[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 115 (Wednesday, September 22, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7406-H7407]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 A PROMINENT POLITICIAN'S PLAN FOR IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues may recall, I previously 
asked to see a plan for the reconstruction and the future for Iraq, and 
that has happened. And I would like to examine what I will refer to as 
a prominent politician's plan for Iraq. It is a four-point plan.
  The first part is that, ``The President has to get the promise of 
international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go 
it alone.''
  I would like to point out that this is one more insult to the 30 
countries whose troops are fighting and risking their lives next to 
ours, including Hungary, whose speaker was here today.
  The prominent politician then went on to say that the United Nations 
Resolution 1546, which urged other countries to come and wage the peace 
in Iraq, he at least then pointed out ``that 3 months later, not a 
single country has answered that call.''
  My concern is that the best way he can come up with to solve that 
problem is to do what Washington always does. He wants to call a 
meeting, and he wants to invite to that meeting the major powers of the 
world and Iraq's neighbors to figure out how to work the security. Now, 
I for one do not suggest that anyone here hold their breath while we 
wait for France, let alone Syria and Iran, to RSVP to that meeting.
  He then goes on to talk about what we have to do to get more allies 
is to let them ``help develop the oil resources in Iraq.''
  Now, it seems to me odd that someone who has accused the people who 
are fighting with us, next to us, in Iraq are being bought, bribed, 
coerced, extorted, et cetera, that he now believes that, like Saddam 
proved in the Oil For Food scandal, that the way to the U.N.'s heart is 
paved with black gold because to build a new alliance, you insult our 
old allies, our current allies and then offer them the resources of the 
Iraqi people through their oil. It speaks for itself.
  We also hear that somehow this multilateralism is our fault, which I 
find fascinating. But the reality remains that it is not our fault.
  This four-point plan then goes on to talk about rebuilding Iraq's 
security forces and talks about how the President ``must get serious 
about training Iraqi security forces.''
  Well, I have news for the prominent politician. The President is 
serious about rebuilding Iraq's internal security forces and its army. 
Unfortunately, the terrorists are just as serious about killing them 
before they get started. Unfortunately, nowhere does this plan 
reference that reality on the ground in Iraq.
  It is then pointed out, something which I agree with, that the Iraqi 
people must feel a more palpable result of this reconstruction. I have 
agreed with that since last fall when I started saying that, and I have 
continued to say it. The problem is that the plan then goes into a top-
down change in the contracting process, to emphasize ``a few on a list 
of high-visibility, quick-impact projects'' for ``an Iraqi where the 
job is less likely to shoot at our soldiers.''
  My problem with this is this is not an Iraqi empowerment plan, it is 
a PR campaign. For the Record, the militia is not fighting for a public 
works project, and Zarqawi is not an Iraqi. He is a Jordanian. The true 
empowerment in Iraq's reconstruction must come from the grassroots, 
through allowing tribal leaders, through allowing town councils, 
through allowing the national government and religious leaders to make 
the decisions on what projects are important and giving them the 
resources to implement them and build their own stake in their free 
future.
  Finally, there is the intriguing argument that somehow the goal in 
Iraq is

[[Page H7407]]

a peaceful resolution. Now, I am a Republican; I admit that. I am happy 
to. My father was a Truman Democrat, and if my father were alive today, 
I think I would have to ask him: Dad, do you ever remember F.D.R. or 
Truman asking for the Nazis to have unconditional resolution? Is that 
what we fought for? Did Ulysses Simpson Grant? Did that stand for 
unconditional resolution? Is this a new outcome?
  The reality in Iraq is quite simple. There are two roads. There is 
victory and democracy, or there is defeat and Zarqawi. To sit here and 
claim that multilateralism from the United Nations is going to help us 
is bereft of any knowledge of why the U.N. acts as it does. The former 
colonial powers of the United Nations and the current tyrannical 
regimes of the United Nations quite simply believe that an America with 
the ability to preemptively protect its citizens from terrorists is a 
graver threat to them than the terrorists themselves, including Saddam 
Hussein who, I point out, in the Oil For Food scandal made many 
multilateralists quite rich. If you do not understand what is 
undergirding the opposition amongst these people in the United Nations, 
then you do not realize that your plan to have them save us, to have 
them come to our aid with troops and with money and with good 
intentions, is quite simply confusing the United Nations Security 
Council with Santa Claus. It will not happen.
  The reality remains. The U.N. will not ride to the rescue, and there 
is no peaceful resolution acceptable to the American people or the 
Iraqi people short of victory, which is a word we do not hear much from 
some quarters these days.
  In the final analysis, I believe that the absence of the willingness 
to admit that we have to win is becoming quite a problem.

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