[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 51 (Tuesday, April 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2188-H2192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IRAQ AND RECENT REVELATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is recognized 
for half the time remaining before midnight.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be joined here this 
evening by my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) 
and another of my colleagues, the gentleman from the State of Hawaii 
(Mr. Abercrombie) as we talk about what is happening in Iraq, the needs 
of our troops, and what the American people need to know. Much of the 
information is just now becoming clear to us as a result of Mr. 
Woodward's book, which became available to the general public today.

                              {time}  2230

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my comments by making reference to 
a comment the President made in his most recent press conference when 
he made reference to what he would say to the troops. In that statement 
he said, ``We will provide them what they need.'' That sounds like a 
rather direct and simple statement, but the truth is we have not 
provided our troops in Iraq with what they need, not in terms of 
equipment certainly, equipment that has the potential to save lives and 
to avoid serious injuries.
  Mr. Speaker, the war began in March 2003. Soon after that war began, 
I received a letter from a young soldier from my district who is a West 
Point graduate and a gung-ho Army guy, and he started his letter by 
saying, Congressman, I am so proud of the Army. I am so proud of what 
we are trying to do here to help these people. But later in his letter 
he said to me, my men are wondering why they have not been provided 
with these life-saving interceptor vests, which became available, I 
believe, in 1998. They cost $1,200 to $1,500 apiece. They are made with 
Kevlar with pockets in the front and back where ceramic plates can be 
inserted which will stop an AK-47 bullet. They are life-saving 
equipment, and yet we send our soldiers into battle in Iraq, and 
thousands and thousands were without this equipment.
  Now, the war began in March. I received this letter from this young 
soldier in the early summer. I wrote the Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld a letter sharing what I had been told by this young West Point 
soldier, and asked him when our troops would be provided with this 
life-saving equipment. He wrote me back. I got a letter in September 
from the Secretary telling me that he expected that our soldiers would 
be fully equipped with this life-saving equipment in November. Within a 
day of getting the letter from Secretary Rumsfeld, I received a letter 
from the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Myers, and in his 
letter General Myers indicated it would be December, not November as 
Secretary Rumsfeld had said, but it would be December before all of our 
soldiers were equipped with the interceptor vests.
  Then before we left this city for our Christmas vacation, our holiday 
vacation, the Pentagon held a briefing, and in that briefing we were 
told that it would be January before our soldiers were equipped with 
these life-saving vests. I remind my colleagues that the war began in 
March, and we are being told that it will be January before the 
soldiers are provided with life-saving vests. Lo and behold, after I 
came back to this city after the holidays, and I was continuously 
troubled that this problem had not been solved, so I wrote Secretary 
Rumsfeld another letter reminding him that the self-imposed deadline 
had passed.
  Finally, finally, in March of this year, I received a letter 
informing me that finally all of our soldiers had been equipped with 
this life-saving vest, 1 full year after the war began.
  Now we have a similar problem because many of our soldiers are being 
killed and wounded in Iraq because they are driving around in Humvees 
that are not up-armored Humvees. In other words, they do not have the 
proper armor that will protect them if the soldiers are attacked while 
on patrol. Soldiers are driving in Iraq with unarmored Humvees. I am 
concerned about this, and I say to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. 
Abercrombie) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) the only 
company that has a sole contract with the Pentagon to provides these 
up-armored Humvees and the kits to armor those already deployed is an 
Ohio company, O'Gara-Hess.
  O'Gara-Hess officials came to my office, and they told me under their 
current contract with the Department of Defense, they are being asked 
to produce 220 of these up-armored Humvees each month. However, they 
are capable of producing up to 500 a month. The Pentagon says there are 
about 4,000 of these Humvees in Iraq that need to be so armored to 
protect our soldiers, and it will probably be sometime in 2005 before 
it is all done. The question that I would ask: If the President was 
standing where you are standing, I would say to the President, Mr. 
President, this is a life-saving matter. Why are you not directing your 
Pentagon to provide our soldiers with this protection as quickly as 
possible?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the 
answer would be, as has been enunciated in a series called The Spoils 
of War on Marketplace. Members may be familiar with the program 
Marketplace. It is on the radio and follows the National Public Radio 
news, All Things Considered, the afternoon edition of it. There is a 
business broadcast called Marketplace which reviews the market 
decisions, the business activities of the country, and in their series 
entitled The Spoils of War, Members will find that the money which 
otherwise might have been spent, according to the contract that your 
company represents, to provide armor for the Humvees is now going out 
at the rate of tens of millions of dollars a week, perhaps a month, in 
graft and corruption through the Bank of Iraq, with nothing in the way 
of any kind of accountability under the Provisional Authority, Mr. 
Bremer's Provisional Authority.
  This is being done today. They are done with DGs, or director 
generals, of the various Iraqi ministries. They are the equivalent of 
under secretaries. They go into the bank and walk out with cardboard 
boxes full of cash. Corruption is in the hands of clerks who simply 
rubber-stamp the action, and the American companies that are over there 
taking the money are paying bribes, are involved in mass corruption, 
and this is where the money is going. This is what the Provisional 
Authority is involved in. This is what is happening.
  We cannot respond to you and your constituents in Ohio and those 
people in Ohio who are capable of providing armor for our troops 
because we have to make sure that those who say they were on our side, 
those who say they were the sources of Iraqi information and 
intelligence and upon whom we could rely are the very ones who are 
involved up to their eyeballs in corruption and graft in Iraq and 
Baghdad itself to the detriment of our own troops' capacity to be able 
to defend themselves.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas 
(Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, let me just say that I wish 
there could be the kind of sunlight that our distinguished friend, the 
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) has

[[Page H2189]]

said. Sadly, it is impacting your constituents and your company, but 
let me say what it really means to the American people.
  He is asking the real question who is in control? Who is providing 
the firewall to ensure that the young men and women who have committed 
themselves to putting themselves on the front lines, for whatever the 
cause. We know there are young men and women on the front lines. Might 
I say there are also civilians who are there, and some of them are 
hostages. Today one of my companies announced that three of their 
employees were found dead. We know there are hostages still held. We 
want to offer our prayers for those families, and the military families 
as well; but who is in charge?
  Before we went off on break, I went to Walter Reed Hospital and saw 
the results of unreinforced Humvees and saw the results of the misuse 
of dollars in as much as rather than having the resources to ensure 
that land mines or the explosive devices are not utilized against our 
troops because maybe they are shorthanded, we are in the crux of 
confusion with not enough resources to be able to restore Humvees. 
Soldiers that I visited showed me limbs that were lost. When I was in 
Iraq, they showed me that they were reinforcing them with sandbags. One 
soldier said that he did not get hurt as badly as he might have because 
they had used sandbags.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I received a call a few days ago from a soldier 
returning after 14 months in Iraq. He said, ``Congressman, your Ford 
Explorer that you drive around is better armored than the Humvee that I 
drove around Iraq.'' The fact is so many of the wounds and the deaths 
are occurring because of these devices that are planted in the 
roadways, and our soldiers are driving over them, and they are 
exploding, and there is nothing in that vehicle to protect them.
  These up-armored Humvees have steel plating in the bottom and on the 
sides. They can even reinforce the windshield so that the windshield 
itself is impenetrable. It can be done. The President said to our 
soldiers, we will provide you what you need, but the President is not 
providing our soldiers what they need.
  Regardless of what people feel about this war, Republican or 
Democrat, liberal or conservative, the one thing we should be able to 
agree upon is if we are going to send our soldiers into harm's way, we 
provide them with every bit of equipment that they may need to be safe. 
Why we are not doing it, and why we are not doing it as rapidly as 
possible, I do not know.
  MS-NBC had a TV program about this last week. They identified the 
problem, and they indicated steps were being taken to correct it as 
quickly as possible. I can tell Members tonight, steps are not being 
taken to correct this problem as quickly as possible.
  Mr. Speaker, if I were the President, I would get on the phone to 
Secretary Rumsfeld, and I would say, fix this problem as quickly as it 
can be fixed, regardless of what it takes, 7 days a week of work, 3 
shifts a day, whatever it takes. Get our troops the equipment they need 
to be protected, and do it as quickly as possible.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In that context, I can tell Members as someone who 
was part of the first group to go into Iraq right after the initial 
attack on Baghdad, going from the Baghdad airport to Saddam Hussein's 
palace where Mr. Bremer was being installed and displacing General 
Garner, and we were there the day after he had taken control there, we 
said to him at that time, you can have all of the equipment in the 
world, but as I said to him, Mr. Ambassador, driving from the Baghdad 
airport to Baghdad itself and to this palace that we now occupy, you 
are going to have to have 10,000 soldiers who guard that highway. I do 
not care what kind of equipment and armor you have, you do not arm a 
Humvee and then send somebody out to play lottery with their lives. No 
matter what the equipment is, when you only have a strip of tar coming 
across the desert, no lights, no protection, nothing, I said it is 
going to take 10,000 soldiers.
  The plain fact of the matter is when General Shinseki, who had 
responsibility for the well-being of his soldiers, indicated as chief 
of the Army that it would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers, 
hundreds of thousands of Army and Marine personnel and support in order 
to initiate and sustain such an attack and deal with the aftermath, he 
was entirely correct. We need not just more equipment, we need a 
political policy that provides a foundation to bring this to a 
resolution.

                              {time}  2245

  And in order to accomplish that, we have to have sufficient personnel 
unto the date, and the Secretary of Defense and the President 
consistently have denied this to our people in the field and indicated 
to me shamefully all along if they wanted more, all they have to do is 
ask. We know what the message is. The message is they are not here; 
they cannot be there. And why? I will tell the Members. Because many 
members of our committee, Republican and Democrat alike, and when I say 
our committee, the Committee on Armed Services, have tried for several 
years now to increase the number of people in the Army and the Marine 
Corps, that is to say that can be recruited and retained as active-duty 
forces. It is called end strength. What is the end strength? The end of 
the numbers that we have in the Armed Forces. We said, absent a 
significant increase in the number of Army troops and Marines 
available, we inevitably would have to call on Guard and Reserve.
  I beg to differ with the gentleman's remarks and the gentlewoman's 
remarks in one sense only, the phrase ``our young men and women.'' Let 
me tell my colleagues something. Tune into the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer 
every night on PBS, and respectfully and with dignity they close every 
program in silence with the pictures and short biographies of the 
people who have been killed, and chills run down my arm as I reach out 
to say it, and we see over and over again sergeant so and so, 43 years 
old; master sergeant somebody, 50-something years old; 38 years old. 
These are teachers. These are police officers. These are fire fighters. 
These are Guard and Reservists. They are not young men and women. Not 
that being young in itself makes one a candidate for these pictures, 
but that is who we tend to think of. This is a volunteer force, and the 
Guard and Reverses are volunteers, and they are being shamelessly 
exploited in this sense. We now have a draft in this country. We have a 
draft by default because the Guard and Reserve are being pulled into 
active-duty service and their terms of enlistment are being extended 
arbitrarily by the Department of Defense.
  Therefore, I conclude, and thank the gentleman for yielding, by 
saying, yes, we have to provide the equipment; but we have to provide 
the people and the policy behind it that will allow us to resolve this 
issue.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, a point well taken because I have had 
three of my constituents killed in this war. The last one I heard about 
today, a 21-year-old Marine who had served time in Iraq came home for a 
brief period of time and was married, was sent back, and was killed in 
an explosion last Saturday, 21 years old. Earlier than that, a couple 
of months ago, a 20-year-old, but a 37-year-old as well with three 
children, a 15-year-old son and two young daughters. So my friend is 
correct. Young people, middle-aged people are losing their lives.
  And I would just say this before I yield to my friend from Texas. 
This has been the most costly month of this war. We are not through 
this month yet, but we have already lost over 100 precious American 
lives just this month, well more than a year after this war started. 
And I just wonder if the President had told the American people before 
we went to war that it was going to cost $150 billion plus billions and 
billions and billions more in the years to come, if it was going to 
cost more than 700 precious American lives, if it was going to result 
in about 3,500 to 4,000 being seriously wounded, if we were going to be 
there not for a year or 2 years, but perhaps 5 or 10 or more years, if 
there were no weapons of mass destruction, if he had said to the 
American people Iraq was not responsible for the attack upon our 
country and we have no reason to believe there is a connection between 
Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorism network, I just wonder under those 
circumstances what the reaction of the American people would be.

[[Page H2190]]

  But the fact is that Vice President Cheney, we now know as a result 
of Bob Woodward's book, and Mr. Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl and others 
had decided that this is what we needed to do and so they manipulated 
and distorted and exaggerated and shaved the truth, and we find 
ourselves now in a situation where our troops are not being well 
equipped, not being well equipped in spite of what the President says 
in his press conference, not being well equipped, and I believe that 
those who were responsible for persuading this President to take us to 
war under these circumstances were immature in their understanding of 
history, were naive in their understanding of what war is all about, 
and to this very day refuse to acknowledge their mistakes.
  Some may say, why talk about the past? We are there now. We have got 
to deal with this. And that is true. We cannot just leave. We are 
there, and we have got to deal with this terrible situation. But the 
reason we need to talk about how we got into this situation is because 
those who got us there are still in power and they want the ability to 
make the decisions for the future. They want the ability to make 
decisions about what this country is going to do with our military, 
with our foreign policy, years into the future. And that is why we need 
to talk about this issue, because the American people need to learn the 
truth, and they need to know the complete story.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman 
from Ohio's remarks, and of course the gentleman from Hawaii has made a 
very pointed statement. I guess my optimism is that all of them are 
young men and women with futures before them, and I recognize that we 
embrace that population of youth, which ranges from the early teens or 
the late teens all the way up to the ages that the gentleman has cited, 
each and everyone of them have committed themselves to going forward to 
provide the kind of protection for this country and to uphold their 
oath.
  I guess I rise today to follow up on several points that remain. But 
in particular I just want to take a very quiet moment to acknowledge 
that this Nation is not filled with wimps. There is no one that would 
step aside when the Nation's, if the Members will, dignity and 
honor need to be defended. None of us would run away from defending a 
Nation that had been attacked. None of us would go against the efforts 
to fight the war on terrorism. In fact, we have been united in the war 
on terrorism. This Nation has rallied in World War II, in the Korean 
War. We even rallied in the Vietnam War. We asked hard questions. It 
was controversial, but we were united. But we understood that we needed 
to learn a lesson from Vietnam. We were united, even though there were 
political differences, ultimately in the Gulf War, and it was one of 
the largest collaborations that we have seen around the world.

  What I really struggle with here in these days of the Iraq war are 
several points, and the gentleman has made them. But, first of all, I 
have struggled with the direct and pronounced and distinct 
misrepresentations to the American people. We have yet to find weapons 
of mass destruction, nor can we find the connection to 9/11.
  And then my good friend from Hawaii has said it very clearly. We have 
young soldiers there. In the headlines in The Washington Post, 
``Disappointed troops face extended tour with the need to get over 
it.'' Part of their extended tour is the very fact of what the 
distinguished gentleman has said, not enough troops; and so therefore 
we are keeping those who are bruised and battered and torn and worn; 
yet their spirits are responding to our call. But we are keeping people 
over there who have, in fact, done their service. And this particular 
battalion is now going to have to stay an extra 4 months.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, would the gentlewoman agree then that 
that is a draft by default?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, that is a draft by default. He 
made an excellent point. And in the shadow of the draft by default is 
the constant dying of these soldiers for lack of equipment, for lack of 
a plan. For there are many of us on this floor that have agreed with 
the war resolution and disagreed with the war resolution.
  I have been to Iraq. Most of us or many of us have been to Iraq. And 
what we all agree with is that there must be a plan to follow through 
either on an exit or for the maintenance and reconciliation of peace.
  My good, distinguished friend has already said there is corruption 
there, that money is flowing in and out that cannot be accounted for. 
And so the safety of Fallujah is not the only question we have in mind. 
It is the question of what is the plan. What is the plan to understand 
the people in Fallujah and to understand, once the governing council 
makes a deal, whether or not the citizens of Fallujah are going to 
adhere to it? It is to understand that we cannot put different groups 
in a battalion of Iraqis, Shiites, and Sunnis and others, and then ask 
the question when they go into battle why they dispersed and either go 
in alliance with those who are fighting our troops. Because this 
administration does not have a plan. And because they do not have a 
plan, in the city, in the metropolitan area of Houston over this last 
weekend, we lost 11 individuals in that area, 11 loved ones, 11 
personnel in that area, 11 families mourning.
  So this is not a question now of politics as much as it is what is 
the future of this war. What is the recognition by this administration 
that people are dying and that they are not in any way objecting to 
dying for a cause, but the question is can the administration in good 
faith suggest there is a cause, suggest that we have a plan, suggest 
that we have a solution to be victorious.
  And let me just say this: the gentleman had it right, and the 
headline reads in The Washington Post, which is taken from the Woodward 
book, ``Cheney was unwavering in desire to go to war.''
  Let me just say this: my understanding is that we have three branches 
of government, the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature. I 
have never been told that a declaration of war, decision to war, is 
that of one person, be that person the Vice President of the United 
States or maybe even one Member of Congress, who has the right to send 
this Nation into war. So I am at a loss as to the power of the Vice 
President to singularly take the United States into battle. He has no 
solution now. I do not know whether Mr. Wolfowitz has a solution. 
Certainly Mr. Rumsfeld, who indicated a couple of weeks ago he was 
surprised with the response, and this happens to be the Secretary of 
Defense who is over our United States military, he is telling us he is 
surprised, while mothers' children are dying or fathers' children are 
dying. What an outrage.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that bothers me about 
this administration and its apparently overwhelming desire to go to war 
was the fact that according to the Woodward book that in January the 
President and I believe Mr. Rumsfeld met with Prince Bandar, this Saudi 
ambassador, this prince, in the White House and informed him of our 
plans to go to war with Iraq, and according to Mr. Woodward, this 
happened before the President even told our own Secretary of State, 
Colin Powell. Mr. Powell is now disputing that account, I believe. But 
the fact is why would the President discuss his plans to go to war with 
this ambassador from Saudi Arabia before he informs the Congress of the 
United States and talks to the American people about this?
  Fifteen of the 19 pilots that were involved in the attack upon our 
country on September 11, 2001, were Saudi Arabian citizens. There is an 
unusual relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal 
family. It is starting to come out. I do not know if that has anything 
to do with the fact that a few days after the attack upon our country, 
Saudi citizens were allowed to be flown out of this country at a time 
when all of the other private aircraft were grounded and planes went 
all over this country picking up Saudi citizens and some relatives of 
Osama bin Laden and flew them out of this country before they were 
thoroughly questioned and vetted by the FBI. Why would that have 
happened? It is almost beyond belief.

                              {time}  2300

  Now, Mr. Woodward implies in his book that there may be a secret deal

[[Page H2191]]

between this administration and the Saudi Government regarding the cost 
of gasoline; that they have been asked to lower the price of oil before 
the election so that the election prospects of President Bush may be 
enhanced.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is true, but I know that is what Mr. 
Woodward says in his book, and Mr. Woodward is a very credible author, 
widely respected journalist, who had access to Colin Powell and to the 
President, and he makes that accusation in his book.
  Now, the American people are paying outrageously high gasoline prices 
today, outrageously high. Secretary Abraham, the Secretary of Energy, 
was before my committee not many days ago, and we asked him in that 
committee meeting, has the President called the members of the Saudi 
royal family and asked them to do something about these outrageous oil 
prices?
  Well, apparently not. In fact, the Saudi family cooperated with OPEC 
in voting to cut production, which has had the effect of raising 
prices. So during the spring and summer, the American citizens are 
paying these outrageous gasoline prices, and, apparently, if Mr. 
Woodward is correct, maybe in late fall we will find that the Saudis 
suddenly decide to increase production, thereby lowering the cost of 
gasoline and making the President a hero. Now is when the American 
consumer needs help with these high gasoline prices, not in September 
or October.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield a moment on that, I just 
want to ask a question at this point: Would the gentleman agree then 
that the President of the United States is all for free trade, unless 
it happens to be with oil, and in that instance then he seems to have 
no problem at all with a cartel being able to decide how much it is 
going to produce, when it is going to produce it and how much it is 
going to charge for it?
  Would the gentleman agree that when it comes to free trade, that is a 
foreign term to the President, that is a foreign term to the free trade 
people in this country, who want us to be able to send our jobs 
overseas, want free trade and the free circulation of international 
funds for the purpose of that trade, except when it comes to oil and 
the oil cartels?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, there is only one 
other exception, and that is prescription medications. The 
administration does not believe in free trade when it comes to 
prescription medications, because we can trade everything else with 
Mexico and Canada except medications, and the pharmaceutical companies 
do not want that.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I yield to the gentleman the point that 
international robbery from pharmaceutical companies is right up there 
next to, if not parallel exactly, with the oil cartels.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I thank my friend, and I yield to my colleague the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, this is overwhelming in terms of the mounting evidence 
that we have seen presented over the last couple of days and weeks that 
goes to the point that I made, that the decision to go to war was 
somewhere outside of the constitutional parameters that we should 
adhere to.
  Frankly, we were misrepresented to in terms of making a decision on 
this floor, and then we have come to find out that maybe even in the 
executive branch, the appropriate officials were not given at least the 
opportunity to give and take, and that this was in fact the singular 
decision of at least one individual, and then maybe two or three 
others. So we have a real problem.
  If I might, as I close, say this: I am going to apologize to the 
American people. We know that the 9/11 Commission hearings were held 
over the last 10 days, and a number of administration officials came 
forward.
  I guess I come from the old-fashioned home training. My parents and 
grandparents always said that there is some dignity in an apology. It 
does not in any way suggest that you are weak, that you have no 
strength. In fact, it is all about character, that you can acknowledge 
that you have made a misstep or mistake. Then you begin to gather 
around so that you can embrace ways of improving your good condition.
  When I see those men and women of all ages in the military hospitals 
losing limbs, multiple limbs, quadriplegic, blinded in both eyes, heads 
dented in from wounds, I wonder what I can say to their children, 
looking for them to come and play Little League or football, their 
wives, their mothers and fathers.
  So I just want to come to the floor this evening and join my 
colleagues, but I want it to be known that I apologize on behalf of 
this country and am shamed by the fact that officials went before the 
9/11 Commission, and I know that the two are distinct in some sense, 9/
11, of course, referring to the tragedy of 9/11 in New York and in 
Pennsylvania and in Washington. But it was overlapping, that as the 9/
11 was used for us to go into Iraq, and we lost those precious lives 
and we should have been committed to a vast war against terrorism, 
bringing in all the allies that we could muster, so that we would be 
able to stomp out the devastation of terrorism. Yet we got distracted, 
and now we have men and women dying in Iraq, and we are at a loss to 
find out what the cause is.
  We are hearing that there is infiltration of corruption with dollars 
that we have sent over there. We are understanding that no matter if 
you are in a convey of civilians, even the civilians are not safe. 
Family members who have sent civilians over just to get an honest day's 
earnings for an honest day's work are in jeopardy of their lives. Even 
our corporations who are working over there with their personnel are 
jeopardized because they are not getting a fair shake to be able to do 
the work they were supposed to do and as well to have their personnel 
protected.
  So, I would just say to my colleagues, I want to thank the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), first of all, for giving me this time to 
join him and to join the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and 
be able to say that together in this Congress we have got to find a way 
to restore the constitutional parameters and to restore the authority 
of the United States Congress to ask the hard questions; to support the 
United States military, as we have done collectively, to provide the 
resources; to ask the President why, and to expect, I might say, an 
apology, which does not in any way diminish the Commander-in-Chief's 
role of leading the troops; but to be able to say that with all that 
has come out, I know we have made some missteps, and I apologize to 
those who have lost their lives, their family members, bereaved members 
who now have to be left alone.

  There is one final point I want to make, and maybe the gentleman did 
not hear it, but I want to get the transcript so I am not misstating, 
because I thought I heard in the press conference some words about ``I 
am disappointed in some of the performances of the troops.'' I am still 
trying to research that, the President's press conference. I was 
shocked that I might have heard those words. I cannot imagine how can 
you can be disappointed in some of those performances when they do not 
have all of the equipment they needed to have.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to end on one note and make it very clear, I 
am apologizing, and I am not ashamed of doing so. I believe that this 
Congress needs to stand up and take responsibility for how we are going 
to gain dignity by responding, if you will, to the needs of the United 
States military in the crisis that they are in in Iraq and provide them 
the necessary equipment and plan for them to be able to exit in dignity 
and to have the success of the rebuild of Iraq with an expanded 
coalition, what we should be engaged in at this time.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the 
gentlewoman from Texas made a very, very strong point of the necessity, 
I believe I am quoting her correctly, that we have to find a way. We 
have to find a way to get this message out. We have to find a way to 
get our message, we have to find a way to engage the American people in 
a discussion and a dialogue. That is what we are trying to do here.
  To the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), if you would indulge me 
for a moment in yielding, I think it might be apropos that we do take 
upon

[[Page H2192]]

ourselves the admonition of the gentlewoman from Texas. We have to find 
a way.
  This is our way. Not everyone may understand what it is. They may be 
going up and down the television and see what is going on. This is 
called Special Orders. Special Orders means the regular business of the 
House, that is to say the scheduled business of the House, is completed 
for the day. This is our opportunity as Representatives, this is the 
opportunity of the 435 of us, who have had the faith and trust of our 
constituents placed in us, to come to the floor and engage in a 
dialogue not just with ourselves, but with the American people. Because 
part of the difficulty has been is the American people are watching 
this on television, or reading it in the newspaper, participating, if 
you will, at a distance, as to what is taking place, unless and until, 
of course, it hits you full force because a loved one has been hurt or 
harmed or killed, or someone that you know has had that experience. So 
it happens sporadically, and, from the point of view of the cosmos, 
indifferently around the country at various times.
  So we are here on the floor, and I might say to those tuning in, we 
are here on the floor of the House of Representatives, surrounded by 
the galleries. In fact, our good friend the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Costello), the distinguished gentleman from Illinois has a group 
of his constituents in this gallery right now observing our 
proceedings.

                              {time}  2310

  He is explaining to them as we are speaking now what it is we are 
doing on the floor here. It does not matter that the Chamber is not 
filled right now.
  We spent our time this afternoon naming post offices. I was happy to 
do it. A good friend of mine had one of the post offices named after 
him. I was pleased to cast my vote for it. A wonderful opportunity to 
show our expression of what we would say in Hawaii is ``aloha'' for our 
good friend and others. We were happy to do that.
  But our business here in these Special Orders is to engage the 
American people as best we can with that which we have before us. And 
as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello) now is talking with his 
constituents here in the gallery, this is the freedom granted to us by 
the Constitution that we need to take advantage of, that we were 
obligated to take advantage of.
  So the regret to me is, as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello) 
no doubt has pointed out, right behind me here is the press gallery. 
Empty. Night after night empty. Now, maybe they can say, well, they are 
watching on television, if they care to.
  But who wants to pay attention to Special Orders? Well, I will tell 
my colleagues what happens in Special Orders. Not just this kind of 
discussion, but my good friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Smith), night after night engaged in a conversation on the Social 
Security trust fund, what it takes to make the Social Security trust 
fund.
  In fact, he just walked in right now. That is synchronicity. I did 
not know he was coming. Did my colleague happen to hear what I had to 
say? I do not know whether the cameras are on us or not. But the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) has just come in.
  I cite him as an example, as a prime example of someone who has 
faithfully come to the floor to explain his position on the Social 
Security trust fund, the implications of it for our country. That is 
the kind of thing that needs to be done. That is what this is about.
  This Iraq Watch that we have faithfully committed ourselves to since 
the beginning of our concern that this war was going off on the wrong 
track, that this was taking place, that is why we are here. That is why 
I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I appreciate the fact that our 
good friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello), and his 
constituents have observed us this evening, have seen democracy in 
action.
  I am here to tell you as far as this gentleman is concerned, that I 
am going to take advantage of this opportunity that we have here on the 
floor and continue to exchange in the kind of dialogue that I hope will 
illuminate the issues of our day so that we can get a resolution on 
behalf of these brave men and women who are serving our country.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), for joining us and thank my friend, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), in closing so the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Smith) can have his time to talk about his concerns.
  I go back to something that I mentioned earlier in this time together 
and that is the fact that this very night we have young soldiers and 
middle-age soldiers in Iraq driving around in Humvees that are not 
armored. It puts them at greater risk. This problem can be solved much 
more quickly than the Pentagon is willing to solve it.
  I talked to a radio personality back in my district today and she 
said, ``Congressman, what can the people listening do about this?'' I 
said, ``Call the White House. The message ought to be this: Mr. 
President, provide our soldiers with armored Humvees as quickly as 
possible because life and limb are at stake.''

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