[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8071-H8076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ WATCH CONTINUES
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. King of Iowa). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Hoeffel) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
minority leader.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, we come to the floor again this evening as
part of the Iraq Watch. For the last 2 months or so, four of us have
been coming here the first evening that the House is in session each
week to talk about Iraq, to talk about the policies that we think are
flawed, to suggest new policies that the Nation might pursue, to ask
questions about our policies and involvement in Iraq that we believe
the American people need to know about and that Congress needs to know
about.
The four of us who have done this week after week include the
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Hawaii
(Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). We
have been joined each week by several others, and we look forward to
the discussion this evening and to continuing this each week until our
involvement in Iraq has been clarified and stabilized and until we get
answers to some of the questions that we think Congress is entitled to
and the American people are entitled to.
Mr. Speaker, this past week the President has announced his budget
request for our occupation in Iraq for next year totaling $87 billion,
a much higher figure than anticipated, on top of the $79 billion
appropriated by Congress just this past April for the 2003 budget year.
This requested $87 billion for 2004 would make our national investment
over about a year-and-a-half period of time $166 billion, and every
Member of Congress wants to make sure that we do right by the brave
soldiers that are stationed in Iraq today. Every Member of Congress is
determined to do right by the troops in the field, to make sure they
get the support that they need, the resources they need, the equipment,
the reinforcements, the supplies, everything they need to fulfill their
mission as safely as possible.
So the debate that Congress will have over the next 2 or 3 weeks
regarding the President's request for $87 billion will not be about
supporting the troops in the field, because we all want to do that; and
we are all prepared to do that. What we will ask questions about is the
President's vision for Iraq. He wants $87 billion. I believe Congress
is entitled to the benefit of his thinking to know what he plans and
what his administration plans to accomplish in Iraq and how he is going
to do it.
We owe those questions and deserve those answers, not just to
Congress, but to the American people. It is their tax dollars being
spent. It is their sons and daughters who are fighting in Iraq; and in
a very tragic sense, their sons and daughters who are dying in Iraq,
and this Congress needs to know some of the answers.
Fundamentally, we need to know what the plan is. We need to know what
the exit strategy is. How long will we be in Iraq? What are we trying
to achieve? How will we know when we have achieved it? What standards
can we set for ourselves? What are we trying to accomplish? What
yardsticks can we use to determine whether or not we are succeeding,
whether or not more troops will be needed, whether or not more money
will be needed down the road?
So I would suggest four areas before I turn to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). Let me suggest four areas that I would
like to see the President give information to the Congress.
The first would be regarding the military operations and occupation
in Iraq, how long does the President believe that our troops will be
needed, how much money will be needed, not just next year but in the
foreseeable future to support those troops and how many more troops
will be needed to fulfill the mission. I should point out that the
civilian leadership of the Pentagon last spring estimated by this time,
by September of 2003, we would only need 40,000 American troops in
Iraq. Right now we have 130,000 American troops in Iraq; and clearly,
that is not enough. So we need a better plan. We need to know how many
troops, how long will they be here, and how much will it cost to
support them.
Secondly, we need to ask the same questions and get the same answers
about the reconstruction of Iraq. How long will it take to get the
lights back on? How long will it take to get clean water to the
villages and the cities of
[[Page H8072]]
Iraq? How much will it cost America to finance the reconstruction? When
can we anticipate Iraqi oil revenues coming on line to pay for Iraq's
reconstruction itself? How many more personnel from America will be
needed, whether it is architects or engineers or teachers or government
experts or lawyers? How many more personnel will be needed to move the
reconstruction and the new governance forward?
Thirdly, how quickly can we internationalize the operation? I think
this is a key to our success in Iraq. We have got to bring forward our
allies, United Nations, other international organizations to help pay
for the reconstruction and to provide their resources and assets and
expertise for the reconstruction, as well as for the military security
challenges. Many of us have thought that the U.N. should have been
brought in months ago to be put in charge of the reconstruction. Many
of us felt that NATO should have been brought in months ago to be
responsible for security, but we need to know what the President's plan
is, how does he foresee the internationalizing of Iraq, if he foresees
that at all. This is something that we need to know.
Finally, the fourth point is, when will Iraqis be back in charge of
Iraq? Clearly, America cannot run Iraq into the indefinite future. It
has been said since we almost unilaterally won the military victory
that we now own Iraq, Iraq is ours. I am not sure we want that to be
our approach to this. We cannot own, run, dominate, occupy a foreign
country for long. That is not what America is about. We will fight for
freedom, we will fight to liberate, we will fight to disarm murderous
tyrants. We will do many good things to help people around the world,
both to help people around the world and to protect our own national
interests; but occupying a foreign country for a long period of time is
not what this country is all about.
So how will we get Iraqis back in charge? What do we need to do to
get them back in charge? What kind of training do they need? How can
they support a democratic government when they do not have a history of
democracy?
{time} 2245
What do we need to do to build the institutions of liberty to help
them support a democracy? What do we need to do to establish a free
press in Iraq, the rights of free speech, the traditions of free
speech? How do we make a corruption-free and open court system in Iraq?
How do we help them write a constitution? How do we get all segments of
Iraq to participate in a representative government, a pluralistic
government, and a democratic government? How long will it take, how do
we do it, what yardsticks can we use to measure our progress?
Mr. Speaker, these are the questions I believe that Congress needs to
ask of the President. These are the questions I hope he will be eager
to answer. He wants $87 billion. It is a great deal of money. We want
to do right by our American troops. We want to do right by our
commitment to freedom and liberty around the world. But doing right
requires us to know what we are doing and to do right by the American
taxpayer as well. And so we will be putting these questions forward,
and I hope that we will be getting prompt and full and complete answers
from the administration.
Mr. Speaker, at this point let me turn to my good friend, the
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), who has been a leader in
the Iraq Watch and a leader on the Committee on International Relations
and welcome him to this discussion. We look forward to his comments.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), who has led this particular
conversation for some many weeks now.
My memory is that last week there were reports in many of the leading
newspapers in this country that the President would come forward with a
supplemental budget in the neighborhood of some $80 billion; and this
past Sunday, the American people and Members of Congress learned for
the first time that that budget request would be for some $87 billion.
That is an astounding figure.
Clearly, we are on the verge of adding to a deficit that was
estimated for the fiscal year of 2004 to be some $480 billion. The way
we are heading, it is now in excess, with this request, of some $540
billion. That is disturbing, the long-term implications for what we
have to look forward to in terms of an economic recovery. $87 billion,
I think it is interesting to note, exceeds the following that were
items in the President's budget.
This $87 billion we have discussed here is a supplemental budget.
This is in addition to the $79 billion that this Congress approved, it
seems like just a short time ago, though it was several months ago. The
entire request for the year for homeland security was $41 billion. This
supplemental request is double that amount. More than double.
Health and Human Services, $66.2 billion. And that $66.2 billion, we
should note, includes $27 billion for the National Institutes of
Health, which is so critical to advancing discoveries for such scourges
as cancer, heart disease, et cetera, et cetera.
This $87 billion supplemental request exceeds the total amount
allocated or budgeted for the Department of Education. The Department
of Education budget was some $53 billion.
It is almost three times the amount that has been appropriated for
the State Department in foreign aid. That figure is some $27 billion.
For highway and road construction in the United States, $30 billion.
The only aspect of the President's budget that this particular
supplemental request does not surpass are the proposed tax cuts of some
$107 billion.
This says to me, and I know it says it to my friend as well, that the
costs were vastly underestimated; and now we face a difficult moment in
our economic life where this recovery, if we can call it a recovery, is
certainly a jobless recovery. This past month, in August, it was
reported that here in the United States an additional 93,000 jobs,
American jobs, were lost. This supplemental request of $87 billion
certainly will not add to the number of jobs and the number of
Americans that are employed.
Mr. HOEFFEL. If I may reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, for just a
moment, the President has recently said that he will be advocating to
make the 2001 tax cuts permanent. If the gentleman will recall, that
tax program was too big to fit into the 10-year budget program that the
Republicans put forward, so they sunsetted most of those tax cuts. But
now the President wants to make them permanent, which will lose another
trillion or so of revenue over the next 10 years.
I wonder if the gentleman has ever before noticed, in his study of
history, a time when America was at war, where, when we asked for
sacrifices from the American people, those sacrifices were limited to
the middle-income and low-income people who are receiving frozen or
reduced government services and, of course, are bearing most of the
cost and burden of fighting our battles in Iraq, while the wealthier
Americans are actually being asked to sacrifice by getting a tax cut?
Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, Mr. Speaker, if my friend would yield for a
moment, of course that is absolutely aberrational in American history.
In fact, during World War II, President Roosevelt asked the American
people to accept a tax increase. We are not here even suggesting that
this evening. But I think what we have learned is, unfortunately, the
estimates that have been put forth by the administration were
absolutely inaccurate, underestimated, and represented a scenario that
was totally unrealistic.
I would remind my friend that Under Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz,
back in March, told Congress that, and I will quote him, ``We are
dealing with a country that can really refinance its own
reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' And relatively soon.
What I find fascinating is that this Congress, on a bipartisan basis,
is expressing its dismay. To quote from a story that appeared in the
September 9 issue of The New York Times, and this is when
representatives of the administration were appearing before a Senate
committee, a prominent member of that committee, Senator McCain of
Arizona, was dissatisfied with an answer from Mark Grossman, the Under
Secretary of State for Political Affairs on how long it would take for
more troops from other countries to arrive in Iraq
[[Page H8073]]
under United Nations auspices: `` `I am not asking for precisely what
day,' Senator McCain said. `I am asking of a matter could you tell me
years?' Mr. Grossman replied that should the Security Council
resolution pass in the next few weeks, I can't imagine that it would be
years. 'that precision is not really satisfying,' said Senator
McCain.''
The level of incompetence in terms of the postwar, postmajor come-
back phase, I should say, of what would be required of America,
American taxpayers and American military personnel, the magnitude of
that incompetence can only be described as colossal; and it has cost
America its sons and badly needed revenue to meet our own domestic
needs. As I indicated earlier, when I was reading through the monies
available for Homeland Security, for Health and Human Services, for
Education, for the functioning of the State Department in foreign
assistance, this supplemental budget, by itself, exceeded all of the
monies allocated for those needs.
What we know now and what we should have known is that you simply
cannot have tax cuts, guns, and butter too; yet here we are tonight
faced with a proposal that is really a price tag. There is no plan. The
questions that the gentleman posed earlier in terms of how long will
our troops be required there, when will Iraqis assume control of their
own destiny and devested with the power that is necessary have not been
provided.
I think that the White House and the administration and the
Department of Defense have to be prepared to respond to those
questions. Otherwise, I cannot imagine this body and the United States
Senate approving a request that would provide the White House with a
blank check. It just simply will not fly.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
Eloquent as always.
We have been joined by our colleague, the gentleman from Washington
(Mr. Inslee), and we welcome him.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I am pleased to
participate in this discussion.
I think a preliminary question the U.S. Congress needs to ask itself
is what role we have in acting as stewards for the taxpayers' money in
this regard for $87 billion in expenditures.
It seems to me that we ought to really scrupulously evaluate how
effective this administration and their team has been to date in
fulfilling its warrants to the American people in regard to the Iraqi
situation. It is important to know whether this administration has been
so accurate, so complete, so well-planned that, frankly, Congress ought
to just give the administration a blank check and let it run. So I want
to spend just 2 minutes evaluating the performance in that regard.
{time} 2300
Mr. Speaker, the administration allowed the American people to
believe Saddam Hussein was behind September 11. As far as we know,
according to the commission established for that purpose, that was
wrong. The Bush administration led the American people to believe that
Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda. According to information we now
have, that was wrong. The administration told the American people that
Iraq had literally hundreds of tons of chemical and biological
companies. That may or may not be wrong, but to date appears to be. The
administration told the American people that Iraq had sought to get
uranium from Africa. That was wrong; in fact, fraudulent on someone's
behalf. The Bush administration told the American people that troops
would be welcomed with rose petals and open arms when they got to
Baghdad. That turned out to be wrong.
The administration told the American people that this would be
largely a self-financing operation, as the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Mr. Delahunt) indicated. Mr. Wolfowitz said in a short period of time,
the oil would flow, the dollars would grow, and the American taxpayers
would not be on the hook.
This administration's record on its warrants to the American people
is sadly lacking. In that context, it seems to me the U.S. Congress
ought to not only ask serious, probing questions of the administration,
it ought to set conditions on the expenditure of money that it may
appropriate in this regard. Questions are not enough. Conditions are
needed because this is a significant sum of money, $87 billion. The
entire Marshall Plan was $100 billion. This is not a Marshall Plan, it
is a partial plan because it lacks two very crucial elements.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I call it the no plan.
Mr. INSLEE. I think it is important to be generous in the spirit of
bipartisanship. I will say partial plan because it lacks two important
elements.
Number one, it lacks a sincere effort to bring the international
community into this effort. This administration, for reasons that are
passive understanding, has had a sincere desire to be as unilateral as
possible all of the way through this effort, and they have burned
bridges every possible way. And now what we see to date when they
finally say maybe we have to do something to rationalize this, they
offer a fig leaf.
We need full international participation in this effort because Iraq
is not a prize to be won, it is a burden to be shared, and both
taxpayers and our military should be sharing that burden with the rest
of the world rather than exclusively having the United States shoulder
it. There ought to be a condition for any money that is appropriated,
specifically allocated or authorized by Congress.
Second, another way that it is partial, it does not pay respect to
domestic needs. The President has said that his tax cuts are a higher
priority than building schools that could be built with $87 billion. He
needs to rethink that.
Third, how it is partial, and this is perhaps long term for our
children's benefit, the thing it lacks is it simply is not paying for
this obligation. It seeks to borrow from our children money to pay for
this operation. It borrows from the Social Security to pay for this
operation. We have heard about the lockbox, and it is not a lockbox. It
is pulling in Social Security to pay for this obligation.
Why does the President not want to pay for this? We should pay for
it. Winston Churchill said all I have to offer is blood, sweat, toil
and tears. This administration says while we have a war overseas, it
will be balloons and fruit and candy back home with tax cuts, and now
they want to continue to pass tax cuts, largely going to wealthy
members of our society.
If this is so important to American security, the President ought to
be bellying up to the bar and asking Americans to recognize this not go
forward with the tax cuts. That is an obligation that he ought to take
and he ought to ask Americans to share in that, and he ought to be
sincere in it and not have this let us be happy and fight a war at the
same time. It is not the way the greatest generation did it in World
War II or after World War II, and we ought to rise to that same
obligation, to the world, and to our prosperity.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). We have also been joined by the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland). I look forward to your comments.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be here this evening. I am
here tonight to say something that for me is kind of difficult to say.
I believe the President has deceived us, that he has distorted the
truth, and that he has engaged in false claims which has taken us into
a war which is daily claiming the lives of our soldiers. The President
and his administration told us that there was a connection between what
happened on September 11, 2001, and Iraq, and thus far we have found no
substantive evidence that such a connection existed.
The President told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and
that it was necessary for us to engage in a preemptive attack because
of an imminent attack from Iraq, and thus far no such weapons have been
found.
Vice President Cheney said we would be welcomed as liberators, the
people would consider us their friends; and yet the truth is that on a
daily basis, young Americans are losing their lives and many more are
being horribly maimed and injured, disfigured in Iraq.
The administration told us this would not cost us a lot of money
because Iraq had lots of oil and as already been mentioned in March,
Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz told
[[Page H8074]]
the House subcommittee that Iraq could generate $50 billion to $100
billion of oil revenue over the next to 2 to 3 years. He said we are
dealing with a country that can finance its own reconstruction and
relatively soon, and yet the President in total has requested over $150
billion of our tax dollars to pay for our adventure in Iraq.
The President said recently that we must provide every benefit to our
soldiers and protect them in any way possible, and yet tonight as we
stand here on this floor in the safety of this great hall, young
Americans are in Iraq wearing vests that do not have the capacity to
stop bullets. They are wearing cheap vests because we have not spent
the money necessary to get the highest quality protective vests for our
soldiers.
Moms and dads are asking me questions. Wives and sweethearts are
asking me questions, questions that I cannot answer because this
administration is unwilling to come forth and tell us what the plan is,
how long they are going to be there. The President recently asked for
$87 billion, American tax dollars, and we have heard a lot about that
over the past few days on radio and television, but the truth is it is
more than $87 billion because he asked for billions earlier. It is over
$150 billion. But this $87 billion is three times the amount we are
spending on homeland security, three times more than we are spending to
keep our country safe. It is more than we are spending on education and
homeland security combined.
In this Congress we are underfunding the No Child Left Behind bill by
$8 billion. We are underfunding veterans health care by $1.8 billion.
The President is trying to impose additional costs on our veterans. He
is asking our veterans to pay $15 a prescription, up from $7 a
prescription. He is wanting to impose a $250 annual enrollment fee so
that many of our veterans can participate in the VA health care system.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. King of Iowa). The Chair would remind
all Members to refrain from improper references to the President, such
as accusing him of deception.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, let me say
that $1.8 billion underfunded does not include the fact that this
administration, within the past year, has denied access to health care
benefits that this Congress in 1996 mandated for all veterans.
{time} 2310
Now we have a situation where the administration is encouraging no
outreach, do not tell. They have a do-not-tell policy.
Mr. STRICKLAND. They have a gag order. They have a gag order. They
have instructed their doctors and social workers and nurses who work in
our VA hospitals, they have told them they cannot participate in
community health fairs.
They cannot send out newsletters informing our veterans of the
services they are entitled to receive. They cannot make public service
announcements informing the veterans of what this Congress has provided
them under the law.
We are willing to spend money in Iraq but we are not willing to take
care of our veterans. In my judgment it is shameful what we are doing
to our veterans.
Then they decided that they were going to create a new category of
veteran. We call them Priority 8 veterans. You can make as little as
$25,000 and this administration considers you high income. And they say
you cannot enroll in VA health care. You can be a combat decorated
veteran and be excluded.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I think that is so important to repeat. And we should
say it slowly so that those in the viewing audience hear it clearly.
And I would challenge any member of this branch to come forward and
rebut it. If you earn over $25,000 and are a combat veteran, and you
are described as a Priority 8 veteran, and understand there are
hundreds of thousands that fall within that classification, you cannot
enroll in a veterans health care program in this country. That is more
than shameful; it is unconscionable.
We sent these young and women to war, and when they come back, we
dishonor them, we disrespect them.
Mr. STRICKLAND. And we are talking about if we had an additional $1.8
billion, we could include those veterans. We are quibbling over $1.8
billion when we are being asked to approve $87 billion for Iraq. It is
beyond belief.
Mr. INSLEE. Is it a fair statement that under the policies of this
administration that they have advocated as far as their budget that the
veterans system that was in existence when these soldiers and sailors
went to Iraq, when they come back from their extended tours, which are
now being extended to the surprise of many, will come back to a
veterans system that is less beneficial and less protective than when
they left?
Mr. STRICKLAND. Absolutely.
Mr. Speaker, I got a letter from a young West Point graduate. He
graduated from West Point just literally a few months ago. He is in
Baghdad tonight. He wrote me about 2 months ago. He said, Congressman,
they are issuing two kinds of vests here, one is capable of stopping
bullets, the other is only capable of stopping fragments. And my men
are wondering why they have the cheap vests.
We took months to build up to the engagement in this conflict. We had
plenty of time to make sure that every need that our soldiers may face
in terms of equipment was available for them. It disturbs me that there
may be young Americans tonight whose lives are unnecessarily in danger
because this government has not provided them with the best possible
protection.
That really disturbs me. It ought to disturb everyone who serves in
this Chamber, everyone who serves in the Senate and certainly it ought
to disturb the President.
Mr. INSLEE. It would disturb anyone who has gone to Bethesda Naval
Hospital, as I have, and have talked to the Marines who have lost limbs
and who have had crushing injuries of lifetime disability, to think
that they are going to have less effective and comprehensive medical
care than existed before they started this battle. That is not what
they ought to be fighting for. It also seems to me to be appropriate
for this administration to throw overboard its predilection for
unilateralism, this desire to go it alone, this kind of macho policy of
not allowing anyone else to be an ally with you, to bring other people
involved in this effort, not just American GIs and Marines. Because the
success of this mission depends on winning the respect of the Iraqi
people, and winning the respect of the Iraqi people for whatever new
government is formed is going to be more enhanced if we get more people
from around the community internationally to be involved in this effort
additionally sharing this burden.
I may add, too, the injuries are truly severe. We cry and we pray
over those who have not come home, but we have got a very high
proportion of very severe injuries from this, in part because of the
magnificent trauma care that we have now developed, at least at the
scene of the battle. These kids deserve a veterans plan that is going
to treat them as well as their fathers and their grandfathers were
treated and better.
That is not happening right now and is a symptom of this
administration's addiction to these tax cuts on an altar that is higher
than any other human value, including veterans health care, and it is
wrong. During this debate about this $87 billion, we should make sure
that this issue is addressed, too, and not swept under the rug.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I cannot agree more. There has to be, as a
precondition, serious consideration of this supplemental budget request
for $87 billion and an honest and sincere effort to restore the $1.8
billion, $2 billion, whatever that number be, to provide those veterans
the kind of services that they are entitled to and that they defended
this country so bravely to secure for future veterans.
While we are talking for a moment about the military, it was the
Congressional Budget Office that identified a looming problem. In
March, we will have to start withdrawing most of our troops in Iraq if
we want to maintain an acceptable level of military readiness. That is
on the horizon. As the gentleman from Washington indicates, I do not
see other nations rushing to provide a coalition, a genuine coalition
that will provide the kind of security and stability that is necessary
for the reconstruction of Iraq. I am sure many in the audience and
those of you here
[[Page H8075]]
tonight have noted in the most recent edition of Time magazine on the
cover, Are We Stretched Too Thin? I daresay if you listen to General
Schwarzkopf, if you listen to our military leaders who will speak in
private, they will say we are stretched very, very, very thin. And here
we are, contemporaneously with addressing this issue, we are now in the
process of discussions that we cannot predict how they will go relative
to the threat of a nuclear North Korea.
{time} 2320
Some statements have been made by members of this administration that
the military option has not been removed from the table. What are we
talking about?
Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield, I think it is very important
that the gentleman points out about the difficulty of perhaps having to
bring folks home because we are stretched thin beginning in March, and
the reason that is important is it points out a fundamental truth that
the administration has refused to share with the American people. They
have not leveled with the American people on one fundamental truth, and
that is the first 60 or $65 billion that was allocated was just a down
payment. This second $87 billion is a second of many installments. We
have already heard talk about another $30 billion to $60 billion
following this one. This could lead to a significant restructuring of
the entire U.S. military by increasing the number of troops to deal
with this rotational need of our military.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me ask the gentleman, does this mean that at some
point in the future, if we continue to have a foreign policy that
creates these significant needs for military personnel, that some day
on the floor of this House we will be debating the necessity for a
draft?
Mr. STRICKLAND. I think so.
Mr. INSLEE. That is the $64,000 question.
Mr. DELAHUNT. It is time to ask these kinds of questions.
Mr. INSLEE. The gentleman points out something that I think is
important and that is that the President needs to level with the
American people about the real cost of this.
Now, right now we have volunteers suffering the real cost of this war
with loss of life and limb; but our children have a real cost they are
enduring too, a Federal deficit that has gone over $500 billion this
year with this additional $87 billion, the highest deficit in American
history; and that is a real cost that the President, if he wants to
show real leadership, would level with the American people about and
say that we need to pay for, rather than hiding the cost and playing a
fiscal shell game and putting that on our children.
The only way to level with the American people is for him to throw
aside at least some of the tax cuts, at least the additional tax cuts
that he wants to give to the wealthiest folks in this country. If he
believes the security interests of the United States demands that, then
honesty to our children demands that and honesty about the true cost of
war.
That is why I believe when this debate starts, it is going to be very
important for the U.S. Congress to condition any funds that are
appropriated on making sure that it is paid for by us and not shucked
off on the backs of our children as further deficit spending, as this
administration has been wont to do, as it is necessary to condition
this money on something that is going to be a requirement for success,
and that is to get the rest of the world involved in this effort. It is
the only way to win the Iraqis' respect for our ultimate efforts.
Mr. HOEFFEL. The gentleman has made several very good points, and he
has been talking about the notion of whether or not the President is
leveling with the American people.
I would like to get back to an earlier discussion. A suggestion was
made by one of us this evening that the President was deceitful and we
were admonished by the Chair that was not appropriate language. None of
us are here to challenge the Chair. We are here to ask for the truth
and ask questions about our policies in Iraq.
I would like to review the bidding a little, to set this question in
some context, whether or not the President has been deceitful.
The President and his top advisers in the fall of 2002 said with
complete certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,
was developing more weapons of mass destruction, was developing a
chemical weapons of mass destruction program, a biological weapons of
mass destruction program, and was probably moving forward to try to
restart a nuclear weapons of mass destruction program, long before the
State of the Union address this past January. I am speaking now of
September 2002.
In private briefings many of us received at the White House the same
representations were made: complete certainty that the weapons of mass
destruction program in Iraq was in full bloom and full speed ahead
with, as I think the gentleman said, hundreds of tons of these weapons
in the possession of Saddam Hussein, more on the way.
The briefing I attended with maybe 15 of our colleagues was led by
George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice in the Roosevelt Room of the White
House. In their presentations and in their answers to questions from
Members of Congress, a bipartisan group of us, complete certainty was
expressed. At one point, Mr. Tenet, being asked would you rate on a
scale of zero to 10 your certainty about the presence of these weapons
in Iraq, he said 10.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Pretty certain.
Mr. HOEFFEL. It is not just that we have not found those weapons.
Maybe they are there and hidden away, but we sure have not found them
yet. It is not just we have not found them. It has now come to light
that the White House was being given classified information by the
intelligence agencies last fall that was telling the White House that
there was great uncertainty about the state of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program.
These then-classified documents, now available in part because the
White House declassified one to try to prove its case, and the other
because it is now available for us to read at the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence office, the Defense Intelligence Agency
report of September 2002 and the National Intelligence Estimate of
October 2002 are replete with expressions of doubt, uncertainty. I
remember the phrase ``no credible evidence'' that Hussein had an
ongoing chemical weapons program.
None of those doubts were reported to the American people or to
Congress, none of that uncertainty was expressed; and it is my belief
that the President exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass
destruction in the fall of 2002, in the buildup to the war, in order to
secure public support and congressional support for an authorization of
war.
I will yield when I have unloaded my frustrations, which will be in
just a moment.
It is my belief that the President misled Congress, and it is my
understanding from the documents that I have since read that are now
available to us that were not available to us in the fall of 2002 that
the White House was well instructed about the doubts and the
uncertainty from the CIA, the FBI, and the rest of the intelligence
agencies.
Now, if it is objectionable to say that on the floor of the House, if
the Republican leadership does not want to hear that on the floor of
the House, bring it on. Let us bring it on right here, because this is
the nub of the argument. This is what we are here to ask about.
I would be happy to yield to my friend.
Mr. STRICKLAND. The American people really do not care what word we
use, but they understand what has happened. They listened to the
President go on TV and address the national audience. They heard his
references to a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq and September 11.
They heard everything that was said about weapons of mass destruction.
We do not have to pick a particular word. The American people
understand that the situation that was described for them was an unreal
situation, and the result is this: we have got thousands of our troops
in Iraq tonight. They are inadequately protected. We are not providing
them the best protection possible. We are not. And I challenge anyone
in this administration to challenge that statement, to tell me that
they have got the best vests that
[[Page H8076]]
we can buy, to tell me that they are as protected as they possibly can
be. I do not believe it, based on what I have been told and I think
what the facts show.
So I do not want to quibble about what words we may use, but my
friend has been very accurate. The gentleman has laid out the case as
it unfolded.
Now we are being told, well, we are there, so we might as well just,
oh, get on board and get this over with. I think it is appropriate for
us to ask whether or not those who are providing leadership are worthy
of our confidence. Are they competent people? Have they told the truth?
Can we trust them to make further decisions about what is happening in
Iraq? Those are the questions that must be answered.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I think it is important that we stress that this is not
just Democrats that are posing these questions. This past week on, I
think it was the ``CBS Early Show,'' someone who understands combat,
someone who was in war and who is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam
conflict, Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska, said this: ``The
administration has done a miserable job of planning the post-Saddam
Iraq.''
{time} 2330
The administration has done a miserable job of planning the post-
Saddam Iraq. That is Senator Hagel. We all know Senator Hagel.
Everybody in Congress respects and acknowledges his integrity, but he
was right too. Maybe we failed in our responsibility collectively. I am
talking about the House as well as the other branch. Because he pointed
out that we allowed the administration to treat us like a nuisance. We
did not ask the questions. Some of us did. But no, in the heat and in
the vast amount of publicity that was attendant to the President and
Vice President Cheney and Under Secretary Wolfowitz's natural access to
the media, people did not ask the tough questions. Well, not this time.
Mr. STRICKLAND. That is right.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Not this time. We want a plan, and we want all of the
answers.
I can remember Secretary Feith coming in front of the Committee on
International Relations. I asked him, give me just an idea of the costs
to rebuild Iraq. He said, I do not have any answers.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield on that
point, precisely on that question, we need an answer as to whether or
not reports today in the Los Angeles Times are correct that the $87
billion figure is some $55 billion short of what the administration in
anonymous leaks are indicating is actually needed, and that the $87
billion is to take us up until the election; and then somehow, we are
to magically find $55 billion from supposed allies. The exact quote, as
a matter of fact, is that according to the Los Angeles Times, they said
they would ``pressure other countries to come up with the additional
funds needed to restore security in Iraq and repair its ravaged
infrastructure.'' And I think everything that has been said tonight is
indicative of the proposition that has just been made over these past
few minutes that before we vote on this $87 billion, we have to ask the
question: Is this actually the number that you are using, even
internally?
Mr. DELAHUNT. And does that include the $2 billion necessary for
veterans health care benefits.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And that is why we have to have this money
authorized. That is why we have to have hearings in the Committee on
Armed Services, the authorization committee. This is not just a
supplemental bill to be taken to the Committee on Appropriations; this
Congress needs to authorize the money that is involved in
reconstruction and security in Iraq, or we are failing in our
congressional duties.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman explain that for the
viewers? Would the gentleman explain the point he is making about the
difference between authorization and appropriation?
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Very quickly, yes. Good point. Just as it is in our
State legislatures, we have to authorize, that is to say, a committee
must authorize the expenditure of money before it can be appropriated.
The subject matter committee, in this instance the Committee on Armed
Services, must take up the question: Will we authorize the expenditure
of funds? The Committee on Appropriations may, if they have an
authorization, appropriate up to or, in some instances, even exceed the
amount of money that is there, if they can gain the approval of the
legislature; but that is the object, to have a hearing as to what, in
fact, should be done. That is to say what is the policy, and then
attach a money figure to it.
What we are doing is saying we are going to put money out there and
then figure out a policy afterwards. What I am saying and I think all
of us are saying tonight is, let us get the policy down first, and then
figure out what it costs and then determine whether there is a cost-
benefit ratio to that policy.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think there
is an additional thing we need in addition to the sage comments of the
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie); we need to stop the
administration from stealing from the Social Security trust fund to pay
for this war, and that is what they are telling us they want to do.
They want to take $87 billion out of the Social Security trust fund to
pay for this war. And the reason they want to do it is that they refuse
to let go of their goal of continuing further tax cuts for the
wealthiest folks in this country, and that is morally, ethically wrong
to our children. And this Congress has an obligation to our kids to
stop it right here during this supplemental, and I trust that we are
making an effort to do that.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I could make a final concluding remark,
and then I will then defer to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Hoeffel). There was a report today, or rather Monday, in The Washington
Post that the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, when he was
concluding his 4-day trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, complained that
critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy are encouraging
terrorists and complicating the war on terrorism. Give me a break.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Can I respond to that, please?
Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes. Give me a break. We are going to ask the question.
Mr. STRICKLAND. I hope the Secretary never says that in my presence,
because if he does, I am going to have to challenge him. None of us,
none of us condone terrorism. In fact, we are here because we are
concerned that this administration is not adequately waging the war on
terrorism. ``Osama bin Forgotten'' is out there somewhere planning the
next attack on this country. The President said he can run, but he
cannot hide. Well, he ran and he has hidden, and he is planning the
next attack. And for the Secretary to say such a thing outside the
country, outside the country I think is grossly unfair and I think the
Secretary owes this Congress and each of us who have a responsibility
under the Constitution to represent our constituents and to speak our
mind as we believe the truth to be, he has no right to make such an
accusation against any of us.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if I may dovetail on your disenchantment
with the total irresponsible comments of the Secretary. He said there
was al Qaeda in Iraq before our attack on Iraq, and the evidence would
suggest that was not the case. But as a result, following his efforts
and his strategy, they are in Iraq and Iraq indeed has been turned into
a potential breeding ground for terrorism. That is the kind of policy
we do not want to see continued. This is the kind of mistake we do not
want to see this administration make again.
____________________