[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 136 (Tuesday, September 30, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H9004-H9008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE REAL STORY OF IRAQ
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
This recognition is without prejudice to the resumption of
legislative business.
Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the vote
that we as Members of Congress are going to be asked to make in the
near future and that is a vote we have already heard about tonight and
that is the $87 billion appropriation to support our men and women in
uniform and the citizens of Iraq.
This is a lot of money, there is no question. And there is much
commentary and maybe even some people would say much rhetoric revolving
around this issue, but as we decide how to vote as Members of Congress
and the American people develop an opinion on how they feel about their
tax dollars being invested in this manner, I think it is imperative
that we understand the real story of Iraq. I think it is imperative
that we get beyond the rhetoric and the politics because this issue is
way too important and has implications for generations to come, what
the answer to the question about supporting the men and women in
uniform and the citizens of Iraq with $87 billion is going to be.
I think we have to rely on facts, and the only way that we can
understand the facts and discover the facts is to go seek them out for
ourselves. That is why I went to Iraq not too long ago. I returned
about 3 weeks ago, and I commend other Members of Congress that have
taken the time and taken the effort to go find out for themselves what
the real story of Iraq is.
I have to admit, when I went, I went with apprehension, and I did not
go with apprehension because I was concerned about my personal safety.
I went with apprehension because I was concerned that I would find the
story of hopelessness, of pessimism because I had read the papers and I
had watched the television, and it did not look like a pretty picture;
but when I returned home, I had great optimism and I had great hope
because what we see on TV and what we read in the papers is not the
real story of Iraq and is not representative of what is actually
happening on a day-to-day basis in that country.
When we landed, I really could not believe I was in the same country
that I had seen on TV and read about in the papers. This was not a
country in chaos. This was not a country where one felt unsafe and in
fear for their personal safety. It was a country that was recovering
from a scar of over 30 years of a brutal regime that its people had to
live under. Sure, there are challenges that we are going to face and
there are tragedies that happened, but there is also great hope, and
there is great optimism because there have already been great
successes.
The problem is the good news is not news. When a torture chamber that
used to house Saddam Hussein's political prisoners gets turned into a
police academy where tens of thousands of Iraqi police have been
trained to protect their citizens and protect their country, no cameras
show up, no reporters show up. When a school reopens, in fact when
1,000 new schools have been built in Iraq, there is not one reporter;
and there was not one camera. When the power comes back on, when
businesses can operate on a consistent basis, when restaurants can
open, there are no reporters and there are no cameras. When the crop is
harvested, thousands of acres of wheat, again, there are no reporters
and no cameras, and businesses are opening every single day; but again,
it goes unreported. But when there is one tragedy, certainly every
camera and every reporter in the country is covering that story.
But for those that have visited Iraq, those that have actually taken
the time and the effort to go, it cannot go unnoticed because a success
is so clear and so obvious and so exciting and inspirational that we
come back and we tell our stories. This is not a partisan issue. This
is a situation where Republicans and Democrats have come back
[[Page H9005]]
and told the real story of Iraq with great hope and great optimism.
What we hear tonight, and I am sure we will hear in the future, is a
lot of comments from people who have not been to Iraq, people who do
not know the real story and are engaging in rhetoric and politics; and
I think that is a great, grave danger, not only to our citizens but for
all of our children and our grandchildren for generations to come.
We come back and we share stories of why we feel the way we do, and
that is what we are here to do tonight. I am here with several other
Members that have traveled to Iraq, and we are going to share our
stories about why we share so much hope and so much optimism; and I
would like to share just one story before I turn it over to some of my
fellow Members.
I was in Iraq for 3 days, and I would just like to share one day, to
give my colleagues a sense of what the experience was like.
{time} 2030
The group I was with, we flew into Mosul, a town in the northern part
of Iraq. When we got out of the plane, it was shocking, because most
Americans think that Iraq is very much a desert country, all sand. This
looked like northern Michigan. There were hills. There were trees. It
was a lush green area.
As we got out of the plane, I noticed new construction, a building
that was being built right next to where the troops are; and I asked,
what is that? One of the local troops said, well, that is a local Iraqi
entrepreneur. He is building a coffee shop for the troops to serve
their needs. So here is a local Iraqi entrepreneur that is putting his
own money into serving our troops and engaging in commerce. Does not
sounds like a country in chaos to me.
We went in and got a briefing. We got a briefing of all the successes
that have already happened in the northern part of Iraq in the Mosul
area. This is the briefing that we got.
Now we hear a lot of people say there is no plan for reconstruction,
that there was never any thought to how we were going to win the peace.
This is a plan that is not only about what we are going to do, but more
importantly what has already happened. In this plan are discussions of
the schools that have been rebuilt, the transportation projects, the
employment projects, the water projects, and the banking. There is a
chart of the local elections that have already taken place. Over 200
local elections have already taken place in Iraq, with representative
governments in place which represent all of the ethnic groups in their
localities.
So we had this briefing of the tremendous successes, and then we went
into the town of Mosul. During that trip into town we were not in an
armored vehicle, we had no bulletproof vests on, and we were in the
center of town with the people of Mosul. What we saw was commerce. We
saw restaurants. We saw children. We saw everything portraying the
normalcy of life and never once felt threatened for our safety or
worried that anything was going to happen, which is what we see
represented on the nightly TV.
After our trip downtown, we went back to the airport and we met with
some of the locally elected officials. We met with the vice mayor of
Mosul. This was a very impressive gentleman. With him were other
locally elected officials. They represented the local ethnic
representation. There were men, and there were women. There was never
an opportunity under Saddam Hussein's regime to have an opportunity to
have local representative government.
Shortly thereafter, we left and we went to Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.
We flew in helicopters for about an hour; and we basically followed the
Tigress River down to Tikrit, which is a little further south. From
horizon to horizon on each side of the river all we saw was wheat. All
we saw was fertile farmland. In fact, if Iraq had had the opportunity
to have modern practices and techniques of agriculture and production,
they have enough potential basically to feed the entire Middle East.
The most amazing thing to me was that it had been harvested, and it
had been harvested just a couple of weeks ago. A country in chaos, a
country that has no potential could never harvest hundreds of thousands
of acres of wheat and store it effectively and use it for the benefit
of their people.
As we approached Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, it was a stark picture.
In the middle of town is Saddam's palace, 144 buildings in the palace
compound. Now these are not small little garages. These are all villas
and palaces. And on one side of two 10-foot walls that had barbed wire
or guard stations every so often was basically obscene opulence that
Saddam had built this palace for himself and his family. On the other
sides of the wall was obscene poverty and pestilence.
I think that represented exactly how he ran his country. He would
spend all of the country's resources, the riches that it has, and it
has many riches in the form of oil and water and agriculture, he spent
all of those riches on himself, on his family, on his palaces and on
his weapons. He did not spend any money on the people of Iraq. He did
not spend any money on upgrading their power supply or helping their
infrastructure. I think that that was a very stark picture. It had been
described as Las Vegas without the neon.
As we landed there we had the great opportunity, and this was the
highlight really of the trip that I was on, at every meal we had the
opportunity to visit and have a meal with the troops. That night we had
dinner, and there was a very poignant moment, I thought. Every time we
had a meal I would ask the troops, what do you want me to tell people
when I go back home about your stay here?
There was a young woman soldier that looked at me and she said, you
know what I want people to know is that I am here serving in harm's way
in Iraq for the protection of my family and my country back home.
Because she said, see, if we are successful here in Iraq, Iraq will
become the model of democracy in the Middle East. It will help bring
stability to a region that has not seen stability in hundreds if not
thousands of years. If we are not successful, Iraq will become the home
of terrorists and murderers and radicals who export violence and murder
all over the world; and that will put my family and my country at much
greater risk.
I have to say I was very impressed with her observations, and I think
that she really put this whole discussion into context. The $87 billion
the President is asking for is a lot of money. But when we think about
the consequences of failure, we have no choice but to succeed. If we
succeed, we can help bring stability to a region by helping a
democratic, secular, free government emerge.
Iraq has every ingredient for success and every opportunity to help
its people have a bright future. Because the tools of the recruiters of
the terrorists is hopelessness and oppression. The people that are
causing problems, their worst nightmare is that we are successful,
because it will take away every argument they have. It will change
their world. If we are successful, it will change our world as well
because we will live in a much more stable world, where people are not
strapping bombs onto their backs because they see no hope in life.
If we can help the Iraqi people form a free and democratic government
that brings hope, that brings economic prosperity, I think that is the
best investment we can make as an American people. We have a history of
generosity in this country, and I do not think it is time to stop that
history. We recognize that $87 billion is a lot of money, but when we
consider that September 11 cost us $2 trillion, I think it is a wise
investment.
Madam Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Burgess), who was on the trip with me; and I know that he has some very
inspirational stories to tell as well.
Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Indiana for
yielding to me.
So much of what I experienced, of course, when I got back, was
similar to what the gentleman just related. I can remember sitting down
to watch the national evening news back in Texas and turning on the
television and hearing a news anchor that everyone is familiar with.
His lead story was Iraq, and he started talking again about the
hopelessness and the quagmire and we are just barely holding on and it
looks like an operation gone terribly wrong. And I had to ask myself,
did I get off the wrong plane? Did I perhaps land in
[[Page H9006]]
a parallel dimension? Because I did not recognize the country that he
was talking about. I did not recognize the country that I had just left
hours before.
I think General James Conway in Babylon, the ancient city of Babylon,
stationed there with the First Marine Expeditionary Force, they were
one of the first groups into Iraq, his description of what is going on
in that country is what stuck with me. He described Iraq as a vivid
success story. He also went on to say that Iraqis are not concerned
that we are going to stay too long. Madam Speaker, they are most
concerned that we are going to leave too soon. Apparently, that has
happened to them before.
Just as my friend from Indiana pointed out about how normal life was
in Mosul, even that first day, flying over the city of Baghdad, the
markets were full. There were cars on the road. Indeed, there were
traffic jams on the road. There were satellite dishes on the rooftops
of the apartments and the houses. I do not know the number, but
probably 25 to 30 percent of the residences had satellite dishes on the
rooftops. And bear in mind, Madam Speaker, that merely 6 months ago
possession of a satellite antenna was punishable by 1 year in one of
Saddam's prisons. Kind of a daunting prospect.
The schools were open. Agriculture, as my friend from Indiana pointed
out, was flourishing. And, indeed, flying over those wheat fields north
of Tikrit, where the harvest had just happened at the end of August, it
was nothing short of startling. It looked like Kansas below us. Albeit
the Kansas of 150 years ago, but it looked like Kansas.
From a military standpoint, the combat phase of Operation Iraqi
Freedom was prosecuted brilliantly. There is no remaining strategic
threat. Stabilization is the current goal of our offensive operation:
to find, contain, and kill those who would harm our troops or innocent
Iraqi citizens. And, of course, 80 percent of the engagements are
within the so-called Sunni triangle.
The police force in Baghdad is nothing short of a miraculous
transformation. This is a police force that has gone from a mission
statement that included brutality and contempt and corruption to one
that emphasizes proper police procedure in a free and democratic
society. Bernard Kerik, the police commissioner from New York City who
gave so many of us comfort 2 years ago after the attack of 9/11, was
working in Iraq when we were there. I believe he has returned to this
country now, but he has been nothing short of a miracle worker there in
Baghdad. He has gone from 0 to 35 precincts in 14 weeks time. That is
14 weeks time he has gone from 0 to 37,000 Iraqi policemen in uniform
and expects to have 65,000 by next May.
In health care, we have to put it in the context of no significant
expenditure in health care for almost 30 years. In fact, Lieutenant
Colonel Michael Keller, a good Texas boy from Hale Center, Texas, a
registered nurse who is with the 385th Civil Affairs Brigade,
Lieutenant Colonel Keller told me he visited the medical school library
in Baghdad and could not find a textbook that had a copyright date
later than 1984. Does anyone suppose there have been any improvements
in the practice of medicine in the last 19 years?
Pharmaceutical agents that were manufactured in Iraq were useless.
The bioavailability of those compounds was so variable that even Iraqi
physicians were frightened to use them. But Saddam had the edict, if it
is made in Iraq, it is good for Iraqis. In fact, we relied heavily on
donations from the Kuwaitis after the fall of the Saddam government.
Again, to put it in perspective, Saddam's per capita medical
expenditure was 50 cents a person per year. Currently, that is up to
about $45 per person per year, but they have a long way to go.
My friend from Indiana did an excellent job of describing the
opulence of the palaces that were provided for the ruling class in that
country. No dollar was left unspent. The architecture of those palaces
was truly horrible, but the site planners and the landscape architects
had a good deal of skill. Because when Saddam stood in those palaces in
Tikrit, he did not have to see the poverty on the other sides of the
wall that was described.
But, Madam Speaker, what was most searing to me was to put the
opulence of those palaces next to the poverty of the hospitals;
hospitals that could not even afford linoleum for their floors;
hospitals that could not afford to have medical gases piped into their
neonatal intensive care unit. Do you suppose a premature baby is ever
going to need oxygen? Unfortunately, at the Al Yarmouk Hospital, if a
neonatal intensive care case needed oxygen, they would have to find a
cylinder, if they could.
Finally, if I could, let me just reiterate what happened within the
first 90 days after the fall of the Saddam regime. Schools completed
their academic year and conducted testing. Over 90 percent of the major
cities and towns have functioning town councils. Over 60,000 Iraqis are
contributing to their own security. Not in the police force, this is an
additional 60,000 that are in their military and are serving as border
guards. The prisons are on the verge of reopening. The judicial
additional system is up and functioning. Food distribution, with some
minor glitches, food distribution was not interrupted at the conclusion
of the combat phase. Indeed, no humanitarian crisis grew as a result of
the major combat phase. Hospitals, although below standards, remained
opened and functional. Four and a quarter million children were
immunized between May and the end of August.
I point these things out because General Sanchez told us that all of
these things happened within 90 days. Contrast that with Kosovo, where
none of those things were in place a year after the combat phase ended.
{time} 2045
Madam Speaker, let me go back for a minute to the issue of no
humanitarian crisis occurred in Iraq. What if there had been 15,000
heat-related deaths in the country of Iraq this summer? Would we have
taken some negative press for that? Well, no, that humanitarian crisis
was in France, not in Iraq; and I do not really recall reading a whole
lot about it in this country.
Suffice it to say, we are not getting an accurate story or picture on
what is going on on the ground in Iraq. The only time I remember seeing
any reporters at all was when we were at the Al Rasheed Hotel in
Baghdad. They are not going to find the stories that they need to be
telling in the lobby of the Al Rasheed Hotel.
Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
I would like to ask a question regarding General Sanchez and the
outline of the successes which have been achieved, but when I got back
home, I heard people say there is no plan to help rebuild Iraq. I am
curious after visiting with General Sanchez and the briefings we were
given about the plans in place, the successes which have already been
achieved, is there a plan to help rebuild Iraq?
Mr. BURGESS. I do not believe this degree of success was achieved in
the absence of a plan. Of course they have a plan in place, and of
course they are executing it brilliantly.
The Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, as General Sanchez
pointed out to us, they will be developing the pre-constitutional
convention, then convening the constitutional convention, writing the
constitution and having elections.
They outlined a timeline for us of 18 months, give or take 6 months;
so 1 to 2 years time. That information was given to us the last week of
August. We have only recently seen those reports in the newspapers here
in this country, but the story was clearly out there and available.
General Raymond Odierno in the city of Tikrit, clearly that man has a
master plan, and that plan is to find, contain, and kill those elements
within the city of Tikrit who mean harm to our troops and Iraqi
citizens. I believe the gentleman from Indiana and I sat in the same
briefing where he described how he isolated a whole peninsula of
individuals who mean harm to our troops and innocent Iraqi citizens and
with overwhelming force took that area out in a very brief period of
time.
I think we have a workable plan and I think we have a winnable plan
for winning the peace. Again, it is at this point so critical that we
not lose heart, that we not lose faith and that we adequately fund what
is required to bring that country to some measure of peace and
stability.
No question about it, lack of fuel and lack of electricity are
radical issues. In
[[Page H9007]]
Mosul, it was pointed out to us that dollars are ammunition; and right
now we cannot afford to starve them of ammunition.
Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Burgess); and I agree 100 percent there appears to be a solid plan in
place for success which has been executed to a great extent.
The amazing thing is I have not heard any Member that has been to
Iraq who disagrees with the gentleman. The only people that disagree
are the people who have not taken the time and taken the effort to
understand what the plan is. It sounds more like politics than planning
to me. As we make this decision, it is so important that we understand
the real story of Iraq and we base our opinions on facts.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Shuster) to share the story of Iraq.
Mr. SHUSTER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me
this time and for putting this Special Order together.
Tonight we need to shine light on the facts, on the truth of what is
really happening in Iraq today. It is not the real story. It is not the
whole story. We are getting bits and pieces, and we know that it is
still a dangerous place, and they are killing American soldiers, and
that is something that we ought to be concerned about.
But, as we have talked about here tonight, there are positive things
happening in Iraq. There are things moving forward. The Iraqi people
are grateful that we have come to Iraq to liberate them.
As May 1 came about and we ended major combat operations over there,
I, as most Americans did, would listen to the nightly news and hear
stories of death and chaos and mismanagement. And then every week we
would come to Washington and get a briefing, and the story was
different. So I decided in May that I had to go over there and see for
myself what was occurring in Iraq and see with my own eyes because I
was hearing the administration tell us what they said was happening,
and then of course the national media would tell a different story.
The good news is, as we have heard here tonight, when we traveled to
Iraq, we did see positive things, and I was struck with three things.
First, I wanted to go over and see what the situation with our troops
was. I heard morale was low, the troops were unhappy. Much to my
surprise when we arrived and had the lunches and dinners that the
gentleman spoke about, which were a highlight of the trip and we were
able to gain much information from them, I found out that the morale
was good, it was high. When we think about the dangerous situation they
were in, 130 degrees plus, living in tents, sand, dealing with all
those elements, these young men and women had high morale. These young
warriors talked about how they were proud to be over there liberating
the Iraqi people and protecting America and our freedoms and freedom
for people around the world.
One of the things that I did when I came back, I was asked by several
soldiers to call their families, and I did that. I can tell Members, as
impressed as I was with the soldiers I met, it was inspirational to
hear the parents and the wives when I called them, to hear them talk
about how proud they were and how much support they were giving their
son, daughter, husband or wife. It was really inspirational to me. They
said not only were they supportive and proud of what they were doing,
we were doing the right thing in Iraq.
I think it is imperative for the American people to hear the whole
story so we have that support for our troops, we have that support for
the effort we are undertaking over there, and that our Commander in
Chief has that support. Because, without that support, we will not
succeed. We have to have the American people strongly behind this
effort, and that is the only way we will see success, if the American
people support this effort.
The second thing that I saw while I was over there, and, as I
mentioned, the national media would feed us a steady diet of death and
destruction in Iraq and that picture was not the case as we talked here
tonight about the many, many things that we saw in Iraq. For instance,
the hospitals, they were not hospitals like we see here in America, but
they were functioning hospitals. And many if not most of the major
hospitals in Iraq are up and running today. The schools and
universities are operating. Secondary schools are ready to take the
kids on in the fall so they can begin that process, to continue to
educate the young people of Iraq.
We talked about the security, the 56,000 trained Iraqis that are out
there and walking the streets of Baghdad and Mosul protecting the
borders. That was something to behold. We traveled to the headquarters
and the training for the Iraqi police force; and we met Ali Kazon, who
is now the head of the Iraqi police force. He told us the story how in
1979 he was head of the police academy, and when Saddam Hussein took
over, he spoke out against Saddam, and he was imprisoned and almost on
a daily basis for a year he was tortured. And now 20 some years later,
he is back and ready to take up his role to build a stable and
democratic Iraq.
We were told the story just 4 weeks before we arrived in Iraq there
was an assassination attempt on a gentleman's life. He was shot in the
leg. He was bandaged up, and 2 days later he was back on the streets
going after the guys who tried to assassinate him.
And just 2 weeks after we left Iraq, there was a bombing at police
headquarters, and it was another attempt on Ali Kazon's life. We were
told that this man is somebody that the Baathists, the terrorists, want
to eliminate because he will be a force for good in a free and stable
Iraq.
He told us what he told his soldiers or his police as he recruited
them. He talked about we do not know the Americans, they do not know
us, but they came here and died to free us, so every day when we take
to the streets of Iraq we need to honor the Americans for what they
have done for us, giving us our freedom.
Madam Speaker, it truly was inspirational to meet someone at the
founding of a nation. As we talked about, most of the major cities and
most towns and villages had elected municipal councils, and this
occurred just 2 weeks after major combat had ended in Iraq. Today, as I
said, every major city and most towns and villages are directing local
matters themselves. Iraqis are doing that work.
The third thing that we saw and something that surprised me, although
I do not know that I should have been surprised, as someone who has
studied history all my life, but we focus on Iraq, and it is all about
the oil and they certainly have tremendous oil reserves, and that is
going to provide the Iraqi people the wealth to rebuild their country
and have a stable Iraq in the future. But, as the gentleman from
Indiana talked about, the agriculture was surprising. I thought Iraq
was a desert, but it is not. It is brown, and I think a lot of that is
because of the heat, but they have vast wheat fields. Also, the water
resources that Iraq has, not only do they have the Tigris and the
Euphrates Rivers, but they have miles of canals. They are able to
irrigate much of the Iraqi countryside.
In the south, with a pick and shovel, they can dig down 10-12 feet
and hit water because the water table is very shallow. In the north, as
we flew over vast wheat fields, they were literally digging water wells
horizontally, going in at an angle down 20-40 feet before they would
hit water. So Iraq has oil and the ability to feed itself and the
Middle East, and they have tremendous water resources that any
successful nation needs to feed its people and take care of its people.
Finally, the Iraqi people themselves are a robust people; and proof
of that is they have spent 30 years living under a Stalinist tyranny,
living under terrible circumstances, but they have survived. Almost
half the population is literate, so with the resources they have, with
the personality of the people, what we are doing for them over there,
giving them the opportunity to live free and to create a democracy, we
are giving them hope. That is what any nation needs. Giving the people
hope is going to take them off that path of strapping on a bomb to
themselves and killing themselves.
We need to make sure that we are putting enough money into this
situation. We talked about the $87 billion. It is a lot of money when
we look at it as $87 billion, but when we look at the
[[Page H9008]]
losses that America suffered after 9/11 and the losses we could face in
the future if we are not able to help build a stable and democratic
Iraq, this is something we must do. We cannot fail in this endeavor. We
need to move forward swiftly to make sure that the Iraqi people can
build that stable, democratic country.
{time} 2100
Mr. CHOCOLA. I thank the gentleman for his comments. As you
mentioned, one of the highlights of this experience was the opportunity
to share a meal with the fine men and women in uniform. We can sit
here, and we can say how proud we are of them, but until you are
actually there with them and seeing the tremendous work that they are
doing, I do not know that we can appreciate their efforts and their
competence.
During one of the meals, again I always ask, what do you want me to
share with people when I go back home? We were in Babylon in this
historic city where Saddam had built another palace to himself. A young
soldier who had been very quiet during the meal, he looked up and he
said, what I want the people at home to know is that the Iraqis that
are shooting at us and setting off bombs, those aren't the Iraqi people
I know. The Iraqi people I know are very appreciative that we are here.
They thank me every day. I go out in the marketplace, and I don't feel
threatened. That's what I want the people at home to know, is that the
Iraqi people very much appreciate our efforts.
Then later, right after that meal, you will remember we went to a
mass grave site. That was probably one of the most moving experiences
that I had during the trip, where we visited this mass grave site where
up to 15,000 people had been murdered, many of them buried alive. They
told us about how that grave site was discovered and the conditions. Do
you remember that? Do you want to share that story?
Mr. SHUSTER. Absolutely. That was one of the best stories that I have
taken away from Iraq. Not only did we see firsthand the commitment and
the bravery, the courage of our young men and women, but the decency of
the American soldier. The story we were told was that when they found
the mass grave site, the Iraqi people as they do to celebrate or in
anger when they come together is they shoot their weapons off into the
air. It is very dangerous because when you shoot a bullet up, it has to
come down, and when you have several hundred people doing that, there
were people being killed. The Marines told these folks that were going
up to the mass grave site that they could not celebrate in that way.
They were not allowed to shoot guns off into the air, so it was a very
heated exchange. The Iraqis were angry because they could not do what
they typically do.
So they went to the mass grave site, they collected the remains of
many of their family members, and as they came back into the village,
they came face to face with a patrol of Marines. It was a tense moment.
Without somebody from high up, some bureaucrat in Washington or some
general in the Pentagon or some general in the field, a young sergeant
decided the best thing to do was to order his men to stand aside, take
their helmets off and bow their heads to pay respect to the families,
to the people that had perished and to honor them as they passed.
I truly look at that, when I think about the American soldier and we
think of, as I said earlier, how courageous they are, truly, how
compassionate they are. That is a demonstration of that. It is really a
touching story. It makes me very, very proud to be an American, to know
that we not only train fierce warriors, but compassionate soldiers,
compassionate people.
Mr. CHOCOLA. Again, I thank the gentleman. I think you are right. I
think that the secret to our success in Iraq is not just going to be
firepower or dollars, it is going to be the content of the character of
the men and women in uniform, and, certainly, we saw that they have
tremendous character. They represent American ideals and values better
than we could ever imagine. I think we certainly owe them a debt of
gratitude for their efforts.
Mr. SHUSTER. I think it was General Sanchez that said to us that the
way for us to succeed, to win this, to finally win this, is not going
to be militarily, it is going to be through the hearts and minds of the
Iraqi people, helping them to rebuild a country and giving them back
their country.
As you mentioned earlier, the thing we do not hear about in the
media, they say that there is no plan. As you mentioned and showed, one
of the plans as I recall, we met with General Sanchez who is the head
of operations in the Iraqi theater. Then we met with four of the five
division generals, commanders in Iraq. Every time we sat down for a
briefing with any one of them, they gave us a similar plan.
Even General Dempsey, who controls Baghdad, that is his area of
control, he talked about when we were there at the end of August, they
were already starting to make plans and starting to move toward taking
our control, our base out of the center of Baghdad and moving it to the
four corners of Baghdad. That was a month ago. I have not heard about
that. I have not heard about it in the national media. I have heard
about it in our briefings, that General Dempsey is starting to make
those moves, so that we are looking into Baghdad, not looking out. They
believe that that is going to be a better way for us to help the Iraqi
people, so we are not sitting in the middle and the Iraqi people then
can take control of the security of Baghdad.
So there is a plan. We know that, and we have seen that. That is why
it is so important tonight for us here and to go back to our districts
and talk about these plans, to talk about what we saw. I would
encourage every Member of the House of Representatives, all 435
Members, to get on a plane, go to Iraq, see what is over there, because
I think as you have pointed out tonight, they come back and tell a
different story, or a full story of what is going on in Iraq. I would
encourage all of the Members of the House to travel there and see it
firsthand.
Mr. CHOCOLA. Again, I thank the gentleman. I share in his
encouragement for all Members possible to go there and see for
themselves what is happening and share those stories.
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