[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H4880-H4888]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ANNOUNCING FORMATION OF OUT OF IRAQ CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Waters) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I am here this evening to talk about 
something new and wonderful that has happened in the Congress of the 
United States of America. I am here to talk about a new caucus that is 
named Out of Iraq Caucus. I am here to talk about the men and women of 
this House who have decided they can be silent no longer. I am here to 
talk about men and women who represent various points of view relative 
to support for the President from the time that he first announced he 
was going into Iraq to now. I am here to talk about why we have formed 
this caucus, what we plan to do, but more than that this evening, we 
are going to focus on our soldiers and those who are in Iraq serving 
this country, those who are there in harm's way, those who have been 
killed in Iraq, those who are up at Walter Reed Hospital suffering from 
serious injuries, having lost limbs, having lost their eyesight, those 
who do not know what the future holds for them.

                              {time}  2015

  We are going to focus on that this evening because it is extremely 
important for the families of these soldiers to know and understand 
that we support these soldiers. We know that many of them went there 
because they were called to duty. They were recruited to go to Iraq 
because their President asked them to do so, and they wanted to serve 
this country despite the fact they did not understand all of the 
reasons why. Many of them went to serve because they thought that 
Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. But, of course, we know now 
that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11, and many of the 
soldiers know that now.
  So this caucus has been formed. We have 61 members, and they are 
still adding on. We met this morning at 10 a.m., and we will continue 
to meet as we develop our mission statement, as we help to define who 
we are.
  Basically, we have come together to say we want out of Iraq. We want 
out, and this caucus is not putting a time certain. This caucus has not 
concocted demands about how we want to get out. We simply want our 
young people out of Iraq. So we will provide support to other Members 
of Congress, other caucuses who want to get out of Iraq. We will 
provide support to the citizens of this Nation, the organized national 
groups who want to get out of Iraq.
  We will organize not only coming to the floor as we are this evening 
to talk about various aspects of this war. We will also organize 
workshops and seminars. We will travel, some of us, to different 
regions in this country, responding to citizens who are asking for 
Members of Congress to come and explain this public policy to them. We 
will be available to meet with the families of servicemembers who have 
been killed,

[[Page H4881]]

who have been injured. We have families who are asking to meet with 
somebody, anybody. We have people who are asking to meet with Donald 
Rumsfeld, who cannot get any response, who are not being talked to. We 
are going to meet with them. We are going to talk with them. We are 
going to share with them what we know.
  But more than that, we are going to be an ear to family members who 
need to talk with someone about why their son or daughter died in Iraq. 
We are going to spend the time and give them some attention because we 
think that the least that we can do is sit and talk and listen to 
family members.
  Some of them will say that they are very proud that their child or 
their son or their relative served in this war, and we will commend 
them for the pride that they feel and the fact that their relative, 
their child, their brother, their father served. Some will say that ``I 
once support the war but I no longer support it.'' We will listen to 
them, and we will hear what they have to say. And we will explain to 
them how we feel at this time about getting out of Iraq.
  And so this is a caucus that will have the ability to extend itself 
not only to the organized groups and organizations but again to the 
family members.
  I would like to point out something about this war. We have heard 
many of the statistics and much of the data over and over again. But we 
have to remind folks we have been there now since March 19, 2003. We 
have 1,722 soldiers who have died in this war, and the numbers mount 
each day. The number of soldiers injured: 13,074. We have many Members 
of Congress from both sides of the aisle who are going up to Walter 
Reed Hospital to see the soldiers there who are injured, and the 
stories that we hear coming back from those visits break one's heart. 
These are stories of young men and women who had hopes and dreams. Many 
of them went to war because they had no jobs. They did not know what 
the future held for them, and they thought, Perhaps if I go and serve 
my country and get an income, perhaps I can do good. I can not only 
serve my country, but perhaps I can get ahead. Perhaps I can learn a 
trade. Perhaps I can learn something. Perhaps I can exploit some of my 
talents and show what I can do. But when I come home, I want to go back 
to school. I want to go to college. I want to get married. I want to 
have children. I want to contribute to my community.
  Well, unfortunately, these 1,722 will never be able to realize their 
hopes and their dreams. They have died. But the question still remains 
for many of us, Why are we in Iraq? What is the real story? We know now 
there are no weapons of mass destruction. Why are these young people 
dying?
  I want to relate an interview that I watched on television this past 
Sunday. This past Sunday, as many folks in America do, I watched some 
of the great television shows, and I was watching George Stephanopoulos 
as he interviewed the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. And he 
interviewed her. They talked about, of course, the work that she is 
doing in the Middle East, working with the issue of Israel, the 
Palestinians.
  But then he segued to the war in Iraq. And he said to Condoleezza 
Rice, ``As you know, there has been a lot of talk back here in the 
United States about these Downing Street memos, the minutes of a 
meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the spring of 2002 where they 
discuss their meetings with the United States.'' And then he said, ``I 
want to show you what one mother, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a U.S. 
soldier, had to say about that memo this week.'' And then they showed 
Cindy Sheehan, mother. She said this: ``The so-called Downing Street 
memo dated the 23rd of July, 2002, only confirms what I already 
suspected. The leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal 
invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-
picked intelligence.''
  And then George Stephanopoulos said to the Secretary of State, 
Condoleezza Rice, ``How do you respond to this, to what Mrs. Sheehan 
said? How do you respond to that?'' Condoleezza Rice started out with 
her explanation. She started out by saying, ``Well, I can only say what 
the President has said many, many times. The United States of America 
and its coalition decided that it was finally time to deal with the 
threat of Saddam Hussein.'' And she went on with the typical kind of 
discussion and explanation in line with the message that is given by 
this administration. Along the way, she said, ``When you consider what 
the Iraqi people had gone through in the Saddam Hussein regime's reign, 
what about the responsibility to the Iraqi people?''
  I was struck by this conversation because not one time did the 
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledge Cindy Sheehan, who 
had been on the screen with the question that was raised by George 
Stephanopoulos. Not once on Father's Day did she say, we are sorry your 
son died, we feel your pain, we understand how you must feel. Not once 
did she recognize her. Not once did she recognize the death of her son. 
Not once did she show any sympathy. But oftentimes we hear from this 
administration how much they care about the soldiers.
  Well, the Out of Iraq Caucus is going to show not only do we want 
them out of Iraq but we care about them. We will never fail to 
acknowledge a mother who is in deep pain about the loss of her son. Not 
ever will we be on national TV and not take a moment to say we too care 
about our soldiers. No. This conversation basically focused on our 
responsibility to the Iraqi people.
  My first responsibility is to Americans and to those American 
soldiers. My first responsibility is to their safety. My first 
responsibility is to their well-being. My first responsibility is to 
acknowledge them and their families and their parents. And my 
responsibility, as a public policymaker, is to tell the truth. We all 
know now there were no weapons of mass destruction. We cannot tell 
these young people why they are really there. We cannot tell them that 
there is an exit strategy. We cannot tell them why many of their 
friends that they met in this war died in vehicles that had no armor. 
We cannot tell them why they died up in Fallujah. We cannot tell them 
why they died in Operation Lightning. We cannot tell them what they are 
doing in Operation Spear.

  We hear all of these fancy, concocted names for the operations, but 
what we do not hear is the definition of why they are doing what they 
are doing. Are they simply being organized into these special 
operations to try to send a signal to the American people that they are 
really in charge? What are they to do when they go into these battles 
and into these special operations? Are they to shoot whatever moves?
  We know that, yes, thousands of Iraqis have died because we have 
young people in these special operations, Operation Lightning, 
Operation Spear, operation this, operation that, who were told to shoot 
anything that moves. Many of them cannot live with the psychological 
damage that is fostered upon them because they are shooting and they 
are killing and they do not have all of the answers.
  So today we focus on our soldiers, and we say to Cindy Sheehan we are 
sorry about the loss of her son and we thank her for caring enough to 
ask the questions, to be involved. We are trying to get public 
policymakers to do the right thing. So tonight, as we further announce 
the Out of Iraq Caucus and the Members who have signed up to do the 
work of providing the platform of creating the voice for those who want 
to speak out, we focus tonight on our soldiers in Iraq. Our prayers go 
out to them. We want them to be returned home. We want them to realize 
their dreams and their hopes and their aspirations.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), who has 
been on this floor night after night talking about these issues, the 
gentlewoman from California that basically said we want out of Iraq; 
administration, tell us how you are going to do it.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for 
starting tonight's dialogue.
  It is true. I have been on the House floor, I think, 79 times, maybe 
80 in the last year for 5 minutes after the end of our workday, of our 
congressional day. And my message has been we need to figure out how to 
bring our troops home. Never in that message have I said it is the 
troops' fault that we are there and that they are to be criticized. We 
are not going to pick on the warriors. We are not going to blame them

[[Page H4882]]

because their leadership, their administration, sent them there to do a 
job that was not necessary.
  The death of over 1,700 of our troops does not say to me that to 
honor those deaths we need to send more troops, we need to have more 
death.

                              {time}  2030

  I do not think that honors those who have died. I think that, in 
fact, it is a shame that we would even think of sending another young 
person, male, female, another older person, our National Guard, our 
Reservists, into an area that we did not need to be in in the first 
place. There is no excuse for the United States to have started a war 
in Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, our Constitution states that Members of Congress must be 
chosen by the people of the United States and that Congress must 
represent the people of the United States. That means that we as 
Members, Members of Congress, need to act and listen to the people when 
they speak. Well, I have been speaking for 80 days, every time we are 
in session, for 5 minutes, but now the American people are speaking. 
They have spoken.
  The latest Gallup poll released last week indicates that the American 
people are ready for our military in Iraq to start coming home. They 
are saying, bring our troops home. They say this, and some actually 
supported the war at the beginning, but now, like the three of us up 
here, they want to honor our troops, they want to honor the families of 
our troops, they want to bring them home safe and whole.
  When I say whole, I know what I am talking about. Two years ago, I 
had major, major back surgery at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. And when 
I was able to walk, I walked the halls and visited the troops that had 
come home then. It was August 2 years ago, so they were just beginning 
to come home from Iraq. I want to tell my colleagues, we are not 
talking about people that are hardly wounded at all, we are talking 
about young people who have virtually been destroyed physically. Their 
minds are there, though. They know what happened. But we are doing such 
a disservice to them if we send more young people, more troops in an 
area where they too are going to get injured or killed.
  Nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the United States should 
bring home some or all of our troops from Iraq, and the Gallup poll 
tells us that only 36 percent of Americans support maintaining our 
current troop level in Iraq. Only 36 percent. This is the lowest level 
of support for the war since it began in March 2003, and nobody is 
saying we do not support our troops. They know these statistics are all 
about bringing them home because we do support them, and we know that 
when they come home they will be safe. It is absolute in these numbers 
that Americans are not criticizing the troops, the warriors; they are 
criticizing the war, how we got into it, how badly it has been managed, 
and why there is absolutely no plan on how to bring our troops home.
  The American people have stated loud and clear, and their numbers are 
increasing also; the more they see what is happening to their neighbor, 
a friend of their son or their daughter, they are realizing that, oh, 
my, it can happen to any single one of these young people that we send 
overseas for a war that was not necessary in the first place. The only 
way to end this death and destruction that occurs every single day is 
to start the process of bringing our troops home. Clearly, the American 
people are way ahead of Congress on this issue.
  Unfortunately, the President of the United States is way behind on 
the issue of Iraq. We have asked the President to come up with a plan 
for ending the war. He has not. He has no plan for victory, except to 
leave our troops in harm's way as targets for a furious insurgency who 
look at our sons and daughters as occupiers. What, then, should Members 
of Congress do?
  Well, I have been working hard on this, as the gentlewoman from 
California told us. For one thing, I came up with a plan in January 
when I introduced legislation that is H. Con. Res. 35, calling for the 
President to begin bringing our troops home. Thirty-five Members of 
Congress support this legislation. And then we continued this effort on 
May 25 by introducing an amendment to the defense authorization bill 
calling on the President to do this simple thing: Create a plan for 
Iraq and bring his plan to the appropriate House committee. Mr. 
Speaker, 128 Members of Congress, including five Republicans and one 
Independent, voted in favor of this sensible amendment.
  It is clear that the United States must develop a plan to bring our 
troops home. That is the only fair thing to do for the people of this 
country but, most importantly, for the troops. They deserve to know 
when they get to come home, and their families deserve it equally.
  I have loved being up here with my colleagues. I am proud to be a 
member of the Out of Iraq Task Force in the House of Representatives. 
It is not that we want to run away from anything; we certainly believe 
that when the United States pulls our troops home, that we do have a 
responsibility and we must be working with the Iraqis to help them with 
their failing economic and physical infrastructure. We know that we can 
help them with that, but we know we cannot do it while we are in the 
midst of destroying their cities at the same time we are trying to put 
them back together. First, we bring our troops home, then we work with 
the Iraqi government and we help them put their country back together.
  We are also proud of the Iraqi citizens who went to the polls and 
voted, but we are also very clear that what they were voting for was 
the fact that they wanted their country back in control by the Iraqis, 
not by the United States military. As soon as we do this, we can start 
working with them, and we can work with the international world, get 
them all involved, so we can be doing the right thing for Iraq and the 
Iraqi people who are also being destroyed by this war.
  So I thank the gentlewoman for letting me be a part of this. My 
colleagues will hear more from us. We have a lot of ideas, but our 
major idea is two words, ``troops home,'' in honor of those young men 
and young women and the Reservists and the National Guard who are doing 
something that they were told they must do; and they are serving their 
country the best that they can, but they are getting very poor guidance 
from the leaders of this country.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey), not only for being here this evening, but for 
all of the work, all of the hours, all of the time that she has put 
into this effort.
  I now yield time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who 
too has been a leader in opposing this war. She warned us early on that 
we should not just give permission to the President of the United 
States to go to war without understanding what the reasons were and 
without having that debate. So, unfortunately, our debate is taking 
place a little bit late, but it is taking place.
  I would like to thank the gentlewoman from northern California, the 
Oakland area, (Ms. Lee), for all of her work and for being here this 
evening.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Waters) for her leadership and for really seeing the wisdom and 
knowing that this is a defining moment to bring us all together in our 
Out of Iraq Caucus.
  The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) has recognized the fact 
that there were those who voted for the war and those who voted against 
the war, but we know what is going on with our young men and women now, 
and so the gentlewoman decided to bring us all together to try to help 
us figure out how to get out of this mess. I think the country owes the 
gentlewoman a debt of gratitude.

  Also, to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), I just want 
to say to her, sometimes she is the lone voice in the wilderness. 
Sooner or later, though, if you call it the way it is and stick with 
your principles and stick with what you believe is right, people will 
hear you; the country will hear and the world will hear, and I think 
that is what we are seeing now. So I just want to thank her for her 
leadership as well.
  Mr. Speaker, so often we get caught up in the rhetoric of our 
positions and what we believe, and oftentimes forget about the human 
face and the toll of

[[Page H4883]]

such a war, such an illegal and immoral war.
  The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) so eloquently talked 
about the callousness and the insensitivity of this administration 
toward those who have died and who are risking their lives, when 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not acknowledge the sacrifices 
and the pain that a courageous mother, Cindy Sheehan, must be feeling.
  As the daughter of a veteran of two wars, I feel this, and I 
understand this, and I think that our administration, whether they have 
children in Iraq or not, I think that they should stand up for these 
young men and women and feel their pain and try to help figure out how 
to first say, I am sorry; and secondly, say, let us begin to figure out 
how we develop a plan and begin to bring our young men and women out of 
harm's way.
  Mr. Speaker, that is how we really support our troops. Empty rhetoric 
does not work when young men and women are dying.
  So let me just say, I visited the troops, I guess it was probably a 
couple of years ago at Walter Reed Hospital. This is the untold story 
of this war. There are thousands of our kids who will be disabled for 
life, thousands of our young men and women who lost their limbs, who 
cannot see, their faces have been blown off. It has been a financial 
difficulty; they have come back to the lack of financial and economic 
security. Some of them are losing their houses, they have lost their 
jobs, their credit cards. And we serve on the Committee on Financial 
Services and we know how the credit card companies are messing with 
them in terms of their debt and the bankruptcy issues.
  They come back and, upon their return, they see that they have very 
little in terms of veterans benefits. They have long lines they have to 
wait in. The mental health services are almost nonexistent. We know 
what post-traumatic stress syndrome is. Our young men and women need 
mental health services like they have never needed it before. Yet, we 
cannot get legislation nor funding to provide this kind of care for our 
kids, and I think that is a shame and a disgrace.
  Mr. Speaker, I went to a funeral of a young man who was killed in my 
district in the war, and it was unbelievable. This young man was a 
proud soldier, and I was so proud of him, because he was determined 
that he was going to go and serve our country and wave the flag and 
make sure that democracy prevailed in Iraq, and he honorably died, and 
it was very sad. But his family told me that while they may not have 
agreed with what he wanted to do in terms of going into the military, 
that they supported him going; they loved him and they missed him, but 
they wanted to get more involved in trying to help us figure out a way 
to ensure that no more kids are killed like this. I hear this over and 
over and over again. I think all of us here hear that over and over 
again.
  But yes, we went and we bombed the heck out of Iraq, so we have I 
think a duty and a responsibility to help rebuild and reconstruct the 
country. But as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) said, we 
need to first begin to develop a plan to get our young men and women 
and bring them home, get them out of harm's way, because they are the 
targets of the insurgency. I do not believe there is going to be any 
stability as long as the Iraqi people believe and see that their 
country is occupied by U.S. forces. So we are putting them and keeping 
them in harm's way.
  So we need to bring them home, and we need to figure out a plan to do 
that as soon as possible.
  Also, let me just say that in the Committee on International 
Relations, a committee upon which I serve, we had authorized or 
reauthorized the State Department Reauthorization Act a couple of weeks 
ago. So I tried to offer an amendment for withdrawal, and I think there 
were 12 or 13 votes for that. But then I decided that since the 
President and since Secretary Rice continued to say that we do not want 
to permanently occupy Iraq, we do not want permanent bases, I said, 
well, let me do an amendment to the State Department authorization bill 
and all it would say is we just do not intend to have permanent bases 
in Iraq. Well, I think, on a bipartisan vote, it got about 15 votes 
there.
  Mr. Speaker, I share that because we hear the administration saying, 
no permanent presence, no permanent bases; yet we see just the opposite 
in terms of funding and appropriations and beginning to create this 
scenario to build permanent bases. So we have to ask the question: What 
is really going on?

                              {time}  2045

  We know that the administration misled the American people and the 
world that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We knew 
that then. Now, I think the Downing Street memo and the other facts are 
coming out so that the public will understand what we said then, we 
knew that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda 
and 9/11 and Iraq.
  We knew that then, but now, thank God for the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Conyers) and the hearings that we are holding. We are beginning to 
educate the American people so that they know what we knew. And I think 
people are listening, people are beginning to say was this worth it? 
Was this worth it? Was this worth over 1,700 of our young people being 
killed, countless number of Iraqi civilians being killed, $300 billion-
plus, and I think Defense Appropriations just had another $45 billion 
in it, that was not with my vote, but to that, some voted for the other 
day, and so where does this end? Where does this end?
  And so I just wanted to say tonight in closing that we need to insist 
that the administration announce that they will develop a plan for 
bringing our young men and women home, announce a plan for stabilizing 
and to help bringing in the international community to stabilize Iraq, 
and this means the international community in a real way.
  And we need to make sure that the administration says to the American 
people that there will be no permanent bases in Iraq. Because, if we do 
that, we are going to be up to trillions of dollars in terms of this 
war. And I hate to see that happen, because here we have people who are 
homeless, we have young kids who need a decent education, and we need 
affordable housing, we need a universal health care system.
  And we need to take care of some domestic needs. With the war going 
on like this and with billions and billions of dollars being spent, 
especially if we intend to have permanent bases, we will never meet our 
domestic needs and the responsibility that we owe to our American 
citizens.
  So I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) for her 
leadership and for making sure that all of us come to this floor and 
call it like it is and tell the truth, and begin to beat that drum and 
begin to wake up America so that we can save our kids from being bombed 
and from the suicide attacks and from the violence that they are 
dealing with in such an honorable way.
  These kids are courageous, they deserve our support, and they deserve 
our support in a real way. And that means our support by insisting that 
they come home so they can be with their families and get the type of 
care that they need.
  Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee). We 
appreciate so very much the work that she has been doing and her wisdom 
and early warnings about this war.
  Next, I would like to call on the Congressman from New York (Mr. 
Rangel), who is a veteran who knows a lot about war because he served.
  He is a gentleman who has been unsettled about this war for months. 
And he has taken many opportunities to ask what we are doing. When are 
we going to have a discussion? When are we going to speak out? When are 
we going to have hearings? What is going on with this?
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank him for raising those questions. I 
wanted to thank him for being a part of what we are attempting to do 
with the Out of Iraq Caucus. And I welcome him this evening to this 
discussion.
  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I just want people to know that the whole 
country is not run by distinguished women from California. But I 
certainly do appreciate the leadership that you have taken. God knows 
how much better off our country would have been if

[[Page H4884]]

we had recognized the brain power that we have with minority women in 
this country. But we have that to work on.
  I do not know where to start, because there are certain people that 
believe that we are not supporting the troops when we are anxious that 
they return home well to their families.
  But I can say that I visited those that have been wounded. I have the 
369th. They call themselves the Hell Fighters. They are a National 
Guard outfit. They have been to the Persian Gulf. They have been to 
Iraq. I am always there when they leave. I am always there when they 
come home. And I want the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) to 
know that they appreciate what we are doing for them.
  What people do not understand when they talk about the patriotism of 
our fighting men and women, they are so right, unlike those of us who 
have a responsibility to participate, whether we are going to have 
peace or war for our great Nation, any veteran will tell you, when that 
flag goes up, you are in the military, you salute it. You do not 
challenge the military. You do not challenge the President. You do what 
you have been trained to do, and that is to destroy the enemy.
  And so no matter how patriotic our men and women are, and they are 
that, bringing them home to their loved ones means we are patriotic 
too.
  I remember when I first enlisted in the Army. I was 18 years old. I 
had not finished high school. Spinning my wheels. Did not know which 
way to go. Saw the uniform, saw the check, could send the check home to 
mom; my brother had before me. Seemed like a pretty good deal.
  Now, no way did I know that in August of 1950 I would be sent to 
Korea, which I am embarrassed to admit I had no idea where it was, to 
engage in a police action, which did not sound too bad to me, being a 
policeman. I went there in August of 1950 and guess what? The Second 
Infantry Division that left Fort Washington to go there is still there 
today.
  Getting into wars in countries is a heck of a lot easier than getting 
out of them. And so in that war, we did not even declare war. You know, 
it was a police action. It was the United Nations. It was Truman 
telling us to go. The majority of our outfit, they were either killed 
or captured.
  And since I had an opportunity to be exposed about education, I felt 
for those who God blessed to allow to live, that we had a special 
obligation not to allow that to happen to other people's kids. Here we 
have a situation where people who have served their country and joined 
the Reserve have been called up two and three times. Families have been 
broken. I remember when I introduced my draft bill the first time, I 
got a call from Senator Hollings from South Carolina.
  He says, you are worried about minorities and poor folks. You better 
start thinking of my Reservists. Families are being broken. People have 
already served and being called two and three times. Wives are 
complaining, the employers have not called them since their favorite 
employee was twice called up to serve the country. Tuition has not been 
paid. Marriages have been broken.
  And then you take a look at the other side, the Charlie Rangels all 
over the country, different colors, different backgrounds, different 
languages, some not even citizens, but spinning their wheels and hoping 
for a better way of life, getting an education like I got with the GI 
bill. Where do they come from?
  Well, just ask the Pentagon. They do not come from communities that 
chief executive officers live in. They do not come from kids with 
families of those in the White House or in the Pentagon. As a matter of 
fact, I have talked with some of the private marketers that are hired 
by the Pentagon, and as someone says, they rob banks because that is 
where the money is. They fish because that is where the fish are. They 
recruit where the hopeless are in terms of unemployment.
  I asked the question, Do most of them come from areas of high 
unemployment? Yes, that is where they recruit. It makes sense. Now we 
have not got the retention. People are not being retained. People are 
not volunteering. You would think that if the President of the United 
States believes that, and that fighting terrorism in Iraq is in our 
national defense, what a speech a President could gave to all of 
America. I could hear it now.
  If we do not bring freedom and liberty to every country that seeks 
it, if we do not have regime change where we do not like people, if we 
do not bomb and invade and superimpose our government, then our country 
would be jeopardized. So what are you asking, Mr. President? We are 
asking all of you not to allow the poor to just carry on this fight. 
This is a fight for freedom and liberty; you should be so proud to 
enlist.

  So you make a plea to the poor, to the middle class and to the 
wealthy, to the men and women of this country that love it. Volunteer. 
Instead, what do they say when they do not meet their quotas? Well, the 
$10,000 for 3 years did not work, so we doubled it to $20,000. Now it 
is $30,000. So do not worry, Mr. President, it is going to be $40,000, 
and we will get those kids one way or the other.
  And now we have got parents saying, do not do that to my kid. He 
loves us. If I were offered $40,000 at 18 years old off the street of 
Harlem, I would ask how many years can I take? I mean, that is a lot of 
money even with inflation being what it is today.
  It seems to me that we should not need a draft if Americans thought 
we were doing the right thing. Makes sense to me. You would leave your 
job in the Congress if you are young enough. If there is something I 
can do, I will do it because this country has been extremely good to 
me.
  But I know one thing, that for all of the people that are talking 
about that they are supporting the war, I ask one question: Would you 
put your kids in harm's way to indicate your support for this war? It 
seems like it is so easy, when I was a kid for someone to pick a fight, 
and then when it is time to go to fight, they said I will hold your 
coat. That is what America is doing today.
  Do not tell me that these young people want to fight, I suppose those 
people being drafted do, that would be an insult to all of the heroes 
and sheroes that have been drafted, or at least the men that have been 
drafted that defended this country. But the truth of the matter is that 
if we have a draft, if we had a draft, we would not be in Iraq today.
  If we had a draft, we would not be rattling swords in North Korea. If 
we had a draft, we would not be threatening Syria and Iran. We would go 
to the international community with the strength of the United States 
of America and persuade those countries that terrorism is not just an 
American problem, it is an international problem, and with mutual 
respect, sit down and talk with them to see how we can bring peace to 
the Middle East.
  This is going to be one of a series of nights that we know how 
awkward it is to be against the President when the Nation is at war. 
But that is true of so many things that happen that we are not proud 
of. It is so easy not to stand up. It is so easy to say, I hope they 
know what they are doing in Washington. It is so easy to hope that 
everything is going to work out okay.
  But we have had a lot of problems in this country because people are 
waiting for someone else to do something. And I think as our numbers 
grow that we will soon make it comfortable for people just to ask the 
question: Why did we go in the first place? Was there a plan which 
projected for the 21st century to go to knock off Saddam Hussein before 
9/11? Did everyone that was in the Cabinet that has written books, 
Clark did, Woodward who wrote the book on this, did O'Neill, who was 
Secretary of the Treasury when they said that after 9/11, the President 
was committed to go after Saddam Hussein, even though there was no 
evidence that they should go that way?
  You hear more about the papers from England, the intelligence reports 
that we have got to show that even the British intelligence indicated 
that was the route that we were going. We find now all of the reasons 
that were given were not true. And as you hear us over and over, and 
listen to the priests and the nuns and the ministers and the imams and 
the rabbis recognize that all we are talking about is not defending our 
country, we have got a new standard now.

                              {time}  2100

  You do not go to war just when you are attacked. You do not go to war 
just

[[Page H4885]]

when you have imminent danger of being attacked. Now, subjectively, we 
can go to war to avoid the attack being imminent. That subjective 
standard will no longer be just ours. It will belong to North Korea, 
South Korea. It will belong to India and Pakistan, and the moral value 
of the greatest democracy that has ever been created would be shattered 
just because no one stood up.
  Well, we have seen what happened in history and we want to make it 
very comfortable for you not to get involved politically but to listen 
to the facts. And at the end of the day, when Condoleeza Rice and the 
President are asked, and maybe some Democrats, if you knew then what 
you know now, would you have committed this great country to war? 
Because all you got out of it is a pretty crummy election even by 
Florida standards, and the fact that we have no clue as to where we are 
going to get additional troops to stay there until they get their act 
together or to train them.
  So I thank the three gentlewomen from California and especially, 
well, not especially, because all of the gentlewomen are giants in 
this. And one day, and I hope one day soon, the people who held us in 
suspicion because we are standing up, and we have to thank God that we 
have constituents that allow us to do it, that the least that we can 
say that we have done is to create an atmosphere where good people can 
stand up when they know in their hearts that they are doing the right 
thing.
  Ms. WATERS. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) 
and ask him to remain for a colloquy if he has a few moments with all 
of us here. I thank the Members for focusing our discussion tonight on 
our soldiers and helping to remind people that these are real human 
beings, as I said before, with hopes and aspirations. And when they 
die, not only are those hopes and aspirations gone, but the family 
members are left devastated and destroyed by these deaths, and we have 
got to do more to slow our support for them.
  It is not their fault if they are there. They answered the call for 
many reasons, some of which the gentleman described so wonderfully well 
in his presentation. Some people looking for just a job, for income. 
Some folks looking to serve their country, to answer the call for 
whatever reason. And what we have got to be sure about is that we do 
not allow these sacrifices to be taken lightly.
  For example, we hear some Members saying, who wish to support the 
war, to continue to support the war, saying all they show on television 
are the bombings, the suicide bombings. All they show are the deaths 
and the destruction. They do not show the good stuff.
  Well, I get very upset when I hear that, because what they are 
literally saying to me is that somehow the loss of lives of our 
soldiers should take second place or third place to some news about 
perhaps cleaning up a street somewhere. I cannot say news about new 
electricity or clean water or schools or any of that, but they simply 
say over and over again, all they show are these suicide bombings; they 
do not show the good stuff.
  Well, I do not like hearing that because, again, they are relegating 
the loss of lives to some secondary status. And tonight we draw 
attention to the importance of the soldiers, how we are proud of them 
and their families. And I mentioned earlier that in this interview on 
Sunday with Mr. Stephanopoulos and Condoleeza Rice, even though he drew 
her attention to Cindy Sheehan, the mother who had a comment who had 
been here in the Congress trying to raise the discussion, he drew her 
attention to her and something she had said and Condoleeza Rice never 
acknowledged her, never said she was sorry about the death of her son, 
never gave any attention to the fact that this woman in pain was 
attempting to create this discussion.
  So tonight there is a mother who has not been answered, who has been 
trying to get some response from Donald Rumsfeld. Now, the gentleman 
from California (Mr. George Miller) has put together a letter to 
Rumsfeld saying, please talk to her. Not only has she been knocking 
down the door, making the telephone calls, she is talking about other 
mothers and other families. Please talk to her. Please respond to her.
  I signed on to that letter today. We are going to encourage all the 
members of the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus to sign on to that 
letter. But I would like to ask all Members here tonight, do you think 
that we should not only join as the Out of Iraq Caucus in asking Donald 
Rumsfeld to respond to Ms. Sheehan and perhaps other mothers and 
families, should we not have an organized way by which they really are 
talked to, that they have an opportunity to even come to Washington?
  If we can offer $40,000 to their children to come to Iraq, can we not 
help them to come to Washington and be recognized and talk with them, 
not just in ceremony, not just one day perhaps out of the year; but 
when they say they need some answers that they want to know, should not 
we encourage Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and this 
administration to be more sensitive, more sensitive?
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, I do not want to be a cynic but is not Donald 
Rumsfeld the same individual who was stamping his names on letters to 
families when he was sending his condolences to them when their family 
member had died in Iraq? He needs a lot of training on how to be 
compassionate.
  I think it is a very good idea that we send that letter, but I do not 
think we should be surprised that that is the reaction that Cindy 
Sheehan has gotten from Condoleeza Rice and from Donald Rumsfeld.
  There seems to be something missing in the picture, and that is 
compassion and really understanding what this means to those who are 
fighting the war and the families of those who have lost their loved 
ones and who are getting loved ones back who are totally, totally 
wounded, both physically and mentally. So yes, we should do that.
  Mr. RANGEL. Let me try that. Suppose they did call and the mother 
would say, Would you remind me as to why my beloved child lost his or 
her life? Would they say because Saddam Hussein was a mean, evil man 
when we have so many mean and evil people in this world? Would they say 
that we wanted to show them what democracy really is and they had an 
election? Would they say that we want to bring order to this part of 
the world? Would they say that, and we are prepared to do this further, 
the President's inaugural address and speeches he has given?
  How would they answer about the weapons of mass destruction if the 
bereaved asked?
  Suppose they asked, Was this connected with the attack of 9/11? What 
would they say? Suppose they said, well, Whatever happened to Osama bin 
Laden? Was he not the villain, or did 15 of the 19 terrorists come from 
Saudi Arabia? Suppose they asked, What were you doing tip-toeing 
through the gardens at the ranch with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia?
  Suppose they asked, Why did the Saudis get special treatment in 
leaving the country to go to Saudi Arabia? I do not know. Maybe, just 
maybe, we should not ask a mother to get those kind of answers. And 
just maybe, we should not have to lose a child to challenge those type 
of answers.
  Ms. WATERS. Those are certainly tough questions and, of course, just 
as Condoleeza Rice gave the framed message that she always gives when 
she is speaking publicly, Saddam Hussein was a terrible man, 
Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. Now, the Middle East 
will be better off without Saddam Hussein. Those are the kind of 
answers I suspect that she would give. But I think when Condoleeza Rice 
is on national television in an interview where millions of people are 
watching, and you have a mother who is shown on television raising a 
question and you do not even take the time to acknowledge that mother, 
to say, Ms. Sheehan, I am sorry about the loss of your son.

  Ms. LEE. I have noticed this administration is so detached, totally 
detached from the impact and the ramifications of what they have done 
in terms of their policy, their warmaking policies. Remember, Secretary 
Rice was one of the chief architects of this war. Perhaps it is very 
difficult for her to realize that being one of the chief architects of 
this war, that Cindy Sheehan lost someone that her policies were 
responsible for.
  So I think not only should we encourage Secretary Rumsfeld to meet

[[Page H4886]]

with them, we should insist on that. The Defense Department, the 
Pentagon, and the White House, they owe these families an audience. 
They owe them an audience.
  And the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) asked the questions that 
would be very difficult, I think, for this administration to respond to 
if, in fact, Cindy Sheehan asked those questions. But I believe they 
have paid the supreme price and they deserve the Secretary of Defense 
and the Secretary of State and all of those who crafted this war, they 
deserve to meet with them to hear from them, and these parents need 
that audience and that is the minimal thing that we should insist on.
  Mr. RANGEL. I tell you as a lawyer and someone that would advise 
somebody, I would not ask them to ask to see Secretary Rumsfeld.
  Members have to remember this is the same person that told the whole 
country that he did not know whether we were winning or losing the war. 
Is that something to tell someone?
  He said that it is a slog, whatever the heck that is. And he said 
something that he was so right in, that he really did not know whether 
we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. And we can 
answer him, and the world can, because we lack the sensitive 
sophistication to understand that a life is a life, whether it is an 
American, whether it is an Iraqi, in the tens of thousands and 
sometimes the hundreds of thousands.
  I talked with Colin Powell about this and I asked him, How do you 
train a young patriotic soldier to go to a foreign country to kill 
terrorists that you do not know what they look like, what uniform they 
wear, what language they speak, and you can only react when you are 
being fired upon? Can you imagine how many terrorists we create when 
these cowardly people go to a school, go to a hospital, go to a mosque 
and fire at our troops? And those who have served would know, you have 
no option except to destroy where that fire is coming from. And if you 
destroy innocent people, we no longer call that human life. You know 
what we call it? Collateral damage.
  Ms. WATERS. Well, Cindy Sheehan has already made the inquiry. She had 
made calls. She has written the letter and now she has asked the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) to help her. He started 
to circulate a letter, which I signed, and I would like to encourage 
others, because we are not encouraging her to start this. She has 
already been doing it. And she is simply put out with the fact that she 
can get no response, no returned telephone calls, anything. And I think 
that we should give her some support.
  In addition to that, I do think perhaps one of the things we should 
look at further is support for all the families who have questions, 
because what I am hearing is families are not being told how their 
children died. They get the message that it has happened, but when they 
start to ask for details and particulars they are not getting it. And 
as they put together these budgets, these budgets ask for whatever they 
think it is they need. And I think it is time to include in the budgets 
some assistance to the families, that they can at least be respected 
enough to be given the information, for somebody to sit down and talk 
with them and answer the questions, tell the truth. They may not get 
the truth. They may not get the questions answered in the way they want 
to, but I think we are going to have to try to work at forcing that to 
happen.

                              {time}  2115

  I am awfully sorry that our time has expired. I see two more Members 
just entered the room. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) and 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) just entered the room and I 
know that they wanted to be part of this.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to rise tonight 
with my distinguished colleagues in the newly formed Get Out of Iraq 
Caucus. We stand together in this hallowed place to advocate for the 
majority of Americans who believe that President Bush must get our men 
and women home from Iraq. It was the great politician and diplomat 
Adlai Stevenson who said: ``Patriotism is not a short and frenzied 
outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a 
lifetime.'' I want to thank each and every American who believes 
strongly in this cause for making that dedication and speaking out 
about what you believe to be wrong for our great Nation.
  I want start off by reading a very telling quote: ``War should be the 
politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a 
purpose that our people understand and support.'' This quote was made 
by none other than former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a senior 
member of the Bush Cabinet leading up to the war in Iraq. The truth is 
that this war was not a last resort, and it most certainly does not 
have the full support of the American people. The truth is that this 
Administration has continuously changed the truth about their motives 
for going to war. First they said it was about weapons of mass 
destruction, then when we found out the truth that there weren't any in 
Iraq, they said the war was now about Saddam, and today they tell us 
it's about establishing democracy in Iraq. The real truth is that this 
Administration has no real plan, they had no plan before going to war, 
they have no plan to get out of this war and most dangerous they have 
no plan to win this war. The truth is that our men and women of the 
Armed Forces are the ones caught in the middle, the ones who have to 
fight and risk their lives in a war that has not end in sight.
  Earlier this week I offered an amendment to the Defense 
Appropriations bill which would have increased funding for training the 
Iraqi National Army by $500 million. This Amendment would have doubled 
the amount of money appropriated for training the Iraqi National Army 
within the Iraq Freedom Fund. However, Mr. Inslee's amendment to lift 
the $500 million cap on funds for training the Iraqi National Army was 
accepted into this Appropriation. Therefore, I will work with Chairman 
Young and Ranking Member Murtha to insure that additional funds are 
appropriated for training the Iraqi National Army. The Jackson-Lee and 
Inslee amendments reinforce the point that the best way to get U.S. 
troops out of Iraq is to train the Iraqi troops to take care of their 
own nation. Clearly, more money is needed to not only train these 
inexperienced troops to defeat the insurgency, but also to pay troops 
to enlist in this new army despite the obvious danger they face. At 
this time of increased danger for our troops, this Amendment reiterates 
the fact that we need to be transferring more responsibility upon the 
Iraqis to take care of their nation and develop a plan to remove our 
U.S. troops.
  To this date at least 1,783 members of the U.S. military have died, 
152 from the State of Texas alone, since the beginning of the Iraq war 
in March 2003. Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that 
major combat operations in Iraq had ended, at least 1,585 U.S. military 
members have died. There have been at least 1,909 coalition deaths in 
Iraq, which means that more than 93 percent of the coalition deaths 
have come from the U.S. Armed Forces. This President told us that there 
would be an international coalition going in to fight the Iraq War, the 
truth is that it is our troops and our troops alone who are on those 
front lines suffering mass casualties and the burden of this war.
  Just last month I wrote to President Bush respectfully requesting him 
to rescind and repeal the Defense Department rule that bars public 
viewing of the flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers upon their 
arrival back to the United States in the spirit of patriotism, honor, 
and respect for the service that they have given. This overly 
restrictive rule contravenes the First, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments to 
the United States Constitution as well as the principles of due process 
and equal protection as it relates to the decedents, their families, 
and each American who wishes to honor one who has fought for his or her 
Nation. In addition, this rule violates the Freedom of Information Act 
by arbitrarily narrowing the scope of material that may be accessed 
under the law. While the stated objective of this policy is to protect 
the privacy of the decedents' families, its effect reaches 
unjustifiably broad and in a manner repugnant to the foundations of the 
democracy in which we live. The American public has been allowed to 
view and honor fallen soldiers of wars dating as recently as the 
Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991 under prior Administrations of both 
political parties. The current policy is clearly deceitful to the 
American people, who deserve to know the full truth about the War in 
Iraq.
  When our American troops are the ones fighting abroad, it is our 
military families who must also suffer. They wait every day and night 
hoping to hear from the loved ones, praying that they are not put in 
harm's way, that they may come home soon. Too many families have not 
been so lucky, finding out the news of a loved one's death is not only 
emotionally traumatizing it can have long term effects for the family 
that may never be repaired. Such is the case with the family of Army 
Spc. Robert Oliver Unruh a 25-year-old soldier who was killed by enemy 
fire near Baghdad on September 25th of last year. Unruh was a combat 
engineer, who had been in Iraq less than a month when he was shot 
during an attack on his unit. Several days after learning of his death, 
his mother had gone to

[[Page H4887]]

the hospital complaining of chest pains, Hamilton said. She was feeling 
better the next day but saw her son's body Saturday morning and 
collapsed that night in her kitchen. The poor woman literally died of a 
broken heart, her beloved son killed in action, the emotion of it all 
was just too much for her to take. There is also the story of the 
Danner family in Branson, Missouri who had to spend this last Father's 
Day sending their father off to War in Iraq. Col. Steve Danner will be 
heading to Fort Riley, Kan., on Monday to begin training before he 
begins a two-year tour in Iraq with the Army National Guard 35th 
Support Command. At 52, Danner isn't hesitating to fulfill his duty, 
but said it's going to be tough to leave his family. ``I'm as ready as 
I'm going to be,'' Danner said. ``My main regret is my youngest 
daughter is going to be a senior at Branson and I'll miss her softball 
games and probably her graduation next year. We have to recognize it's 
a reality. I've done this a lot of years. It's my turn again.'' 
Danner's wife, Katie, said she was ``shocked'' when she learned her 
husband would be headed to Iraq. ``I knew there was always a 
possibility, but you would have thought, at his age, that the war 
wouldn't be at a point where they would need his talents,'' she said. 
The Danners have four children, Aryn Danner Richmond, 29, of Phoenix, 
Andrew, 20, Alex, 19, and Audrey, 17. Katie Danner said they understand 
why their father needs to leave, but ``I don't think they really know 
what it will be like for Dad to be gone.'' It's a true shame that loyal 
soldiers like Col. Steve Danner have to be called up at the age of 52 
because of this war and the current recruiting shortage. It's stories 
like that that make my heart ache and that strengthen my resolve to 
defend the rights and welfare of our American soldiers and their 
families.
  We must all stand as champions for our men and women fighting abroad. 
These soldiers who bravely reported for duty, they are our sons and our 
daughters, they are our fathers and mothers, they are our husbands and 
wives, they are our fellow Americans and they deserve better than the 
predicament that this Administration has placed them in. Many of these 
soldiers are now themselves standing up and demanding answers about 
this war. One such brave individual is Sgt. Camilo Mejia, whose case I 
know that many tremendous anti-war organizations have championed. 
Camilo spent six months in combat in Iraq, and then returned for a 2-
week furlough to the U.S. There he reflected on what he had seen, 
including the abuse of prisoners and the killing of civilians. He 
concluded that the war was illegal and immoral, and decided that he 
would not return. In March 2004 he turned himself in to the U.S. 
military and filed an application for conscientious objector status, 
for this he was sentenced to one year in prison for refusing to return 
to fight in Iraq. He has eloquently stated: ``Behind these bars I sit a 
free man because I listened to a higher power, the voice of my 
conscience.'' He was finally released from prison on February 15th of 
this year. I applaud this young man for making a conscious decision not 
to fight in a war he does not believe in, it's a disgrace that this 
young man who truly is a conscientious objector was treated like a 
criminal.

  Time and time again this Administration has said that there are no 
plans for a draft, that we have an all-volunteer Army, but all of us 
know the real truth that there is in effect a back door draft taking 
place. Individuals who have been out of the Armed Forces for years and 
many who were told that they had fulfilled their commitment are now 
being taken away from their families and put in this war. Under the 
Pentagon's ``stop-loss'' program, the Army can extend enlistments 
during war or national emergencies, about 7,000 active-duty soldiers 
have had their contracts extended under the policy, and it could affect 
up to 40,000 reserve soldiers depending on how long the war in Iraq 
lasts. The Army has defended the policy, saying the fine print on every 
military contract mentions the possibility that time of service may 
change under existing laws and regulations. Its just cowardly to hide 
behind fine print when it comes to peoples lives being at stake in this 
war, every day their tours are unjustly extended is another day they 
risk their lives. However, many of these individuals are now fighting 
back against this injustice, rightfully asking why they, who have 
already proudly served their Nation, must now be recalled for a war 
that has already claimed too many American lives. Fewer than two-thirds 
of the former soldiers being reactivated for duty in Iraq and elsewhere 
have reported on time, prompting the Army to threaten some with 
punishment for desertion. The former soldiers, part of what is known as 
the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), are being recalled to fill 
shortages in skills needed for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  The military families know the helplessness that many of their loved 
ones serving in Iraq feel because they are being given no voice in this 
war they are being told to fight. An article in the Christian Science 
Monitor article written in July 2003, almost two years ago when this 
war was still in its infancy, had a number of very telling quotes from 
U.S. soldiers in Iraq. One soldier said: ``Most soldiers would empty 
their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home.'' Another soldier, an 
officer from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division said: ``Make no mistake, 
the level of morale for most soldiers that I've seen has hit rock 
bottom.'' The open-ended deployments in Iraq and the constantly 
shifting time tables prompted one soldier to remark: ``The way we have 
been treated and the continuous lies told to our families back home has 
devastated us all.'' In yet another Army unit, an officer described the 
mentality of troops: ``They vent to anyone who will listen. They write 
letters, they cry, they yell. Many sometimes walk around looking 
visibly tired and depressed. . . . We feel like pawns in a game that we 
have no voice [in].'' These quotes were taken almost two years ago, I 
can only imagine how these soldiers and others like them feel seeing 
that this war is still going on and with no real end in sight. These 
quotes individually are sad, but collectively they represent a pattern 
and unfortunately once again it is our men and women in the Armed 
Forces who are paying the price.
  Even members of this Administration who orchestrated this war have 
their failures in this war. L. Paul Bremer, has said ``horrid'' looting 
was occurring when he arrived to head the U.S.-led Coalition 
Provisional Authority in Baghdad on May 6, 2003. ``We paid a big price 
for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of 
lawlessness,'' Bremer said. ``We never had enough troops on the 
ground.'' Prior to those comments he had also stated last September 
that: ``The single most important change . . . would have been having 
more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout.'' He said he 
``raised this issue a number of times with our government'' but 
admitted that he ``should have been even more insistent.'' Even Defense 
Secretary Rumsfeld, the architect in many ways for this war admitted 
U.S. intelligence was wrong in its conclusions that Iraq had weapons of 
mass destruction. ``Why the intelligence proved wrong [on weapons of 
mass destruction], I'm not in a position to say,'' Rumsfeld said. ``I 
simply don't know.'' When asked about any connection between Saddam and 
al Qaeda, Rumsfeld said, ``To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, 
hard evidence that links the two.'' With leadership such as this, how 
are our troops supposed to have any confidence in this Administration 
and their handling of this war??

  This Administration is creating new veterans everyday by sending our 
soldiers to Iraq, meanwhile it has done nothing to help--the courageous 
veterans we already have here in our Nation. There are over 26,550,000 
veterans in the United States. In the 18th Congressional district of 
Texas alone there are more than 38,000 veterans and they make up almost 
ten percent of this district's civilian population over the age of 18.
  As soldiers return home from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps 
the most disturbing trend is their inability to find jobs because of 
their veteran status. Take the story of Staff Sgt. Steven Cummings from 
Milan, Michigan. Cummings' wife took out two mortgages and the couple 
accumulated $15,000 in debt during his 14 months overseas, because his 
salary was less than he was making as a civilian electrical controls 
engineer. Looking back, those almost seem like the good times. In the 
year since he's been home, Cummings has been laid off from two jobs. 
While other reasons were given for the layoffs, Cummings thinks both 
were related to his duty in the Michigan National Guard and the time 
off it requires. Like some other veterans who have returned from 
Afghanistan and Iraq, he is struggling to find work. ``I don't know 
what I'm going to do now. I'm in the exact position I was when I came 
back from Iraq,'' said Cummings, a father of two. ``I'm 50 years old 
and I have a mortgage payment due. I'm tired of it.'' Cummings, a 
member of the 156th Signal Battalion who did telecommunications work in 
the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Mosul, said he is surprised to find 
himself in this predicament. Cummings said he thought he was returning 
to Gentile Packaging Machinery Co., where he worked for 11 years in 
Bridgewater, Mich., but he was told he was laid off the first day he 
was back to work, he said. Cummings said he considered suing the owner, 
but freshly home from war, it just seemed overwhelming to do so because 
he felt ``devastated, betrayed, worthless.'' A few months later through 
a veterans program he was able to get work at Superior Controls Inc., 
in Plymouth, Mich. But, he said he was laid off from that job on May 
20. He said he was told the company was downsizing, but he believes it 
was because he complained about a company policy that said it could not 
promise to hire returning veterans from war. Some are changed by war, 
and find the civilian jobs they had before are no longer as meaningful. 
This has also been the case with Cpl. Vicki Angell, 32, who was 
assigned to the 324th Military Police Battalion out of Chambersburg, 
Pa. She gave up her job as a customer service supervisor at

[[Page H4888]]

an equipment company to serve in Iraq, and it took her a year to find a 
job she was happy with as an editor at The Sheridan Press in Hanover, 
Pa. ``You send out a lot of resumes. You try to do everything you can 
do, but it's really hard to account for the time you are in Iraq, and 
really to try to make that, the things you were doing in Iraq relevant 
to what an employer is looking for today,'' Angell said. Sgt. Benjamin 
Lewis, 36, who also lost a stepson to the War in Iraq, was a civilian 
chef who worked at a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Mich., that burned down 
while he was deployed in Iraq with the Michigan National Guard, said 
some employers directly told him they could not hire him because he 
could be deployed again and needed weekends and time off in the summer 
for drilling. Others, he said, asked if he struggled mentally because 
of his time at war. He got so desperate he considered returning to Iraq 
with a new unit. It is because of cases such as these and many others 
throughout our nation that I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 1352, the 
Veterans Employment and Respect Act offered by my colleagues 
Representatives Allyson Schwartz and Joe Schwarz. This vital 
legislation already has 161 Congressional cosponsors and would give 
companies up to $2,400 in tax credits for each veteran from the 
Afghanistan and Iraq wars that they hire. Unfortunately, we may be able 
to give companies incentive to hire recent war veterans but it seems we 
can not get this Administration to put the same effort in looking after 
our veterans in the first place.

  As soldiers return home from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan the need 
for medical care, living assistance, and disability benefits are 
steadily increasing. This puts a strain on an already-overburdened 
Veterans Administration, which has not been adequately funded by the 
Bush Administration to meet these challenges. The fact is that more 
than 30,000 veterans are waiting six months or more for an appointment 
at VA hospitals, and there are more than 348,000 veterans on the 
waiting list for disability claim decisions. This President has long 
ignored pressing domestic concerns for a war that did not need to be 
fought and for which so many good American men and women have given 
their lives.
  It was our second President John Adams who aptly said: ``Great is the 
guilt of an unnecessary war.'' Unfortunately for our nation, our 
current President has not felt the weight of this guilt, for if he had 
our loved ones in the Armed Forces would be home now. This 
Administration told us that the international community would join us 
in Iraq; they said the world would be a better place because of this 
war and then they said major combat in Iraq was over. Today as we see 
our men and women every day giving their lives in Iraq, we know that 
this war has only caused a greater divide between our nation and the 
international community, this war has only increased hatred for our 
nation, it has not made us safer as promised, it has in fact put us in 
greater danger. President Abraham Lincoln speaking after the conclusion 
of the Civil War, gave a vision for our nation that I hope we can 
follow today, he said: ``With malice toward none; with clarity for all; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us 
strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; 
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and 
his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting 
peace, among ourselves and with all nations.'' Before I conclude I 
would like to take time to read some of the names of the soldiers from 
Houston who have given their lives in Iraq and honor them with a moment 
of silence.
  Spc. Adolfo C. Carballo, 20, Houston, Texas Died: April 10, 2004, 
Baghdad, Iraq.
  Pfc. Analaura Esparza Gutierrez, 21, Houston, Texas Died: October 1, 
2003, Tikrit, Iraq.
  Spc. John P. Johnson, 24, Houston, Texas Died: October 22, 2003, 
Baghdad, Iraq
  Spc. Scott Q. Larson, 22, Houston, Texas Died: April 5, 2004, 
Baghdad, Iraq.
  Sgt. Keelan L. Moss, 23, Houston, Texas Died: November 2, 2003, Al 
Fallujah, Iraq.
  Pfc. Armando Soriano, 20, Houston, Texas Died: February 1, 2004, 
Haditha, Iraq.
  Cpl. Tomas Sotelo Jr., 20, Houston, Texas Died: June 27, 2003, 
Baghdad, Iraq.
  Staff Sgt. Brian T. Craig, 27, Houston, Texas, April 15, 2002, 
Afghanistan
  Capt. Eric L. Allton, 34, Houston, Texas September 26, 2004, Ramadi, 
Iraq.
  Capt. Andrew R. Houghton, 25, Houston, Texas August 9, 2004, Ad 
Dhuha, Iraq.
  Lance Cpl. Thomas J. Zapp, 20, Houston, Texas November 8, 2004, Al 
Anbar Province, Iraq.
  Cpl. Zachary A. Kolda, 23, Houston, Texas December 1, 2004, Al Anbar 
Province, Iraq.
  Staff Sgt. Dexter S. Kimble, 30, Houston, Texas January 26, 2005, Ar 
Rutba, Iraq.
  Pfc. Jesus A. Leon-Perez, 20, Houston, Texas January 24, 2005, 
Mohammed Sacran, Iraq.
  (Moment of Silence.)
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, we have spent over $200 billion so far on 
the war in Iraq. According to the Congressional Budget Office, by 2010, 
our expenses might be as much as $600 billion.
  The two hundred billion dollars we have spent so far would be enough 
money to provide health care for the 45 million Americans without 
health insurance.
  That two hundred billion dollars would permit us to hire three and a 
half million elementary school teachers.
  That two hundred billion dollars for the war in Iraq is going on 
America's credit card and that goes right to the deficit--a debt to be 
paid by our children and grandchildren.
  All this might be worth it if we had something to show for it. I 
think two hundred billion dollars for peace and democracy is a bargain.
  But we haven't gotten peace and democracy. That two hundred billion 
has bought us: over seventeen hundred dead Americans; an unknowable 
number of Iraqi civilian deaths; a dysfunctional country that cannot 
move its political process forward; a new haven and proving ground for 
anti-American extremism; a wellspring of mistrust from longtime friends 
and allies around the world; and a devastating erosion of American 
leadership and credibility.
  So what are we still doing there? The President says we are pursuing 
our ``ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.'' But the President 
has dragged onto a path that, at best, muddles that message.
  We are building our nation's largest embassy in Iraq; even before it 
is complete, we have more than 1,000 embassy staff in Iraq. What is the 
average Iraqi on the streets of Fallujah--or average Jordanian on the 
streets of Amman--going to think when he sees that we are building the 
Largest American Embassy in the World in Baghdad?
  I am sure the average Iraqi does not mourn the savage brutality of 
Saddam Hussein's regime. The question is whether he equates our never-
ending American presence in Iraq with a new form of tyranny, rather 
than the freedom the President says he seeks to spread.
  The underlying problem with our endless occupation of Iraq--a country 
that does not threaten the United States--is that it undermines our 
leadership on issues that DO threaten the United States. North Korean 
and Iranian nuclear weapons, global terrorism, emerging deadly 
international diseases--all these issues are imminent threats that we 
must confront. Our ability to convince other nations to join us in 
boldly confronting these threats has been hobbled both by our deceptive 
entry into Iraq and our lingering departure from it.
  Mr. Speaker, our Iraq policy has become a festering wound that bleeds 
away more and more of America's wealth, America's security, America's 
leadership, and even America young men and women in uniform. I ask all 
my colleagues to join me in asking the President seek an exit from this 
venture at the earliest possible moment.

                          ____________________