[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 51 (Tuesday, April 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H2170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PRESIDENT BUSH'S MISTAKES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if and when the President has another 
prime time press conference, and if the President is asked again to 
consider the mistakes that he has made, I have a suggestion: he might 
mention the thousands of soldiers in Iraq who have and are now risking 
their lives without appropriate body armor and other life-saving 
equipment.
  We are finding out now that the President and his advisers and 
Cabinet were thinking about this war in Iraq for a very long time. And 
yet here is an AP story from March 26 of this year. It says soldiers 
headed for Iraq are still buying their own body armor. In many cases 
their families are buying it for them despite assurances from the 
military that the gear will be in hand before they are in harm's way.
  Last October, last October, that is 8 months after the war started, 
it was reported that nearly one quarter of American troops serving in 
Iraq did not have ceramic-plated body armor which can stop bullets 
fired from assault rifles and shrapnel.

                              {time}  2000

  The military says the shortfall is over and soldiers who do not yet 
have the armor soon will.
  ``Nancy Durst,'' I am still quoting from the AP story, ``recently 
learned that her husband, a soldier with an Army Reserve unit from 
Maine serving in Iraq, spent 4 months without body armor. She said she 
would have bought armor for her husband had vests not been cycled into 
his unit. Even if her husband now has body armor, Durst says she is 
angry he was without it at any time.'' Her husband also told her that 
reservists have not been given the same equipment as Active Duty 
soldiers. ``They are so sick and tired of being treated as second-class 
soldiers,'' she said.
  That is from the AP story. No wonder she is mad about it. This armor 
costs about $1,500. And I hope the President will support legislation 
that will reimburse the soldiers and families for this expense. Clearly 
this was a mistake. And so if asked about a mistake, the President 
could not only say that it was a mistake, but maybe he would like to 
support H.R. 3615. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) has a 
bill that would reimburse the families for the expense of buying their 
own body armor.
  According to the Enlisted Association of the National Guard, as of 
November 30, 2003, the Army National Guard lacked $11 billion of the 
$40 billion in military equipment and training it needed to go to war. 
Among the missing crucial equipment components were nearly 11,000 
Humvees, 20,000 radios, 156,000 night vision goggles and 148 Black Hawk 
helicopters that are required to meet modernization requirements.
  That seems to me to be a mistake. Our troops were not properly 
equipped. Currently we are told that every member of the National Guard 
is being provided with body armor once they are in Iraq, but many of 
the soldiers are not even given an opportunity to train with the modern 
equipment before deployment.
  On November 2, 2003, an Illinois National Guard Chinook helicopter 
was downed. This helicopter was not equipped with the latest automatic 
antimissile blocking system. I met the aunt of one of the soldiers who 
went down in that Chinook, who died because of that accident. I think 
she would like to tell the President that was a mistake, the cost of 
life of her nephew.
  We know that soldiers coming home on R and R were being asked to pay 
to get to their homes once they came to the United States. Now, that 
was a mistake. The President could say that that was fixed, but is he 
going to support legislation introduced by the gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Ramstad) to reimburse the families for their travel?
  How about the fact that soldiers, wounded soldiers in the hospital, 
were being charged every day for their food? Well, we have corrected 
that, thank goodness, but that is something that the President might 
think about as a mistake that was clearly made and affected our troops.
  Now for the latest report that I heard of from my State of Illinois. 
This was on CBS local news today, I believe. The 333rd Military Police 
Unit in Freeport, which just had their tour in Iraq extended, may not 
be adequately supplied for battle. That is because everything they 
owned was shipped back home. The 333rd is presently sitting on the 
Kuwaiti border awaiting orders, but they have since surrendered their 
equipment such as radios and armored vehicles to the troops who 
replaced them. But now since the 333rd is going to remain in Iraq, they 
are without any supplies. Even their personal belongings were sent 
home, including spare uniforms, boots and toiletries. The soldiers only 
have what they are wearing and are being forced to purchase new 
uniforms and some equipment out of their own pockets. Military families 
have been receiving their soldiers' footlockers the past few days and 
are now frantically repacking boxes and sending all of this gear back 
at their own expense. This has angered families who did not believe the 
military thought this redeployment through.
  Let me just say that the DOD has responded to these families, saying 
that they are looking into whether they will be reimbursed for sending 
equipment back.
  A few mistakes. I will forward this to the President. Maybe he would 
like to use it at his next press conference.

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