Mr. BOND . Mr. President, I appreciate the chance to talk about the amendment before us and some of the other amendments. These amendments generally are intended to change our military policies, our presence in Iraq, and essentially to begin, one way or the other, a politically staged withdrawal from Iraq. We are talking about how we are concerned about and support the troops. Do you know what I hear from the troops? I have been there, I have talked to them, and I have heard from them at home. The one thing they say is: We are over here risking our lives. We are fighting a mission which we believe is succeeding. We are making progress. The last thing we want is Congress to declare a military end or take over the management of the war from our commanders. Time after time, they have told me: We have made too many contributions and sacrifices to walk away now and see all we have done go for naught.

I will talk about going for naught later on. But the point is that, yes, America has made contributions, large-dollar sums of contributions. But families who have lost loved ones, who have had them maimed, and their comrades-in-arms know the sacrifices these men and women have made. The one thing they implore us to do is not to see these sacrifices be made in vain.

Well, we have seen a lot of negative stories. The media has more than adequately covered those. So people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. We ought to be concerned. But we are not hearing the stories about what is positive, about the successes of this new strategy, the Petraeus strategy.

I was in Ramadi and Al Anbar 2 months ago and traveling elsewhere, and I found some amazing things. The new coun ter in sur gency strategy, with the cooperation of the Sunni sheiks who are now working with our military, has really essentially driven al-Qaida out of Ramadi, and they are driving them out of the Al Anbar Province. Make no mistake, when we heard ``civil war, civil war,'' the people over there--the marines, the soldiers--know they are fighting for and looking for al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is the driving force that is keeping it stirred up, and they are on the mission to search and destroy al-Qaida. Al-Qaida is there big time.

But we have been hearing lots of arguments now in favor of--and they are heartfelt arguments and people believe them--it is time for retreat; it is time to cut back; it is time to withdraw. The cost of lives and treasure is too high. The war has not been properly managed. The war cannot be won.

Over the last several weeks on break, when I was traveling, I had the opportunity to read ``Team of Rivals'' about Abraham Lincoln and the conduct of the Civil War. Over a century and a half ago, many of these same arguments were offered abundantly as reasons for President Lincoln to accept defeat of the Civil War, and they are now being made for President Bush to accept defeat in Iraq. As noted in historian Shelby Foote's ``The Civil War: A Narrative,'' Members of Congress playing general urged the troops to abandon the cause. That great Ohio Representative Clement Vallandigham, leader of the Copperhead Democrats, campaigned for office by calling upon soldiers to desert.

He declared the South was invincible.

As noted in passages in ``The Civil War,'' in late 1862, ``Senate Republicans caucused and, with only a single dissenting vote, demanded that Lincoln dismiss Secretary of State Seward'' because they thought he was responsible for the conduct of the war.

Republican Leader Thurlow Weed observed that ``the people are wild for peace. ..... Lincoln's election is an impossibility.'' They were after him in full force. I don't need to elaborate on the enormity of the Civil War, and I don't need to explain what would have happened had Lincoln relented to those politically popular sentiments at the time.

Lincoln chose to fight a bloody and unpopular war because he believed the enemy had to be defeated. Despite being reviled for staying the course, President Lincoln did stay the course.

Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues today don't seem to be willing to see this one through. Here we are again, barely weeks into the full implementation of General Petraeus's surge, and the naysayers continue to argue for defeat. It was only a few months ago this body had been calling for and looking for a new strategy, which I believed we must have, which changed the unsuccessful strategy we had, which argued for the Baker-Hamilton report, which said in essence you have to have a new strategy, you cannot precipitously withdraw. We came forward and General Petraeus drafted a coun ter in sur gency strategy. That is what he told us he was going to do, supported by the surge. Now people want to pull the rug out from under him. He said at least give him until September to see if this new coun ter in sur gency strategy works.

They are bringing in American soldiers and marines to go in with Iraqi security forces, Iraqi Army, Iraqi police, embedded with them in command centers, barracks; they stay there, live among the people they are protecting, and they have cleaned out the areas. They have cleaned out Ramadi. Two months ago, four Members of Congress walked through downtown Ramadi, which had been an al-Qaida command center. Al-Qaida has been driven out, but naysayers continue to argue for defeat.

Now, there may be some short-term political benefits for those calling for withdrawal. There is popular sentiment for it. Some people honestly believe that. But let me quote 1LT Pete Hegseth, an Iraq war veteran and director of Vets for Freedom:

Iraq today is the front line of global jihad being waged against America and its allies. Both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have said so.

He is correct. Our intelligence services said so. They warned us in January in an open intelligence hearing that if we withdrew on a political timetable and took our troops out without making sure that the Iraqi security forces were adequate, there would be chaos. There would be chaos and greatly increased killings among Sunni and Shia. Al-Qaida would be able to establish a safe haven in which to launch recruitment, training, command and control, and weapons of mass destruction development. The violence and chaos in Iraq would likely bring in coreligionists from other countries of the region as they went in to protect their fellow religionists. We could have a regionwide civil war, Shia versus Sunni.

That is what will happen if we withdraw. Most of us concede there was poor management and costly mistakes were made in the post-invasion phase in Iraq. But they are not compelling reasons for why we should retreat and, like all mistakes, we should learn from them and not go back and commit them again by drawing down forces to the point where we don't have adequate troops to work with the Iraqi security forces.

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson recently pointed out that those who are calling for retreat are not learning from previous mistakes but repeating them. Gerson writes:

History seems to be settling on some criticisms of the early conduct of the Iraq war. On the theory that America could liberate and leave ..... force levels were reduced too early ..... security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqis before they were ready, and planning for future challenges was unrealistic.

And now Democrats running for President have thought deeply and produced their own Iraq policy: They want to cut force levels too early and transfer responsibility to Iraqis before they are ready, and they offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result six months down the road. In essential outline, they have chosen to duplicate the early mistakes of an administration they hold in contempt.

I agree with Gerson, we should not make those mistakes. We must fulfill the mission that over 3,600 brave men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for.

To quote a Missouri guardsman, COL Bob Leeker, who just returned from commanding the 507th Air Expeditionary Group in Iraq:

I only hope that the American people will give us the time. The American people must understand that this is not only about Iraq, it is a fight against Muslim fanaticism, Muslim extremists. If we pull out in the near term, or at the wrong time, there will be an incredible amount of blood running throughout Iraq, and the blood and sweat that I and my brethren in arms have already given will be for nought.

These are compelling words. They ought not to be taken lightly. Not only is the security and safety of our Nation and allies at stake, but so too is our credibility.

Critics frequently claim the war has damaged the United States image and credibility throughout the world. Yet these same critics ignore what irreparable harm would be done were we to leave this mission unfilled. If you think our mission has made our image and reputation plummet, wait and watch it nosedive after we leave Iraq before finishing the job. Think about the millions of Iraqi citizens and leaders who have taken a stand against terrorism, who have committed to work with us, to rebuild their country, to fight against the forces of radical Islamists and terrorists. What are we to say to the millions of Iraqis who trusted Americans and believed we would stay until the mission was completed? We would, regrettably, see them slaughtered by terrorists as a result of our abandoning them before they were able to stand on their own.

What did we say to the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese or millions of Cambodians who trusted America and were slaughtered after Congress dictated that we abandon them?

History has taught us when American abandons its commitment to spreading liberty and freedom, we are not the only ones who suffer. Rest assured, it will come back to harm us in our own homeland.

Just as our intelligence community has warned and terrorist leaders have stated, Iraq will become a base and safe haven from which to plan and launch future attacks.

Let me be clear, the enemy in Iraq consists of murderous, barbaric terrorists. They are not ``insurgents'' or ``jihadists.'' Let's get terms straight because we fall into the trap of taking their terms. Jihad in the Muslim religion is the individual journey to moral improvement. It has been misrepresented to be a philosophy that permits encouraging the killing of innocents, the slaughter of fellow Muslims, the slaughter of women and children. The real Arabic term for that is hirabah. The people who commit it are not insurgents or jihadists, but mufsidoon. These people are condemned to live with Satan because they have committed blasphemy. These are the people we are fighting. It is not a civil war. They are the people who violate the tenets of Islam. They try to hijack it, try to claim the Islamic banner; but they are not practicing the religion of the Prophet Mohammed.

Well, there is another reason these people want to sanitize the description we use of them. Calling them insurgents implies they have the support of the local population. But the local population is being victimized, killed, evicted from their homes, or beheaded by the so-called insurgents. That is why the Sunni sheikhs in al-Anbar are working with us. They have lived under al-Qaida. They want an end to the terror. That is why they are helping us to identify who they are, where the weapons caches are, and where the IEDs are hidden. They are sending in young Sunnis to sign up. They want to be free of the terrorists.

Precipitous withdrawal would be a rallying cry for terrorists and al-Qaida around the world. It would invite further aggression and attacks from the barbarians. It would be a total loss of freedom, liberty, and peace, and would be a victory for totalitarianism, terrorism, and treachery.

In a recent book by J. Michael Waller, a scholar at the Institute of World Politics, he defined terrorism as:

A form of political and psychological warfare; it is protracted, high intensity propaganda aimed more at the hearts of the public and the minds of decisionmakers and not at the physical victims.

By Waller's definition and what I have heard from some people in this body and the media, the terrorists are certainly hitting their targets. Our words should inspire our troops and the millions of Iraqi citizens who actually trust that Americans will not embrace defeat and leave them. Instead, the words of the retreat-and-defeat crowd inspire al-Qaida and the murderous terrorists attempting to ignite sectarian strife.

Now is not the time to pull out when we are seeing encouraging signs in places where the surge has been implemented. Al-Anbar Province shows tremendous signs of progress. Even the New York Times' Michael Gordon reported last Friday how young American soldiers are executing General Petraeus's new strategy on the ground, and how they are fighting and defeating al-Qaida.

Here is a quote from Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at AEI:

Al-Qaida's operations in Baghdad--its bombings, kidnappings, resupply activities, movement of foreign fighters, and financing--depend on its ability to move people and goods around the rural outskirts of the capital as well as in the city. Petraeus and Odierno, therefore, are conducting simultaneous operations in many places in the Baghdad belt: Fallujah and Baquba, Mahmudiya, Arab Jabour, Salman Pak, the southern shores of Lake Tharthar, Karma, Tarmiya, and so on. By attacking all of these bases at once, coalition forces will gravely complicate the enemy's movement from place to place, as well as his ability to establish new bases and safe havens. At the same time, U.S. and Iraqi forces have already disrupted al-Qaida's major bases and are working to prevent the enemy from taking refuge in the city. U.S. forces are also aggressively targeting Shia death squad leaders and helping Iraqi forces operating against the Shia militias.

Why has this Senate chosen to debate timelines, restrictions, and retreat despite encouraging signs that the surge is working, despite the fact that this new strategy has only been in place fully for barely a month, and despite the fact that those who want to withdraw and retreat have failed to offer any constructive alternatives on how they would deal with a chaos that would ensue from their retreat? It is a huge disappointment that this debate is not about how we can achieve victory, but how quickly can we cede defeat.

This has become a political debate and the focus of our national security has been sidetracked. We should not pass legislation that provides our enemy a clear path to victory--a victory which, sadly, many in this body are ready to award al-Qaida, without ever having given the surge a fighting chance. The surge is indeed the best hope we have for establishing safety and stability in the area, which will allow the Iraqi security forces to take over and give the Iraqi Government the space to develop a workable government that can rule their country.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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