[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E183-E184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 EXPRESSING THE NEED FOR ACCOUNTABILITY IN IRAQ AND COMMEMORATING SGT 
                             SHERWOOD BAKER

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. PAUL E. KANJORSKI

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 8, 2005

  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with you and my 
esteemed colleagues in the House of Representatives an op-ed piece 
written by the brother of one of my constituents who was killed in 
Iraq. SGT Sherwood Baker of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, served as a member 
of the Second Battalion, 103rd Armor of the Pennsylvania Army National 
Guard.
  Sergeant Baker was only 30 years old when he died in a warehouse 
explosion in Baghdad on April 26, 2004, where he was searching for 
weapons of mass destruction. Sergeant Baker made the ultimate sacrifice 
while serving his country, searching for weapons our government now 
concedes cannot be found and most likely did not exist.
  Dante Zappala writes with the pain of one who has lost a loved one; 
more than 1,400 other families are grieving for the loss of their loved 
ones who died in the service of our country. Dante's heartfelt plea for 
accountability should resonate among all Americans, especially those of 
us in Congress who authorized President Bush to lead our Nation into 
war.
  The Bush Administration convinced me that Iraq posed an ``imminent 
threat'' to the national security of the United States. I now believe 
that it was never a threat. Until I have a full understanding of what 
caused us to be so wrong, I doubt that this Administration can convince 
me again that they are right in their decisions based on their analysis 
of intelligence.
  Dante is right: We are all accountable. Now that the contentious 
election of 2004 is behind us and President Bush has been inaugurated 
to a second term, I hope that we can acknowledge the mistakes we made 
that led us to war, learn from those mistakes, and avoid making them in 
the future. Our Nation's security depends on it.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress must play a stronger role in holding this 
Administration accountable for the innocent lives that have been 
sacrificed.
  I submit the following for entry into the Congressional Record:

                          Why My Brother Died

                           (By Dante Zappala)

       This week, the White House announced, with little fanfare, 
     that the two-year search for weapons of mass destruction in 
     Iraq had finally ended, and it acknowledged that no such 
     weapons existed there at the time of the U.S. invasion in 
     2003.
       For many, this may be a story of only passing interest. But 
     for me and my family, it resonates with profound depth.
       My brother was Sgt. Sherwood Baker. He was a member of the 
     Pennsylvania National Guard deployed a year ago with his unit 
     out of Wilkes-Barre. He said goodbye to his wife and his 9-
     year-old son, boarded a bus and went to Ft. Dix, N.J., to be 
     hastily retrained. His seven years of Guard training as a 
     forward observer was practically worthless because he would 
     not face combat. All he needed to do was learn how to not 
     die.
       He received a crash course in convoy security, including 
     practice in running over cardboard cutouts of children. We 
     bought him a GPS unit and walkie-talkies because he wasn't 
     supplied with them. In Iraq, Sherwood was assigned to the 
     Iraq Survey Group and joined the search for weapons of mass 
     destruction.
       David Kay, who led the group until January 2004, had 
     already stated that they did not exist. Former United Nations 
     weapons inspector Hans Blix had expressed serious doubts 
     about their presence during prewar inspections. In fact, a 
     cadre of former U.N. inspectors and U.S. generals had been 
     saying for years that Iraq posed no threat to our country. On 
     April 26, 2004, the Iraq Survey Group, at the behest of the 
     stubborn administration sitting safely in office buildings in 
     Washington, was still on its fruitless but dangerous search. 
     My brother stood atop his Humvee, securing the perimeter in 
     front of a suspect building in Baghdad. But as soldiers 
     entered the building, it exploded; the official cause is 
     still not known. Sherwood was struck by debris in the back of 
     his head and neck, and he was killed.
       Since that day, my family and I have lived with the grief 
     of losing a loved one. We have struggled to explain his death 
     to his son. We have gazed at the shards of life scattered at 
     our feet, in wonder of its fragility, in perpetual catharsis 
     with God.
       I have moved from frustration to disappointment to anger. 
     And now I have arrived at a place not of understanding but of 
     hope--blind hope that this will change.
       The Iraq Survey Group's final report, which was filed in 
     October but revealed only on Wednesday, confirmed what we 
     knew all along. And as my mother cried in the kitchen, the 
     nation barely blinked.
       I am left now with a single word seared into my 
     consciousness: accountability. The chance to hold our 
     administration's feet to that flame has passed. But what of 
     our citizenry? We are the ones who truly failed. We shut down 
     our ability to think critically, to listen, to converse and 
     to act. We are to blame.
       Even with every prewar assumption having been proved false, 
     today more than 130,000 U.S. soldiers are trying to stay 
     alive in a foreign desert with no clear mission at hand.
       At home, the sidelines are overcrowded with patriots. These 
     Americans cower from the fight they instigated in Iraq. In a 
     time of war and record budget deficits, many are loath to 
     even pay their taxes. In the end, however, it is not their 
     family members who are at risk, and they do not sit up at 
     night pleading with fate to spare them.

[[Page E184]]

       Change is vital. We must remind ourselves that the war with 
     Iraq was not a mistake but rather a flagrant abuse of power 
     by our leaders--and a case of shameful negligence by the rest 
     of us for letting it happen. The consequence is more than a 
     quagmire. The consequence is the death of our national 
     treasure--our soldiers.
       We are all accountable. We all share the responsibility of 
     what has been destroyed in our name. Let us begin to right 
     the wrongs we have done to our country by accepting that 
     responsibility.

                          ____________________