Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
September 21, 2007

SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT ACT


MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, thank you. Monday, I will make longer comments. I am a cosponsor of this amendment. I have said for a long time it is my belief that if we could allow the sectors of Iraq to have their own semiautonomous government, like is now in the northern part with the Kurds--and the southern part is mostly Shia--I think we could really begin to see economic stability, as well as political stability.

Of course, we all know we should have oil revenue that would go to all of the people of Iraq, fairly allocated. But I think we have seen in Bosnia a lessening of tensions when there is a capability for the security forces, the educational and the religious sects to have their own ability to govern within themselves. If we can get economic stability, which is largely untalked about in the United States, I think that would bring the political stability along.

So I commend Senator Biden. I have written on this as well. Senator Brownback and I have talked about this in many forums. It is important that we look at not only the great success we are having, which General Petraeus reported on, we are stabilizing the country on the security side. We are keeping our commitments. We are going to be able to do it with fewer Americans and bring the Iraqi troops forward, but it will not stabilize Iraq. We must have economic and political security. So I thank the chairman, and I thank Senator Brownback. I will speak again Monday. It is the most important sense of the Senate that we can have on this bill. Thank you.


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