[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 51 (Wednesday, May 3, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H2086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IRAQ--THREE YEARS AND COUNTING

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim Mr. Pallone's time to 
address the House for 5 minutes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, a little over 3 years have passed since the 
invasion of Iraq, and it seems that we are no closer to victory than we 
were the day U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad.
  So where are we in Iraq? This is a question many are asking. Just 
this morning, a suicide bomber attacked police headquarters in 
Fallujah, killing 15 and wounding 30 others. According to AP reports, 
13 of those killed were Iraqi recruits and two were Iraqi police.
  In Baghdad over the past 2 days, 34 bodies have been discovered 
throughout that city. The hands of the men had been bound. All showed 
signs of torture, and all had been shot in the head.
  Another 12 bodies, all Sunni Arabs, were found in the streets over 
the weekend.
  This is appalling news, Mr. Speaker; and, sadly, it is simply a 
continuation of the sectarian violence sparked by the February bombing 
of the holy Askariya Mosque in Samara. The elevated violence has 
claimed hundreds of lives, and many experts and scholars worry if this 
is deteriorating into a full-out civil war.
  We can only hope that will not be the case, Mr. Speaker, but the 
signs are troubling, and insurgents are targeting Iraqis as well as 
U.S. troops. Iraqis are attacking other Iraqis, and no one seems to 
know how to stop the violence.
  It is clear that the administration's pre-war intelligence was 
finagled or flubbed, and war efforts are being bungled. Constant 
miscalculations and inability to view the situation for what it really 
is continues to place our troops in harm's way every minute of every 
day.
  Is it any wonder that well-respected military officers out of a sense 
of patriotic duty feel compelled to speak out against Secretary 
Rumsfeld and others in this administration, drawing light to the 
constant bungling?
  In March, military General Paul Eaton, retired, said, ``Mr. Rumsfeld 
has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his cold warrior's view 
of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace 
manpower. As a result, the Army finds itself severely undermanned.''
  Retired military General Paul Eaton: ``Secretary Rumsfeld has shown 
himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is 
far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our 
important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.''
  Retired Lieutenant General Greg Newbold: ``Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that we made the right strategic 
decisions but made thousands of tactical errors is an outrage,'' he 
says. ``It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by 
shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in 
fighting. The truth is our forces are successful in spite of the 
strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.''
  Major General John Batiste in April said, ``the current 
administration repeatedly ignored sound military advice and counsel 
with respect to the war plans. I think the principles of war are 
fundamental, and we violate those at our own peril.''
  And Central Command Commander General Anthony Zinni in April said, 
``I think we are paying the price for lack of credible planning, or the 
lack of a plan. We are throwing away 10 years of planning, in effect, 
for underestimating the situation we were going to get into and for not 
adhering to the advice that was being given to us by others.''
  Mr. Speaker, all of these are troubling remarks. All of those men 
speak from personal experience at ground level. Their concerns and 
protestations were ignored by higher-ups in the Pentagon and in the 
Oval Office.
  The price for speaking the truth in public? Ask General Shinseki. He 
got fired for daring to speak out on the number of troops that would be 
a needed to maintain the peace once major combat operations were under 
way.
  So, thus far, we have 2,404 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq and 
another 17,762 injured; 27,000 Iraqi civilians have died, and the world 
does not even know how many there have been injured.
  From my own State of Ohio, 107 brave soldiers have died, and 664 have 
been injured. And the only thing this administration sees fit to do is 
throw money at the problem and wait for a new President to figure it 
out sometime after 2008's elections are over.
  Our esteemed colleague from the other body, Joseph Biden, this week 
suggested that he agreed with some experts who have proposed 
decentralizing Iraq, similar to what was done in Bosnia in the mid-
1990s. He writes, ``America must get beyond the present false choice 
between staying the course and bringing the troops home now and choose 
a third way that would wind down our military presence responsibly 
while preventing chaos. The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united 
Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group, Kurd, 
Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab, room to run its own affairs while leaving 
the central government in charge of common interests.''
  Mr. Speaker, is it not time to at least consider a new direction to 
stem the rising violence?

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