[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 14, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4473-H4474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    ADMINISTRATION MUST LEVEL WITH AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, either the Bush administration refuses to 
see the reality on the ground in Iraq or they are deceiving the 
American people as to the continued war in Iraq. During a Memorial Day 
interview on CNN's Larry King, Vice President Cheney said he believed 
the insurgency was in its ``last throes.''
  Where exactly is the Vice President getting his information? It 
certainly is not coming from the generals on the ground. According to a 
report from Knight-Ridder, a growing number of senior American military 
officers in Iraq have concluded there is no longer a military solution 
to the insurgency in Iraq, an insurgency that military leaders on the 
ground say is not running out of recruits. In the news report, Lt. 
Colonel Frederick Wellman said, ``We can't kill them all. When I kill 
one I create three.''
  That certainly does not sound like we have the insurgency under 
control, and, as the Vice President suggests, that they are in their 
``last throes.''
  Things are really getting so bad in Iraq, Mr. Speaker, that we are 
beginning finally to hear Republican Congressmen step forward and 
question some of the outrageous claims made by the Bush administration 
in regard to their policy in Iraq. This past weekend, my Republican 
friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), came forward and 
said that the Bush administration needs to have a deadline for its war 
in Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) and I have 
been next-door neighbors in the Cannon House Office Building for years. 
As visitors to our wing of the fourth floor walk down the hallway, they 
see the faces of the fallen. Since the beginning of the war, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) has been hanging up the 
pictures of the brave American soldiers who have died in Iraq. It 
started right outside his door and spread so quickly that the faces are 
outside each of the Members' doors of our wing of the Cannon Building.
  Another one of our Republican colleagues, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), criticized the

[[Page H4474]]

Bush administration for not leveling with the American people about the 
real number of Iraqi troops that have been trained to date.
  On Sunday's ``Meet the Press,'' the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Weldon) said, ``We can't come back to America and have our people be 
convinced that the Iraqi troops are prepared to take over when they are 
not.'' Weldon went on to say that the administration needs to come to 
grips with the rising insurgency, again an insurgency that Vice 
President Cheney refuses to acknowledge.
  Mr. Speaker, these are the kinds of statements we have heard for the 
last year from a large group of my Democratic colleagues. We have been 
calling on House Republican leaders to hold this administration 
responsible for its faulty intelligence. We have called on the House 
Republican leadership to hold this administration accountable for the 
20-plus billion dollars spent in Iraq. We have called on the House 
Republican leadership to call the war leaders at the Pentagon up to 
Capitol Hill to explain their war strategy. And to this date, the House 
Republican leadership simply refuses to hold the Bush administration 
responsible for the way it is conducting the war in Iraq.
  It is refreshing to finally hear several Republican colleagues 
questioning the actions of this administration. However, it simply is 
not enough. At a time when the Army and Marines are having a difficult 
time reaching their recruitment goals for the military of the future, 
at a time when the Bush administration is painting a far rosier picture 
of the number of Iraqi troops that have been trained, at a time when 
the Bush administration refuses to admit that the insurgency in Iraq is 
getting bigger and more difficult to deal with by the day, the House 
Republican leadership cannot continue to ignore a growing number of 
Members of this Chamber, of both parties, who are demanding that the 
administration level with the American people about the Iraq war.

                          ____________________