[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 155 (Tuesday, December 6, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H11075]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              OP-ED: IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, certainly the last 2 weeks we have seen a 
great deal written and spoken about the conflict in the country of 
Iraq. The middle of this month we will see the third popular election 
held in the country of Iraq this year.
  Stay the course or pull out now, these seem to be the two recurrent 
themes debated in this House and on the editorial pages across the 
country.
  Our military action was really never popular with the press here at 
home, and it has been portrayed in the most negative possible fashion 
for the past 2\1/2\ years. The result, predictably, is declining 
popular support for military activity in Iraq in this country and the 
very real possibility that the United States will lose its political 
will to complete the mission in Iraq. This would be truly tragic as we 
are so tantalizingly close to success in this effort.
  I was not a Member of Congress when the vote was taken to provide the 
President the necessary authority for military action in Iraq. I do 
believe it was the right decision, and I believe I would have voted 
affirmatively had I been here. I do not recall ever believing that it 
would be easy, but I do recall believing that it was justified and 
necessary.
  When the House and the Senate considered and approved the resolution 
authorizing the President to use military force to bring Saddam Hussein 
in compliance with the United Nations resolutions, several strong 
reasons were made for the foundation of this decision: weapons of mass 
destruction, to be sure; a gathering threat; violation of the no-fly 
zone; targeting our aircraft; endangering our pilots; violations of 
U.N. sanctions; violations of the terms of surrender from the first 
Gulf War in 1991; failure to account for Kuwaitis taken prisoner in the 
first Gulf War; failure to make restitution to the country of Kuwait; 
mass murder; mass graves; and the only world leader to have ever used 
weapons of mass destruction in an offensive fashion.
  These were the details of the resolution supported by a bipartisan 
majority of Members of Congress. The policy of the United States as 
laid out by law in 1998, passed by the Congress, signed by the 
President was to effect regime change in the country of Iraq. In 2002, 
by approving this resolution, the Congress and President Bush were 
finally enforcing this long-standing U.S. foreign policy goal in an 
environment radically changed by September 11, 2001, and the gathering 
threat that Iraq and other rogue nations represent to the safety and 
the security of the American people.
  The failure to find warehouses stockpiling weapons of mass 
destruction has now somehow morphed into allegations that the President 
misled the American public.
  Opponents of this war argue that President Bush and other leaders 
misled the American people through dishonorable misrepresentations of 
the Iraqi intelligence; but those allegations are, in fact, themselves 
lies, refuted and discredited; and this type of representation has only 
emboldened our enemies to target the United States personnel overseas. 
Debating how the war has been executed is a debate that we should be 
having in this country, but attempting to change the facts in the lead-
up to the war is disingenuous and has more pernicious ramifications 
than temporary political advantage.
  I have been to Iraq four times in the past 2 years. It is my 
impression that one day the big story will be that the press missed the 
big story in Iraq. What you see in the country of Iraq and what is 
reported by the press in this country are two completely different 
worlds.
  Every time I have been there, I have been struck by how much progress 
has been made by American troops. Each time I have traveled to Iraq, I 
have been moved by the dedication of our military and their commitment 
to the completion of this mission.
  My first visit to the Baghdad airport in August of 2003 left me 
thinking that the place looked like the city dump. During visits in 
January and August of this year, the airport was a clean environment, 
with obvious evidence of commercial aviation having resumed.
  This is a picture of the Baghdad power plant in August of 2003. This 
is a rusted, burned up generator that Saddam Hussein had charged his 
engineers with keeping running under pain of death.
  Contrast that to August of this year, 2005. This is a generator in 
the city of Kirkuk called the ``mother of all generators.'' This 
generator was taken across the desert at great risk to our Marines and 
has been installed in the city of Kirkuk. It is now providing about 12 
percent of Iraq's generating power, truly an amazing success story by 
our Marines. I do not recall having read about it in the press back 
home here.
  Another picture, flying over the town of Kirkuk, and I was taking 
pictures randomly out the window of our Black Hawk helicopter and did 
not notice until later, there are two small figures here. One is waving 
at the helicopter; and if you look very closely and I have done this, 
she is waving with all five fingers but, very importantly, next to her 
is a small male child, probably her brother. Think of this, Mr. 
Speaker, in the city of Kirkuk, prior to our taking out Saddam Hussein, 
this sister could not mention the fact she had a brother. In fact, her 
family probably has a crawl space in the wall of this house where the 
boy could be hidden when Saddam's conscriptionists came through town.
  It truly is an amazing transformation in that country. We are very 
close to having the third and final election for this year. We are 
close to having sufficient Iraqi forces trained and equipped to 
participate in their own security operations. Our soldiers are very 
close to having completed their mission. Congress should not desert 
them now.

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