[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 175 (Monday, December 8, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H12896-H12901]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ WATCH
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renzi). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Delahunt) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am here, and I anticipate being joined
by several Members, to discuss the issues that the gentleman from Iowa
(Mr. Leach) was discussing, the gentleman, who commands great respect
in this body and one who clearly possesses a profound knowledge of
international relationships, and at the same time provides a
perspective and an analysis that should be instructive and informative
to all Americans. I think he had 23 points. I do not know whether he
has any additional points he wishes to make, but if he does, I would be
happy to yield to him.
It would appear that he does not. But again, let me acknowledge his
contribution to the debate.
Myself and my colleagues for some weeks now, I think, on more than 20
occasions during the course of the time that is reserved after
legislative business is concluded, the so-called ``special orders''
time, have come to the floor and we have labeled this particular
initiative, the Iraq Watch. And, hopefully, we have had among us a
conversation that has been both informative for the audience, as well
as educational for the Members of the House in terms of this issue
that, clearly, has a huge impact on the American people, both in terms
of lives and the safety of our military personnel in Iraq, but also
clearly in terms of our economy.
[[Page H12897]]
It is ironic that it was the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) as I
said, a very respected member of the Republican Party, who just left
the floor, who spoke I believe so eloquently, and I daresay that I
share many of the concerns and would agree with much of what he said.
But having said that, recently in his home State, Iowa, there was an
advertisement on behalf of the Bush Presidential Campaign; and I
understand it was paid for by the Republican National Committee. It was
titled ``Reality'' and it was a 30-second clip. There were some
comments by the President, and I understand there were some snippets of
speeches that the President had made regarding Iraq specifically and
presumably the war on terrorists.
There was also an announcer, a voice overlay, if you will, not an
individual who appeared on the ad, but someone who would comment after
the snippet of the President was viewed by the audience. And what the
announcer said caused me to be disturbed, because the announcer said,
and I am quoting from that snippet, ``Some now are attacking the
President for attacking the terrorists.''
The announcer then went on to say that, ``Some called for us to
retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others.'' And
then the announcer instructed, ``Call Congress now.''
I am confused, because during the entire debate, not just regarding
Iraq, not just regarding Afghanistan, but all of the debate subsequent
to September 11, I never heard from a single Member on either side of
the aisle that we should retreat and put our national security in the
hands of others.
{time} 1945
That simply was untrue. That ad was not misleading; it was an
untruth.
Now, have many of us questioned the policy regarding Iraq, regarding
the war on terror? Well, yes. An unequivocal yes. And as I said,
ironically, we heard this earlier this evening from the preceding
speaker, a well-regarded, well-respected, thoughtful member of the
House Committee on International Relations who happens to be a
subcommittee chair and one who voted against the resolution authorizing
military intervention in Iraq. He certainly is not calling for any
retreat, and neither am I, and neither is any Democrat.
But, again, I know many of us on both sides of the aisle, Republicans
and Democrats, are concerned about the competence and what we see as a
policy that is failing, which will translate not into a retreat but a
defeat in terms of the war on terror. I understand that that particular
30-second ad is no longer running. Well, that is good. The questions
that are being posed to the President and to his administration are not
just coming from Democrats. The displeasure, the disappointment, the
criticism, the concern is not coming from Democrats. It is a view that
is shared by many.
Now, many Americans, clearly many in this Chamber, remember the
former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Newt Gingrich. And
clearly many Americans are familiar with the junior Senator from New
York, the former First Lady, the wife of the former President, Bill
Clinton. And all of us know that it would be a rare moment where they
would agree on anything. Well, they happen to agree on the policy of
this administration when it comes to Iraq, because yesterday it was the
former House Speaker on a Sunday TV magazine program who stated that
the Bush administration has gone, and I am quoting Newt Gingrich, ``Off
the cliff in postwar Iraq, and the White House has to get a grip on
this.''
These are not my words; these are the words of the former Speaker of
the House, the former leader of the Republican Party in this House, Mr.
Newt Gingrich, that often sat, Mr. Speaker, in the same chair that you
are now sitting in presiding over this House. Well, on this particular
occasion, Senator Clinton said she agreed with Mr. Gingrich. She blamed
the administration for miscalculating and inept planning in Iraq.
But those two are not alone.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to my good friend and a member of the Iraq
Watch, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the difficulty here, as the gentleman
has outlined, is that we are now engaged in what can only be described
as political hate speech. This is not an unusual circumstance, I am
sorry to say, in this day and age.
I have had occasion to pick up a centennial edition, I believe is the
designation, by the original publishers of George Orwell's ``1984.'' A
new introduction by Thomas Pinchon. My colleague may recall in
``1984,'' in Orwell's conception of what was taking place, there is a
whole new conception of what speech would consist of and what the
language would be. Ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, hatred is
love. Everything becomes its own contradiction, its exact opposite. The
confusion is there.
Let us read exactly what the advertisement said. We are now
conducting political policy by virtue of advertising when issues of war
and peace are concerned. Let me quote it directly: ``Some are now
attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.'' Who? Some. Who?
I suppose it is possible, if you look far enough and long enough and
deep enough, you can find somebody, somewhere, not necessarily even
within the boundaries of the United States, if we are talking about
some, who would be attacking the President for attacking the
terrorists. But I do not think that those of us who are taking this
issue seriously and trying to engage in a dialogue on this issue can
find anyone of a serious bent in the House, any of our colleagues, to
come down and name anyone.
Mr. DELAHUNT. From either the Republican side or the Democratic side.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That goes without saying. Here on the floor of the
House of Representatives, anyone, find anyone, who would be able to
corroborate such an accusation.
In fact, if one takes into account, and I am looking here at an
article in the Wall Street Journal, in an opinion article, ``Politics
and People,'' Albert Hunt, ``What Might Have Been,'' and it concerns
our good friend and my good friend and fellow Hawaiian, General Eric
Shinseki, former Chief of the Army, who, as you know, was vilified by
people in the administration.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And, Mr. Speaker, who happened to be a decorated hero,
a military hero; someone who fought for his country with great bravery
and valor. That is the kind of individual that my colleague is talking
about.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am not only talking about General Shinseki as a
decorated war hero but as someone who came through the ranks to become
chief of the Army, and who, in response to a congressional inquiry,
gave answers, as a soldier should to those who are in charge of the
country by constitution, gave answers with respect to what would be
required in Iraq should an attack take place in order to avoid
encouraging and in fact perhaps even seeing a situation take place in
which terrorism would expand, rather than be contracted or defeated.
What General Shinseki indicated was that we were not engaged in a
serious ``troops to task analysis.''
That is what this is about. This is not about attacking the President
about his opposition to terrorism; it is whether or not his political
policies have resulted in military activity which is in fact not only
succeeding but increasing the terrorism that exists in the world.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And, Mr. Speaker, the best evidence of that are the
recent attacks both in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, one of our erstwhile
allies in the region, who has been supportive of the United States in
the war on terror, who has been supportive of our natural ally in the
State of Israel. And what we are beginning to see is the spread of
terrorism far from just Iraq, but everywhere around the world.
However, others, again from both parties, have articulated a
criticism. Chuck Hagel, another veteran, someone who has experienced
combat in Vietnam, a highly regarded, well-respected Senator, made this
statement back in September, again on a national TV program. In
response to the question, ``Did the administration miscalculate the
difficulty of this war?,'' this is what Senator Hagel said: ``Yes, they
did miscalculate it. I think they
[[Page H12898]]
did a miserable job of planning for a post-Saddam Iraq. They treated
most in the Congress like a nuisance when we asked questions.''
Well, I think it is incumbent upon the President of the United States
to respond to the questions that the people's representatives in both
branches of Congress pose, because it is the people of the United
States that are losing their sons and daughters in Iraq. To date we
have already appropriated in excess of $165 billion that will be paid
for by future generations. And what do we see? We see a deteriorating
situation.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr.
Speaker, we are spending not $87 billion, but as the gentleman
indicated, upwards of $160 billion just in excess appropriations, or
rather in additional supplemental appropriations vis-a-vis Iraq. Yet,
when we bring home troops for rest and recreation purposes, they are
taken to only three cities, and then they are on their own and they pay
their own bills. That has not been changed.
I believe the figure is $55 million approximately that the Congress
has put forward for transportation in the area of recreation purposes.
It is not going to be enough. We are not even prepared at this stage to
have orderly transitions in terms of rest and recreation periods, let
alone what will now take place with the transfer of troops.
Mr. DELAHUNT. I am aware of the gentleman's expertise in terms of
issues involving national security. I do not know whether the gentleman
had an opportunity to read just recently the fact that we are now, for
the next 6 months, under the benchmark in terms of readiness as far as
our Army is concerned. And yet we have members of the administration,
an Under Secretary of State and others, such as Richard Perle, who is
the former chair of the Defense Policy Board, insinuating that if Syria
does not get its act together, they might be the next one subject to a
military intervention by the United States.
But having said that, I just want to go again back so that those who
are listening are aware that that ad attacking Congress, and presumably
Democrats, is just simply untrue.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield for a moment on his
latter point, I was looking through my notes for a moment, and the
gentleman indicated Mr. Perle. Would this be the same Mr. Perle,
quoting from the Financial Times of December 4, that ``the Boeing
Corporation has taken a $20 million stake in an investment fund run by
Richard Perle, a top Pentagon adviser, underlining the close links it
has built to Washington's defense establishment. Boeing said it made
the investment in Trireme Partners last year as part of a broad
strategy to invest in companies with promising defense-related
technologies.'' The Financial Times adds, ``Boeing said it had no
knowledge that Mr. Perle had advised the company on a controversial $18
billion deal to lease refueling aircraft tankers to the U.S. Air Force
or other Pentagon related matters.''
Mr. DELAHUNT. This is the same Richard Perle, my friend, who was the
former chair but then resigned because of concerns about conflict of
interest.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. As a defense adviser to the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Who, in many respects, was the single most ardent
supporter of a leading member of the Iraqi Governing Council, whose
name is Ahmed Chalabi. And I do not know how this happened, but he was
appointed by the administration to the Iraqi Governing Council without
any consultation with another of our allies in the region, the
Government of Jordan.
So, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the gentleman is aware of this, but
I daresay many who might be watching this are unaware of it, but Mr.
Chalabi was convicted in Jordan for embezzlement in the amount of
hundreds of millions of dollars.
{time} 2000
He was sentenced in absentia, and received a sentence of 22 years. He
is a convicted felon. Again, I do not want to get into issues that I
think we both agree do not really go to the heart of our policy but
reflect the failures of the management of the so-called war against
terror.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the
reason this has relevance is because these are the people who are
formulating the policy. These are the people who are making the case
for the foundations of the political policy that we find our troops
having to bear the brunt of. That is the whole point here. The question
is not whether we are against terror, the question is not whether there
is support for the troops, the question is do we have a political
policy that is worthy of their sacrifice.
Mr. DELAHUNT. The question is, I dare say, who is in charge? For me,
it was an interesting Sunday morning when I listened to the chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, again another
highly-respected Republican with considerable experience in terms of
foreign relations, along with the senior Democrat on the committee,
Senator Joe Biden. When Senator Biden made the statement that the
President should take charge, and Tim Russet, who happened to be the
moderator, asked whether that was good and necessary advice, Senator
Lugar, the Republican Senator from the State of Indiana who chairs the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee said yes, it is, it is very
necessary. I concur with my colleague, the President has to be the
President, that means the President over the Vice President and other
Secretaries. Lugar had just had enough of the administration's divided
voices, especially the Vice President's which he described, when
referring to the Vice President, ``very, very tough and strident.''
To put out an ad in Iowa during a Presidential Campaign suggesting it
was either the Democrats or Congress that wanted to retreat on the war
on terror, no, that is not the case. None of us want to retreat, we
want to win, we do not want to lose, and we are looking at defeat right
now.
Many that are watching here tonight clearly are familiar with Senator
McCain who served this country heroically and courageously in Vietnam
as a pilot, who served for many years as a prisoner of war, and he
criticized, as reported in USA Today, just about a month ago, McCain
criticized the Bush Administration conduct of the Iraq war yesterday,
saying the U.S. should send at least 15,000 more troops, or risk the
most significant global defeat on the world stage since Vietnam. McCain
said Bush must be more involved in Iraqi decisionmaking and not be
influenced by the upcoming Presidential campaign. McCain also
challenged the Rumsfeld assertion that the 132,000 American troops in
Iraq can defeat the insurgency in the country. This is again Senator
McCain's words, ``The simple truth is we do not have sufficient forces
in Iraq to meet our military objectives.''
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renzi). The Chair would remind all
Members to refrain from quoting the Senate, including quotations of
individual Senators.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, clearly this advertisement to which we
are referring in which the phrase ``some are now attacking the
President for attacking the terrorists,'' is meant to reestablish a
link between Iraq, the attack in Iraq and 9/11. That is to say, there
has been a constant drum-beat attempt by those who advocated this war
in Iraq that this was somehow an extension or expansion or movement
toward a more direct attack on terrorism, whereas no link has been
established between the attack on the Trade Towers and the plane
crashing in Pennsylvania, no link has been established between that and
this attack on Iraq.
To the contrary, there is more than ample evidence to indicate that
there were policymakers around the President who wanted to have this
attack on Iraq well before 9/11, and 9/11 became the excuse for them to
bring this back up, move it into the forefront and, in fact, displace
the war on terror, the response to the attack on terror.
That is, in fact, not just what was implied in this ad, but this is
clearly an attempt on a political basis to try to reestablish that in
the minds of Americans across the Nation so that this becomes a defense
of this failed policy in Iraq.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, let us remember for a moment this it was
practically a unanimous vote with one exception, over 400 Members of
this House voted to support, the gentleman
[[Page H12899]]
and I included, to support the intervention in Afghanistan because,
clearly, there was a haven for the terrorists there. There were al
Qaeda camps there. There was al Qaeda training there. But now let us
stop for a moment and examine what has happened in Afghanistan. What
has happened in Afghanistan, if this administration is really serious
about the war on terror, we are facing a crisis in Afghanistan. They
have the responsibility.
I do not know if the gentleman is aware, but after the overwhelming
victory by the military in Afghanistan, in the 2003 budget the dollars
that were appropriated or recommended by the administration for
reconstruction and support for Afghanistan amounted to nothing, not a
single dollar.
Fortunately, this House and this Senate appropriated some $800
million. But stop for a moment and realize that those that attacked the
United States on 9/11, al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, those terrorists that
were clearly posing an imminent and direct threat to Americans
everywhere, and still do, are multiplying like fishes and loaves, were
headquartered in Afghanistan and protected by the Taliban regime. It
has been 2 years, and what is happening in Afghanistan?
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think
we see in the dialogue that has taken place between Secretary Powell
and our NATO allies, the answer to that question. The NATO allies are
not going to increase to the degree they have any troops there at all,
and they do have some in insignificant numbers. The Italians, for
example, have police officers, and so on, but insignificant numbers.
They are reluctant at best, if not outright hostile, toward the idea of
increasing their presence in Iraq for a simple reason, it is the NATO
forces in Afghanistan that are bearing the brunt of trying to deal with
the continuing battle that is going on there against terrorism. That
war on terror was not won in Afghanistan, it is ongoing. It is ongoing
as we speak. We do not have sufficient forces, let alone intelligence
there, right now.
The gentleman may know we now have to deal with the horrifying
consequences and stories that will be going around based on what
happened in Afghanistan within the last 36 hours where nine children
were killed in an attempt to try to take a presumed militant, whatever
the word is these days that is attached to anybody that we can presume
to be an enemy.
We do not have sufficient forces, we do not have sufficient assets,
we do not have sufficient concentration of intelligence efforts in
Afghanistan right now because we are diverted in Iraq.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And the American people should know that the Taliban
and al Qaeda are experiencing a resurgence in the border area of
Afghanistan with Pakistan. They are coming back. We are on the verge of
losing the war against terror. We are not retreating, but we are
finding ourselves on the verge of losing.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, this is precisely the point that we are
trying to make, and have been trying to make here in Iraq Watch, over
and over again. By engaging as we are in Iraq right now, we are
actually undermining our capacity to confront terror, whether in its
most physically manifest form in Afghanistan or in the recruitment and
the propaganda that is now sweeping the Islamic world with regard to
whether or not America is now an enemy that must be fought at all
costs. We are increasing the number of people who can succumb to that
kind of message because of what we are doing in Iraq and what we are
not doing in Afghanistan.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And yet months ago the White House was attempting to
call Afghanistan a success stories; but they failed to commit the
necessary resources, and now we have a chaotic and increasingly
dangerous country where violence is the norm, where the Taliban is
returning, and one can only see that we are on the verge of repeating
the same mistake in Iraq. Can Members just imagine in terms of the
prestige and the influence of the United States, not just in that
region but all over the Muslim world, as well as the entire globe, what
would happen in terms of the erosion of our stature.
There was a very good analytical piece done by a columnist by the
name of Jake Kaplan, and I want to quote what he said 4 or 5 months
ago. ``As we reconsider reconstruction plans in Iraq and the
administration promises to democratize the country, it is worth taking
a look at our liberalization of Afghanistan. A year later, many of the
atrocities we thought would stop still continue, and even Bush's allies
in the Senate on Afghanistan think we have undercommitted to efforts
that could truly change that country for the better. 'Afghanistan's
experience does not bode very well for the upcoming one,' said Steven
Burke of the Center for International Conflict Resolution, who just
returned from 16 days in Afghanistan in early March. It is a country
that needs attention and commitment, but there is an inclination to
withdraw.''
And there is an ad that says that Congress is retreating? Who are
these people that are retreating from the war on terror? And yet no
dollars in the 2003 budget submitted by the administration were
incorporated into that budget for Afghanistan, and that ad runs? That
is more than an untruth.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, we may not be financing what is
necessary for either troop movements or political stability in
Afghanistan, but I can assure the gentleman, I am sorry to say that
financing is nonetheless taking place in Afghanistan except it is going
to be for terror.
{time} 2015
We now have more poppies being grown, more heroin being processed,
and more trading in heroin than ever before in the history of
Afghanistan, than ever before in the history of any nation on the face
of the Earth. I should say any region on the face of the Earth, because
clearly Afghanistan does not rate the name of nation now in terms of
commerce and stability and political equilibrium that we associate with
the term. The only thing that is stable, the only thing that is
growing, the only thing that is expanding, the only thing that is a
sure thing in Afghanistan is there is more heroin being traded for more
money that is going to find its way into the pockets of those who are
financing terrorism.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And come to the streets and the communities and the
neighborhoods in this country. There is one statistic the gentleman
might be interested in. Since our intervention 2 years ago in
Afghanistan, opium production has increased 19-fold and become the
major source of the world's heroin. Who is retreating? I want to win,
and I know you want to win. That opium production will fuel terrorism.
By the way, President Karzai, whom I believe is a man of great courage,
it is well known among all the international observers and participants
in the efforts to assist Afghanistan that he cannot leave Kabul for
fear of being assassinated. His brother, who represents the government
in southern Kandahar, which is a province in Afghanistan, was very
blunt to a reporter. He said recently, ``It's like I am seeing the same
movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem. What was promised
to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and
change. But what was delivered? Nothing. There have been no significant
changes for the people.'' Hamid Karzai says he does not know what to
say to people anymore. And who is retreating? Who is allowing terrorism
to experience a renaissance, if you will, in Afghanistan, after the
promises were made by this administration?
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I think the answer is
very, very clear. All of our assets, human and otherwise, are being
concentrated in Iraq, or that area of the world which purports to be
Iraq. As the gentleman knows, Iraq is a construct of the post-World War
I colonial powers, particularly Great Britain and France. And so even
the idea that there is a political construct there that can be referred
to for elections or anything else is little more than fiction to begin
with. The plain fact of the matter is that we cannot move forward in
Afghanistan because the assets that are needed there, particularly
financial, are being wasted right now in Iraq.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, I do not want those that might be watching us
this evening having this conversation to think that simply because you
and I are Democrats that there are not concerns that have been
expressed by Members in the majority party. There
[[Page H12900]]
was an article that appeared in a magazine that circulates here in
Washington particularly among Members and those that work on Capitol
Hill. This is back several weeks ago in Roll Call. The article is
entitled, ``As Supplemental Heads to Conference, Members Warn of
Cautionary Tale in Afghanistan.'' Members are using the war-torn nation
as an example of what not to do in Iraq. ``Remember, Afghanistan was
the haven for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda,'' I am quoting now from
Representative Jim Kolbe, chair of the Appropriations Committee in this
body on foreign relations. He said there has been some neglect of it.
He was referring to the 2-year U.S. effort to rebuild Afghanistan after
toppling its repressive and terrorist-shielding Taliban government.
Representative Lewis, our colleague from California who chairs the
appropriations subcommittee on defense, said, ``One really does need to
understand the challenges we face in Iraq. We should not leave vacuums
like we did in Afghanistan. A failed state there could be an incubator
for terrorism again but the resources have not always followed the
policy.'' Again, there is Senator Lugar.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you where
we do have a visible presence, where we do meet the criteria that is
stated and enunciated by Representative Lewis and the good Senator. We
now have barbed wire villages. Those images are going all around the
world as we speak. We are now creating our own areas of concentration
camps and villages complete with identification cards that have to be
shown to American soldiers so that people, and I say people, I am
talking women, children, men, entire villages now are being processed
through barbed wire into their own villages.
Mr. DELAHUNT. It is called winning the hearts and minds of the
people, I presume.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The parallel, and I am not one to draw analogies to
Vietnam because I think most of those kinds of comparisons tend to be
inexact and then you end up in useless kinds of arguments as to
exactitude, but the parallels are there. You may recall the rather
infamous phrase associated with our pacification policy in Vietnam. We
had to destroy the village in order to save it. Now in order to
stabilize Iraq, we have to take barbed wire and surround whole villages
with it. So I think the question here is, at this stage, what is to be
done? How are we to regard the war on terror and what the relationship
of the attack on Baghdad and the subsequent war which followed it, how
is that to be handled? How is that to be addressed by the United
States?
We are told, and again these cliches and bromides come fast and
furious, that we should not cut and run. I am going to have to presume,
I guess, that I know what cutting and running means. It means that you
stop doing what you are doing and you leave. I do not know whether
anybody noticed it or not, I certainly noticed, about November 15, that
is precisely what Mr. Bush and Mr. Bremer concluded, that the United
States was going to cut and run. That is what we are doing right now.
The problem is that we are not admitting that that is what we are doing
and we are sacrificing the Reserves and the Guard and the active duty
military that is there now and that which will be going there to this
continued failed policy without admitting what we are doing.
We are turning over supposedly conveniently, just before the election
in 2004, turning over, supposedly, the present occupation to a
government in Iraq. If that is not cutting and running, I do not know
what is. Are we going to turn over control, such as it might be, to
some governing entity in Iraq, or are we not? And if we are, what
constitutes that governing entity, this farce of an advisory group that
we have there? Shiite clerics? The ill-equipped and untrained police
forces that we have cobbled together? Or perhaps we are going to turn
it over to this new paramilitary army made up of armed members of
various political parties in Iraq. A paramilitary force.
And we have the gall to turn to the American people and say, ``Well,
they are preparing to defend themselves.'' They are preparing to cut
each other's throats. They are preparing to fight one another, not just
politically but with guns and bullets. The fact of the matter is that
there is utter and complete political chaos in Iraq that is not being
addressed by existing military policy of the United States.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And they made the same, and continue to make the same,
mistake in Afghanistan. After more than 18 months now, only about 7,000
troops have completed training under British and French and American
officers. That program has been delayed by desertions and political
interference from Afghan warlords. At this point in time, it was
estimated there would be 50 or 60,000 in the Afghan police and in the
Afghan military. And they expect that they are going to have in June a
national election. If they have a national election, one can only
imagine the magnitude of violence that will occur.
We are losing the war on terror, Mr. President. We are not
retreating. What we are imploring you to do is to consult with
Congress. Do not consider Congress as a nuisance. Listen to the Jim
Leaches, to the Chuck Hagels, to the John McCains, and to others that
have valuable insights in terms of what war is truly about and, most
importantly, how to make peace and protect the Americans and our
national security interests, and tell the RNC to take that ad off,
because it is a lie. It is not just an untruth.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you what we
are going to have to do in the meantime, then, to try and protect those
troops that are already there and to try and find an exit strategy
worthy of the name that can allow us the opportunity to turn over some
kind of political capacity in Iraq. There is a bill going forward that
hopefully will be signed on a bipartisan basis to increase the end
strength of the armed services, the Army and Marines in particular, and
I am afraid now we are going to have to include the Air Force. At one
point I think if we had handled this, we would not have had to add the
Air Force. Since 1995, I for one and others on the Committee on Armed
Services and other interested parties have been urging, so this goes
beyond the present administration.
We are not trying to draw distinctions there. Since 1995, some of us
have been urging an increase in the end strength. That is an inside
baseball term in the Committee on Armed Services for increasing the
number of troops in the Army and in the Marine Corps, because we could
see the kinds of deployments that were taking place, whether it was in
Kosovo, whether it was in Bosnia, in other words, in Eastern Europe,
whether it was in the Philippines. No matter where it was and no matter
what the reasons may have been, no matter how one felt about it one way
or the other, the plain fact of the matter is that there was sufficient
support to warrant these deployments, and we did not have the troop
strength available to do it. We do not yet have a reinstitution of the
draft.
When people talk about the war on terrorism, most people are watching
it on television. We are depending on a volunteer force to do that.
What sacrifices have we made? Some inconvenience in an airport?
Somebody running, as they did for me yesterday when I flew here,
running their wands over your shoes? Having you hold your arms out so
that they can check your watch? Examining your baggage? What kind of
sacrifice is that? At most it is an inconvenience.
The only sacrifice that we have made as a population since 9/11 is we
postponed the Super Bowl one week. An inconvenience. That is the only
sacrifice that has been made. This is being watched on television. This
is being observed. We get the little tear in the eye and we get the
flag being waved around those who are in Walter Reed or in Bethesda
Hospital right now with grievous wounds. The sacrifice of the troops is
not the point here. It is the sacrifice of those troops on a
battlefield of corrupt political policy unworthy of the troops that are
out there. And I tell you this, we cannot sustain with the existing
Guard and Reserves that we have in this country the continual
deployment into Iraq and still meet the necessities that we have
outlined with respect to Afghanistan. That does not even begin to
include questions about North Korea or any other place that United
States troops may or may not
[[Page H12901]]
be needed in the future as a result of some activity, other kinds of
terrorist activity in other places around the world. We are not
prepared. We are not able to engage in deployments with respect to
terror in the rest of the world because of the failure of our policies
in Iraq and our failure to understand the true nature of what was
necessary in Afghanistan.
{time} 2030
Mr. DELAHUNT. What is refreshing is within the past 2 or 3 weeks
there has been some candor on the part of representatives of the
administration. In a recent story in the Washington Post back on
November 19, the new U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan made this
acknowledgment: He gave the administration's bleakest assessment yet of
security conditions in Afghanistan, saying that a regrouping of the
Taliban and al Qaeda, increased drug trafficking, and even common
criminals are hampering Karsai in the transition to democracy. Taliban
rebels have dramatically stepped up operations in recent months, and
Khalilzad, who is our Ambassador, said, ``Common criminals and al Qaeda
followers are increasingly active.''
Just be honest with the American people. Do not talk about Congress
not supporting the war on terror or Democrats not supporting the war on
terror or selected Republicans not supporting the war on terror. Every
American has an interest in defeating those that would attack this
country. Do not question motives. Do not question people's patriotism.
Do not question the effort to create a policy. Many of us including
myself and the gentleman from Hawaii opposed American intervention in
Iraq, and I stand by that decision proudly. But now that we are there,
do not politicize the efforts that are being made to deal with these
egregious conditions in Iraq and in Afghanistan when this
administration has made promises to those people and to the American
people and are not living up to them.
What I found fascinating was a secret memo, a secret memorandum, that
was authored by the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, who was widely
known or at least widely believed to be an ardent hawk about military
intervention; who, along with the Vice President and Under Secretary
Wolfowitz, told the American people that our military personnel would
be greeted with flowers and bands and welcomed as liberators. But now
the reality has set in. And in a secret memorandum, Secretary Rumsfeld
is expressing concerns about whether we are winning the war on
terrorism, and he posed two interesting questions in this secret
memorandum that was leaked so the American people could find out what
was going on in terms of the administration's honest assessment. ``Are
we winning or losing the global war on terror?'' was one of the
questions. And ``Is our current situation such that the harder we work,
the behinder we get?''
It is indeed unfortunate that politics would be allowed to play a
role in decisions where not just America tax dollars of a magnitude
that will clearly at a point in our future become a drag on our economy
because we are borrowing those dollars, remember, and the grant we gave
them, we are not going to get it back. But even more importantly, our
men and women find themselves at risk in terms of their personal safety
every day. This is not a place for politics. This is not a place for
attack ads. And I dare say that if that is the strategy that is being
designed by the President's political advisor, it will backfire,
because the American people, they get it. They really get it.
Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
Mr. ACKERMAN. The acting Secretary of the Army I am afraid has not
gotten that particular message because in relation to right in my own
district out in Hawaii, the movement of troops out of the 25th up at
Schofield Barracks, out into Asia and into Iraq, the movement of Guard
and Reserve troops, indicated that this was justified on the basis that
if we did not fight them, presumably whoever these people are,
terrorists and opposition, military opposition, fight them over there,
wherever ``there'' is, that we would be fighting them here, that is to
say, in the United States. The clear link there obviously is that had
we not attacked Iraq, Iraq would somehow be attacking the United
States, that somehow we would be the victims of an assault by Iraq or
the forces of Iraq and presumably by that meaning Saddam Hussein.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, they still cannot find the weapons of mass
destruction. And, by the way, I do not know if the American people are
aware of this, but it has cost and will cost the American taxpayer
simply to look, to secure the experts, secure the expertise, to look
for these weapons of mass destruction, which by now there is an
overwhelming consensus that they do not exist and that they never
existed. It is costing the American taxpayers $1 billion. Just think of
what $1 billion could do for Hawaii or for Massachusetts. I mean, I
guess, that is a subject for another night.
Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, precisely my
point is that it serves little good both to a sensible and reasonable
and rational dialogue as to what steps we should take now with regard
to our occupation in Iraq and the continuing military operations in
Afghanistan, it does little good for us to engage in a dialogue in
which these kinds of accusations are made or these kinds of
observations such as I have just outlined: If we do not fight them
there, we will have to fight them there. This is hardly worthy of the
Secretary of the Army let alone any high official of the government. It
is hardly worthy of anybody to say some are attacking the President for
attacking terrorists. I mean it is stupid on its face to say something
like that, and it is clearly meant to be provocative and political
without forming any kind of an enlightenment with respect to the issues
at hand. What needs to be done, and I think that the Iraq Watch that we
have been engaged in these past weeks is indicative of this, that what
needs to be done is to have this kind of dialogue. We do not have the
hearings. We do not have the dialogue during the regular course of the
day.
We are getting ready to recess. The Congress is going out of business
in the midst of this winter. There will be no recess in the wars. There
will be no recess in the killing. There will be no recess in the
wounding. There will be no recess in the political implications. I can
assure the Members of that. We are reaping a whirlwind of hatred and
distrust across the world such as we have not faced certainly in my
memory. The United States has always represented a beacon of hope to
people. In our worst excesses and in times when there has been the most
argument, even within the borders of the United States as to what our
policy should be or should not be, it has always at least had as our
fundamental base that we were trying to do the right thing by way of
our cooperation with others, by way of our respect for other people;
and yet today our whole policy is we are going to do as we please. We
are going to take up the issues as we see fit, and whether anybody else
wants to involve themselves with us, that is tough. We do not care.
That is not a foreign policy. That way lies blindness and defeat for
this country.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
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