[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 470 Introduced in House (IH)]








109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. CON. RES. 470

Expressing the sense of Congress that the President should immediately 
           replace the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 13, 2006

  Mr. Murtha submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Armed Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
Expressing the sense of Congress that the President should immediately 
           replace the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

Whereas after 9/11, the United States Government had unprecedented support from 
        international allies as well as the American people for military action 
        against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan;
Whereas the initial phase of the war in Afghanistan was successful in 
        dismantling al Qaeda operations, removing the Taliban authority which 
        was harboring al Qaeda, and allowing for the Afghani people to establish 
        a representative government;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense imposed a cap on the number of ground forces in 
        Afghanistan prior to the war in Iraq;
Whereas the Bush administration concluded in April 2002 that Osama bin Laden was 
        in Tora Bora, Afghanistan during the battle for Tora Bora in December of 
        2001 and that the failure to commit the sufficient number of ground 
        forces directly resulted in the failure to capture him;
Whereas a resurgence of Taliban influence and violence is now occurring in 
        Afghanistan;
Whereas in the months prior to the war in Iraq, the Secretary of Defense 
        repeatedly and forcefully asserted to Congress and the American people 
        that there was no question that there were weapons of mass destruction 
        in Iraq and that they were a threat to the United States, which is now 
        known to be false;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense rejected estimates from top military commanders 
        regarding the troop strength that would be required to secure Iraq, 
        failed to anticipate the level of violent opposition among Iraqis to 
        U.S. occupation, and publicly doubted the war in Iraq would take [longer 
        than] six months;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense expressly forbade his staff to develop a plan 
        for post-war Iraq and threatened to fire anyone who raised the issue;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense failed to ensure that U.S. troops had adequate 
        protective gear for their mission at the start of the Iraq war, 
        including a shortage of 40,000 protective body armor units, radio 
        frequency jammers to thwart remote detonation of improvised explosive 
        devices, and up-armored high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles 
        (HMMWVs);
Whereas failure of the Secretary of Defense to anticipate the troop strength 
        needed to secure Iraq or to develop a post-war plan resulted in foreign 
        fighters entering the country who have incited attacks against U.S. 
        soldiers and fomented sectarian violence, the latter of which has 
        precipitated a civil war between Sunni and Shia Iraqis;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense asserted at the start of the Iraq war that 
        Iraqi oil production would pay for the war yet U.S. expenditures in Iraq 
        now exceed $8 billion per month and Iraqi oil production is still below 
        prewar levels;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense failed to provide the necessary training, 
        supervision, personnel and guidelines for the management of prisoners 
        and detainees which directly led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, 
        severely undermining U.S. efforts to win hearts and minds of the Iraqi 
        people critical to securing Iraq;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense has failed to address the flagging readiness of 
        U.S. ground forces, in particular the U.S. Army, whose preparedness for 
        war has eroded to levels not witnessed by our country in decades, thus 
        hindering the ability of the U.S. to respond to other potential threats 
        to national security;
Whereas U.S. armed forces cannot sustain the current operational tempo in Iraq 
        and a large percentage of U.S. troops have done over three tours in 
        Iraq;
Whereas with 130,000 troops, key measures of success in Iraq have not been met 
        and in some cases are worsening, including: the level of employment; the 
        level of oil production; the level of electricity production; the 
        training of Iraqi security forces; and the number of violent incidents, 
        which have increased from an average of 400 per week before the 
        establishment of an interim Iraqi government in the spring of 2004 to 
        almost 800 per week this year;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense has failed to ensure adequate accounting of 
        billions of dollars of expenditures of the Coalition Provisional 
        Authority;
Whereas at the time of the introduction of this resolution, 2,672 U.S. service 
        members have died in Iraq and 337 have died in Afghanistan, exceeding 
        the number of people who died on 9/11; in addition, over 20,000 U.S. 
        service members have been wounded;
Whereas terrorism incidents around the world have increased since the U.S. 
        entered Iraq;
Whereas a survey of 116 top national security experts indicates that eighty-
        seven percent of them believe the Iraq war has had a negative impact on 
        the war on terrorism while ninety-three percent of them believe that the 
        war in Afghanistan has had a positive impact on the war on terrorism; 
        and
Whereas Democrats and Republicans are united against terrorism; Democrats and 
        Republicans are united for a strong military; Democrats and Republicans 
        are united for a strong America: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), 
That it is the sense of the Congress that, for the good of the country, 
the United States of America must restore credibility both at home and 
abroad and that the first step toward restoring that credibility must 
be to demonstrate accountability for the mistakes that have been made 
in prosecuting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by immediately 
effecting the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and 
replacing him with someone capable of leading the Nation's military in 
a strategy to resolve our deployment in Iraq, prevent regression in 
Afghanistan, reconstitute our military readiness, and refocus on the 
threats to national security posed by diffuse and proliferating 
terrorist cells as well as belligerent states.
                                 <all>