[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 17, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1003-E1004]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            WE NEED TO ADDRESS THE QUESTIONS LOOMING IN IRAQ

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 17, 2005

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring to the attention of 
the American people

[[Page E1004]]

an editorial that raises the important questions regarding our 
uncertain course of action in Iraq. In particular, the author, New York 
Times columnist Paul Krugman, addresses the dilemma that looms in the 
not-so-distant horizon--do we increase the military effort or do we end 
it? He also brings to light the ``Downing Street Memo,'' which 
indicates a pre-war orchestration by the President and Prime Minister 
Blair to the point of cooking intelligence to meet the President's 
needs. Mr. Speaker, 87 of my colleagues and I sent the President a 
letter last week asking him to respond to these serious charges. We 
await his response.

                          Staying What Course?

                           (By Paul Krugman)

       Is there any point, now that November's election is behind 
     us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq war? Yes: any path 
     out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their 
     opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves 
     as tough guys who will keep America safe. So it's important 
     to understand how the tough guys made America weak.
       There has been notably little U.S. coverage of the 
     ``Downing Street memo''--actually the minutes of a British 
     prime minister's meeting on July 23, 2002, during which 
     officials reported on talks with the Bush administration 
     about Iraq. But the memo, which was leaked to The Times of 
     London during the British election campaign, confirms what 
     apologists for the war have always denied: the Bush 
     administration cooked up a case for a war it wanted.
       Here's a sample: ``Military action was now seen as 
     inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military 
     action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. 
     But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the 
     policy.''
  (You can read the whole thing at www.downingstreetmemo.com.)
  Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo 
noted, ``the case was thin'' and Saddam's ``W.M.D. capability was less 
than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran''? Iraq was perceived as a 
soft target; a quick victory there, its domestic political advantages 
aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military might, one 
that would shock and awe the world.
  But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American 
power, and emboldened our potential enemies. Why should Kim Jong II 
fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the 
airport?
  At this point, the echoes of Vietnam are unmistakable. Reports from 
the recent offensive near the Syrian border sound just like those from 
a 1960's search-and-destroy mission, body count and all. Stories filed 
by reporters actually with the troops suggest that the insurgents, 
forewarned, mostly melted away, accepting battle only where and when 
they chose.
  Meanwhile, America's strategic position is steadily deteriorating.
  Next year, reports Jane's Defense Industry, the United States will 
spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the 
Pentagon now admits that our military is having severe trouble 
attracting recruits, and would have difficulty dealing with potential 
foes--those that, unlike Saddam's Iraq, might pose a real threat.
  In other words, the people who got us into Iraq have done exactly 
what they falsely accused Bill Clinton of doing: they have stripped 
America of its capacity to respond to real threats.
  So what's the plan?
  The people who sold us this war continue to insist that success is 
just around the corner, and that things would be fine if the media 
would just stop reporting bad news. But the administration has declared 
victory in Iraq at least four times. January's election, it seems, was 
yet another turning point that wasn't.
  Yet it's very hard to discuss getting out. Even most of those who 
vehemently opposed the war say that we have to stay on in Iraq now that 
we're there.
  In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take 
responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we 
leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). 
Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that 
their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an 
administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of 
stabbing the troops in the back.
  But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq; it's 
deteriorating under the strain. We may already be in real danger: what 
threats, exactly, can we make against the North Koreans? That John 
Bolton will yell at them? And every year that the war goes on, our 
military gets weaker.
  So we need to get beyond the cliches--please, no more ``pottery barn 
principles'' or ``staying the course.'' I'm not advocating an immediate 
pullout, but we have to tell the Iraqi government that our stay is 
time-limited, and that it has to find a way to take care of itself. The 
point is that something has to give. We either need a much bigger 
army--which means a draft--or we need to find a way out of Iraq.

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