Robert P. Casey Jr.

Speech delivered to World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh

January 18, 2008

PITTSBURGH, PA-In a speech today before the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, outlined his thoughts on Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, nuclear terrorism, and other foreign policy challenges. Following his remarks, Senator Casey took questions from the audience. The full text of his remarks is included. 

“It is time that American foreign policy gets back to the fundamentals,” said Casey. “It is time that the United States once again becomes the leader of the free world, rallying other nations to our support not just because we are mighty and strong, but because we are principled and just.” 

Select quotes from key portions of Senator Casey’s remarks are below. The text of his entire speech follows. 

On the so-called “surge” in Iraq: “The troop escalation has not succeeded in prompting the Iraqi government to make the hard choices or meet the benchmarks laid out by this Administration. As General Petreaus told me in Baghdad, this surge can only be won politically, not militarily. But on national reconciliation, oil-sharing, and the other key issues that will allow U.S. forces to eventually withdraw without a return of widespread violence, the evidence is bleak.” 

On Iraq’s influence on U.S. foreign policy: “We have failed to match our military surge with a diplomatic surge. The President continues to ignore the crucial role that Iraq’s neighbors, the Arab League, the United Nations, and others can and must play if Iraq is to be salvaged. For that reason, I have introduced bipartisan legislation in the Senate calling on the President to carry out a comprehensive regional diplomatic offensive to make Iraq less America’s problem alone and more the responsibility of the broader international community.” 

On Iran: “The United States must stand firm against Iran and insist, in concert with its allies and other key powers, that Tehran comply with demands of a unified international community. We should seek to exploit Iran’s dependence upon oil exports and other financial vulnerabilities through a targeted set of financial and economic sanctions. It is for that reason that I have co-sponsored several bills that would tighten existing sanctions, including one giving states like Pennsylvania the unfettered right to divest their pension funds from companies that insist on continued business ties with Iran.” 

On Pakistan: “It is time that the President live up to his “freedom agenda” and forcefully call on the Musharraf regime to authorize an international investigation of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, release the judges, lawyers, and other activists imprisoned during emergency rule, and appoint an independent electoral commission that enjoys the trust of all of Pakistan’s political parties to oversee the upcoming parliamentary elections.” 

On the threat of nuclear terrorism: “The threat posed by the possibility of nuclear terrorism and the broader concern of nuclear proliferation is a national security challenge of the first order. Yet our government has not paid sufficient attention to it for the past five years, in part, because of the morass in Iraq.” 

On the threat of terrorism: “There are terrorists in scores of countries plotting against the U.S. and they don’t all reside in Iraq. We must hunt down and kill those terrorists who would do harm to the American people wherever we find them in the world. However, the war in Iraq perversely has increased sympathy and support for Islamic extremism around the world, providing Al Qaeda with a new generation of recruits. One question we should be asking is whether or not we have enough resources to track and respond to this critical threat of terrorism.” 

U.S. Senator Bob Casey

World Affairs Council

January 18, 2008 

Thank you, Dr. Foerster for that kind introduction. I’m happy to be here with you today at the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and to see so many of your members and Board members in attendance, as well as my good friend Chris Donahue. Your organization does the heavy lifting of informing and engaging our citizens on the international issues of our time. Your efforts here in Pittsburgh and the important work you do with the region’s secondary schools are a critical contribution to the Commonwealth. It is my view that we need more “grassroots diplomats” like your members. That is, Americans who recognize that we live in an interdependent world, where global engagement and cooperation is not an option, but a necessity. Thank you for the unique role that you play, and for hosting me here today. 

The challenge facing our nation today and in the years ahead is: how can we return to an America that inspires the world, that is not afraid to build alliances because that is the price of leadership? Although much of this debate will play itself out on the presidential campaign trail, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on which I sit will play a critical role in bringing these important issues to light. Today, I would like to sketch out how I think the United States can regain the mantle of leadership for the global community and get our foreign policy right once again. 

IRAQ 

First, although much of the news in Washington these days has to do with our economy, we cannot lose sight of the state of affairs in Iraq. I traveled to Iraq last summer for a fact-finding mission with the Assistant Majority Leader, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. What struck me during my short time there was the palpable sense of insecurity that enveloped every stop on our itinerary. 

Landing in our C-130 at Baghdad International Airport, with our body armor and Kevlar helmets on, we were immediately whisked onto Blackhawk helicopters. Our helicopters flew at high rates of speed. We were flying so close to the ground that it felt as if you could take your hand and touch the buildings. 

Of course, there is a reason why those helicopters are flying so fast and so low to the ground. There is a reason why, in traveling to visit the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who resides outside the Green Zone, we were in a convoy of four armored cars, surrounded by ten to twelve military escorts, and helicopters flying overhead for air cover. In fact, as we were headed to the President’s home, one of the security personnel told us, “If something happens, stay low and we will get you into another car.” “If something happens?” 

We just marked the one year anniversary of the President’s decision to initiate a troop escalation into Iraq. As you can expect, there is a healthy debate today over the wisdom of that decision. Our soldiers have executed their mission with bravery and heroism, and violence is down. Yet, Iraq is still not a secure nation. It will not be secure until its leaders can leave the Green Zone without fear of assassination attempts or suicide bombings. It will not be secure until its own national army and police forces can stand up and protect all of Iraq’s people without regard to ethnicity or creed.

 In outlining the objectives of the so called “surge,” President Bush said, “Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas.” By that standard, the surge has not worked.

The troop escalation has not succeeded in prompting the Iraqi government to make the hard choices or meet the benchmarks laid out by this Administration. As General Petreaus told me in Baghdad, this surge can only be won politically, not militarily. But on national reconciliation, oil-sharing, and the other key issues that will allow U.S. forces to eventually withdraw without a return of widespread violence, the evidence is bleak.

 For example, although the Iraqi Parliament passed a de-Baathification measure last weekend, it is unclear how far the legislation will go toward addressing Sunni concerns, since serious disagreements exist on the law’s implementation. In addition, some Shiites contend that former Baathists would still be barred from important ministries like Justice, Interior, and Defense. 

This war has now endured for a longer period than World War II and the cost has been all too high – over 3,900 dead, including 178 Pennsylvanians, and over 28,000 wounded. These are more than statistics – these are reminders of how this war continues to touch the lives of our military and their families. I have met with several of these brave men and women and seen first hand the sacrifices they have made. One was Joshua Humberger from Grapeville, Westmoreland County, who not only served in Iraq, but lost part of his left leg in combat. Our military forces have done everything we have asked of them; they have matched the bravery and success, in every way possible, of those great American warriors who preceded them in past conflicts. But our troops cannot force a foreign government to be stable; they cannot force the Iraqi National Police to put aside their deep-seated sectarianism and corruption; they cannot force Iraqi political leaders to want success as much as they do and as much as the Iraqi people deserve. After spending over half a trillion dollars on behalf of this war and enduring the enormous human costs, many problems remain. 

We have failed to match our military surge with a diplomatic surge. The President continues to ignore the crucial role that Iraq’s neighbors, the Arab League, the United Nations, and others can and must play if Iraq is to be salvaged. For that reason, I have introduced bipartisan legislation in the Senate calling on the President to carry out a comprehensive regional diplomatic offensive to make Iraq less America’s problem alone and more the responsibility of the broader international community. If Iraq collapses into a full scale civil war that engulfs its neighbors, America is not the only nation that will pay a steep price. It’s time to get other nations rightly invested in Iraq’s future. 

The absence of a genuine military solution is the reason why I support a phased and responsible redeployment of our combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year. We must redeploy our troops in a manner that ensures the United States can help prevent any spread of the sectarian violence in Iraq beyond its borders. Any civil war in Iraq must not mutate into a broader regional war. 

I am under no illusions that this redeployment of U.S. combat forces will usher in peace and stability in Iraq. The violence there may well worsen in the short term. However, after almost five years, I see no reasonable prospect that our military forces can impose a working solution in Iraq. The Bush policy means high troop levels for at least ten years. That’s unacceptable and puts our national security at risk. 

In the meantime, we hear a drumbeat of urgent warnings from respected military figures that our armed forces, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in particular, are under severe stress. Mid-level officers are departing in waves after one too many deployments away from their families; those personnel who remain are being shortchanged on their training and readiness requirements; and our stocks of military equipment are not being replenished after their wear and tear in Iraq. It is time to change course in Iraq, if only to ensure that we are prepared to face other determined adversaries and rivals around the world. 

IRAN 

To take but one example, Iran today is moving forward with a nuclear program in defiance of United Nations resolutions. The recent National Intelligence Estimate may have concluded that Iran halted its overt weaponization program in 2003, but Tehran continues to accelerate the development of a uranium enrichment program – the most essential component of any effort to build nuclear weapons. And Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a despicable figure who has denied the Holocaust and threatened to “wipe Israel off” the face of the Earth. 

On October 4, I delivered a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate laying out a three part strategy to deter and contain Iran, its nuclear ambitions and its hostility toward Israel. The United States must work to further isolate Iran diplomatically, take action to apply substantial pressure on Iran’s energy sector, and lay the groundwork for financial sanctions. 

The United States must stand firm against Iran and insist, in concert with its allies and other key powers, that Tehran comply with demands of a unified international community. We should seek to exploit Iran’s dependence upon oil exports and other financial vulnerabilities through a targeted set of financial and economic sanctions. It is for that reason that I have co-sponsored several bills that would tighten existing sanctions, including one giving states like Pennsylvania the unfettered right to divest their pension funds from companies that insist on continued business ties with Iran. We must always make clear that the military option remains on the table, if only for deterrent purposes. Yet at the same time, the President’s dangerous and reckless rhetoric on Iran, like his ill-advised reference to “World War Three,” is not helpful. 

PAKISTAN 

Pakistan is a critical ally in the war on terror and we need its assistance in hunting down al Qaeda. Yet U.S. policy toward Pakistan has been on auto-pilot for far too long. This Administration made the fatal mistake of basing its entire policy on one person alone – General Pervez Musharraf – even as the Pakistani people have made clear in recent years their strong opposition to his continued authoritarian rule. Even today, we continue to cling to the outdated notion that only General Musharraf can deliver stability in Pakistan, even as all the evidence indicates the exact opposite. It is time that the President live up to his “freedom agenda” and forcefully call on the Musharraf regime to authorize an international investigation of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, release the judges, lawyers, and other activists imprisoned during emergency rule, and appoint an independent electoral commission that enjoys the trust of all of Pakistan’s political parties to oversee the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Otherwise, the United States will be seen by the Pakistani people as seeking to prop up a discredited dictator – and we will pay the price in the coming years. 

NUCLEAR TERRORISM 

Before I conclude, I want to briefly discuss an issue that must be at the very top of the next President’s agenda – nuclear terrorism. In the weeks following 9/11, our intelligence community picked up a very frightening report from an agent. It was rumored that Al Qaeda had acquired a Soviet era nuclear weapon and had managed to smuggle it into New York City. The threat was ultimately discounted – there was no nuclear weapon inside our nation’s largest city. The agent had bad information. 

However, nobody could deny that such a scenario was – and still is – frightfully plausible. We know that Al Qaeda is determined to strike the United States once again, with some evidence that they are determined to replicate or exceed the level of death and destruction that occurred on that horrible day. A nuclear 9/11 would achieve that. 

Today, the Russian Federation maintains thousands of nuclear warheads, and the weapons-grade material for even more warheads, under varying states of security. Pakistan is another state armed with nuclear weapons. Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for Pakistan, testified at a hearing in December that he was “fairly confident” we do not have reason for urgent concern with regard to the security of Pakistan’s nuclear forces. However, we must worry that if the current turmoil expands, Pakistan could splinter apart in a civil war. If that worst case scenario materializes, dozens of nuclear warheads could fall under the control of Islamic extremists or even Al Qaeda. 

This is known in Washington as the challenge of “loose nukes.” During the Cold War, we faced the existential dilemma of the destruction of our entire nation through a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Today, the stakes may not be quite so high, but still daunting: we could confront the devastation of a major Western city if terrorists acquire a nuclear warhead or the fissile material to construct an improvised device. 

This past November, I visited the University of Pittsburgh for a viewing and discussion of a docudrama called the Last Best Chance, in which Al Qaeda operatives organize separate operations aimed at getting nuclear weapons and deploying them in Europe and here in the U.S. The film translates a seemingly abstract threat into a frighteningly plausible scenario, and I recommend that you see it. 

The good news about this nightmare scenario is that we know what needs to be done. The production of nuclear weapons, and the weapons grade uranium and plutonium that give these weapons their explosive power, remains a capacity limited to national governments. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a terrorist group to build a nuclear weapon from scratch. Therefore, if the United States works in concert with other nations to “lock down” nuclear warheads and weapons grade materials around the world, we can prevent terrorists from accessing them in the first place. 

We’re making some progress on this front, through programs like the Nunn-Lugar effort to dismantle nuclear warheads and secure excess nuclear materials, in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, but we’re not moving fast enough. After 9/11, the President should have made this a key international priority, raising it to the very top of the U.S.-Russian agenda, for example. We should also be working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to establish a global library of nuclear fissile material. If the IAEA were to have nuclear samples from every weapons production facility in the world, then a nuclear device exploded somewhere could in short order be traced, through the fissile material used in that explosion, to the originating reactor or production facility. Such a capability could serve as a powerful deterrent – if a state knew that it could be held ultimately responsible for a nuclear detonation, it would have far greater incentive to secure and protect its nuclear materials. 

TERRORISM 

The threat posed by the possibility of nuclear terrorism and the broader concern of nuclear proliferation is a national security challenge of the first order. Yet our government has not paid sufficient attention to it for the past five years, in part, because of the morass in Iraq. Iraq has diverted our attention from the true enemy that attacked New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11th. The gruesome attack on the luxury hotel in Kabul this week, where eight people died including one American, is yet another reminder that Afghanistan is an urgent challenge and a central front against global terrorism. There are terrorists in scores of countries plotting against the U.S. and they don’t all reside in Iraq. We must hunt down and kill those terrorists who would do harm to the American people wherever we find them in the world. However, the war in Iraq perversely has increased sympathy and support for Islamic extremism around the world, providing Al Qaeda with a new generation of recruits. One question we should be asking is whether or not we have enough resources to track and respond to this critical threat of terrorism. 

CONCLUSION 

It is time that American foreign policy gets back to the fundamentals. It is time that the United States once again becomes the leader of the free world, rallying other nations to our support not just because we are mighty and strong, but because we are principled and just. 

In short, it’s time for America to reclaim her purpose and vision in the world. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions

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