[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 43 (Tuesday, March 18, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1926-H1927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     DESPITE PENDING WAR WITH IRAQ, BUSINESS AS USUAL IN HOUSE OF 
                            REPRESENTATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonner). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, some would say that the United States House 
of Representatives has walked away from its constitutional duties under 
Article I, Section 8, wherein Congress and only Congress, the House and 
Senate, have the sole authority to declare war; and then, on the eve of 
the first ever preemptive war in our Nation's history, that the House 
of Representatives, under the Republican leadership, has slipped into 
irrelevance, silent and compliant.
  Just this evening we have just finished our regular business, three 
noncontroversial bills, and the Republicans have fled downtown for what 
they expect to be the largest ever fundraiser in their history, 
business as usual, while 300,000 of our young men and women sit in the 
desert wondering what tomorrow or the day after will bring.
  They have not been, I must admit, totally irrelevant over the last 
few weeks. Just last week, tremendous actions were taken here by House 
Republican leaders. They launched an attack against French fries. After 
a flurry of activity, hand-wringing, planning, and massing an assault, 
they wiped out the dread French fries from Capitol Hill. It is rumored 
that this week they are planning an assault on Russian dressing, and 
even tomorrow's turkey menu is a potential target. Meanwhile, 300,000 
of our young men and women and a few allies sit in the desert wondering 
what their elected leaders are doing and thinking.
  Have we done everything we could for those young men and women? Did 
we examine and push toward options short of war, war, which should 
always be only used in an extreme circumstance and a last case? I do 
not think so. We voted on October 14 on this issue, under pressure of 
the coming election, and gave the President a blank check. Since then, 
not one official act by this body has dealt with the issue of the 
looming war in Iraq.
  Have we given all our young men and women everything they need? We 
spend a lot of time on the defense contractors, their profits and 
exotic weaponry, but I hear from dads and moms and from some of the 
troops themselves that they do not have all the things they need. Some 
of them were sent over there with the wrong camouflage. They got the 
forest camouflage. Others are worried about the huge number of 
defective chemical/biological suits which have slipped into the 
inventory due to the fraud and criminal acts of some of our defense 
contractors.
  Have we served them well in terms of a plan? Have we had discussions 
here about how the U.S. will conduct this war? Those are scant. Those 
are all being kept downtown, or at the Pentagon.
  Do we have and have we discussed and pushed to hear about an exit 
strategy? General Shinseki, in a candid moment which Secretary Rumsfeld 
tried to squash, and Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz demeaned, says he 
expects we will have to leave 250,000 to 300,000 of our young men and 
women in that country as an occupying force for quite some time. He 
said that. They said, oh, no, he is mistaken. He is only the head of 
the Army. He does not know anything. Then he came up to Capitol Hill 
again last week, and he repeated that statement. They did not want to 
hear it. They do not want the American people to hear it.
  They do not have an exit strategy; they have a plan, when I cannot 
get unemployment benefits extended for the people in my State, to pay 2 
million members of the Iraqi military and bureaucracy salaries out of 
the United States Treasury, and to rebuild the country quickly with 
U.S. defense contractors when I have bridges crumbling in my State.
  If we paid half as much attention to the needs of the American people 
in our States, or the needs of our young men and women, I do not 
believe that

[[Page H1927]]

this war would have been such an inevitable result and foregone 
conclusion.
  But the clock ticks towards zero, and the President's ultimatum has 
25 hours and 12 minutes yet to run. The Republican leadership has 
adjourned downtown for a big fundraiser, and the House is going dark.

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