As Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic caucus ponder Lieberman's fate and prepare to render judgment on his betrayal of the Party during the 2008 campaign, I'd like to remind our Senators that there is a second charge of betrayal still outstanding against Lieberman from Connecticut in 2006. Lieberman betrayed the voters of Connecticut when he advocated withdrawal of U.S. troops during the campaign but began promoting "the surge" within days of the election.
The issue of Iraq and withdrawal dominated the elections as no issue has since the Watergate/Nixon pardon issue in the 1974 mid-terms, and Lieberman lied to the voters about it. Immediately after the election Lieberman proceeded to urge precisely what he had told Connecticut voters he opposed – sending more troops to Iraq. On the most important issue of his career, Lieberman lied to the voters in Connecticut. There's no place for him in the Democratic Party.
Lieberman appeared at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in East Hampton, Connecticut, on September 25, 2006 to deliver a speech billed by his campaign as his first major speech on the Iraq war since the Democratic primary in August. Lieberman presented a comprehensive statement of his strategy for success in Iraq. On the issue of troop levels Lieberman's Tne Point Plan was unequivocal: additional troops should not be sent to the region. Instead, the plan argued that we could achieve the effect of increased troop levels by embedding our existing Iraq forces into Iraqi units, a strategy that would act as a force multiplier and permit reductions in troop levels. Here's Point Six in its entirety:
Sixth, we need to adapt to the new challenges of this new kind of war, by increasing the number of U.S. soldiers embedded in Iraqi units. This will allow more Americans to come home because embedded troops need less outside support. This should be done by redeploying existing troops, not adding new troops to the region.
The emphasis on the last sentence is mine. Point Six proposed to embed more troops in Iraqi units, by redeploying existing troops, not adding new troops to the region. In his January 10, 2007 speech announcing "the surge", Bush described it as addition of 20,000 U.S. troops who would "work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations." Embedding had already been implemented on a limited basis in Iraq. The issue was whether increased embedding required more troops, as Bush concluded, or fewer troops, as Lieberman had contended in Point Six of his Ten Point Plan.
Lieberman referred to his Ten Point Plan in the debates with Lamont in late October 2006. It remained the official statement of his Iraq policy for the balance of the campaign. As Connecticut voters made their way to the polling places on Nov. 7, 2006, Lieberman's Ten Point Plan was still the definitive statement of his Iraq policy.
It took Lieberman only five days after the election to begin backtracking on his support for withdrawal in an appearance on Meet The Press.
It was a mere eight days after the election when Lieberman personally urged Gen. Abizaid to seek the authority to send more American troops to Iraq to facilitate an embedding strategy Lieberman had said would require fewer troops.
Twenty six days after the election Lieberman appeared on Face The Nation and formally proposed an increase in U.S. troops levels in Iraq.
Fifty two days after the election Lieberman, who had unambiguously opposed sending more troops to Iraq while campaigning in Connecticut, published an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled "Why We Need More Troops In Iraq."
A more detailed exposition of Lieberman's betrayal is set forth below as an addendum to this diary. Lieberman's deception was breathtakingly brazen and shameless, and utterly astonishing in its cynicism. Within days of campaigning in Connecticut against the surge, Lieberman became the leading advocate for the very strategy he had expressly rejected in his Ten Point Plan. Lieberman began vociferously advocating "the surge" more than two months before Bush would present it to the nation.
Virtually every media criticism of Lieberman’s hurried post-election embrace of escalation in Iraq has focused on statements made by Lieberman during the 2006 campaign that were merely precatory – "no one wants to bring the troops home more than I do", and his mid-summer prediction that the U.S. could start withdrawing troops from Iraq by the end of 2006 - statements that indict Lieberman as a poor prognosticator and a run-of-the mill political trimmer, not a liar. But it was Lieberman’s own formal statement of Iraq policy – the Ten Point Plan he ballyhooed at the debates as a plan to bring the troops home – that is the most damning evidence that Lieberman misrepresented his Iraq policy to the voters of Connecticut. Whether one had voted for Lieberman in reliance on his assurances that he supported withdrawal and opposed escalation, or whether one had seen through the charade, Lieberman had looked the Connecticut voter in the eye and said that a strategy of embedding Americans in Iraqi units was a means to reducing troop levels. And then he turned around in a matter of days after the election and advocated the opposite.
I have a message for Democrats in the Senate: Lieberman committed the biggest betrayal possible when he lied to us about his Iraq war policy, about issues of war and peace, about the most important issues there can possibly be before a democratic electorate. It was deception of the magnitude of Bush's WMD deception. There can be no greater political offense in a democracy.
I'm going to talk bluntly to our Democratic Senators. Joe Lieberman spit in our faces here in Connecticut. He even rubbed it in our faces in January 2007 when he told the Stamford Advocate: "I didn't change my position." If you let this man remain in the party then you, too, are spitting in the face of Connecticut voters. There would be something positively grotesque about absolving Lieberman for a political capital ofense while on the other side of the aisle republicans - republicans, for God's sake - are giving Stevens the political death penalty for small-time graft.
The phone numbers of Democratic Senators on the Steering Committee have been posted here and elsewhere. Call them and tell them that Lieberman lied to his constituents in Connecticut about his Iraq war policy and deserves to be banished from the party. At a minimum, he must be stripped of his committee chairmanship and denied any other position of authority in the Party and in the Senate. Any other outcome sends a very clear message to Democrats in Connecticut and around the country that a U.S. Senator can lie to the voters, betray the party, slander our presidential candidate - and get away with it.
If there's a more destructive and cynical message a Party could deliver, well, I can't think of it. Lieberman must go. For the sake of the Party. For the sake of the Senate. And as recompense to the voters of Connecticut who were defrauded by Lieberman in 2006.
Addendum: Lieberman's Timeline of Disgrace
Sep. 25, 2006: Lieberman unveils his "ten point plan" for Iraq during a speech at the East Hampton V.F.W. in CT. Point Six of his ten point plan called for the withdrawal of troops and provided that increased embedding of U.S. troops in Iraqi military units would be achieved "by redeploying existing troops, not adding new troops to the region."
Oct. 23, 2006: Lieberman refers to his "ten point plan" in the third and final debate in the CT Senate race and emphasizes his strategies for improving training Iraqi troops "so we can bring our troops home."
Nov. 7, 2006 Election Day: As CT voters go to the polls Lieberman’s "ten point plan" remains the official Lieberman campaign statement of Iraq policy.
Nov. 12, 2006: Five days after the election, Lieberman appears on Meet The Press. Russert asked "do you share Senator McCain’s view that we should send in more American troops and either quote/unquote, "win the war" or withdraw?" Lieberman replied "I think we have to be open to that, as, as a way to succeed, to achieve a free and independent Iraq, which would be an extraordinary accomplishment."
Nov. 15, 2006: A mere eight days after the election Lieberman urged Gen. Abizaid to seek authority to send more troops to Iraq in order to facilitate the embedding of U.S. troops in Iraqi military units, even though his own "ten point plan" stated that embedding "will allow more Americans to come home because embedded troops need less outside support." Remarkably, Lieberman urged this course upon Gen. Abizaid even after Abizaid had testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that he believed increased embedding could be achieved "from within the existing force structure inside Iraq."
Dec. 3, 2006: Lieberman appears on Face The Nation (CBS) and calls for more troops in Iraq, thereby definitively repudiating his pre-election opposition to troop increases (as stated in his "ten point plan"). He further contradicts his pre-election argument that increased embedding of U.S. troops in Iraqi military units would require fewer U.S. troops in Iraq, saying: "Incidentally, finally [Rumsfeld] makes a few suggestions such as embedding more Americans in Iraqi security forces which most people now think is a good idea and having more Americans on the border with Iran and Syria to stop the terrorists from coming in....Both of those require more personnel on the ground in Iraq."
Dec. 29, 2006: Lieberman publishes an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled "Why We Need More Troops In Iraq."
Jan. 8, 2007: Lieberman is quoted in the Stamford Advocate as saying "I didn't change my position, and I'm grateful I was able to win the election with broad 'tri-partisan' support. There should not be any shock about the position I'm taking now."