[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H11028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         DIPLOMATICALLY PURSUING STABILITY AND SECURITY IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well tonight after a long 
day of debate on whether or not we should redeploy our troops from 
Iraq.
  A careful reading of the gentleman from Pennsylvania's resolution, 
had we debated it, would have pointed out that the fourth point that he 
raised was that we have to diplomatically pursue security and stability 
in Iraq. It is that issue I want to talk about because the question is 
always raised, If we leave, will it not get worse? Will it not just 
explode into civil war? We have already got that. And the question must 
be answered as we talk about deployment from out of the country.
  At the same time, we have to decide to call on the Arab League or the 
Egyptians, to call together all the members of the community of Iraq: 
the Sunnis, the Shiias, the Kurds, the Turkomens, the Assyrians. All of 
them need to come together in a conference to resolve this. We have the 
idea that we can go with a Western idea of a constitution and that 
because it works here, we can just insert it into an Arab culture that 
has never worked under those circumstances.

                              {time}  2350

  What we need to do is recognize how Arabs have resolved problems for 
hundreds, thousands of years, if you will. It is called reaching an 
atwa.
  If two villages, and this story was told to me by an iman, a high 
ranking Iraqi, he said many years ago two villages had a brother and 
sister and they married across these two towns. One went to one 
village, the other went to the other village. In one village the wife 
was fertile and quickly had three children. In the other, the wife was 
barren and had no children. The village made fun of her. They ridiculed 
her. They said she was a terrible woman, and the social pressure was so 
great that she killed herself by throwing herself into the village 
well.
  Now under Arabic custom, that village that lost this woman has a 
right to go and extract blood within 24 hours. As those two villages 
came together for this bloodletting that was going to happen, they 
called and got them all to sit down and they decided how they were 
going to resolve this situation.
  The decision was made that the village that had had the young woman 
die in it would give $20,000 to the other village and that there would 
be no contact between those villages for 20 years. They reached an 
atwa, A-T-W-A.
  What that is in the Arabic culture is an arrangement, not a peace 
treaty. In the West we think of peace treaties where I agree with you 
and you agree with me, and we sign a bunch of pieces of paper. In the 
Arab culture where there is honor, people say I will stay here for 20 
years and you will stay there.
  The gentleman who told me the story said I was there 20 years later 
when the money was brought back from the first village back to its 
original place. He said within 2 years, there were marriages between 
the young people from the two villages. Even though they were 6 
kilometers apart, for 20 years there had been no contact.
  Now, Arabs have been resolving these kinds of things for thousands of 
years in the desert. There is a way for the Sunnis and the Shiias and 
the Kurds and the Turkomens to come together, but it cannot be driven 
by the United States. We cannot say you come over here and come to this 
conference that we are going to have in some hotel somewhere. It has to 
be called by the Arab League.
  This same thing could have prevented the gulf war back in 1991. When 
Saddam Hussein went into Kuwait, the Arab League said before the 
Americans attack, let us settle this among the Arab community. This is 
a fight among us. Saddam Hussein thought he had fought in Iran because 
he was defending Kuwait and the Saudis, and he thought that they owed 
him something. He said give me some money, and they said no. And so he 
said all right, then I am going to move in and take Kuwait.
  It could have been resolved if we had the patience to let this happen 
and the mentality in the White House that can allow Iraq to develop its 
own peaceful society. We have removed Saddam Hussein. We are all glad, 
but we now must let the Arabs resolve the situation in a way that makes 
sense to them.

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