[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 3, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2783-H2784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   REFLECTING ON THE 2-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE PRESIDENT'S ``MISSION 
                         ACCOMPLISHED'' SPEECH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, last Sunday, May 1, marked the 2-year 
anniversary of President Bush's speech abroad the USS Lincoln, the 
``mission accomplished'' speech.
  So what have we accomplished in the last 2 years? Saddam Hussein's 
regime has fallen. Yet today we find ourselves mired in an endless 
occupation.
  This past January witnessed a successful election, yet progress on 
developing a functioning government has been slow at best. The terror 
and the insurgency remain as strong as ever and seems to be growing at 
certain points. Explosions killed more than 100 people last week alone.
  The economy is stalled, the civil society is unable to come together, 
and millions of Iraqis remain without regular electrical services and 
basic services from their government. The brave men and women of the 
United States Armed Forces continue to fight a very vigorous fight, but 
the battle has taken its toll. We have lost 1,600 fellow citizens in 
the last 2 years, 2\1/2\ years, and more than 12,000 have been wounded.
  The strain has been so great that recruiters cannot meet their 
enlistment goals. Through the first 5 months of fiscal year 2005, the 
Army is short of their recruitment goal by 15 percent. The Pentagon now 
says that they are stretched so thin it would be difficult for the 
military to meet other obligations should they need to do so.
  Mr. Speaker, Operation Iraqi Freedom was a war of choice. And as 
President Kennedy once said, to govern is to choose. One can only hope 
that the war in Iraq was the right choice. This week we will 
appropriate an additional $81 billion, bringing the total cost of the 
war in dollar sense, to $300 billion: $300 billion, 1,600 American 
lives, 12,000 citizens wounded.
  And yet the insurgency continues and the war goes on. The $300 
billion we have added to the structural deficit is on top of a $2 
trillion new debt created since President Bush originally took office 
in 2001.
  And what have we done while we have added $300 billion to Iraq? Every 
President when they have taken the battle and taken the war, has 
thought about how to build America post that war.
  President Lincoln finished the transcontinental railroad, the land 
grant colleges. Roosevelt not only had the

[[Page H2784]]

Great Depression that he dealt with for the Great Society, and rather 
the New Deal. He also thought after the war of a GI bill.
  Universal health care with Harry S Truman. Eisenhower talked of the 
interstate highway. President Kennedy in the middle of his days of 
Vietnam thought of putting a man on the Moon. What do we think about at 
the end of the Iraq war, as we think maybe we will see a point on the 
horizon? We cut Medicaid by $10 billion. We eliminate vocational 
training. We eliminate the COPS program that puts 100,000 cops on the 
American streets.
  Every President and every Congress thought about America after the 
war, thought about what it could do, how do we build that future; not 
only what we did overseas, but what are we going to do for Americans 
here at home. We, unlike our predecessors, do not think of a vision in 
the future. We have thought about how to limit America's horizon and 
not think forward.
  This President made an attempt once to talk about putting a space 
ship on Mars, but we cancelled that. We have cancelled our review of 
the stem cells. We are not investing in America's future like we are 
investing in Iraq's future.
  $300 billion in Iraq. Sixteen hundred American lives. Twelve thousand 
wounded. $10 billion cut from our health care programs. Vocational 
training programs eliminated. Is this the tradition when Roosevelt 
thought of the GI bill after World War II, President Kennedy in the 
early days of Vietnam thought of a man on the Moon? Lincoln, in the 
days of the Civil War thought of reconstruction, the land grant 
colleges, and the transatlantic railroad system.
  This is not in the tradition of America to think less of our future 
than the one we are building overseas. We can do better than we are 
thinking of today. And all of the while that we are not investing in 
America and we are investing in Iraq, and we have put ourselves in line 
in Iraq, and everything of America is on the line there, North Korea 
has crossed the red zone, and now has the ability of nuclear 
capability.
  A senior military strategist testified in the Senate last week that 
North Korea can mount a nuclear weapon on their missiles. While we have 
been bogged down in Iraq, Iran is developing their capability. The fact 
is, if there is one area where the United States should be acting 
unilaterally, it is North Korea; the one place we should be acting in 
coalition is Iraq. We got it mixed up.
  But it is high time we invest in America and stop thinking less about 
our future and stop putting our dollars like we have in Iraq, start 
putting them here in America and follow the tradition that Presidents 
Lincoln and Kennedy and Johnson and Roosevelt did by thinking about the 
future for America.

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