[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 17, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1216-H1219]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REFLECTIONS ON TRIP TO IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rogers of Alabama). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Pence) is recognized for the remainder of the majority leader's hour, 
approximately 28 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to engage in a colloquy for 
the remainder of this Special Order joined, as I was in travel, by my 
colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), also of the sixth 
district, him of Arizona, me of Indiana. The gentleman from Arizona and 
I had the privilege of

[[Page H1217]]

traveling in the last 2 weeks to cities in Iraq under the leadership of 
the distinguished subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Burton), of the Committee on International Relations. On this 
trip, as we will reflect tonight, we not only, as this photograph 
suggests, had the opportunity to spend time with soldiers in the 
instance of this photograph in the belly of a C-130 on our way into 
Baghdad. But more compellingly, it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, today, as 
we went through a vigorous and, in many ways, historic debate in this 
Congress, about the merits of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we found 
ourselves arguing one between another about the existence of certain 
types of weapons and the credibility of arguments. It seems that there 
was a group of people that was left out of that discussion today, and 
it was the people of Iraq and how they have benefited or how they have 
been moved or how they have been inspired by the heroism of American 
and allied forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
  It is in that spirit, Mr. Speaker, that the gentleman from Arizona 
(Mr. Flake) and I come together tonight on the House floor to reflect 
on our experiences, principally during the first congressional 
delegation trip into the city of Basra, Iraq.
  Basra, which is an area of southeastern Iraq under British control, 
had, prior to 2 weeks ago, never entertained American Congressmen. So 
when we arrived in Basra that day, we were literally, the four of us, 
we were the first Members of Congress that these Iraqis, regular, rank-
and-file Iraqis, men and women from every station in life had a crack 
at, had a chance to speak to. We had truly a unique opportunity meeting 
with religious leaders, political leaders, but, more to the point as we 
will emphasize in our reflections today, regular Iraqis who shared, as 
I will reflect and detail and then yield to my colleague, the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Flake), they shared a story that we are not hearing 
in America today. And I would offer humbly, Mr. Speaker, we did not 
hear very much about it on this floor today; and it was an outpouring 
of gratitude and appreciation for American soldiers and allied soldiers 
who had freed them from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, and just as 
intense was their enthusiasm and their passion in almost a grade-school 
level enthusiasm that I saw for democracy that is beginning to take 
hold.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from 
Arizona, for such remarks on the trip as he would make.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and 
I appreciate my colleague including me in this Special Order. It was a 
wonderful trip and a great experience and what a momentous time to be 
in Iraq, to be there as they were drafting their interim Constitution.
  I have had the good fortune over the years of being in two countries 
when they have been drafting a constitution. I spent time in southern 
Africa in the country of Namibia in 1990 when they were sitting down 
after their first elections and drafting their first Constitution; and 
I was able to see that process firsthand, to see a country draft its 
first constitution and actually look to the future with hope and 
optimism. It was a similar experience here, if the gentleman will 
recall. In Baghdad we were meeting with Ambassador Bremer, and on the 
coffee table was a copy of the interim constitution that they would 
approve later that night, with a scratch-out here, a circle here, a 
white-out here; and it was just amazing to see that. It was 
appreciated, I think, on a number of levels.
  As the gentleman mentioned, we were able to go to Basra, and one 
thing that strikes you when you go to Basra is the utter neglect that 
the southern half of Iraq has faced over the years. Saddam Hussein, 
after the first Gulf War, simply repressed the people in every way 
possible. The infrastructure of southern Iraq was completely neglected. 
The streets, the buildings falling apart, because he wanted to punish 
the people there. And the worst part, obviously, were the killings, 
mass graves, over 400,000 people already discovered; and it is feared 
that over a million were killed over the last couple of years by Saddam 
Hussein. That was striking.
  But like the gentleman from Indiana, I felt the optimism of the Iraqi 
people, particularly in the south, who had undergone a lot over the 
last couple of years and finally could see forward to a bright future. 
And that feeling was certainly palpable there as we met with business 
people and with students and with clerics and others. It was a great 
opportunity. It is difficult when you are in the north to actually meet 
with regular Iraqis, because the security situation is so tight; but we 
had the opportunity in southern Iraq.

  With that, I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. In 
fact, as my friend from Arizona said today in his remarks during the 
debate over the resolution, the opulence of Saddam Hussein's palaces is 
rendered even more immoral when one sees the squalor in which he forced 
the largely Shi'ia population of southern Iraq to live in huge 
communities like Basra, and where we see sandstone homes, a sewage 
system that has 20 percent of the capacity that it needed. So as one 
Iraqi told me, for years a good rain in the streets become the sewers. 
Yet, as we traveled to Baghdad, we saw, having visited not just a 
couple of Saddam Hussein's palaces, but the sheer opulence, the 
decadent self-indulgence was, in my judgment, sinful. But it showed the 
immorality.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, we were told 
that Saddam Hussein had built some 70 palaces just in the last 10 years 
during the time of the sanctions for food program, or the oil for food 
program, where every drop of oil revenue was supposed to be spent for 
the benefit of the Iraqi people, for food or for medicine. Instead, 
Saddam Hussein spent an estimated $2 billion building palaces for 
himself and the people of Iraq surely suffered during that time.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, our first meeting, as is captured in this 
photograph with the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and myself and 
our delegation, on the right was with a series of Iraqi religious and 
political leaders. We see a Muslim imam here, the Catholic bishop of 
Basra was in attendance and warmly received by those present. But my 
memory of this meeting had more to do with the very silent Muslim 
cleric who sat at the end of the table, the gentleman wearing ancient 
garb and a long beard who, after we had gone through the series of 
questions about everything from border jurisdiction to the process of 
reconstruction, it fell to us to be able to ask questions. And up to 
this point, we had heard mostly from these religious leaders who were 
quite chatty through an interpreter, and this gentleman had been icily 
silent.
  At that point I remember asking, What do you think of our decision to 
remove Saddam Hussein? And before any of these three could answer, the 
gentleman in the white headdress suddenly leaned forward and began to 
speak urgently in Arabic and pointing his finger in my direction with 
his eyes on fire. And as I waited for the translation, the interpreter 
explained that he had said, Saddam Hussein is a nightmare, and the day 
you ended his regime, you lifted a dark curtain from our people and the 
daylight was able to shine in. It was for me an extraordinary moment 
where this icy and quiet figure who was clearly suspicious of American 
officials traveling thousands of miles to sit down in a delegation 
meeting, suddenly had his moment to speak a truth from his heart, and 
it was a truth about a nightmare that the United States of America had 
brought to an end.
  I yield for the gentleman's reflections.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, that was an extraordinary meeting, to see, as 
we were able to do, to talk with the clerics who were repressed so much 
over the past couple of years. The gentleman had a previous slide there 
when we were in the C-130 with the troops, and it reminded me of 
perhaps the most special time in Iraq was being able to meet with the 
troops at Tallil Air Base. We were able to go to the mess hall, and I 
was looking for any Arizonans who might be present. It turned out there 
were a number of them. In fact, I ran into a cousin of mine from my 
hometown that I did not know was there, and another one from my 
hometown, and pretty soon there were a dozen or so. The 222nd National 
Guard unit out of Flagstaff was there and

[[Page H1218]]

doing a great job. They had been there about 11 months and obviously 
were anxious to get home and see their families.
  But what struck me was how they felt that they were there for a 
cause, and that morale was high, despite what some will tell us. It was 
a very difficult post for them to be in, obviously, very difficult and 
dangerous circumstances. But they were proud to do it, and they were 
proud to serve and anxious to see their families and be reunited once 
again. There were a lot of highlights on the trip and that was 
certainly one, to meet with the troops. And then we went to Baghdad and 
were able to meet with other troops from Arizona as well. Arizona is 
well represented in Iraq, and they are doing a great job; and I was 
just proud to be associated with them. I yield back.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I have tried to explain that. I admire the 
way my friend describes the morale of the troops, because I really 
believe it is also a good description of the enthusiasm of the Iraqis, 
some 60 or 70 with whom we spent a considerable amount of time that day 
in Basra, that regardless of the arguments that we have here on this 
floor and across this country and, frankly, through the course of a 
Presidential election year, all of which are appropriate, about 
evidence and information and intelligence, it struck me that that was 
completely irrelevant to the cause as it was understood by our soldiers 
that we met in Iraq and the Iraqis that we met; that this was a cause 
really between good and evil, between a tyrant who oppressed and 
murdered over a million of his own countrymen, 400,000 bodies of men 
and women, boys and girls who have been found in mass graves so far, 
over 800,000 Iraqis remain missing, people dragged from their homes in 
the dead of night without due process of law, never to be heard from 
again, versus the forces of the Western World coming together for the 
rule of law and for ending that tyranny. I am very grateful for my 
colleague's reference to a cause, because it emanated out of everything 
that I sensed about the people with whom we spoke.

                              {time}  2215

  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Pence) for yielding.
  Another highlight of the trip, obviously, was meeting, and I believe 
there is a slide coming up, meeting with some of the former prisoners 
of war. It was just striking to talk to them and to hear about the 
repression that they had experienced and to hear about the work they 
are currently doing to try to reunite family members with others that 
they have not seen or at least to find the remains of family members 
who have been missing for so long. A difficult task for them, 
obviously. But these people have been through a whole lot.
  For those who I heard make references earlier today to we went to 
Iraq, for what, because Saddam had drained the marshes or drained the 
swamps in Iraq, the reference to Saddam Hussein draining the area where 
the Marsh Arabs lived and what an ecological and societal disaster that 
has become, as actual as that is, it pales in comparison to the human 
lives that were lost: over a million killed, some gassed, weapons of 
mass destruction used against the Kurds, mass graves found, people 
buried alive. The stories go on and on and on. It was just trying to 
hear that.
  My colleague has some experience with that.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I must tell him 
that that time that we spent, and this is another photograph of our 
time with Iraqis during this trip, but the time that we spent with 
former political prisoners, one man who had been jailed a dozen times 
in the course of 25 years, to hear not just that individuals were 
dragged from their homes in the dead of night if they were thought to 
be suspected of disloyalty of the regime, not just that those 
individuals were tortured by the regime of Saddam Hussein, but to hear 
from these men that it was routine and ordinary practice to torture 
prisoners' wives in front of them, their mothers, and their children in 
order to extract information; and that oftentimes the torture would 
result in the death of a loved one and then the summary execution of 
the prisoner; and that this happened in numbers that boggle the mind.
  And I must tell my colleague that I returned with a burden on my 
heart to carry this message back on behalf of these good people in Iraq 
for whom I developed a tremendous amount of affection and respect, that 
they lived in a hellish environment, subject to the most unspeakable 
cruelty by the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.
  We cannot lightly pass over that and we cannot lightly ignore that 
and we cannot trivialize that, regardless of whether or not the human 
rights record of this regime was a central focus in the public debate 
prior to the war. It is nonetheless a fact that cries out from over 270 
mass graves that have been found so far and the remains of some 400,000 
Iraqis. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We often 
hear about the carnage and bloodshed since the war unofficially ended. 
The day after we left, there were over 200 killed in a series of 
bombings in mosques. Just today some 30 people were killed. So those 
things draw the most attention, as they should, and it is a terrible 
thing to happen. And our troops, we have lost a number of them. We 
continue to lose them. It is a very dangerous situation there.
  But often overlooked are the positive and good things that are 
happening. I think that that is one thing that we brought back from our 
trip. One thing that was pointed out to us is the day, our first day 
there, the day prior they had set a record for oil output for a day 
since the war that the oil production is coming back. This is with 
equipment, obviously, that was neglected and abused during the past 
decade and is rendered almost unusable; and still, with our engineers 
and others, they have been able to go in and actually produce record 
oil output for a day.

  Also, electricity we were told that we were actually producing more 
electricity in Iraq than was being produced not during the war but 
before the war. So things are happening.
  It is much to the credit of our engineers and our individuals who are 
going over from this country doing contract work and USAID and other 
groups who are actually doing some very good things for the Iraqi 
people.
  Education, I know that my colleague will want to talk about some of 
the education work going on, our democracy programs and whatnot. So I 
will yield for that.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I 
think it is a wonderful place for us as we approach the end of our 
conversation tonight to end it that I am overwhelmed by the sense of 
gratitude expressed by the Iraqis with whom we interacted in Basra. I 
mean, the touching of the heart, I came to find out virtually every 
Iraqi that we met ended their conversation with me, and I know with the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), by touching their hearts. And I 
would later find that this is a form of deep respect in the Muslim and 
Islamic tradition. It is the touching of the heart that means the 
ultimate expression of gratitude.
  When we met with political prisoners and we thanked them for their 
candor and we thanked them for being willing to meet with us, they 
touched their hearts and bowed to us. And in this instance here where 
we visited one of hundreds of democracy workshops that are taking place 
all over Iraq, and here you see Ana who is a young Islamic Iraqi woman, 
wearing an abaya, and she is presenting me one of my most treasured 
possessions since becoming a Congressman. It is a stack of handwritten 
poems in English about what freedom means to her. And she illustrated 
the poems with almost child-like caricatures of freedom of religion and 
freedom of expression and the right to vote with a small ballot box.
  The enthusiasm of all the people in this room that spoke broken 
English was very endearing to me and profoundly inspiring. Not only had 
we managed in Operation Iraqi Freedom to bring to an end a darkness, as 
one Iraqi said to me that day in Basra, a darkness that had descended 
on their people, but also the daylight of democracy, the daylight of 
freedom and liberty streaming into Iraq. And it is being greeted with 
enthusiasm.
  The devastating bombing that took place today claiming lives in 
Baghdad, the car bombs that were detonated the

[[Page H1219]]

day after we left Baghdad Airport, it was the bloodiest day since the 
end of major combat hostilities, all draw the mind to the violence.
  They draw, it seems to me, the American public's focus to a very 
small number of Iraqis who seek to use violence to reclaim the 
dictatorial power they once enjoyed when this is a country of 10 
million people, a sample of which we met, who were overflowing with 
gratitude to the people of the United States and our allies in this 
cause.
  As this picture attests, and I hope it is on screen and, Mr. Speaker, 
I hope it can be seen, that you can see that enthusiasm on their faces, 
that enthusiasm for democracy that I encountered in Iraqi after Iraqi. 
And it is an enthusiasm I believe will be a foundation for a free Iraq 
for decades to come.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to 
participate. I will say a few words and yield back to my colleague to 
close.
  The thing that struck me after all the experiences we had in Iraq, 
our last picture there in Baghdad we climbed on the C-130 to fly back 
to Kuwait and we waited outside of our plane while the ceremony was 
held where the body of an Estonian soldier who was killed the day 
before who, I believe, was trying to detonate an explosive on the 
street and was killed by a sniper as he was there, was placed on our 
plane. And we flew out with the body of that young soldier in the belly 
of our plane.
  And it was quite a surreal experience to fly over Iraq, to fly over 
ancient Babylon, the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the 
cradle of civilization with the casualty of the latest conflict in our 
plane.
  But it really made me think and ponder back about our time with the 
Iraqi people and about the experiences that we had where the yearning 
for freedom is strong; it is in the soul of every man and woman. And as 
our President has said, freedom is not a gift to the world; it is God's 
gift to mankind. It is something that is felt by everyone and certainly 
expressed in the gratitude that was expressed by people touching their 
heart when they would talk to us, that our country was able in some 
small way to bring that gift back to them to have them experience that 
God-given gift of freedom. It was a wonderful experience.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I thank the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) for allowing me to participate in 
this colloquy.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Flake) for yielding and for his participation. And I think those words 
especially eloquent. Because it was the gratitude and the enthusiasm 
for their freedom that I found most moving among the Iraqis that we 
met.
  I close with a picture, Mr. Speaker, that I think the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Flake) actually took. We were visiting the second of two 
palaces of Saddam Hussein now being rehabilitated into a hospital for 
Iraqis in Baghdad. And as we were making our way, we came across 
regular Iraqis who were moving materials. And as you see here, and I 
hope it is evidenced in the picture, the enthusiasm with which we as 
Americans were greeted was overwhelming. People stopping, smiling, 
reaching out.
  I did not even expect that the thumbs up symbol would be 
international, but it was. And you see the warmth and you see the 
generous spirit that is present among the Iraqi people. I say without 
hesitation, as I said to many people upon my return, I fell in love 
with the Iraqi people. They are bright, visionary, optimistic, 
educated, and a people that are of such strong opinions that I thought 
they were from the Midwest in most of our conversations.
  But in the midst of all of it, I came away with an image that I had a 
burden, Mr. Speaker, to come back and as we consider this important 
resolution today, even to help finish the debate today with my 
colleague from Arizona (Mr. Flake), to try and focus this debate on the 
real beneficiaries of Operation Iraqi Freedom, because certainly 
Operation Iraqi Freedom brought down a tyrant who represented, as the 
President concluded, a threat to the United States of America and our 
allies and that clear and present danger justified our decision to go 
to war. But the true beneficiaries are these Iraqis and the generations 
of Iraqis who will follow them, who will be born in a free country, 
that will live under not the rule of one, but the rule of law. And they 
will live under a constitution that is, as Ambassador Bremer said to 
us, not so much a revolutionary document, as for this part of the world 
and its torn history, a radical document, with freedom of religion, 
freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and equality of the genders.
  This is an astonishing accomplishment. And I am here to report very 
simply, Mr. Speaker, that the Iraqi people that we met with, some four 
or five dozen in the course of our days in Basra and Baghdad two short 
weeks ago know that. They understand that. They are deeply and 
profoundly grateful to the people of the United States, to the families 
of our men and women in uniform for the sacrifices that have been made 
on their behalf.
  And they are deeply hopeful and deeply enthusiastic and deeply 
ambitious to see democracy and a constitutional republic take hold in 
this beleaguered land.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Flake).

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