleaned from 1. CIA World factbook; "The Reckoning, Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussien" by S. Mackey; "A History of Iraq" by Charles Tripp, AP via CNN.com and 2. Washington Post, 1.5.07)

When examining the map below, note that most of the sectarian violence is in the Baghdad area, where Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims live together. Basra is also a hot spot, and Najaf was a critical early target of U.S. troops. Anbar is an predominately Sunni province in Iraq. The city of Fallujah is in Anbar. Anbar is the region targeted by Bush's latest troop escalation.

Islam is the second-largest religion in the world today, with an estimated 1.4 billion adherents, known as Muslims.

There are a number of Islamic religious denominations. The major schools of thought are Sunni and Shi'a (Shi'ite). According to most sources, present estimates indicate that approximately 85% of the world's Muslims are Sunni and approximately 15% are Shi'ite.

Only 18% of Muslims live in the Arab world; 20% are found in Sub-Saharan Africa; and about 30% in the South Asian region of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

The above information was taken from the wikipedia entry on Islam. The map below shows that with the exception of Iran, Iraq borders countries with Sunni majorities.