Max Cleland Speech to YDA conference
Great speech by former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Georgia), here.

Here's an excerpt:

I am afraid we are getting sucked into a major ground involvement in Iraq and in Afghanistan with no exit strategy. To say that a three-week war in Iraq against an adversary not linked to 9/11 was a victory against terrorism, and, then, proclaim victory on an aircraft carrier by the President of the United States, is misleading at best. Within days of the so-called victory in Iraq, Al Qaeda was alive and well and killing Europeans, Americans and upper-class Saudis in Riyadh, the very capital of Saudi Arabia. Additionally, LTG. David McKiernan in Iraq says the war is not over. He is right. Since the President declared a so-called "victory," we have buried 34 young Americans killed in Iraq. We are losing young men and women every day. We are trapped in a quagmire. We have 240,000 American troops tied down in Iraq and Kuwait. We have no clear exit strategy. So far we have found no WMD. We have taken our eye off the ball. In so many ways, we have substituted a rogue regime for the true target. The real target is Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre around the world.

This administration has not found Osama bin Laden. It has not found Saddam Hussein. And it has not yet found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Supposedly all of that was the rationale for losing over 200 American lives and wounding over 500 American troops so far. We do have to go on the strategic offensive against the terrorists, but we have to chase them down in their own holes, in their own caves, in their own lairs and in their own sanctuaries, wherever they may be. We let Osama bin Laden escape into Western Pakistan in the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan because as we closed the loop on him we violated one of the basic lessons of counter insurgency I learned in ROTC in 1962. You cordon off the enemy and close the loop with your own troops. We relied on Afghan rebels and warlords in the operation and Osama bin Laden skipped country. He slipped through the net. Just like in Vietnam, reliance on South Vietnamese intelligence and South Vietnamese troops always proved costly.

This issue of fresh battlefield intelligence is critical because the way we fight and win the war against terrorism is primarily through intelligence and the network that we create with our allies. We need allies all over the world. We need as many friends as we can get. We must not ignore the warning signals our allies provide, as was the case in the months leading up to 9/11. We can't use our technology and our force if we don't know where the terrorist are and can't target them.

For all the hoopla of the president declaring victory, we have to understand Iraq and Afghanistan are still boiling sores. As long as chaos continues to reign in Baghdad, Basra, and other parts of Iraq, resentment will continue to fester and resistance by native Iraqis will foment. We are increasingly looked upon as outsiders and as an occupying force. If only those in the administration had heeded the warnings of the challenge of post-war stability given by Republican Sen. Lugar, and my fellow Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel, perhaps our troops would not be under constant threat of attack. We have taken on an almost impossible mission. We are trying to police an area as big as California. We can't even keep the peace in California much less in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We are trying to re-build hospitals and schools and trying to provide health care and food in Iraq. We need to rebuild crumbling schools in America. We need to extend health care insurance to the 41 million Americans not currently covered by health care insurance. We need to improve police and first responder capabilities in America. We need to rebuild the infrastructure of America, provide jobs to Americans. But we are trying to make Iraq the 51st state. This administration is doing all of this in a time of record deficits while at the same time slashing taxes for the wealthy. And let's be clear about this "economic stimulus." In the long run, this tax cut will redistribute the tax burden onto the middle class. In the tax bill the president signed, those families with children making less than $26,000 a year were denied a child tax credit while those families making more than that amount were given a $1,000 deduction per child. I ask you this. Does this seem fair? As I travel around this state, I see increasing unemployment, increasing financial hardship and increasing economic devastation due to Republican policies which have become themselves weapons of mass destruction particularly falling hardest on those families making $26,000 year or less.

What then is the Bush record in fighting the so-called war on terrorism? They have not found bin Laden. They have not found Saddam Hussein and as of yet there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, we have found two trailers. Is that why we fought the war? For two trailers? Did we send our sons and daughters to spill their blood in the desert over two trailers? We are spending over $100 billion bombing and then rebuilding Iraq while giving a tax cut to America's wealthiest citizens and denying hard-working Americans making $26,000 a year or less a child tax credit in order to pay for it.

Run again, Max. Your country needs you.

Posted by: Byron L.