[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 65 (Tuesday, May 23, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3123-H3124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            WHY WE ARE THERE

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from 
California is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State was on the talk show 
circuit this past weekend and said something extraordinary about the 
reason we invaded Iraq. These are Secretary Rice's words: ``I 
understand that Americans see violence on their screens. They continue 
to see Americans killed. But I would ask that people remember why we 
are there.''
  Secretary Rice continued: ``We are there because having overthrown a 
brutal dictator who was a destabilizing force in the Middle East, we 
are trying to help the Iraqis create a stable foundation for democracy 
and a stable foundation for peace.''
  I would have liked to have seen Ms. Rice and the rest of the Bush 
national security team come before the Congress, the American people, 
and the world community with this argument in late 2002 and early 2003. 
My guess is they would have gotten roughly 25 votes in this body to 
authorize the President to go to war. Actually, they didn't get mine, 
or two-thirds of the Democrats; but they got enough votes to go to war.
  But, of course, the Republicans were too smart for that. To make 
their case for war, they needed something that would scare the pants 
off everyone in this Congress and in this country. So we heard a lot of 
tall tales about aluminum tubes, uranium from Niger, and reconstituted 
nuclear weapons. Secretary Rice herself engaged in the ultimate fear 
mongering when she said, ``We don't want the smoking gun to be a 
mushroom cloud.''
  When it came time to close the sale, they sent Ms. Rice's 
predecessor, Colin Powell, to the U.N., not to talk about how cruel 
Saddam Hussein had been to his own people, but to specifically outline 
the case, the phony case as its turned out, that Saddam Hussein had 
weapons of mass destruction and posed a direct threat to our national 
security.
  Dictators are undoubtedly bad and democracy is undoubtedly good, but 
can we afford to spend $300 billion and march 2,500 Americans off to 
their deaths every time we spot a bad, undemocratic regime? Taken to 
its logical extreme, this policy would commit us to military 
occupations in every corner of the globe, something that, to say the 
least, we don't have the resources or the appetite to do.
  Isn't there a better way to spread freedom? Of course there is.
  We can and must have a robust democracy-promotion agenda that invests 
in the hopes of oppressed people, one that lifts their spirits instead 
of tearing down their countries.
  The SMART Security plan that I have proposed includes an ambitious 
investment in democracy-building, the kind that would establish rule of 
law, civil society, a free press and independent judiciaries around the 
world.
  Unfortunately, as I have discussed here many times over, the Bush 
administration is scaling back funding for exactly these kinds of 
efforts. Step number one is to bring our troops home. Now, for sure, 
right now. No permanent military bases, no designs on profiting from 
Iraqi oil.
  Let us work with the global community to establish a multilateral 
security force that can keep Iraq stable in the short term. Let us lead 
the way in the U.N. toward establishing an international peace 
commission that can

[[Page H3124]]

begin the post-war reconciliation process.
  Let us focus on putting Iraq back together again, changing our role 
from that of military occupier to reconstruction partner.
  First and foremost, we must end the war. Our brave soldiers have 
served bravely and sacrificed plenty. It is time to return them home to 
their families, and it is time for the United States to truly devote 
itself to the spread of democracy worldwide through peaceful 
partnerships and not military conquest.

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