[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 55 (Tuesday, May 9, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H2306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 LOSING GROUND ON THE WAR ON TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, the so-called war on terrorism has been 
going on for more than 4\1/2\ years, and it looks like terrorism is 
winning.
  The U.S. Government released its annual survey of global terrorism 
two Fridays ago. Of course, they always save the bad news for Friday, 
when they hope everyone will have checked out for the weekend. The 
results? The number of terrorists attacks worldwide quadrupled from 
2004 to 2005, climbing over 11,000. That is 30 strikes by terrorists 
every day, an average of more than one an hour.
  Of the 11,000, nearly one-third took place in Iraq, and those Iraqi 
attacks led to 8,300 deaths. Keep in mind, these are just civilian 
casualties. These numbers don't even include the number of American 
troops who have been killed at the hands of the insurgency.
  Thank goodness there have been no more attacks on American soil and 
nothing on the order of 9/11. Then again, if violent extremists want to 
kill Americans, they don't have to infiltrate our borders. They can 
make a much easier trip to Iraq, where 130,000 of our bravest men and 
women are deployed.
  The dirty little secret that you won't find in the report is that the 
Iraq war is responsible for the proliferation of terrorism in recent 
years. Our preemptive invasion strike on Iraq inspired vicious 
animosity towards the United States, the likes of which we have never 
seen and the likes of which we will be dealing with for years and years 
to come.
  The continued occupation is a rallying point for bin Laden and 
everyone who already dislikes America. The war has given jihadists the 
best possible propaganda tool, turning Iraq into a hotbed of terrorism. 
And the way we have conducted the war has only exacerbated the problem. 
The abuses at Abu Ghraib, the detention camps at Guantanamo, the secret 
gulags around the world, all of these have eroded U.S. moral authority 
and further radicalized the Muslim world.
  The President has sold the Iraq campaign as some kind of antidote to 
terrorism. The truth is just the opposite. Our presence in Iraq is 
pouring gasoline on the fire instead of putting it out.
  Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert at the New America Foundation, put 
it this way: he said, ``The President is right that Iraq is the main 
front in the war on terrorism, but this is a front we created.''
  There was one part of the terrorism report that I just could not 
believe. The Washington Post cites the survey as indicating that bin 
Laden and al-Zawahiri are frustrated by their lack of direct control 
over terrorist operations. Here is a man who is American public enemy 
number one, a sadistic killer who President Bush promised to hunt down 
and capture, dead or alive, and the best we can say 4\1/2\ years later 
is that we have got him frustrated?
  There is only one answer, Mr. Speaker: we must bring our troops home, 
and we must do it at once. Every day that we persist with this 
occupation is another day that the insurgency gathers strength and 
further justifies itself. Every day that we stay in Iraq is a day that 
we lose ground in the war on terror.
  It is time for a new counterterrorism strategy like the one I have 
outlined in my SMART Security proposal; one that is based on strong 
intelligence and cooperation with our allies and multilateral 
organizations; one that invests in homeland security and enhances 
efforts to cut off financing for terrorist organizations.
  Defeating terrorism will require more brains and less brawn. It 
demands, first and foremost, that we bring our troops home.

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