[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 143 (Wednesday, November 2, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9541-H9547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OUT OF IRAQ CAUCUS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House this evening as one
of the organizers of the Out of Iraq Caucus to talk about what we have
done in that caucus, what we are attempting to continue to do, and
where we feel we are at this point.
We now have 69 Members who have signed up as part of the Out of Iraq
Caucus. We have been meeting on a regular basis. We have had invited
speakers and experts come to our caucus to talk about the war in Iraq,
to talk about our image in the world as it relates to the war in Iraq,
to talk about any number of subjects to help us try and guide this
House and this Nation on this war. We think it is extremely important
for the Members of Congress to be involved in this way because there
are so many questions that are being raised by the American public
about the war in Iraq.
When we organized this caucus, we did not organize the caucus with
the conclusion that we had to get out right now. We did not organize
the caucus with the strategy to adopt an exit strategy or to try and
force the administration to adopt an exit strategy. We did not organize
the caucus around the idea that we should stay there for as long as it
takes to train Iraqi soldiers and then exit.
We simply organized the Out of Iraq Caucus because we all felt that
we must get out of Iraq, and we did not try to say when. We did not
even try to say how. We wanted to bring together the kind of discussion
that would lead us to adopting the right kind of strategy, to provide
some leadership to the Congress of the United States and to this
administration.
[[Page H9542]]
While we have been doing that, over 2,032 U.S. soldiers died while
serving in Iraq as of November 2. In the month of October, 93 United
States soldiers died in Iraq. October was the fourth deadliest month
for U.S. soldiers since the war began on March 29, 2003, and the
deadliest since January when 106 U.S. soldiers died. The second most
violent month was November 2004, when Americans battled Sunni Arab
rebels in Fallujah. The third most violent month was in April 2004,
when U.S. soldiers fought militiamen loyal to the Shiite cleric in
Najaf. More than 15,353 U.S. soldiers have been injured while serving
in Iraq, and we are told there are over 404 amputees.
The administration has allocated about $357 billion for military
operations, reconstruction, embassy costs, and various foreign aid
programs in Iraq and Afghanistan since the September 11 attacks. Of
that $357 billion, $251 billion of that total has been for Iraq and
about $82 billion for Afghanistan.
Mr. Speaker, we are told, despite these casualties, despite these
amputees, despite what appears to be our inability to get a handle on
the insurgents and all of these roadside bombings, we are told that we
are winning this war. As a matter of fact, the President rolled out May
1, 2003, on an aircraft carrier all decked out in the proper dress to
accompany his speech and said ``mission accomplished.''
The American public has trusted that this administration knew what it
was doing. They gave the administration the benefit of the doubt, even
when Mr. Rumsfeld was being urged by people much more expert than he
that we did not have enough troops on the ground in order to win the
war. He insisted that he knew better what he was doing. He did not
increase those numbers. The American public sees now that he did not
know what he was talking about.
The American public has stayed with this administration despite the
fact that the President said that we were going to get enough money
from the oil wells in Iraq to take care of rebuilding the
infrastructure. That has not happened. The insurgents continue to blow
up the oil wells. We have gotten no money from the oil in Iraq.
The American people continue to try and trust the President of the
United States, but the lack of getting a handle on these insurgents and
the killing of our soldiers, the lack of getting any profits from the
oil wells, the lack of being in control and getting a handle on what is
going on in Iraq is causing the American people to move away from
support for the President of the United States and this war.
At first, the American public was saying, no, we do not like the way
this administration has handled this war, but we think perhaps the
President may be right. Perhaps we need to stay there until we have
trained enough Iraqi soldiers to wind out of the war.
But that does not appear to be happening. As a matter of fact, we
keep getting muddled information about how many Iraqi soldiers have
been trained. We have been told numbers that we cannot confirm. We have
been told that it is just a matter of time before we will have trained
enough of these soldiers to whom we can turn over the operations.
We have had all of these different military operations. We started
out with Operation Iraqi Freedom, which was the name of the entire
Iraqi effort that began in March of 2003. At its height, we had over
300,000 troops in the region. Currently, we have about 139,000 U.S.
soldiers in Iraq.
We had Strike and Awe, which described the initial military action in
the opening hours and days of the war. We have had Operation River
Gate, which took place in the al Anbar Province near the Syrian border.
American forces were trying to retake three towns from al Qaeda
insurgents.
{time} 2130
Some 2,500 U.S. troops along with Iraqi forces participated in
Operation River Gate.
Then we had Operation Iron Fist, similar to Operation River Gate,
which occurred shortly before Operation River Gate.
Then we had Operation Lightning launched in early May 2005, to break
the insurgency. Approximately 40,000 Iraqi troops and 10,000 U.S.
soldiers were deployed in and around Baghdad.
Then we had Operation Matador. Operation Matador was launched in the
first weeks of May 2005, after U.S. intelligence showed insurgents had
moved into the northern Jazirah Desert after the losses in the cities
of Fallujah and Ramadi.
Operation Spear began on June 17, 2005, with 1,000 Marines and Iraqi
soldiers in western Iraq to hunt for insurgents and foreign fighters.
Operation Spear took place in the Anbar province. The operation came
one day after Air Force Brigadier General Don Alston called the Syrian
border the worst problem in stemming the influx of foreign fighters to
Iraq. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to
tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq. Yet we do not
know whether or not the insurgents are really the Sunnis and al Qaeda
inside Baghdad, inside Iraq, or really all of the insurgents coming
from Syria.
Operation Dagger. About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops, backed
by fighter jets and tanks, launched a second offensive Saturday against
insurgents operating in restive Anbar province. That was called
Operation Dagger. Operation Dagger aims to uncover insurgent training
camps and weapons caches in the southern part of the Lake Tharthar area
in central Iraq, 85 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.
And now, Operation Sword. Operation Sword included about 1,000 U.S.
Marine soldiers and sailors from Regimental Combat Team-2, as well as
about 100 Iraqi soldiers. It was the fifth operation launched in late
spring, early summer 2005, designed to pressure insurgents in the
country's expansive and restive Anbar province west of Baghdad.
We are not in control of what is happening with this war that we
launched because there were supposedly weapons of mass destruction. We
are losing our soldiers. We are not getting Iraqi soldiers trained. The
President of the United States said we may be there for the next 10
years.
The American people have had enough. I believe that those of us who
are working in the Out of Iraq Caucus have had enough. It is time for
us to review what we are doing. It is time for us to call on this
President to tell the American people when and how we are going to get
out, and we cannot accept that we will be there until hell freezes over
if that is what it takes.
We cannot accept that all of these operations have not worked. We
cannot accept that we cannot find a way to stop these roadside
bombings. We cannot accept that we are bleeding the American taxpayer
dollars with over $1 billion a week being spent in Iraq and over $1
billion a month being spent in Afghanistan. So we come here tonight to
challenge the President and this administration.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to my colleagues who have come here
to discuss this very, very serious matter with us. First, my good
friend and colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Waters) for her leadership in the Out of Iraq Caucus
and for her leadership in the effort to achieve peace and to achieve a
more rational U.S. foreign policy and to do the right thing on behalf
of our country.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that the war in Iraq was wrong. I believe it
was a mistake. This was a war based on fix. There were no weapons of
mass destruction. There were no ties to al Qaeda. There were no nuclear
weapons. There was no imminent threat to the United States. And with
the acquiescence of this Congress, I am sad to say this country rushed
into a war, a war that has turned out to be a violent quagmire, a war
with no end.
Mr. Speaker, we have already spent some $300 billion on this war in
Iraq. There is no end in sight. We are told that if we are there for
another 2 years that the figure will be up to $1 trillion.
Now, think about it. What could we do with hundreds of billions of
dollars? We could reduce our deficit and reduce the debt. We could
actually do something very important in helping to insure some of the
millions of Americans who do not have health insurance in this country.
We could help to rebuild our schools and provide a first-class
education to every single young person in this country. We could
rebuild our infrastructure. Or we can put it toward
[[Page H9543]]
helping our veterans who have fought in the wars over the years, who
have given so much of themselves, and who are sick and tired of getting
nickled and dimed by this Congress with budgets that underfund the
veterans' affairs every single year.
Mr. Speaker, I personally believe that the policy that we should
pursue is one that requires the United States to end our involvement in
Iraq. I have legislation that I have introduced that requires an end to
the war in Iraq now, not 6 months from now, not a year from now, not at
some date to be determined by the President. We have given him his
chance, and he has come back and said that he just wants to stay there
for the next decade. He does not seem to be mindful of the fact that
everything that he said about this war has turned out to be false.
I want this war ended now. I think the majority of people in this
country want this war ended now. They realize that this huge U.S.
presence in Iraq right now is not calming the violence. They realize
that we are now a major part of the problem.
There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before we got in Iraq. It is not just
al Qaeda. It is other terrorist organizations, quite frankly, that are
now sticking their nose in Iraq, trying to get at the United States. It
is not about the future of Iraq. It is about the United States of
America.
Now I believe that the time has come for the President to authorize
an orderly and safe withdrawal of our troops. The legislation that I
have introduced calls for that, right now. If it passes today, it would
begin today. The legislation says that we can support all efforts to
make sure that our troops have a safe and orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
It says that we can support reconstruction efforts in Iraq, which I
think is important. We helped destroy that country. We need to help
rebuild that country. It says that we can support international forces
as transitional security in Iraq. If other countries want to provide a
transitional security force, we should be able to support that.
Hopefully, some of the neighboring Arab countries will want to do that.
We should be able to support a U.N. force or a NATO force going in.
But the bottom line is, I think it is clear to anybody who has been
watching this, that the time has come to demand that no more U.S.
forces be in Iraq. It is time to end this war.
Mr. Speaker, now I know that there are some, and I hear it a lot,
every time those of us try to raise some questions and try to raise
some dissent, there are those who say, well, you should not do that. It
is somehow unpatriotic. You are not supporting our troops. You are not
supporting our country. You are giving comfort to the enemy. I hear
that all the time when I speak about my opinions on Iraq or when I hear
others speak in ways that dissent from this current policy. Well,
nothing could be farther from the truth.
Let me tell you, it takes absolutely no courage at all for anybody in
this House or in the United States Senate or in this administration to
wave the American flag and say, stay the course and send more troops.
It takes no courage at all. Because it is not us whose lives are on the
line and, with very few exceptions, it is not our children whose lives
are on the line. Over 2,000 Americans have lost their lives in a
conflict that the President of the United States said would be a
relatively short conflict that would be easily manageable and that
would not entail these casualties. He was wrong. Two thousand Americans
have now died, over 2,000 Americans. That is not counting the tens of
thousands of innocent Iraqis who have lost their lives.
The President and his administration was wrong on this. We were not
told the truth. I sat through all of those classified briefings with
the Secretary of State, with the Secretary of Defense, with all of the
intelligence agencies that they brought up here to tell us about what
this war would be if we got into it, and everything they said was
wrong.
Now, one of two things explains that fact. One, either our
intelligence agencies are just so incompetent and so dumb that they got
everything wrong; or, two, that this intelligence was exaggerated. Now,
I do not believe that our intelligence agencies are dumb. I do not
believe our intelligence agencies could get anything that wrong. We
spend billions of dollars each year in supporting our intelligence
agencies. I do not think, I do not believe that anybody believes that
they got it that wrong.
What I think most people believe is that the intelligence that was
presented to the Congress and to the United States people was the
intelligence that this administration thought fit their argument,
complemented their argument. It was not a balanced picture. It was what
they wanted to present; and, as a result, there was a rush to war.
Mr. Speaker, we need to figure out a way now as to how to get out of
this. It is imperative that we get out of this now. I have been to
three funerals in the last few months in my own district of young men
who have lost their lives in this conflict. I have seen their families
grieve, their friends grieve. I do not want to see any more families
have to go through that. I want this administration to come clean on
what the facts are, on what their plans on, and also come clean on the
intelligence leading into this war.
I want to say one thing about the Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
I will tell you, I was never more proud of him than I was yesterday
when he finally stood up and showed the commitment and showed the spine
to ask the tough questions that people all over this country,
Republican and Democrat alike, have been asking, and that is, what was
the intelligence that brought us into this war? Was it exaggerated? How
was it manipulated? How could we have gotten it so wrong?
I want to tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I think Democrats and
Republicans alike believe, I am not saying in this Chamber, but I am
saying throughout the country, believe that if, in fact, there are
people in this administration who intentionally and deliberately
exaggerated intelligence and manipulated intelligence to get us into
this war, then those people should be fired and fired now.
What you saw was Scooter Libby's indictment is just the tip of the
iceberg. Quite frankly, the President should fire Karl Rove now. He
lied to the President of the United States. He lied to the American
people. He told the President, along with Mr. Libby, that they had no
knowledge of who leaked Valerie Plame's identity to the press. We now
know that that is a lie. And the fact that this President sees no
problem with keeping his top aide on after this man lied about
something so serious, quite frankly, is very disturbing to this Member
of Congress.
These are serious matters. War is a big deal. This is not something
to be taken lightly. The great English conservative Edmund Burke once
said, ``A conscientious man would be cautious in how he dealt with
blood.'' This administration claims to be conservative. Well, they
should heed Edmund Burke's words. They have been too casual with how
they have dealt with blood. They have been too casual with how they
have deployed our troops overseas.
And the indifference that we see each and every day at press
briefings by White House spokespeople, by the President; you never hear
from the Vice President, so I cannot really say much about him. But
this kind of casual attitude that everything is just great. Let us just
stay the course. We are doing the right thing. It takes my breath away.
I do not know if it is that they do not watch TV or they do not read
the newspapers or they do not talk to those who are on the ground in
Iraq or those families who have lost loved ones, but the fact of the
matter is this is a serious matter.
I think the only way that we are going to see a change in course is
for Members of Congress to organize, like we are doing here in this Out
of Iraq Caucus, for people across this country to join in protest, to
join in dissent, to start writing their Members of Congress and saying,
we demand that you end this war and end it now. That is the only way we
are going to see an end to this war. Because I am convinced, watching
this administration in action, that nothing will change.
Sadly, I am convinced, by watching the leadership of this Congress
and how they have behaved during these last few years of this war, with
this indifference, with this kind of cover-up
[[Page H9544]]
mentality, to not question the administration, to not hold them
accountable for anything, to not do our job with proper oversight, I am
convinced that unless Members of Congress are pressured by their
constituents, then we will not act here as well.
{time} 2145
Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying that I love this country
more than anything, and nothing disturbs me more than to see us
involved in a war that we have no business being in. Nothing disturbs
me more than to see the loss of innocent lives that we see going on
each and every day.
I think we are better. I think we can do better. You know, great
nations sometimes misstep. Sometimes great nations make mistakes. It is
up to great nations to fix those mistakes. We have made a mistake in
Iraq. This is not about whether we honor our troops or not. I honor our
troops. I want to do more for our troops.
I wish the people on the other side of the aisle would join us in
demanding more money for our veterans. I am worried about all of those
men and women coming back from Iraq with post-traumatic stress
syndrome. I am worried that they are not going to get the health care
they deserve.
I am worried that their families are not getting the benefits that
they need and that they deserve. I am worried about people coming back
to no jobs. So this is not about our commitment to our troops. We are
committed to our troops. We honor them. We are in awe of their service.
They have done what their country has asked.
This is about whether this policy is right or whether this policy is
wrong. And if you believe, as many of us do, that this policy is wrong,
then you need to stand up and you need to be counted, and you need to
demand that this policy change and change now.
It is not patriotic to remain silent in the face of policies that you
object to. That is not patriotism. That is cowardice. And we need to
stand up, those of us who believe that this war is wrong, and I know
that there are many who are silent right now who believe as we do that
this war was wrong. They need to stand up and join with us.
Enough is enough. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) put it
eloquently and succinctly. Enough is enough. This war needs to come to
an end. Not one more dollar, not one more death. This is the time to do
it.
We are trying, with this caucus, to energize people on both sides of
the aisle, this is not a partisan issue, to come together and demand
that we change our policy. Our country is so much better. We are so
much better than this. We stand for so much more than what is on
display in Iraq.
And I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the White House listens to those of us
in the United States Congress. Our numbers are growing each and every
day who disagree with this war. And I hope they are watching these
public opinion polls and listening to people all across this land who
are saying they do not want any more war, they do not want any more
people to die.
They are tired of being engaged in a war that is dragging our good
name into the mud. This is not America. We are so much better.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to listen to what we are saying
tonight, to join with us and hopefully help put this country on a
better course. With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Waters).
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Mr. McGovern) for his eloquent and very thorough evaluation and
assessment of what is happening in Iraq. He has been an absolute
stalwart in trying to help bring this Congress to its senses and this
administration. And I am so pleased that he was here this evening to
further share with the American public our very, very deep concerns and
our very deep feelings.
The gentleman's call for an end to this war, I think, is right on
target. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Woolsey) to further discuss not only her long-time
involvement with trying to help frame a direction for this Nation, her
long-time commitment to challenging this administration, about the way
that it went into this war, and what has been happening since we have
been in this war, all the work that she has done, the many nights that
she has been on the floor, the resolution that she did so well on with
this Congress.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Out of Iraq
Caucus, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), in bringing all
of the voices together in the Congress, because we all have a lot to
say. And we are all getting to the same conclusion, the conclusion that
I reached a couple of years ago, actually. We do not need to be in
Iraq. We are making a mistake. It is a faux war, and we need to bring
our troops home now.
Mr. Speaker, I want to share a quote: ``Victory means exit strategy,
and it is important for the President to explain to us what that exit
strategy is.'' Those words were not spoken by a Member of Congress, not
by a prominent opponent of the Iraq war. They were not even spoken by
this President about this war.
Those words were spoken in April 1999 about President Clinton's
military campaign in Kosovo, and they were spoken by a Republican
Governor named George W. Bush. But what a difference 6\1/2\ years
makes. It is precisely an exit strategy that is missing from our Iraq
policy.
With over 2,000 of our citizens dead, $1 billion of tax dollars being
spent in Iraq every week, the American people have a right to some
answers to some important questions like, what exactly defines victory?
What are the benchmarks of success? What is the long-term plan? What
does the end game look like? These are the questions that my leader of
the Iraq Caucus has been asking about tonight.
We are paying for this war in blood and money. My home district lost
a 23-year-old soldier less than a month ago. Why does the President
insult us with empty platitudes about staying the course and staying in
Iraq as long as it takes?
Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of traveling to Iraq 1 month ago. I
went with a few of my colleagues here in the House. The most rewarding,
the most enlightening part of the trip was simply having dinner and
talking with the enlisted men and women, particularly those from my
district, California's 6th Congressional District. It is Marin and
Sonoma counties just north of the Golden Gate Bridge across the bridge
from San Francisco.
These troops are online over there, believe me. They know I am
against this war. They knew I was. They looked me up before I got
there. And they immediately asked me, and they had every right to,
Congresswoman, why are you here? You are against this war. My answer
was straight. My answer was true. And my answer they believed. Yes,
indeed, I told them, I am against this war. I have been against this
war from the very beginning.
But I want you to know that I support the troops. I have been working
within this Congress to make sure that you have the equipment you need
to make sure that you have the health care over there, the best you can
have; and when you get home, that you will have the benefits that we
have promised you.
But in all of that, I remain against this war because I want you to
come home and I want you to be home with your families. I want you to
be alive. I want you to be mentally whole, and I also want you to be
physically whole.
Mr. Speaker, these young people are the very best America has to
offer. They are brave. They are intelligent. They are loyal. They are
loyal to their country, to their mission, and to each other. They are
profoundly committed to this mission, even those who told me privately
that they do not support the war or the policy that underlies it.
They are genuine heroes whose courage and resolve is greater than our
accolades can begin to convey. We truly have the most capable military
the world has ever known. So what is the problem? The problem is that
we do not have leaders in Washington worthy of these fine soldiers. Our
troops have been failed, failed by their civilian superiors who sent
them to Iraq on false pretenses, on a poorly defined mission without
all of the tools they needed, and without a plan to get them out of
there. If the President will not lead to bring our troops home, then we
will.
And that is what the Out of Iraq Caucus is all about. Last month we
assembled a group of Middle East experts and military strategists to
explore viable
[[Page H9545]]
and compassionate exit strategies because the American people deserve
better than the poor planning that has characterized every single phase
of this war.
The extraordinary men and women who I met in Iraq most certainly
deserve better. They deserve leaders as courageous and honorable as
they are in return for their unfailing loyalty. They deserve basic
competence and integrity. I have some suggestions of what the President
should be doing next in order to bring our troops home immediately.
Part of what he must do is eat crow. He has to apologize to the rest
of the international world for going into Iraq in the first place and
trying to bring them into the war with him.
He must become a diplomat instead of a warrior because the way he is
doing it now is not working. He also must reach out to the global
world. He must ask worldwide for assistance to help Iraq return their
country to their people.
He also must work internationally with the United Nations, with NATO,
with the experts who have been through this before in South Africa and
in Ireland. He must work with them, help them, give them the room to
help the Iraqis in their reconstruction and reconciliation. We do not
know how to do it, obviously. We only know how to cause a war. We need
to work now on how to end that war and how not to totally leave the
Iraqi people in a quagmire.
But speaking of quagmires, that is what our President has us in. He
has us in a corner. It is a lose-lose situation. Actually, if we stay
in Iraq, our troops will continue to be killed and maimed and innocent
Iraqi civilians will lose their homes and their lives and their
families.
If we leave, indeed we will leave Iraq in a bad way. It will be a
bloody mess until they can figure out how to get their country back
together. But we can help them put it back together, not militarily,
but with a non-militaristic presence. Why we are not doing that is
beyond me. That is how we should have been doing it in the first place.
So what I would like to suggest is that our President, I do not want
to suggest it, what I would like to demand is that the President of the
United States put together a plan to bring our troops home and to bring
them home immediately.
I yield to the gentlewoman.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms.
Woolsey) for her commitment, for her hard work, and for her sincere
desire to provide leadership for this Congress to bring our troops
home.
{time} 2200
Mr. Speaker, you have heard from two of our hardest workers this
evening about the war in Iraq. You have heard their assessments. You
have listened to their advice.
I think it is important for us all to understand that not only have
we gone into this war under false pretenses, having the American people
believe that there were weapons of mass destruction when, in fact,
there are no weapons of mass destruction. We have gone into this war
with this administration making the American people believe that
somehow Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks when that
certainly is not true. And al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden who have been
determined to be responsible are still not contained, have not been
apprehended.
The idea that somehow we must stay in Iraq because it is going to
make us safer is the kind of argument that the American people just
will not accept any more. As a matter of fact, I think the American
people understand we are less safe because we are in Iraq. We are less
safe because we have created a breeding ground for the training and
development of these insurgents. We are less safe.
While the President talks about homeland security, it takes but a
natural disaster to help Americans know that really we do not have a
handle on homeland security at all. If, in fact, we can witness what
happened to us as a result of Katrina, if we understand that not only
were we not able to handle a disaster despite the fact we have this
huge bureaucracy of homeland security under FEMA, and with all of that
people were left stranded without food, without water, still we do not
have a handle on how to get those people into temporary housing, let
alone permanent housing.
So people have to be suspicious about what would happen to us in the
event of a terrorist attack, and people have to wonder why are we
putting all of this money and all of this effort into Iraq when the
folks who were responsible for 9/11 still have not been apprehended.
People have to wonder what is it about this relationship with Saudi
Arabia, when we know that the perpetrators of 9/11 were from Saudi
Arabia, trained in the madrassas of our so-called friends, trained by
the royal family's money that helped them to learn to hate the United
States of America, yet we wrap our arms around them, we call them our
friends. And after the 9/11 attack we went to their aid, and the
members of that royal family that was in the United States of America,
we picked them up one by one. We had airplanes dispatched across this
country. We put them on those airplanes when Americans could not get on
airplanes. When airplanes were grounded, when the Vice President of the
United States could not get an airplane, we picked up the Saudis, we
put them on the airplanes. We protected them, and we got them out of
here.
We did not know whether or not they were tied to those that were
responsible to 9/11. We did not understand how the funding of some of
the so-called nonprofit operations were really funds that were going
into terrorist operations. We did not do an investigation. We did
nothing but pick them up, protect them, and send them on their way. And
we talk about homeland security. Give me a break.
We cannot trust that this administration can secure the homeland and
certainly we are spending the taxpayers dollars, billions of dollars,
billions of dollars in Iraq when perhaps we do need that money in our
ports. We need those monies in our airports. We need those monies with
helping to fund the first responders.
I have been holding emergency preparedness town halls all over my
district. What do the first responders tell us? They do not have enough
money. They do not have enough resources. They do not have the
communication systems by which in the event of an attack that the
various first responders can communicate with each other just as they
did not have it in New Orleans.
So this effort that has been put forth by this administration is not
a good one. Not only did they not plan well for the war, they never had
an exit strategy going in. They never knew how they were going to get
out. The headiness of Mr. Rumsfeld with his shock and awe campaign that
led people to believe that somehow we were going to bomb people into
submission, make people think that somehow we were protecting them from
terrorism, that we were making this country safer, somehow because of
the might of the bombs and the sophisticated artillery that somehow we
were going to make Americans believe everything was all right.
At the moment the President declared ``mission accomplished,'' the
insurgents said, now let the war begin. And, guess what? They do not
have the sophisticated technology that we have. They do not have the
resources that we have. But you know what? They are wreaking havoc on
us and our soldiers. They are killing our young people.
As it was said by some of my colleagues, it is all right to say we
will be there for as long as it takes. But whose children are we
talking about? Whose young people are we sending into war, a timeless
war, when we cannot tell the American people how we are going to get
out of it, where we never had a plan to get out of it? Whose children
are dying?
The American people are fed up with this war. They have trusted this
President and this administration long enough. Mr. President, it is
time to bring our soldiers home. It is time to get out of Iraq.
The President consistently tells the American people that we will
stand down when the Iraqis are ready to stand up. However, there is
little evidence that the Iraqis are ready to take over their security
responsibilities.
In July, the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton),
[[Page H9546]]
told us that he believed there were only about 5,000 trained Iraqis,
even though the Bush administration claims to have trained 170,000.
General John P. Abizaid, who leads the U.S. Central Command, told the
Senate Armed Services Committee in September that a single Iraqi
battalion was at level one combat readiness, meaning it was capable of
taking the lead in combat without support from coalition forces.
During the same testimony, General George W. Casey, Jr., who oversees
U.S. forces in Iraq, said the number of level one battalions had
dropped from three to one since June.
We cannot even get the right information, and that is why the Senate
Democrats will take the action that they took. They had to go into
closed session. They had to confront the Republicans in the Senate
about the so-called investigations, about going on to phase two, to try
and get information about what happened with our intelligence
community. What did we know and when did we know it and what did we do
about it? You cannot hide this information forever.
The tactics of this administration, misleading, not giving out all of
the information, distorting information, will come to an end; and the
retaliation against those who speak out is being unveiled now in a way
that is causing the indictments and more to come.
The fact of the matter is this administration attempted to punish
Ambassador Wilson by outing his wife, Valerie Plame. These tactics of
distortion, intimidation, misleading information, rolling out
Republican relations campaigns, all of this must come to an end.
Americans cannot stand to be misdirected. Americans can stand no longer
to be told mistruths. Americans can no longer take from their President
and this administration that kind of treatment.
So we stand here tonight to say again and again, enough is enough. We
have got to bring an end to this war. We have got to redirect our
resources back to the people of this Nation. The war in Iraq has cost
us almost $3 billion so far. The funding would provide much-needed
resources for Americans here at home for the money that we are sending
in Iraq.
Let me just give you some idea what could have been provided: Health
care for 46,458,000,805 people. Health care could have been provided
for the amount of money that we are spending. 3,545,016,000 elementary
schoolteachers could have been paid for. 27,93,000,473 Head Start
places for children. 120,351,991,000 children's health care could have
been paid for. We could have built 1,841,000,833 affordable housing
units. We could have built another 24,000,072 new elementary schools.
On and on. 39,000,665,748 scholarships for university students.
4,000,000,699 public safety officers or 3,204,000, 265 port container
inspectors. I could go on and on.
The American people deserve to have their tax dollars spent not only
to protect and secure us but to provide universal comprehensive health
care. It is unconscionable to talk about we are going to be confronted
with a pandemic but we do not have enough medicine. We do not have
enough resources. We do not have enough hospitals. We do not know how
we are going to take care of people in the event of a pandemic. It is
unconscionable to talk about how in the event of a pandemic so many
people are going to be at risk, to anticipate that so many people are
going to die.
It is unconscionable to talk about you cannot pay for Katrina or Rita
or any of these disasters that are confronting us unless we go back
into the budget and reconcile and cut the budget deeper and deeper and
deeper and do all of this while we continue to give a tax break to the
richest people in America.
We are sick and tired of these policies that do not make good sense.
We are sick and tired of the direction that is keeping us at war while
we are hurting and undermining the people of this Nation. We are sick
and tired of public policy that does not make good sense.
I am pleased that my colleague said this evening at the beginning of
their discussions, we support our soldiers. Do not forget it was really
this side of the aisle who forced the issue of protective gear for our
soldiers when we discovered that, with all of the talk from Mr.
Rumsfeld about we had enough soldiers and they had everything they
needed, and we discovered that they were over there with spit and glue,
literally trying to build protection, literally trying to figure out
ways by which to stop the bullets. It was this side of the aisle that
forced getting more money.
And we will continue to do that because we do respect, we do support
our soldiers. We love them. That is why we want them home. We want them
out of harm's way. We cannot tell them why they are there. We cannot
tell them why they are losing their lives.
Many of those young men and women went there because they are
patriotic. They believed their President. They went there because they
thought they were doing something good for their country, only to
discover that they were misled, that there are no answers.
Many of them went there because they were looking for a way out. They
were looking for ways by which to provide for their families. They were
jobless in America, in the rural communities, in the inner cities.
We have not done right by our young men and women. We have not done
right by them. We have neither provided them with the security and the
protection that they need to serve in this war, nor have we respected
their right to have the answers to the questions that they are raising.
{time} 2215
I would like to at this time have a colloquy with my dear friend from
California who has worked so hard on this issue.
Do you believe that if we bring our soldiers home that we will be
taking the kind of action that will not only bring resources back to
this country that could be spent domestically, but in the final
analysis, we are taking them out of harm's way because if they stay
there there will be more and more deaths, and we still will not be able
to contain what perhaps is going to be a civil war anyway between the
Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds?
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Congresswoman totally, and
the American people know that you are right in what you said. This
Congress, this Pentagon, this administration will eventually catch up
to the American people who know that we should not be in Iraq in the
first place and that our staying there will not solve any problems. We
will lose more troops. They will come home maimed or dead, and we will
injure more innocent Iraqis and destroy their communities and their
neighborhoods and their lives; and when we leave, whatever is going to
happen will happen anyway. In the meantime, our troops will be losing.
What I would like to ask is, if the President really believes that we
are ending terrorism by being in Iraq, why in the world has he not
found Osama bin Laden? Iraq was not an Islamic terrorist country until
we went in, and now they are.
I asked the commanders directly, first, who is the enemy? The answer
was more than once, as a matter of fact, the insurgents are fighting
the very presence of the United States in Iraq because we do appear as
occupiers. When I asked the question who are the insurgents, they are
not coming from across the border. The great majority of the insurgents
are indeed local. They want us gone because they see us as occupiers.
We are helping build local insurgents by our presence. Our presence
needs to be there over time, but not in a militaristic way. Our
presence needs to be to help the Iraqi people rebuild their
infrastructure, their economic infrastructure and their physical
infrastructure that we have so destroyed. If we want the end of
terrorism, go after the guy that blew up our buildings in New York, go
after Osama bin Laden.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentlewoman is absolutely
correct. As a matter of fact, they do not even talk about Osama bin
Laden anymore.
I am absolutely outraged that we put money into Pakistan. We think we
have a friend there, Musharraf; but we know that that border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan is where we have al Qaeda, is where we have
terrorists. We believe that is where Osama bin Laden is. I believe that
he is being protected by those who we are trusting in Pakistan. I
believe that we are not putting enough time and effort on that border
where we have not only the terrorists and al Qaeda, but increasingly,
the Taliban is rising again from the Afghanistan side of all of this.
[[Page H9547]]
So we just have a misdirected administration who has messed up
everything. They have created a crisis. Our young men and women are
dying. We are spending American taxpayers' dollars. This money is going
out of the window. We are not accomplishing anything. We are getting
ripped off in more ways than one. Halliburton is making all of its
money. They have been cheating us, and we have slapped them on the
wrist, and we have let them go.
We are sick and tired. Enough is enough, and I would like to say to
the gentlewoman from California, if you have one last word in this 1
minute or so, please.
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, my last word is wake up, catch up with the
American people. Bring our troops home if you support them.
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