Syria
Floor Speech
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am in distress to be on the floor of the Senate today with my colleague, Senator Graham, to express our deep and profound disappointment in President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast Syria.
We had the opportunity to visit Syria this summer, and we saw what a difference our troops had made there in the fight against ISIS in stabilizing Syria along the northern Turkish border. We saw the response from the Syrians we talked to, both the Kurds and Arabs, as we drove along the road. We saw children and people in the area flashing a victory sign at our troops, and you can see from this map the land that is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, our partners in Syria, so this is the United States and Syrian Democratic Forces.
We have a significant piece of Syria that is now peaceful and stabilized and ISIS has been thrown out of that part of Syria, but the President's decision--which was announced by a tweet--is dangerous, premature, and wholly inconsistent with the facts on the ground in Syria and our own military's advice.
I was listening to Senator Rubio earlier today talking about what is the plan? What is the plan if we withdraw? Well, I will tell you what the plan is. There is no plan. There is no follow-on to what we are going to do if we withdraw from Syria. What we know is, the work of our combined joint task force, Operation Inherent Resolve, and its partner forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is truly remarkable. Again, we can see it. We can see it in this brown section of the country where we have control and there is peace and stability.
Senator Graham and I, when we visited this summer, we went to Manbij, which was controlled by ISIS for 3 years. We walked through the market in Manbij without any body armor, with no guards. We talked to people in that community about what life was like under ISIS.
I talked to one woman who told me she did not go out of her house the entire time ISIS controlled Manbij, for 3 years. She went out of her house once to visit the doctor.
We saw women strolling through the market. We saw children playing. We saw people who were happy to be back in their own communities. They said to us: Please stay. We are worried about what will happen if the Americans leave Manbij.
We also flew over Kobane, right here on the Turkish border. I remember all of the TV coverage of the fight for Kobane and what it looked like.
We could see it was being rebuilt, not with money from the United States but with money from the region. We could see all the building going on. We flew over a center where they were holding some of the most dangerous foreign fighters who had been captured in the fight against ISIS, being held right here in Kobane. Then we went down to Ayn Issa, where we saw, directly, the difference certain forces had made in helping to guard our outposts where our troops were stationed. We saw detention facilities where they were holding, again, fighters from Syria who had fought for ISIS.
We then went over to Al-Hasakah where we saw a prison that was being built to hold the most dangerous of the foreign fighters. Those foreign fighters who--we don't know what will happen if we withdraw our troops. There will be nobody there to support the Syrian Democratic Forces that are holding hundreds of those fighters. What happens? Do they get released?
Do they come back to the United States and to Europe where they can engineer terrorist attacks? Do they go back into the villages and restart another terrorist group? There is no--we don't know what is going to happen there because there is no follow-on plan.
Again, we heard from people everywhere we went how important it was to have American troops stationed in Syria--about 2,000 American troops who have made such a huge difference there. They serve a vital shield against ISIS cells that are still operating in Northeast Syria. While the President claims that the threat of ISIS within Syria has dissipated, the conditions on the ground paint a very different picture. So working with our partners we have achieved gains against ISIS because we have partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces that are partly Kurd and partly Arab. If those Syrian Democratic Forces lose the support of the United States, we run the risk of a resurgence of ISIS and the possible capitulation or all-out destruction of Kurdish resistance in the region.
What does that mean? That means those ISIS elements are emboldened. They may go underground, but they may reemerge. If we don't remember history, we are destined to repeat it. That is what happened in Iraq. We left al-Qaida, moved to Syria, and they reemerged as an even bigger threat. If we leave, it is not at all clear what is going to happen.
These are hard-fought gains that are critical to ensuring that we win the fight against terrorism in the Middle East. If we leave, we are going to cede influence in that region to Russia, to Iran, to Assad. In fact, just moments after this decision was announced this morning, we heard the chair of Russia's State Duma, the chair of the Defense Committee, Vladimir Shamanov said: ``U.S. plans in Syria had failed,'' and he added that we, the United States, had decided to make this knight's move in order to avoid a ``shameful end.''
Make no mistake. They are celebrating in Moscow tonight after the President's announcement, just like they are celebrating in Tehran tonight because of the President's announcement because we are going to leave the field in Syria to those countries that are aggressors against the United States.
I urge President Trump to listen to his military and diplomatic advisers before he goes any further on this shortsighted decision.
It is important to understand that U.S. leadership is essential to completely defeating ISIS and to bringing an end to the violence in Syria. It is also important to reassure our allies that America keeps its word; that when partnering with us, we are there to support you. If we leave now, what does that say to anybody else in the future who may want to partner with the United States on any conflict? It says: You can't count on the United States because we may just pull out on you tomorrow if the President suddenly thinks it is in his interests--not in the interests of the United States but in his interest to withdraw.
This is a reckless decision, and it is undoubtedly going to have consequences for years to come for our military and for our ability to partner with others internationally. The only ones who are going to benefit from this decision are our enemies.
So I am pleased to partner with Senator Graham on a resolution that would express the sense of the Senate that we should not be withdrawing our troops from Syria, that there is too much at stake here for us to take this reckless action and send the wrong message to our partners in the rest of the world.
I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Graham, and we will do everything we can to urge the President to reverse this reckless decision.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Absolutely not. In fact, they talked about how pleased they were with the gains we had made, with the partnership, with the SDF, with what they were seeing in terms of stabilizing those communities, people coming back to their homes, rebuilding, and how important it was for us to stay there.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Without a doubt, and we saw that firsthand, as you remember. When we saw them guarding our outposts, when we saw them in the communities, when we saw them in the detention facilities, trying to abide by international standards with respect to the foreign fighters they were guarding, it was very impressive.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Not at all. In fact, if you look at this map, you can see this orange color. That is one of the pockets that remains of ISIS. Right here. We have not yet eradicated ISIS, and that does not account for some of the cells that exist throughout this area.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Absolutely, and it is what we saw in Iraq.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Will my colleague yield for a question?
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. You talk about those 700 prisoners. A number of them are foreign fighters. A number of them are ISIS fighters from Syria and Iraq. What do you think will happen to those detainees who are being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces if we withdraw and there is no support for what they are doing?
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