Tuesday, June 28, 2005

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on U.S. Role in Iraq
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for allowing me the time.

Mr. President, I want to take just a minute to address 48 extraordinary hours in my life. This past weekend I spent with men and women in the United States Armed Forces. First, on Saturday in Georgia at the funeral of 1 st Lieutenant Noah Harris and then at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where I spend the day with the United States Armed Forces and the work they are doing with the detainees in the war on terror. And I want to do the best I can today to speak for those I talked to. I take responsibility for every word I say, but they are every bit a message from the people I talked to and shared with me.

First, at the funeral of 1 st Lieutenant Noah Harris – I eulogized 1 st Lieutenant Noah Harris last Thursday and made a promise that I would make it to Ellijay on Saturday to be at his service. He was a distinguished Georgian and like every other soldier that served and those that sacrificed, we mourn his death, but we praise his service to our country. But, Mr. President, this was an extraordinary funeral service. 1,000 Georgians, 500 in the high school gym and 500 in the First Methodist Church – a two and a half hour service that passed in a microsecond – a service not by ministers, but by laymen, Americans, citizens of Georgia to praise Noah Harris, but also to praise our men and women in harm’s way.

When the service came to a conclusion, it was his mother, Lucy, and his dad, Rick, who talked for the last 20 minutes, and to honor what they said, and their son, to the best of my ability, I want to recant it to all of you. Lucy stood up before that crowd of 500 and said you know, when we got word of Noah’s death, I knew I had two choices: I could mourn and I could be sorrowful and I could grieve, and I’ve done all those – but I could also do the good and the godly thing and that is to praise my son and all those other men and women who fight in Iraq on behalf of freedom and democracy. She gave a beautiful and eloquent statement about the tribute her son’s life was to that that our men and women fight for.

And then her husband stood up and asked rhetorically, “what is it the American press is really writing about today?” You know everything you hear about what is going on in Iraq is negative and wrong. Questioning of our motives and our reasons for being there, yet in this church in quiet Ellijay, Georgia and Northwest Georgia, thousands had come assembled to honor a man who sacrificed his life in harm’s way for the people of Iraq and the principles of this great nation. And Rick Harris asked the question, “Have we forgotten 9/11? Have we forgotten that since that date there hasn’t been an attack on American soil?”

Since we went after terror, wherever it exists, and since we committed the resources of our country, our nation has been safer. And what we’re doing is right. It’s not only right morally, but it’s right for the future of peace and freedom and democracy. So for Lucy and Rick Harris, on behalf of their son, I wanted to rise today in this Senate and send that message loud and clear that I got last Saturday. From 1,000 Georgians proud of their native son’s service, sorrowful for his loss, but appreciative of living in a country that has been willing to make the commitment we have made on behalf of freedom and democracy around the world and on behalf of the security of the United States of America.

And then, Mr. President, I went to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I went with two other members of the Senate. And I went with a specific desire in mind; the desire to go and see for myself that which I’ve heard so many people talk about and seen so much about on television. And I learned something very interesting – there must be two Guantanamo Bay, Cuba’s. The one I visited and the one all the news media talk about because they didn’t resemble one another.

Mr. President, I thought when I landed at Guantanamo Bay and went to visit the detainees, I would see men incarcerated in cyclone fences with razor wire on top of it. That doesn’t exist anymore. That’s Camp X-Ray. It was closed three years ago. It was the original temporary place that we took the enemy combatants and until we could spend the millions of dollars to build the buildings that now house them. I went and I saw 538 people whose lives are intent on hurting and destroying Americans, who are incarcerated in a facility from which we are gaining intelligence that is saving the lives of Americans and citizens around the world.

The most hardened of those that I saw are in air-conditioned facilities, not unlike and better than any I have seen in the United States in Sheriff’s jails and prisons. The food they eat is unbelievable. The medical care is first rate. The security is tight, and yes, they’re controlled. But there are there because they are the enemies of our nation and were captured in battle in the worldwide war on terror.

After seeing all those facilities and having totally dispelled that which television shows, I had lunch with two Georgia sailors. And I promised them I would bring a message back to the United States Senate. They’re there on six-month rotation as guards guarding the enemy combatants, the terrorists that threatened America. And I asked them if I could take back anything, what would you like for me to do? They said, “Please tell the American media to stop saying what they are saying about what we’re doing in Guantanamo, because what we’re doing is right, and what’s being alleged is not correct. And tell them what we the guard, the American soldiers are subjected to.”

Mr. President, the two gentlemen who I had lunch with are two African-American citizens of the state of Georgia serving in the United States Navy. They go 12 hours on and 12 hours off, four consecutive days guarding enemy combatants. And every day they have to take a shower more than once during their duty to wipe off and wash off the human waste that is thrown on them by the enemy combatants that they guard. They are subjected to racial epithets that we in the United States would never accept. And they continue to stay on their posts and they do their duty and there’s no harm to the enemy combatant. They are sitting there guarding the people that would take the lives of your loved ones and mind. They are abused every day, and what is alleged by people in this chamber and other places about what may or may not be happening in Guantanamo is not correct. The people subjected to abuse are the men and women in the Armed Forces of the United States, who take it from those who would harm us, harm our loved ones. They are standing guard in the first line in the war on terror.

And my time is about up, Mr. President, but I came to this floor for this time to deliver two messages: first, for Rick and Lucy Harris on behalf of their son, Noah, and I hope I did an adequate job. And second to deliver the message by those two servicemen from Georgia who stand in the front line in the war on terror, guarding the enemy combatants, from whom we are gaining the intelligence that is saving American lives. Enemy combatants that are treated well, fed well, clothed well, and medically treated well. Enemy combatants who would take the lives of our loved ones but for the commitment of this President, this country, and the men and women in harm’s way are safely incarcerated from which we are gaining the information necessary to win the global war on terror.

I hope tonight all Americans will watch our President on TV. And I hope tonight in some small way the message I brought back from those valiant soldiers will help us to remain, to stay the course. To stay the course against the war on terror, for democracy and freedom, and in support of this country, its leadership, and the liberty and freedom we all cherish and love. I yield back my time.