The Standing Rules of the Senate are drafted to encourage vigorous public debate on our nation’s most important issues. Indeed, the U.S. Senate is often referred to as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” The Rules allow any Senator to seek recognition from the Chair at any time and, absent a temporary agreement to the contrary, to speak without interruption so long as he or she wishes. Debating important questions before the Senate is one way a Senator can highlight an issue, advocate for a change in policy, or voice his or her opinion on pending legislation.
Senate debate occurs in public, and is televised on CSPAN and transcribed in the Congressional Record. For your convenience, I post transcripts of my Senate floor speeches on this site for your review. I hope you find them informative and useful. My web site also makes available information on my voting record and legislation that I have sponsored in the Senate.
 print | |
 email |
| |
Sessions Speaks on Gens. Petraeus and Odierno
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Warner. I would share a few thoughts. You might ask why is it that generals throughout our history, particularly successful generals , have been as popular as they have been? I think it is because they are called upon to lead our soldiers in a life-and-death struggle. And at given times in history, some people's talents and gifts and understanding of the nature of the combat are such that they can bring us to success with the least possible cost and the least number of lives lost. I believe--not that other generals are not as good or as decent people--but at certain times certain people have those capabilities.
In General Petraeus we are fortunate to have one of our finest commanders. We are particularly fortunate that his gifts and graces and talents are such that they are perfectly suited to the type of combat in which we have been involved. He was a commander of the 101st Airborne. He is a warrior. He knows the nature of combat. He is a sensitive and decent person, but he understands the nature of combat and the importance of victory. He knows how to impose a cost on an enemy and minimize the losses to the American side. I think we are lucky to have him.
He finished at the top of his class at West Point, one of their outstanding graduates. He was No. 1 in his class at the Army's Command and General Staff College. He has a Ph.D. from Princeton University in international relations. He has taught that subject as well.
When I first met him he was in Iraq. The 101st had taken Mosul in the north. He had a superb grasp of the situation. He was reaching out to reconcile the disparate groups. He introduced me to the town council. One member was a Kurd and one was a Christian and one was a Sunni and one was a Shia. It was an effort that he understood was important: to reconcile the differences there. After his departure, things did not go as well as when he was there.
The second time I met him in Iraq was when he was in charge of training the local Iraqi police and military. President Bush had asked him to go back and do that important task. It was a critically important task, the President believed, and General Petraeus was one of the most talented people we had, so he was asked to go back. He worked in that capacity for a year.
He came home and then wrote the coun ter in sur gency manual for the Department of Defense. This thick manual is a doctrinal statement on how to confront and defeat an insurgency, a very important skill at this time in history. The ink was hardly dry on that document when President Bush and the Secretary of Defense asked him to go back to Iraq and command our forces.
So in February of 2007 we confirmed him by an overwhelming vote to go back and lead our forces in Iraq. During that time the surge was debated, and the Congress overwhelmingly, in a bipartisan way, confirmed General Petraeus to go to Iraq. And later in May we voted to fund that surge. The phrase often used was: to give General Petraeus a chance. We wanted to give him a chance to employ new tactics a and more classic coun ter in sur gency doctrine, in which he was an expert. As a man who had already spent 2 years in Iraq, he was already closely attuned to all of the difficulties in that country. He went back and had extraordinary success.
General Odierno has also been there all along, and played an instrumental role in the U.S. military's success. I had the opportunity to visit with him twice in Iraq, an extremely important man. In the Weekly Standard, Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, very astute observers of the scene in Iraq, referred to General Odierno, as: ``The Patton of Coun ter in sur gency.'' They said:
With a sequence of brilliant offenses, Raymond Odierno adopted the Petraeus Doctrine into a successful operational art.
So we are lucky to have a good team here. The Kagans refer to generals coming in pairs. They noted: Eisenhower and Patton, Grant and Sherman, Napoleon and Davout, Marlborough and Eugene, Caesar and Labienus. Well, I do not know why he did not mention Lee and Jackson in that group. But generals do often come in pairs, and this pair is unique.
Now General Petraeus will be moving up to command the Central Command. Of course his most critical areas are Iraq and Afghanistan. General Odierno will be replacing General Petraeus, and I believe we could not have a better circumstance from a command point of view. I could not be happier with the team we have there. I will note that this May, under their leadership, we saw the fewest U.S. deaths of any month since the war began, and July is currently on pace to see even fewer. Remarkable progress has happened. We should confirm these people and be most thankful that we have them as leaders.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank our distinguished colleague from Alabama, a member of the committee. He is a very strong voice. I only add to your observations, which are very accurate about the situation in Iraq, we all share a concern about the worsening situation in Afghanistan, and that will become General Petraeus's top responsibility. We are fortunate that he is eminently qualified and has studied the culture of the region, having understood the complexity, the geopolitical situation with regard to Pakistan and Iran. He is eminently qualified to step in and be the commander of those forces in that region.
Mr. SESSIONS. I agree. I note he has a Ph.D. from Princeton in international relations. He has taught that. So you are right. He has the combat experience as well as the geopolitical expertise.
Mr. WARNER. But his boots are on the ground now, not writing dissertations.
Mr. President, I see our distinguished colleague from South Carolina.
I yield the floor.
