[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 9, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H919-H922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bonner). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Delahunt) is recognized for one-half of the time remaining before 
midnight, which is approximately 34 minutes.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, my friend, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. 
Abercrombie), is present here with me tonight; and we anticipate that 
we will be joined by several of our colleagues to continue our weekly 
hour where we discuss events in the Mid East, with a particular focus 
on Iraq and Afghanistan and, hopefully, reveal to the viewing audience 
some information that they may be unaware of. Mr. Speaker, I yield to 
the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Massachusetts. Again, Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman indicated, this is 
Iraq Watch. Several Members, some of whom voted for the resolution with 
respect to the attack in Iraq and some who did not, have been 
participating. The reason being that we find ourselves in a situation 
today where we are arguing about such things as budget, arguments 
taking place right now, both in the Republican Conference and in the 
Democratic Caucus. We find ourselves coming up on what might be termed 
the anniversary of the Iraq invasion. It is the anniversary. The 
question is before us as to what has been accomplished, what was 
involved; and I think, Mr. Speaker, I want to set a perspective before 
my colleagues and hopefully those in the American public who are 
viewing this evening.
  There has been an increase, both in terms of discussion and in terms 
of reporting about activity on the Pakistan-Afghani border. There is 
speculation in the press, speculation in our communities across this 
country as to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts; a 
flurry of reporting taking place that there is increased activity, 
sensors being placed, special forces being brought together, strike 
forces, including Pakistani troops, American troops, CIA operatives. 
The question becomes this, Mr. Speaker: Why now? Why has this not been 
going on since September 11, 2001? Why is it taking place 6, 8 months 
before an election? Where is the justification for what took place in 
Iraq as a diversion from going forward on the Afghan-Pakistan border to 
capture or eliminate Osama bin Laden and his cohorts? What is the 
justification as we come up on the year anniversary of the invasion of 
Iraq of not bringing hostilities to a conclusion in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan with respect to the attack that was made on the United States?
  There is a cover here that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Delahunt) has to his immediate right from Time Magazine, with a picture 
of Mr. Bush facing himself, a mirror image, if you will, that says, 
believe it or not, Does Bush have a credibility gap? I cite that not 
because I am interested in what Time Magazine has to say by way of cute 
phrasing or what they consider to be a provocative title or visual, 
but, rather, that the question is one that needs to be answered as we 
approach this anniversary of the attack on Iraq. Why are we involved 
now in expedited activity and an expedited increase in intense activity 
on the Afghan-Pakistan border to capture or eliminate Osama bin Laden? 
What have we been doing for the past 2 years?
  Well, I can tell my colleagues what we were doing. We were diverting 
our attention from those who attacked us on September 11 and instead 
preparing ourselves and ultimately carrying through an attack on Iraq, 
which has turned into a disaster, an unmitigated disaster for this 
country. We have not captured Osama bin Laden, we have not stopped or 
eliminated the Taliban threat in Afghanistan, we have not come to a 
conclusion with respect to the stability of Pakistan, and we have 
created a situation in Iraq which is headed for political, economic, 
and social disaster.

[[Page H920]]

  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I 
would concur with the gentleman's analysis. He is absolutely correct. 
We secured a military victory in Afghanistan against those, the 
Taliban, that allowed, on their territory, in Afghanistan, the training 
and a safe haven for the real enemy of the United States, the al Qaeda 
terrorist network. It has been more than 2 years, more than 2 years 
since we secured that victory. And as the gentleman mentioned, we were 
distracted, if you will. We were distracted by an ideological 
conclusion that the defeat of Saddam Hussein would create a new 
democracy in the Middle East.

                              {time}  2300

  Would that it be so. But as my colleague has mentioned, not only has 
Osama bin Laden not been captured, and I have a sense he will be 
captured, and the sooner the better, and if he is not captured, may he 
be killed because he is the enemy of the United States, I think it is 
important, however, given the distraction, if you will, based on a 
rationale that was put forth by this President, President Bush, that 
Saddam Hussein not only was in the possession and had a stockpile of 
weapons of mass destruction, and it was suggested, if you remember, 
that the threat of Saddam Hussein's possession of a nuclear weapon was 
very real, was very real, according to what the administration was 
saying, in that Saddam Hussein somehow had this murky relationship with 
these terrorists who had designs directly on the United States, that 
this information has turned out to be utterly without substance.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield on that 
point, quoting from Reuter's Monday, yesterday, story about Jeremy 
Lovell, quote, ``George W. Bush and Tony Blair probably knew that they 
were exaggerating the threat from Iraq when they were making the case 
for war, according to former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix. 
The U.S. President and the British Prime Minister ignored the few 
caveats and reports from intelligence services on Iraq's nuclear, 
chemical or biological weapon programs.''
  He writes in his account of the months leading up to the U.S. 
invasion. Blix says it was ``Probable that the governments were 
conscious that they were exaggerating the risks they saw in order to 
get the political support they would not otherwise have had.''
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield for a moment. 
We have heard much relative to criticism of the intelligence services 
of the United States. But when one examines the reporting by the CIA, 
by the Defense Intelligence Agency, by the appropriate agencies within 
the Department of State and the Department of Defense, their reporting 
was characterized by conditionality, by caveats, by suggestions that 
there was more to it than simply a conclusion. It was described in 
terms of likelihood, probability, maybe, what have you. But it was 
presented to the American people and to the people of the world in 
clear stock terms that would only, only provide an inescapable 
conclusion that Saddam Hussein had possession of weapons of mass 
destruction.
  You read from a report this week about the analysis by Hans Blix. 
Well, as my colleague is well aware, the President himself asked an 
individual by the name of David Kay, who many Americans have seen on a 
variety of news programs, to lead the post-war effort to find the so-
called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was the individual who 
had the courage to come before the Senate and say unequivocally and 
clearly we were all wrong.
  We have not heard that yet from the President of the United States.
  Well, it just happens that David Kay has now been interviewed by a 
highly respected journal, newspaper, called The Guardian from the 
United Kingdom. He has called on the Bush administration, and I am 
reading from a story that appeared in the March 3 edition of The 
Guardian, he called on the Bush administration to come clean. And these 
are his words here, not mine, not my colleague's, not anybody from the 
Republican side of the office, but David Kay's. And they have not 
received the attention, I dare say, they deserve here in the American 
media. But it was David Kay in this interview that said, ``It is time 
to come clean with the American people, Mr. President, and admit it was 
wrong about the existence of the weapons.'' That is David Kay.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, following 
on that point, quoting Mr. Kay, and, again, quoting Mr. Hans Blix, who 
was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 until 
1997 and later the chief of the United Nations Monitoring Verification 
and Inspection Commission until 2003, a person without peer, someone 
who has the background and the professional experience second to none 
in this area, I quote him: ``I am not suggesting that Blair and Bush 
spoke in bad faith, but I am suggesting that it would not have taken 
much critical thinking on their own part or on the part of their close 
advisors to prevent statements that misled the public. It is understood 
and accepted that governments must simplify complex international 
matters in explaining them to the public in democratic states. However, 
they are not vendors of merchandise but leaders of whom some sincerity 
should be asked when they exercise their responsibility for war or 
peace in the world.''
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, let me continue with the same report that I had 
alluded to earlier in The Guardian. And, again, this is Mr. Kay. I 
would hope that some of the news organizations in this country would 
contact Mr. Kay and corroborate this report from this highly regarded 
newspaper in the United Kingdom, because I think it is extremely 
telling. This administration will not admit they were wrong. We are 
going to find out what happened whether they intentionally misled or 
whether the intelligence itself was faulty. That is a question that 
will be answered during the course of the next 5 or 6 months. But it is 
about time for the President of the United States to stand up and say 
we were wrong to the American people.
  Mr. Kay said, ``The administration's reluctance to make that 
admission was further undermining its credibility at home and abroad.'' 
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary 
Powell owe an obligation to the American people in our role in the 
world and our claim to moral authority to get this matter disposed of.
  The Secretary of Defense will not let it go. Donald Rumsfeld has 
dismissed Mr. Kay's assertion that there were no weapons of mass 
destruction at the start of the Iraq war as a theory that was possible 
but not likely. What is wrong, Mr. Rumsfeld? Do you not get it? It is 
better for the country. Put aside the fear of embarrassment.
  This is more about--this is less about personal embarrassment than it 
is restoring American credibility as we proceed during the course of 
this year and years here after dealing in a very, very dangerous world.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. 
Abercrombie).

                              {time}  2310

  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I wish that I had a bit more faith in 
the idea that there would be a positive response to the questions the 
gentleman is posing and the observations that he is making.
  The difficulty is we operate in a parallel universe. The Secretary of 
Defense is going to filter everything through the medium of his own 
perceptions, his own self-delusions. We are not going to see this. This 
is going to have to be resolved in the political world in the United 
States.
  Let me offer this example of the parallel universe that I am speaking 
of. In the March 15 Time magazine, an interview has been conducted with 
the administrator, Mr. Paul Bremer. Asked, to ``whom exactly are you 
handing over sovereignty'' in Iraq? Bremer said, ``The spaces are not 
filled in. We will hand over to a sovereign Iraq government on June 30. 
The shape and structure of that government is not yet defined. When we 
get finished with the transitional administrative law, we will turn to 
a broad dialogue with Iraqi politicians, provincial governors, local 
councils, ministers, a variety of people to try to figure out the best 
and most effective way to bring in the government. We do not know what 
that is yet.''

[[Page H921]]

  I submit that is such a startling statement of complete incapacity to 
understand what it is that is taking place. That is why I say we are 
living in a parallel universe. How is it possible for the American 
people to have any confidence when they are sending men and women of 
the armed services to Iraq, putting them in harm's way as a result of 
policies of this administration? How is it possible for us to expect 
anything else but the killing and grievous wounding of those military 
personnel in such an atmosphere, in which the administrator on behalf 
of the government of the United States is saying, ``When we get 
finished with the transitional administrative law, we will turn to a 
broad dialogue, a variety of people, to try to figure out the best and 
most effective way to bring in the government. We do not know who that 
is yet.''
  The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) was not at hearings 
in the Committee on Armed Services that I attended. I asked the same 
question within recent weeks, Exactly what is it that we are doing? Who 
are we turning this government over to? What is the authority? And what 
is the obligation that we have and our troops have? What authority does 
this governing entity that we are turning over to have? What authority 
does it have? What obligations does it have? Do we have a status of 
forces agreement? And with whom do we have a status of forces 
agreement? And whom will enforce the status of forces agreement?
  We are coming up on June 30, and yet the press having asked these 
questions, at least Time magazine having asked the question, prints it 
as if that answer was good and sufficient unto the question. We are 
about to engage in a situation in which we are going to have a farce 
take place of a presumed turning over of authority with a president, 
will he stand up, I do not know if he will get on a carrier, but will 
he stand up somewhere on a field in Iraq and say, Mission accomplished 
too, because this government has now come into being?
  I know what a government is. I think I know what the obligations and 
responsibilities of a government are, but I have yet to have a 
straightforward, clear-cut answer as to what the relationship of the 
United States military, let alone the United States Government, is 
going to have with this new governing entity on June 30.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. We have been joined by our colleagues, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from the State of 
Washington (Mr. Inslee), regulars on the Tuesday night Iraq Watch.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland); but before I 
give the time to him, I just want to repeat what David Kay said, the 
individual that was put in charge of searching for the weapons of mass 
destruction by this President, and this is from a report from a British 
newspaper last week. Mr. Kay said that ``continuing evasion,'' these 
are his words, ``would create public cynicism about the 
administration's motives.'' He also said, ``If the administration did 
not confront the Iraqi intelligence fiasco head on, it would undermine 
its credibility with allies in future crises for a generation.'' For a 
generation.
  This President with his failure to come clean with the American 
people, to be forthright, is putting our credibility at risk for a 
generation. It is time for President Bush to stand up and say the truth 
and to concur with the statement by David Kay that we were all wrong. 
You were wrong. Your Secretary of Defense was wrong. Your Vice 
President has been wrong. Your Under Secretary of Defense, Mr. 
Wolfowitz, has been wrong. You have been wrong. Then we can proceed 
again to restore the confidence of the world in the integrity of the 
United States.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for 
yielding to me.
  Earlier today I had in my office a large number of members of the 
different posts of the Ohio American Legion. And we were talking about 
the fact that we have got so many young Americans and middle-aged 
Americans in Iraq. And I just want to share with the gentleman 
something that continues to gnaw at me. It causes me great personal 
concern because it is a matter that has yet to be recognized, admitted 
to, and corrected by this administration.
  I have talked earlier in recent weeks about the fact that we sent our 
soldiers into harm's way without providing them with the most basic 
equipment of the body armor that was capable of giving them the fullest 
protection possible. As a result, I believe young Americans and some 
middle-aged Americans have lost their lives in Iraq because of the 
negligence of this administration and this Pentagon.
  I have gone to Walter Reed Hospital and visited with soldiers; and 
some of the soldiers there have missing arms and legs, and I believe 
some of those terrible injuries are the result of our failure to 
provide them with the right kind of protection.
  Now, I will talk a minute about the body armor; but I would also like 
to talk about the vehicles, the Humvees that are not adequately 
protected as a result of the negligence, the negligence of this 
Pentagon.
  Way back in the early spring, I received a letter from one of my 
constituents who happens to be a West Point graduate, a young man who 
is serving this very night in Iraq; and he told me that his men did not 
have the interceptor vests, this high-quality vest that became 
available, I believe, in 1998. It costs about $1,500 a piece, capable 
of stopping an AK-47 round. It is made of Kevlar and it has ceramic 
plates in both the front and back, designed to protect the core of a 
soldier's body, the vital organs of a soldier's body.
  So I wrote Secretary Rumsfeld and I asked him when he was going to 
make sure that all of our soldiers were adequately equipped with this 
vest.

                              {time}  2320

  He wrote me back and he said sometime in mid-November. A couple of 
weeks later, I get a letter from General Myers, and he says, well, it 
is going to be in December.
  Before we left this city for our holiday period, the Christmas 
period, the Pentagon held a briefing, and they said, well, it is going 
to be January. Now just last week we were told that there is an 
assumption that all of our soldiers in Iraq are equipped and perhaps 
all of our soldiers in Afghanistan, we do not know. There is no 
definitive statement on that, but certainly our soldiers in Kuwait do 
not yet have this equipment.
  But there is something that bothers me even more because we have a 
large number of humvees and other vehicles in Iraq that are not 
sufficiently provided with armor, that when they drive over a bomb that 
is planted in the road, for example, the soldiers in those vehicles are 
protected as best they can possibly be protected.
  One of the reasons this is of concern to me is because the company 
that is the sole provider of this armored vehicle, as well as the kits 
that can be used on the vehicles that are already in the theater and 
are not yet armored, that company is in Ohio. It is located near 
Cincinnati, Ohio. The President's going to be in Cleveland tomorrow for 
his 15th visit to Ohio since being President.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, speaking, of course, about the recovery.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. That has not happened.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. In Ohio.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. In Ohio.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And elsewhere in America.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I am going to be here tomorrow. If I was 
going to be in Ohio tomorrow and could speak to the President, I would 
ask him why he has not requested a sufficient amount of funding to 
provide these armored vehicles and the kits that can provide armory to 
the vehicles that are already over there so that our soldiers will not 
have their arms and legs blown off when they drive over these 
explosives.
  Many of our soldiers are being killed, but many, many more are 
sustaining these terrible injuries as a result of the explosions that 
are occurring in Iraq, and the company officials have been to see me. 
They tell me that they can produce many more of these vehicles in a 
more rapid fashion, but the fact is that the President has not 
requested the money. It is a funding problem.
  After this House has passed $87 billion and the President's going to 
come back later and ask for $50 billion for the effort in Iraq, we have 
got soldiers who have gone without body armor,

[[Page H922]]

and as most Americans are sitting in their homes safe and sound and as 
we stand here in this chamber, we have soldiers that are in harm's way 
simply because this administration has failed to provide them with the 
best protection possible.
  I am not the President, but if I were, I would say to those beneath 
me, those in charge of the Pentagon and military equipment and the 
like, I would say correct this problem as quickly as possible, I do not 
care how much it takes; we are going to make sure our soldiers are 
protected as best we can protect them.
  The sad fact is that we cannot protect them from all danger. The sad 
fact is that there will be continuing loss of life and continuing 
injuries, but at least we should do everything that we can possibly do 
within our power to make sure that our troops are adequately protected.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. What you are speaking to is competence. It is just 
sheer incompetence. What the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) 
and I were discussing earlier in our conversation, it is credibility, 
credibility, and again, when we think of how we are treating our 
soldiers. I do not for a moment believe that any Member of Congress or 
the administration is not prepared and willing to do what is needed to 
be done or what is necessary to be done to protect our soldiers, but it 
comes down to incompetence.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if my friend will yield, I want to 
believe what you are saying is true, but I have reason to believe that 
if the administration was willing to spend the necessary funds that we 
could provide this protection in a more rapid manner.
  We are told that we did not expect the aftermath of the war to go as 
it has gone. We were told our soldiers are going to be welcomed; they 
will be throwing rose petals at us; we will be considered liberators 
and all of that. So obviously there was inadequate planning, and that 
is a sad fact, but this war has been going on for almost, what, a year 
or more?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, in 10 
days time it will be 1 year.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. And the fact is that it should not take a year to 
correct a problem. It should not take months to get body armor to our 
troops. Do my colleagues know what the Pentagon is saying now? They are 
saying it will be at least the end of 2005 before the vehicles in Iraq 
are provided with this armor. That is much too long. How many soldiers 
are going to be injured between now and the end of 2005?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I agree but I would suggest that that is a by-product 
of just sheer incompetence by the civilian leadership, by the civilian 
leadership in the Department of Defense, not the military personnel 
because they are being sent into combat, but what is intentional, and 
again, I dare say goes to the credibility of this President, is the way 
that these men and women are treated when they come back to the United 
States and hear that this President has underfunded veterans' medical 
health care to the point where the commander of the Veterans of Foreign 
Wars in this country described President Bush's budget as a sham, as a 
sham.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, the sad fact is that our proud men and women 
are not being treated with adequate dignity and respect when they come 
back, and some do not come back from Iraq. There are a thousand 
frustrations that we have been hearing across the Districts. Let me 
just give you one. I think it is typical of what happened, a small 
instance.
  I have been working with the family of a soldier who was killed. He 
drowned in the Tigris River while trying to save an Iraqi policeman 
when they were on patrol. He died a hero in the service of his country. 
We tried to get his brother in from the Philippines to go to his 
funeral. You would not think that would be too much to ask when a man 
gave his life for his country and his family lost a husband and a son 
for their family. We could not even get the State Department to let his 
brother in for the funeral of this American soldier. Now, this was 
incompetence of the highest order.
  I want to point out two things from my District as I now meet with 
the families who are now sending their sons and daughters and husbands 
and wives in the biggest movement of American military since World War 
II. That is going on right now, and thousands and thousands of 
Reservists and National Guard personnel are leaving their families and 
their jobs to go to a multi-year mission that we have no definition how 
long it will be unfortunately, and what I hear from them is two things.
  Number 1, they believe that they deserve an administration that will 
shoot straight with them when it comes to their duty in this war, and I 
hear over and over again that they believe they are getting the short 
end of the stick because they are not getting the straight scoop even 
today about what is going on in Iraq. I will give you an example.
  I had lunch with a proud father whose son is a marine who is I think 
in Baghdad tonight, just left a few weeks ago, and he is proud of his 
son, rightfully so. But he told me in no uncertain terms that he has a 
very high level of anger that his son is going into harm's way on a war 
that was based and started on a false premise, a false premise about 
the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he says what 
he is most mad about is even today, when we know that premise was 
false, that the President of the United States continues to stonewall 
an inquiry to find out what happened in this sorry state of affairs.

                              {time}  2330

  That is what makes him angry; that when this Commission goes to look 
for this information, the President says, oh I do not have time, I will 
only give you an hour. He has time to go to rodeos; he has time to go 
to Ohio and time to fly to Florida, and he ought to have the time to 
answer the inquires of that father of that proud Marine who is in 
Baghdad tonight, and tell us why the Americans did not get the straight 
scoop when we went to Iraq?
  This man told me this, and I thought this was an interesting comment 
because I would not think he would be thinking about fiscal issues 
while his son is in Baghdad, but he told me that he is angered that 
even today, when we are hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iraq 
expenditure, that even today, when this administration has run up a 
$500 billion deficit, the largest deficit in American history and that 
is getting larger by the minute, even when we know we are going to be 
in Iraq for goodness knows how long, the President of the United States 
has not been square with the American people as to how much it is going 
to cost.
  We have a $500 billion deficit and we are spending billions of 
dollars today in Iraq. The President sends up to this Chamber a budget 
which is supposed to be an honest, forthright, meaningful prediction of 
the cost associated with running this government and he leaves out one 
thing, any money for fighting the Iraq war. Now, what does the White 
House think; that the American people do not know we are going to be 
spending billions of dollars in Iraq? This administration does not have 
the courage, I guess, to tell us how much it is going to cost or put $1 
in their budget for it.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, everybody knows, we all know, on both 
sides of the aisle, that we will receive a so-called supplemental 
budget. And those that are watching us this evening should understand 
that that is in addition to the budget that we pass. And it is going to 
come in absolutely with hundreds of billions of dollars, not just for 
Iraq and Afghanistan, but for other needs, right after November 2.

                          ____________________