[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 108 (Monday, September 13, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7052-H7057]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ WATCH
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kline). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Flooding in Ohio
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I was sitting here listening to my
colleagues from Florida talking about the disaster that Florida has
experienced, and I thought about my own experience in Ohio over the
last 2 or 3 days. Ohio is a long way from Florida, but Ohio has been
affected, seriously affected by the results of the hurricane, the
flooding that has occurred in a number of Ohio counties, which has
absolutely been devastating.
In Columbiana County, where I was earlier today, one small township,
it is estimated that they have public damages of between $400,000 and
$500,000. Many roads have been completely washed out. The day before
yesterday, I was in another county in my district, Belmont County, a
little town called Ness, and in that community there were homes that
were completely destroyed and demolished, homes where people will never
be able to return to live because they were so terribly damaged. And
the damage was caused, in large part, by rain that occurred as a result
of the hurricanes that had come in and through Florida.
So it is true that we are very sympathetic with the good people of
Florida who have suffered so deeply. We are happy that help and hope is
on the way for them. But just this day, I faxed a letter to the White
House asking the President to act expeditiously on a request for a
Federal declaration which has been sent to him by Ohio's Governor, Bob
Taft, asking that these communities in Ohio which have been so
terribly, terribly affected be also declared a Federal disaster area,
so that appropriate Federal resources can be made available to them.
We need FEMA to come in, to provide temporary housing. I spoke just
the day before yesterday with a lady nearly 80 years old who lived by
herself, whose total monthly income was $655 a month. She also was
receiving, I think, $70 per month in food stamps. But her home had been
literally destroyed. Her medicine costs were very high, and she was
asking what kind of help would be available. And I told her that as
soon as the offices opened this morning, Monday morning, that I would
be on the phone to the office of FEMA here in D.C. When I contacted
them this morning and asked about the request that Governor Taft had
submitted for one of the counties, for Columbiana County in Ohio, we
were told that the request was under consideration.
But the fact is that we can wait no longer. There are people who are
living in cars. There are children who are being kept in fold-out
campers. People are without water. We are concerned about the spread of
disease. The bottom line is people are suffering terribly in Ohio. I
call upon the administration, the President, to recognize what people
are going through there.
The geographic area is much smaller than that which was affected in
Florida, obviously; but I would contend that there is no one in Florida
that has suffered any more than some of the people that I represent.
Because when you have lost all that you have, all of your material
possessions, when you have no clothing, no personal items, no
furniture, when your home has been destroyed and you are with nothing,
you are in desperate circumstances; and those are the circumstances
that exist across part of Ohio tonight. I am hopeful that by tomorrow I
will get a positive response from the President and the White House,
and my hope is the help from the Federal level will be flowing into
Ohio just as it is flowing into Florida.
I would also like to note, Mr. Speaker, that even the Red Cross has
diverted so much of their personnel and their equipment and their
resources to Florida that I am afraid that many of my constituents will
fall between the cracks, so to speak, and that their terrible plight
will not be expeditiously and properly recognized by our Federal
Government.
Iraq
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight, and I will be joined
later by some of my colleagues, to talk about Iraq and what is
happening in Iraq. This is an effort that we began literally several
months ago, myself and some of my colleagues, coming here to the floor
to talk about the policies that we are pursuing in Iraq and trying to
point out some of the concerns that we have.
I would just begin our Iraq Watch tonight by sharing an editorial
from the Columbus Dispatch, which is the capital city newspaper in
Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch has been publishing since 1871. They ran an
editorial this past Saturday in observance of the anniversary of
September 11. I see my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Delahunt), has joined me. Before I yield to him, I would just like to
share some thoughts from the Columbus Dispatch because I think they are
very relevant to our discussions here regarding Iraq.
The editorial is entitled, ``Remember Everything.'' It begins this
way: ``Three years ago, 3,000 people were murdered in coordinated
terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Yet, the man who orchestrated those atrocities remains free. For what
he did, Osama bin Laden should be dead or in U.S. custody. No evidence
suggests that he is dead, and he is not in custody. Because he remains
free, extraordinary security precautions surround today's Ohio State
football game.'' And, as I said, this is an editorial that appeared
last Saturday when Ohio State was playing Marshall University.
So the editorial says: ``These security precautions will surround
today's Ohio State football game, considered a terrorist target because
100,000 spectators will be gathered in the heart of a State that is key
to the Presidential election.''
The editorial continues: ``Because bin Laden is at liberty, election
and law enforcement officials nationwide are busy planning extra
security at polling places on November 2. Because bin Laden has not
been captured, the Nation's Capital and national monuments, including
the Statue of Liberty, have been militarized and fortified. The Bush
administration can claim that bin Laden and his cohorts are on
[[Page H7053]]
the run, but bin Laden and his cohorts plausibly can claim the
opposite. All bin Laden has to do is point to the armed men and
surveillance helicopters around Ohio Stadium.''
{time} 2200
How did the destruction of bin Laden slip so far down the Nation's
to-do list, the Columbus Dispatch asks? Why are the bulk of U.S.
military and intelligence assets tied up in Iraq, which pose only a
hypothetical threat, while pursuit of the man who slaughtered thousands
of Americans on their own soil is on the back burner? Where is the
anger, asks the Columbus Dispatch? Where is the anger?
The September 11 victims were not killed by a natural disaster, such
as a hurricane, which cannot be brought to justice and against which
rage is futile. They were killed by a man. A man can be made to pay a
price. Why has he not paid?
The Columbus Dispatch continues in their editorial. This is the
question that President Bush should be answering today and tomorrow and
every day until November 2. And the Columbus Dispatch asks, where is
Senator John Kerry, who loudly proclaims his determination to strike
back at any attack on the United States? The attack has occurred. Where
is his pledge to make apprehension of bin Laden dead or alive job
number one?
The Dispatch continues. Would bin Laden's death eliminate terrorism?
Well, of course not. Quick victory over this kind of nihilism and
barbarism is impossible, but every day that bin Laden remains free is a
defeat for justice and for civilization. His continued existence, his
ability to poison a seemingly impotent world, incites and encourages
his followers and imitators.
Now, this is what we have heard from the heartland of America, from
Columbus, Ohio, from the Columbus Dispatch newspaper, and I would just
point out that the President told us, Mr. Speaker, at one time soon
after the September 11 attacks, when bin Laden had been identified as
the person responsible for attacking our country, the President told us
he can run but he cannot hide. But the fact is that he ran, and thus
far he has hidden successfully, and somewhere on God's Earth tonight
bin Laden is planning the next attack upon our country.
Tonight, now, I ask my colleagues in this Chamber, why did we divert
our attention from Afghanistan and from Osama bin Laden and focus on
Iraq? At the Republican National Convention in New York, they talked a
lot about September 11. The President gave a 63-minute speech and never
once did he mention Osama bin Laden. Never once did the President
mention the man who is responsible for attacking our country and who
today, tonight, is free planning the next attack. I think the American
people deserve an answer to that.
Why, after all of the resources that we have spent, some $200
billion, the over 1,000 lives that have been lost, the nearly 7,000
soldiers that have been wounded, why do we not know where bin Laden is
and why have we not captured him and why have we diverted our attention
from the effort to find this man? He is the enemy of America. He is the
one who attacked us, and yet, somehow, his name is not uttered by our
President anymore, and there seems to be no real attention directed
toward bringing him to justice.
Now, the fact is we heard a lot about Saddam Hussein.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield.
Mr. STRICKLAND. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can, because the reality is that long before
September 11, this White House, this President, this Vice President,
whose picture was on the November 2003 edition of Newsweek, had an
obsession with Iraq, and I would submit that the best evidence of that
obsession is revealed in a book by a noted journalist by the name of
Ron Suskind, who sat down with the former Secretary of Treasury, Paul
O'Neill, and did, if you will, an overview of Secretary O'Neill's
experience in the Bush-Cheney White House.
As Secretary O'Neill indicated, he was taken aback by the first
National Security Council meeting, and he attended those in his
capacity as the Secretary of Treasury, that was held one week after the
President was inaugurated, and it quickly turned to the issue of Iraq.
There were no threats emanating from Iraq. There were no statements
emanating from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein relative to an
attack on the United States or any of our allies. In fact, if you
remember, the Secretary of State himself, Colin Powell, later on some
time in February described the Iraqi military in terms that turned out
to be absolutely accurate, they were forthright, they had been
significantly degraded, but one week after the President was sworn in
the dominating subject of the first National Security Council meeting
was Iraq.
Then subsequently, on February 27, Secretary of the Treasury Paul
O'Neill relates at another National Security Council meeting that the
Vice President, this gentleman here, Dick Cheney, had a map spread
across a conference table where there were discussions about
the divvying up of oil fields and concessions among private
corporations and Nations, presumably our allies. That was February 27
of 2001. So right from the beginning it was this obsession about Iraq.
Now I do not know and I am not going to suggest what the motivations
were, but it was about Iraq from the beginning. I have posed this
question to individuals in the administration. No one has ever denied
the accuracy of those anecdotes that were related by the former
Secretary of Treasury, a person whose integrity is beyond reproach, who
stated it clearly and unequivocally. So we had this proclivity, this
propensity, this obsession with Iraq.
Then, of course, 9/11 came, and the terrorism czar at that time,
Richard Clarke, made the statement that after listening to the
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Under Secretary Wolfowitz he was
aghast because he interpreted their immediate response as an
opportunity to intervene militarily in Iraq, as opposed to really deal
with those who not only had visited probably the most horrific act in
our lifetime upon the United States, and clearly, what we have seen is
a diversion of attention from those who were the proximate cause of a
national tragedy that occurred on September 11 of 2001. We diverted all
of our attention, most of our resources to Iraq, rather than dealing
with the genuine, accurate war on terror.
Mr. STRICKLAND. It is almost incomprehensible that the person who was
responsible for attacking our country, who has claimed responsibility,
who has boasted in claiming that responsibility is a person who is free
tonight. He ran and he hid, and the President does not even utter his
name. It is as though we have forgotten that the real enemy, the real
architect of the attack upon our country was Osama bin Laden. He has
been referred to as Osama bin Forgotten, and it is quite sad to me that
we have not been able to bring to justice the leading terrorist in this
world.
As we contemplate a possible terror attack on this country, there has
been discussions that it may happen before the election, that it may
happen around the inauguration of the next President. We are not afraid
that that attack is going to be directed and masterminded by Saddam
Hussein. He is in jail. We are concerned about al Qaeda. We are
concerned about the terror network that was established by Osama bin
Laden. We are concerned about Osama bin Laden and his effect.
Just this week we heard from our military leaders in Afghanistan that
they believe Osama bin Laden is actively calling the shots, even today,
and yet, as I repeat, during the Republican Convention in New York,
with all of the discussion of September 11, it was as if the person
responsible for September 11 was unknown. The President did not utter
his name during a 63-minute speech.
This is the man that we should be going after. He is the one
responsible for killing nearly 3,000 of our citizens. He is the one
that is heading up the al Qaeda terror network. He is free tonight
somewhere on this Earth. We do not know for sure, but I want to tell my
colleague I think we would have had this man in custody if we had not
diverted attention and resources and our intelligence apparatus away
from the hunting of Osama bin Laden to Iraq.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, when we can focus on Osama
[[Page H7054]]
bin Laden and al Qaeda, but as the President has done, to suggest that
the world is safer because of our intervention in Iraq is absolutely,
to quote a very prominent Republican conservative pundit, absurd. It is
just simply absurd.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Every day, sadly, tragically, we are losing soldiers
in Iraq. It is almost as if it is no longer news when we lose one or
two or three or seven at a time. It is almost as if we have become numb
to that reality. We are up to well over 1,000 now. Senator McCain has
indicated that he thinks we could be in Iraq for 10 to 20 years.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, and that is a very dangerous scenario, not just
the observation by Senator McCain but the fact that as time moves on,
it becomes part of the regular order. Yeah, we lost seven Marines just
recently in Fallujah. It is on the front page. Over an extended period
of time it will end up on page 2 and then page 5 and page 7, and
because not many of us are sharing in the sacrifice tragically we
become immune to the real costs of this debacle in Iraq.
It is simply not just costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, but
it is costing us thousands of American lives and the impact on American
families. I know that my colleague and I, as we visit our districts,
meet constituents that have lost loved ones in Iraq, and that on a
personal level is most painful, but the danger is that we as a people
collectively put it in another place in our minds, in our experience.
{time} 2215
You know, our policy in Iraq can only be described as a failure. We
failed. We went to Iraq based on false claims. We failed to find
weapons of mass destruction. We clearly demonstrated that there was no
evidence of any operational relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein. That was confirmed by the 9/11 independent commission. The
administration failed to create broad international support for the
effort.
The truth is we are there alone now. Yes, the British are there, even
though a majority of the British people are opposed to the policy and
opposed to the war. But other than the British, yes, there are token
forces there, but we are carrying the brunt.
Mr. STRICKLAND. If I can speak to that issue.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Of course.
Mr. STRICKLAND. The President frequently says we have this coalition;
and it is true that there are a number of countries, for one reason or
another, some of them maybe with very noble reasons, who support us in
our policy there. But the fact is that we have somewhere around
135,000, 135,000 American troops there. The next country with the
largest number of troops is Great Britain; and they have, I believe,
less than 6,500. Most of the other countries have a few hundred troops.
It is the American troops that is the target. We are losing the
lives. We are paying the bill. About $200 billion thus far.
Mr. DELAHUNT. By the way, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue
to yield, I find it very interesting that the President and Dick
Cheney, who according to this headline in Newsweek sold the war to the
President and within the administration, keep referring to the vote on
the $87 billion as somehow demonstrating a lack of support by Senator
Kerry for our troops.
Does the gentleman remember during the course of that debate that the
President of the United States threatened to veto the $87 billion?
Mr. STRICKLAND. If we paid for it.
Mr. DELAHUNT. No, if we insisted that at some time in the future the
Iraqi government paid back to the United States taxpayer a portion, a
portion of that $87 billion. The White House insisted on a gift, a
giveaway, if you will, of American tax dollars, never to be repaid to
the American people.
Mr. STRICKLAND. If I could reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, during that
debate on the $87 billion, the vast majority of the people in this
country, according to public opinion polls, felt that we should provide
assistance in the form of a grant, a grant that would be paid back to
our citizens once Iraq was stabilized. And the gentleman is right, the
President said that if we did that that he would veto the bill.
Mr. DELAHUNT. The President did not want to make a loan; he wanted to
make a gift.
Mr. STRICKLAND. That is right.
Mr. DELAHUNT. And the rest of the world, in terms of their dollars
representing their taxpayers, insisted on a loan. It is only the United
States of America that provided a gift, not a loan, but a gift, to the
interim Iraqi government to begin the process of reconstruction.
Now, again, I think we all share the view that there is a
responsibility on the part of the United States to assist. But why a
gift? Why a giveaway? And the President said that if we made it a loan,
he would veto it. So, clearly, the Republican majority here managed to
secure enough votes, both here and in the Senate, to make a gift rather
than insist on collateral.
Remember the Under Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, when he
promised the American people that the cost of the reconstruction of
Iraq would be paid for with Iraqi resources based on their huge oil
reserves? Does the gentleman remember that?
Mr. STRICKLAND. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Yet, when the time came, that was a promise that this
Vice President and this President reneged on.
It is the American people that are building roads in Iraq, it is the
American people that are building affordable housing in Iraq, it is the
American people that are building hospitals in Iraq, it is the American
people that are building brand-new ports in Iraq, it is the American
people that are providing practically universal health care coverage in
Iraq, it is the American people that are funding jobs in Iraq; and they
are never going to get paid back.
How about doing that for the American people, President Bush and Vice
President Cheney?
Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, as someone said, it does not make sense for us
to be opening firehouses in Iraq while we are closing firehouses and
laying off firefighters in this country.
But the fact is this $87 billion vote is being used in the most
political way, and there have been accusations that somehow when
Senator Kerry opposed that, that he was opposing body armor for our
troops. I would just like to point out something that I have shared
with my friends here in this Chamber before. The war started in March
of 2003. We did not have that vote on the $87 billion until months
after the war started. Our troops were initially sent into battle
without body armor. And that was a decision made by Secretary Rumsfeld
and ultimately the responsibility of the President as the Commander in
Chief. We sent our troops into battle without body armor.
Now, that is a fact that cannot be disputed. And it took the Pentagon
one full year, from March of 2003 to March of 2004, to provide me with
a letter stating that finally, after a full year, our troops had been
equipped with body armor.
I questioned how many of our troops were unnecessarily injured or
wounded or how many lost their lives simply because this administration
sent them into combat without body armor. That was not a money problem;
it was a planning problem. And the letters that I received from
Secretary Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Myers, verified that it was a supply problem. They did not order that
equipment in a timely manner. Months passed leading up to this war when
those orders could have been placed. That body armor could have been
available at the time the war started, but it took 12 full months for
this administration to make sure that our troops were fully protected
with body armor.
And even tonight, now, Mr. Speaker, we have troops in Iraq driving
around in Humvees that are not armored in a way that will provide them
at least some protection from these roadside bombs that are maiming and
killing so many of our soldiers on a daily basis.
Mr. DELAHUNT. It is interesting, and I think it is important that we
remind ourselves and others that, yes, we are members of the minority
party. We are Democrats. But this is, in many respects, and it is our
concerns I am referring to, they are bipartisan in nature.
I read something just recently where, again going back to the cost of
the war, that $87 billion that the President keeps referring to that he
insisted on
[[Page H7055]]
being a giveaway as opposed to a loan, Bob Barr, who served in this
House and who was probably one of the most conservative Members in this
institution, in this branch during his service here, observed that in
the midst of the war on terror and a $500 billion deficit, Bush
proposes sending space ships to Mars.
This really underscores also the folly of what we are doing in terms
of driving up our own deficits that will burden generations of
Americans and that are structural in nature, which means that something
catastrophic is waiting for us unless we address them. And, clearly, we
have not seen any response from this White House about addressing them.
But in addition to that, a recent September 10, 2004, article by Doug
Bandow, who is a senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and served as a
special assistant to President Reagan and was a visiting Fellow at the
Heritage Foundation, had this to say: ``Bush's foreign policy record is
as bad as his domestic scorecard. The administration correctly targeted
the Taliban in Afghanistan, but quickly neglected that nation, which is
in danger of falling into chaos. The Taliban is resurgent, violence has
flared, drug production has burgeoned, and elections have been
postponed.
``Iraq, already in chaos, is no conservative triumph. The endeavor in
social engineering on a grand scale, a war of choice launched on
erroneous grounds, has turned into a disastrously expensive neocolonial
burden. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, contrary to
administration claims, and no operational relationship with al Qaeda,
contrary to administration insinuations. U.S. officials bungled the
operation, misjudging everything from the financial cost to the troop
requirement. Sadly, the Iraq debacle has undercut the fight against
terrorism.''
Let me repeat that: ``Sadly, the Iraq debacle has undercut the fight
against terrorism.''
Just recently, by the way, the Institute for Strategic Studies, again
a conservative think tank, in a recent study warned that the Iraq
operation has spurred recruiting by smaller terrorist groups around the
world.
Now, we talked earlier about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Well, the
reality is that it is like the parable in the New Testament about the
fishes and the loaves: they are everywhere. The incidence of terrorism
in this world has increased dramatically. We saw what happened recently
and again tragically in Russia.
Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will allow me to reclaim my time, it
seems, and I think this is verified by the September 11 Commission,
that al Qaeda has gone from being an identifiable group to becoming a
philosophy and an idea and a movement. And the fact is our policies
have spread terror around the world. We now have Taliban/al Qaeda
operatives in Iraq. There is no evidence that they were there before we
invaded that country.
There are now huge cities in Iraq referred to as ``no-go zones,''
where our troops cannot enter those cities. They are under the control
of al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Huge geographic areas of Iraq that
we liberated, supposedly, are now under the control of terrorists,
terrorists that prior to our invasion of Iraq were not in that country.
We have created a breeding ground for those who hate us.
{time} 2230
We may be there 10 years, 20 years, no one knows. How many more
deaths are going to result from these failed policies? We have already
had over a thousand. Ohio lost two soldiers last week, a 19-year-old
man and a 36-year-old man. How many more?
Now we stand here and talk about this. Some may wonder why go over
history, why talk about past failings and past circumstances.
Mr. DELAHUNT. To learn from them.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Because the same people who have brought us to where
we are tonight, who have created this debacle that we face in Iraq, the
same people who have made the decisions which have led to this terrible
tragedy and loss of life and horrible injuries, these same people want
to remain in charge of the decisionmaking apparatus of this government.
I think it is fair to ask: What will they do next? They have acted in
the most naive manner. The Vice President and others indicated that we
would be welcomed into Iraq.
Just yesterday we had helicopters that fired on a group of Iraqis
that were celebrating around a dysfunctional piece of U.S. military
equipment. Many of those people laughing and dancing around were
children. They were children. You could see their pictures, they could
not have been more than 10 or 12 years of age. What are we doing in
Iraq, we are creating hatred toward our government. That hatred is
spreading around the world. That does not make us safer.
I believe the President has an obligation to stand up and admit
mistakes, but there is a difference between an irrational pursuit of an
ideology that is failing. What we need are mature leaders that will act
upon a rational basis to secure friends around this world and help us
extricate ourselves from these terrible circumstances.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, we have been joined by the gentleman from
Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and welcome back to Iraq watch. We noted the
gentleman's absence last week. And I see the gentleman from Washington
(Mr. Inslee) has also joined us, but I want to get back to what I think
is important, and that is the bipartisan nature of the criticism of
this administration. It would be misleading to those watching us
tonight to think this is a partisan diatribe. It is not that. It is a
genuine concern about the direction of this country.
And it is echoed by others. Let me give three quotes. Crossfire host
Tucker Carlson said recently, and I think many Americans have observed
him on PBS and Crossfire. He said, ``I think it is a total nightmare
and disaster. I am ashamed that I went against my own instincts in
supporting it.''
William Buckley, an icon within the conservative movement said,
``With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein was not the kind
of extraterritorial menace that was assumed by the administration 1
year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation
we would be in, I would have opposed the war.''
I think it is important, too, to quote what I thought was a very
courageous statement by a friend of ours, a former colleague who is
highly regarded on both sides of the aisle. He was the vice chairman of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was a leading
member of the House Committee on International Relations, and we know
him well, is Doug Bereuter.
He sent a letter to his constituents announcing his retirement from
Congress. He began by saying, it was a mistake to launch the invasion
of Iraq. He said, ``As a result, our country's reputation around the
world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened. Now we are
immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick
way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future
problems in the region and in general in the Islamic world.''
I respect that. More and more we know that our colleagues on both
sides of the aisle are expressing their concern.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, one observes today the discussions
taking place in the press by members of the Armed Services with respect
to whether or not political considerations are involved in whether we
can attack or not attack, whether we retreat or do not retreat, whether
we engage in collaborative activity with insurgents with regard to the
possible upcoming elections, or whether we regard them as criminals to
be taken and prosecuted, perhaps even shot and killed.
Those issues do not know a Democratic or a Republican origin. Those
young soldiers, and some not so young soldiers from the Guard and
Reserve, are not making distinctions between Republican oratory and
Democratic accusations with respect to this election. This issue has to
be decided on November 2. The people of this Nation have to come to a
conclusion electorally as to whether or not they want the present
direction to go on or whether they want to move in a new direction.
I contend and I tell Members this as a member of the Committee on
Armed Services, a committee on which we do our level best to subsumed
and submerge our partisan differences, yes,
[[Page H7056]]
they come forward, I am not going to pretend otherwise or be so naive
to think that can always happen, but the plain fact of the matter is
when it comes to our votes, we try to figure out what is in the best
interests of this Nation and what is in the best interests of the Armed
Services. The question arises publicly now as to whether or not our
armed forces have to pay first allegiance to political considerations.
Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, Democrats and Republicans
voted for the resolution that constantly comes up with respect to
whether one supports the war or does not support the war. That is no
longer an issue. The issue is the direction it has taken since the war
commenced, and that is where I feel we have to make a break. This is
what has to be decided November 2. We have to make a fundamental
decision as to whether we are going to let the chaos and the
destruction taking place today continue, the brunt of that chaos and
destruction having to be borne by members of the Armed Services.
Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman said was summed up just
recently by a senior American diplomat in Baghdad. Obviously he
insisted on anonymity but this is what he said about actually what is
happening in Baghdad and Iraq today. ``This idea of a functioning
democracy here is crazy. We thought there would be a reprieve after
sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose.'' This is without doubt a
debacle. This is the chaos the gentleman referred to. And the sad part
of it is despite opposition to the invasion of Iraq, if there had been
a coordinated plan, if there had been a relationship between the
Department of State and Pentagon rather than just simply the domination
of those within the Department of Defense and excluding those that had
experience similarly elsewhere in the world, maybe we would not have
this problem. But we had Wolfowitz, we had Doug Feith, we had Secretary
Rumsfeld who, according to Richard Clarke and others, pushed out the
Department of State, would not allow them in at the table to discuss
the post major combat phase.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to yield to the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Inslee) but before I do, I would like to say the
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) absolutely spoke the truth when
he said this Nation will make a decision on November 2 regarding
whether or not they want to tolerate the continuation of our current
policy or whether or not they think we should change course.
The President says we either have to stay the course or cut and run.
Well, I think there is a third possibility and that is to change
course. The fact is if there are mothers and dads listening to us
tonight who may feel disconnected from this war, who may feel they have
no part of it, they do not know anyone who is participating in it, they
do not know anyone who has lost a life or been seriously injured, but
if they have a child, they should listen because if this administration
continues its current foreign policy, I believe it will be mandatory
that we impose a military draft. We cannot maintain our personnel
numbers with this current foreign policy without imposing a draft. We
can no longer continue forever to keep our reservists and our national
guardsmen on active status. We cannot withdraw soldiers from all over
this world simply because of what is happening in Iraq. So every
American should be engaged in the same kind of discussion we are having
tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk tonight about three
types of amnesia that I am afraid are infecting the executive branch's
policy, and those three symptoms of amnesia are makings us less safe.
This weekend I went to the VFW Post in Redmond, Washington, where a
group was holding a car wash to raise money to send incidentals, CDs
and telephones and suntan lotion and the like, to our service personnel
in Iraq. The thing that was interesting is the people who were there,
including the wives and sisters and fathers of the people who are
serving in Iraq, and one woman who lost her son in Iraq who came out to
the car wash to help her fallen son's former colleagues in Iraq, and
what was amazing to me, while these people are pulling together, there
is this kind of amnesia developing to forget the loss and casualties we
are suffering in Iraq. It is slipping from page 1 to page 3 to page 12
to outside of our consciousness. Frankly, I think the President could
do a better job of reminding us of the loss we are suffering in Iraq
rather than trying to belittle it or say it is a minimal thing.
I have heard people argue that a thousand people lost in America is
not that many. I just challenge for them to say that if they had been
to the car wash and talked to the mother that I did. One person who did
not have to die in combat is too many.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, the first death was too many, and every
death that has followed has been too many because for that individual
and that individual's loved ones, it will absolutely be the most
devastating experience they will ever endure.
{time} 2245
I do not think we should develop that type of amnesia.
The second amnesia that I think is very dangerous to us is to some
degree the executive branch is developing amnesia about who actually
attacked us, which was al Qaeda. You have talked about this earlier, I
believe. But we cannot have the Commander in Chief leading us in this
war to preserve our security and not identify who the enemy was that
actually attacked us and go a year now without identifying the name of
the person who is Osama bin Laden that the President refuses to even
say. That lack of leadership has infected to some degree our efforts to
track down and cut off al Qaeda.
Let me give you an example in the real world how that is. I found out
a week ago that we have more employees in the Department of Treasury
tracking down American tourists who go to Cuba than we do Treasury
officials trying to cut off the money going to Osama bin Laden. What
kind of prioritization is that? Why have we developed amnesia about how
deadly al Qaeda is?
Another piece of amnesia. We have loose nukes all over the former
Soviet Union, all this fissionable material that we know al Qaeda wants
to get. But we cannot get the cooperation of the executive branch to
put money into the system we have for vacuuming up those loose nukes
and keeping them out of the hands of al Qaeda.
Why has this amnesia happened? It is pretty clear. The executive
branch took their eye off the ball of Osama bin Laden and put it on
Iraq. And this amnesia is a more dangerous situation rather than a less
dangerous one.
Let me just suggest why I think the President has been successful to
some degree in conflating Iraq with what happened on September 11. That
is, that we have all sort of, I think, gone down a little primrose path
calling this the war on terror. I am not sure that is the right
nomenclature for us to use for this reason. It is really important to
realize who your enemy is. Our enemy is a person and a group, not a
tactic. Terror is a tactic. It is not a country, it is not a group, it
is not an individual. It is a tactic. Calling this a war on terror
frankly is a little bit like calling our response to Pearl Harbor a war
on torpedo planes. Torpedo planes were a tactic. They were not the
enemy. We need to call this what it is, a war on al Qaeda and a war on
some fundamentalist Islamic movements that are way out of the
mainstream of Islamic belief in this world and have perverted that
faith and taken advantage of it for their nihilistic ends, and that is
an enemy we need to keep in our sights.
Mr. DELAHUNT. See, this Vice President has to link the war on terror
and the war in Iraq. Even though there is no linkage. That has been
confirmed not by partisans here on the floor but by the independent
September 11 Commission. Because, if you cannot link the war on terror
to the invasion of Iraq, then why did we go into Iraq? For political
purposes, you have to create, you have to morph what occurs and what is
occurring in Iraq into the overall war on terror, because this is the
premise that was used by Dick Cheney when he sold the war.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is the issue that I raised with respect to
November 2. Let us face it. No matter who you are in this country, a
vote is going to take place on November 2. That man
[[Page H7057]]
has to answer and his boss, the President of the United States, has to
answer for why in Afghanistan today there is no governmental entity at
all other than that which exists under the direct protection of what
amounts to a praetorian guard of the United States in Kabul. The rest
of the country is under the sway of warlords and the Taliban is
resurging, the Taliban is resurging and more opium is being grown, more
dope is being sold, more financing for the Taliban is taking place than
ever before.
Mr. DELAHUNT. But he is probably one of the most skillful political
minds in the country and just recently he made the statement, if you
vote for the other candidate you will die. That is basically what he
said. A vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorists. Nobody accepts that.
But that is the need to make the link, because he was wrong, he cannot
admit he was wrong. Do you remember David Kay, who they sent out to
learn and to find out where the weapons of mass destruction were, came
in front of a Senate committee and said, we were all wrong. This
individual, this Vice President, must have blanched because it did not
suit his world view, his political agenda.
Mr. INSLEE. There was a very startling occurrence that happened
yesterday in this regard. Secretary of State Powell said there was no
link to 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. Yet the Vice President continues in
this effort.
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friends for joining
me for another hour of Iraq Watch. I look forward to continuing this
next week.
____________________