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The transfer is a monumental occasion as the Iraqi people take control of their government and their future and forge ahead with creating a society governed by the tenets of life, liberty and freedom.
The proximate cause of Iraq's unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian, and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011.
The PMF should be loyal only to Iraq, not to anyone else: loyal to Iraqi official institutions, the commander in chief in the country, rather than political parties or any other force outside or inside Iraq.
I call on the international community to be fair to the Iraqi people. My position is that we respect international resolutions but in return demand justice and accountability for those who stole Iraq's money.
We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.
As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies.
Similarly, establishing a firm timeline for bringing our troops home could accelerate the development of Iraqi security forces and deepen their commitment to defending their own country and their own government.
January 30th will be a historic day for the Middle East and the world. The Iraqi people will take the next step toward a free and democratic society as they place their votes for a transitional Iraqi government.
Many of our soldiers are stationed at Camp Coyote just south of the Iraqi border. This is how you know we have a strong army, when you can actually tell your enemy exactly where your camp is and what its name is.
What the UN inspectors can do is demonstrate to the world, help the Iraqi government demonstrate to the world that the Iraqis are cooperatively disarming if that is in fact what the Iraqi government decides to do.
Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.
That policy was abandoned very quickly, and the military police were tagged with the responsibility of conducting training, which they did. We were not equipped or set up with personnel to recruit new Iraqi guards.
That the Iraqi Government is considering a political deal granting amnesty to insurgents who have attacked or killed American service members is not just shocking - the idea of amnesty for insurgents is an outrage.
What our men and women in uniform are doing is providing for the Iraqi people and other surrounding nations the opportunity to see, to taste and to experience the democracy that equals freedom and ultimately justice.
We can all be proud of our men and women in the military who are following their orders, carrying out their missions and sacrificing so much to give the Iraqi people a chance for a more peaceful and prosperous future.
As the Iraqi people better understand that Saddam Hussein and his regime are history, it is my hope that they will get behind the coalition effort to help them create a democratic government and rebuild their country.
Too often in the past, U.S. leaders have forced Israel to pay the price for American strategic interests in the Middle East - through concessions in the peace process as well as passivity in the face of Iraqi attacks.
If we hold true to our ideals and our commitment to freedom, this generation of servicemen and women will have extended liberty to the Iraqi people, just as previous generations of Americans have all across the globe.
The photographs of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment by their captors, and the reports of acts of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and other acts of maltreatment shock the conscience.
It's what the Iraqi people are going through right now. They have encountered a victorious, hostile force-but, you know, there they still are. There their culture is, there their history is, they're not going anywhere.
In fact, the Iraqi foreign minister admitted in March 2003 that Iraqi funds were sent to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who attacked and killed innocent Israeli citizens, and also 12 Americans in Israel in 2003.
The Iraqi regime was supporting terrorist cells all over the world. We had to expel three Iraqi diplomats from the Philippines because of evidence that they were either in touch with Abu Sayyaf or doing their own espionage.
Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission. Extremists will continue to set off bombs, attack Iraqi civilians and try to spark sectarian strife. But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals.
America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.
Just two weeks ago, millions of Iraqis defied the threats of terrorists and went to the polls to determine their own future. I congratulate the Iraqi people for the courage they've shown in making these elections so successful.
I am an opponent of Saddam Hussein, but an opponent also, of the sanctions that have killed a million Iraqi children and an opponent of the United States' apparent desire to plunge the Middle East into a new and devastating war.
The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism - mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn't deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets.
As I have been saying for more than a year now, turning this vital mission over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible should remain a topic of debate for Congress while relying on our military commanders to set up the timetable.
The Iraqi National Guard needs to become a reality in order to give hope to the Sunni population, and Sunni leaders that have been the focus of political prosecution should be included in the discussions of Iraq's political future.
The problem is that the Iraqi people are facing atrocities from both sides - Zarqawi and also the American troops at times. The Zarqawi groups uses car bombs, the Americans use other bombs. You also know what they do in the prisons.
Today is a celebration of hope for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people can now take control of their government and their future by creating a society that protects the rights endowed to us by our creator - life, liberty and freedom.
The Iraqi Free Press, which did not exist 18 months ago because there was no such thing as the Iraqi Free Press, broke a story about the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, which could potentially turn out to be the largest scandal in history.
Resolution 1441 does not give anyone the right to an automatic use of force. Russia believes that the Iraqi problem should be regulated by the Security Council, which carries the main responsibility for ensuring international security.
I would like to tell our American, British and Spanish friends that the Iraqi crisis is not a problem between the United States and France, but between those who want to move forward in the logic of war and the international community.
Talk about national interests: When we went in with Operation Iraqi Freedom, some of our allies, Turkey, for example, would not let us through. How much trouble did that cause us, because we were not able to go into Iraq through Turkey?
Human-rights advocates, for example, claim that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is of a piece with President Bush's 2002 decision to deny al Qaeda and Taliban fighters the legal status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
We are not utilizing the Iraqi oil for U.S. purposes. We are not asking that the Iraqi oil be used to pay our military expenses. We are asking only that the Iraqi oil be used to rebuild Iraq - that is, to rebuild Iraq for the Iraqi people.
Three big assumptions proved wrong: one, that the Iraqi people would welcome us as liberators; two, that oil would soon pay for Iraqi's rebuilding; and, three, that we have plenty of troops, weapons, and equipment for the postwar situation.
A timeline for bringing U.S. troops home that is negotiated with the Iraqi government would also boost the Iraqi government's legitimacy and claim to self-rule, and force the Iraqi government to take responsibility for itself and its citizens.
Having removed the dictator, the allies have moved to put Iraqis in control of Iraq. Now, as they draft and ratify their Constitution, we will indeed see the character of a new Iraqi nation revealed through the principles it chooses to uphold.
Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad in 1981. This action delayed an Iraqi bomb by at least 15 years. The whole world condemned Israel - only to realize later how farsighted it had been.
As a 22-year Army Veteran who served in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, and as a Civilian Advisor to the Afghan Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, I understand both the gravity of giving the order, and the challenge of carrying it out.
The face of terrorism in Iraq is dead. Abu Musab al Zarqawi brutalized, tortured, and killed thousands of innocent people, forcing Iraqis to live in fear. The Iraqi people finally had enough, and gave up his whereabouts to the Iraqi security forces.
We are at war to liberate Iraq, to protect the people of the United States and other countries from the devastating impact of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction being used by terrorists or the Iraqi government to kill thousands of innocent civilians.
We owe our troops more than rhetoric; we owe them a real plan. The Administration has yet to put forward a strategy for achieving stability in Iraq, ending the conflict, and handing over sovereignty to the people of Iraq and the new Iraqi government.
Mr. Chairman, the price for continuing this war is too high, not only in budgetary terms, but in American lives, Iraqi civilian casualties blamed on America and in the steady increase in the terrorist ranks that this war is provoking around the globe.
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
Second, the resolution contains the blatantly false assertion that negotiating a timeline for bringing U.S. troops home with the Iraqi government undermines U.S. national security. Such a statement shows a misunderstanding of the enemy we face in Iraq.
Nonetheless, Article 5 makes clear that if an Iraqi civilian who is not a member of the armed forces, has engaged in attacks on Coalition forces, the Geneva Convention permits the use of more coercive interrogation approaches to prevent future attacks.
If you look beyond the short term violence and instability, you do see significant activities on the part of the Iraqi people that indicate they understand the commitment necessary to govern themselves. It's not clear how they will do it, but it never is.