Mike Levin: “Last week I discussed the proposal with Ambassador Bremer, and I urged him to raise this issue with the entire Iraqi…”

“Last week I discussed the proposal with Ambassador Bremer, and I urged him to raise this issue with the entire Iraqi Governing Council. Last Friday, I discussed the issue further on the Senate floor. The conference report before us contains $3.2 billion for Iraqi security and law enforcement, and an additional $1.3 billion for justice, public safety infrastructure, and civil society. Included in those amounts is funding for the Iraqi police, border patrol, facilities protection services, the Iraqi civil defense corps, and the New Iraqi Army. While I strongly support that funding, I again call upon Secretary Rumsfeld and Ambassador Bremer to consider reassembling the units--and I emphasize units--of the Iraqi Army, and I call upon them further to ask the Governing Council in Iraq, which we established, for their advice and recommendations on the wisdom of reassembling units of the Iraqi Army. The security situation is too serious for us to stand on ceremony. The decision of May 15 to disband the Iraqi Army may turn out to be a major mistake. The decision made on May 15 was against the advice of a study conducted under the aegis of the Department of State. It resulted in a significant Iraqi security force being tossed to the wind. The major reason given by the Department of Defense for not reconstituting the Iraqi Army is that the army melted away when we attacked. But that happened because most of its members did not want to lay down their lives for Saddam Hussein.”