[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 140 (Tuesday, October 7, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H9258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ REQUEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, in the last 24 hours, three more American 
soldiers have died in Iraq. They are part of a group of young Americans 
who are doing everything they can to stabilize the situation over there 
in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. They deserve our support.
  There are reports in Iraq of some successes on the ground, but as we 
look at the situation in Iraq today, it is hard not to come to the 
conclusion that this was an enormous strategic mistake, because we are 
now there with 130,000 of our military men and women for a very long 
time to come if this President's request is to be understood for what 
it is.
  Before we invaded Iraq, representatives of the White House and the 
Pentagon came to Members of Congress and said to the American people 
that Iraq had developed some of the most lethal weapons ever invented, 
that it was an imminent threat not only to the neighbors of Iraq, but 
to this country as well. We were told over and over again that we would 
be welcomed as liberators. We were told over and over again that, in 
this case, Iraq, because of its oil resources, could fund its own 
reconstruction. None of that was true. And today we know it was not 
true.
  This is a case where the administration hyped, overstated, distorted 
the intelligence that we had which was a lot more obscure and uncertain 
than we were led to believe.
  But today we are there. We are in Iraq. We have 130,000 people. We 
have replaced the government. We have a responsibility to try to create 
stability in that country and restore it to a better place.
  Now, we should begin, I believe, in trying to figure out what to do. 
It seems to me there are three basic changes we have to make, three 
basic policy approaches we have to make. First of all, we have to take 
this $87 billion request we have been given and scrub it, look at it 
carefully, review it. There is an enormous waste in this particular 
request, and we ought to do our best to figure out what some of the 
cases are.
  As previous speakers have said, Look, you have got $3.6 million for 
600 radios and phones, $6,000 apiece. And according to Business Week on 
May 12, this is a quote, ``When Baghdad's telephone system was knocked 
out during the war, small-time Iraqi businessmen ordered up satellite 
phones from Jordan for $900 each.'' As the previous speaker said, Let 
us go to Radio Shack. We can do better than that.
  The $87 billion includes $33,000 apiece for 80 pickup trucks. Well, 
go down to your local auto dealer. You can buy pickup trucks in this 
country for $14,000. What are we talking about? And those who paraded 
up here earlier on the other side of the aisle and said waste, fraud, 
and abuse is a problem for this government, we can begin with waste by 
simply looking at the administration's request.
  One more item. $50,000 per prison bed, double the average cost in the 
United States.
  Those who want simply to rubber stamp the administration's proposal 
are making a big mistake.
  The second thing we ought to do is we ought to pay for this. We 
should not be borrowing this money from our children and grandchildren. 
That is simply an outrage. We ought to reduce, roll back the tax cuts 
that have been given to people earning over $330,000 a year, the 
wealthiest 1 percent in this country. And we simply have to do that. If 
we are going to be fiscally responsible, we have to take that kind of 
step.

                              {time}  2015

  Third, we need to step forward and do what the administration is 
trying to do, although past actions make it difficult, we need to build 
international support. More international resources, more international 
police, more international troops to try to get us through what is an 
extraordinarily difficult problem. But having abused and alienated our 
allies, it is hard now to get them back into Iraq the way they need to.
  Fourth, we need to change the way we are doing this postwar 
reconstruction. It has been another fundamental mistake to have the 
Pentagon overseeing this operation. The very people who said we would 
be welcomed as liberators, that Iraqi oil would pay for its own 
reconstruction, those people are in charge of the postwar planning, and 
the postwar planning has been bungled. We need to give back authority 
to the State Department, USAID and those Federal agencies that have 
shown in the past they can deal with this kind of reconstruction 
effort. Those who came to this Congress and misrepresented the 
intelligence that was available to them should also be replaced.

                          ____________________