[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
        SMART SECURITY AND $82 BILLION IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL, PART 2

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to our Nation's spending 
priorities, President Bush and his administration do not know which way 
is up. Already the President has given Congress a 2006 budget that is 
all but certain to explode in the year 2009; a ticking time bomb set to 
detonate after President Bush leaves office. In a move that should 
surprise no one, this budget conspicuously omits funding for any and 
all military operations and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, leaving the 
funding to a supplemental spending bill that does not count against the 
President's deficit estimates.
  These funds are not insignificant. To date Congress has funded a $154 
billion military operations and reconstruction budget in Iraq, and the 
Democratic staff on the House Committee on the Budget has estimated 
that the war in Iraq could cost the United States as much as $650 
billion by the year 2015. Adjusted for inflation, this amount rivals 
the combined costs of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the first 
Gulf War; the combined costs.
  Let me be clear that my opposition to the President's reckless fiscal 
policies is not a condemnation of the service men and women who so 
bravely serve our country. I want everyone to know that I oppose the 
war, not the warriors. Hundred of thousands of selfless troops were 
uprooted from their families and their everyday lives to answer the 
call of duty for their country, and we owe them our absolute gratitude. 
Sadly, so far, 1,500 of these brave men and women will not return home 
alive. Another 11,000 will return home forever wounded as a result of 
injuries sustained in battle. These are the casualties of this ill-
conceived war.
  A lot of people talk about supporting our troops, but the call to 
support our troops is yet another reason to oppose President Bush's 
latest supplemental spending request. If the Bush administration really 
cared about our troops, they would take all measures to get them out of 
harm's way and bring them home as soon as possible. But the latest 
supplemental assumes that 150,000 American soldiers will stay in Iraq 
as sitting ducks for years to come. And this bill does not bring them 
home. It is wholly irresponsible for the Bush administration to fund an 
unending military operation without devising an exit strategy and 
without even considering the possibility that the military option is 
not working.
  The supplemental spending bill that President Bush sent to Congress 
also fails to include any type of reporting mechanism, which means that 
these funds can be spent by military commanders without any accounting 
of how or where that money was spent. This is a woefully irresponsible 
way to spend American taxpayers' money.
  This, on top of $9 billion in reconstruction funds that cannot be 
accounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American 
governing body that was in charge of overseeing Iraq until 2004. This, 
on top of $3 billion in reconstruction funds that had to be 
reprogrammed for military operations because the Bush administration 
failed to account for an angry Iraqi insurgency.
  What did the President think would happen when he invaded a country 
that never posed a threat to the United States and never wanted us 
there in the first place?
  Instead of continuing down our current path, I believe we must pursue 
a national security strategy that I call SMART security, which is a 
sensible, multilateral American response to terrorism for the 21st 
century. I have also introduced legislation, H. Con. Res. 35, that 
would help us pursue a smarter strategy for rebuilding Iraq. Twenty-
seven of my House colleagues have joined me in offering this important 
legislation.
  Instead of financing billions of more dollars to continue a failed 
military occupation, under my plan, the United States would help secure 
Iraq by rebuilding schools so that children can learn, constructing new 
water processing plants so that this desert country does not face water 
shortages, and building new roads so that citizens can travel from one 
city to another.
  Our assistance should not end there. If we want to be truly smart 
about how we rebuild Iraq, we also need to bring NGOs and humanitarian 
agencies into the country to help create a robust civil society and 
ensure that Iraq's economic infrastructure becomes fully viable.
  It is time for us to support the Iraqi people by giving them the 
resources they need, and it is time to support our own troops by 
bringing them home.

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