[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 74 (Monday, June 12, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3779-H3785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I am going to be joined by some of our 
colleagues tonight as we begin our discussion in this great body, in 
this great House talking about the war on terrorism and the global war 
that we face.
  Mr. Speaker, before I began that discussion with my colleagues, I 
want to take just a few moments and address some of the statements that 
the minority made during their hour that preceded this. They have 
talked a lot about spending, and they have talked a good bit about 
their dissatisfaction with spending.
  One of the things that I would like to remind the Members of this 
body and those that are watching this debate tonight is that much of 
that spending takes place because of the bureaucracy that has been 
built in this Congress over the past 50 years.
  Now, you go back and you look at what transpired in the 1960s and the 
way the bureaucracies grew, and the way programs grew. You see all 
around here that this bureaucracy has been built as a monument to many 
of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They have put their 
energy into that. They have put that into growing this government here 
in Washington. Many of them believe that the government here in 
Washington knows better than the folks back home. I disagree with that.
  I would encourage our colleagues to join with us as we work on waste, 
fraud and abuse, as we work toward reducing the size of this 
government. When we passed the Deficit Reduction Act that would have 
made nearly 1 percent across the board cut, they chose not to cast a 
vote in favor of that.
  But they do enjoy coming and talking about how wonderful they feel it 
would be to have a debt-free America and a balanced budget, and, yes, 
that is something we would like to do, but we don't want that budget to 
be balanced

[[Page H3780]]

by raising taxes. We want that budget to be balanced by reducing 
spending. That is a big part of our focus as we continue to work.
  Soon we are going to have a spring cleaning week where we are going 
to talk about 150 of these different agencies that absolutely need to 
go through a house cleaning. They need to reduce their size. They need 
to get their priorities in order, and bureaucrats that are in these 
buildings need to start responding to the citizens of this great 
Nation. They should be held accountable, and we are going to press 
forward on that issue.
  One of my colleagues also made a comment about economic growth, and I 
would invite our Members to look at the economic stats from 1995 and 
the economic stats from 2005. If you compare those 2 years, what 
happened in the economy in 1995 during the Clinton years and what has 
happened in 2005 during the Bush years? What you are going to see is on 
every single economic indicator, whether you are talking GDP, 
unemployment rates, economic growth, homeownership, every single 
indicator, the 2005 economy beats the 1995 economy on every single 
point.
  I would commend that to individuals that are watching tonight, to be 
certain that they look at those facts, that they look at those 
statistics and add those numbers.
  It was also mentioned on the floor tonight what type of America do 
you believe in? I always love it when I hear that type of comment. What 
type of America do you believe in? I think the colleagues that join me 
here tonight would join me in saying we believe in an America that is 
strong. We believe in an America that is free. We believe in an America 
that is compassionate and caring and wants the best, the very best, for 
all of our citizens. We believe in an America where children can dream 
big dreams, where they can grow up happy and free and educated and 
watch those dreams become reality, where they can take hold of their 
best efforts and say you know what, we are going to make this even 
better.
  We are going to make it better. We really believe in an America that 
is focused on hope and not focused on fear. We believe in an America 
that is strong on individual freedom that understands the importance of 
freedom for being able to freely live, to freely think, to freely work. 
We know that that requires that we have a secure homeland, and that is 
why this majority has been focused on our security agenda, being 
certain that we look at the moral security of this great Nation, the 
retirement security, the economic security and, of course, the national 
security of this wonderful free land that is a beacon of democracy to 
every single nation on the face of the earth.
  You know, when you talk about what kind of America you believe in, I 
love it sometimes when we are visiting with our troops in war-torn 
areas, and you meet somebody, and they walk up to you, and they say, 
you are an American. You are an American? You are an American.
  There is a certain awe that comes out of their mouth when they look 
at us and they know we are what they would like to be. We have got 
something they want. That is something that we have got that they want, 
that other nations want, is freedom. It is the chance to do and to be 
and to have your children do and be all that they would hope to be.
  That is why the majority is going to take this entire week and we are 
going to have a discussion with the American people. We are going to 
bring forth our hopes. We are going to bring forth our thoughts of what 
is happening in this war on terrorism. We are going to talk about the 
progress we have made. We are also going to talk about the areas where 
we want to improve.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk about the big picture. We are going 
to hold a debate on the Republican and the Democrat approaches to 
winning the war on terror. We are going to compare, and we are going to 
contrast the different philosophies that each party has toward the war 
on terrorism. Our military's elimination of al-Qaeda's top leader in 
Iraq is an auspicious start to this debate. That success should make it 
clear that winning takes patience, and it takes perseverance. But 
things that are worth fighting for and things that are worth working 
for are items that are worth waiting for because we don't live in a 
world of instant gratification where everything is decided within 30 
minutes. Some things take time to do them right.
  History has taught us, history has taught us that it is important 
that when we look at democracy, when we look at working with other 
Nations that we get this right. It also takes excellent work by our 
military and our intelligence folks, and God bless them all. God bless 
them all.
  I am especially grateful for our troops from Fort Campbell from the 
101st who are in Iraq now and are certainly working diligently on this 
effort. Many of our National Guardsmen are there, and they are working 
as well.

                              {time}  2130

  I am very grateful to them and to their families.
  Last week, we got to see part of the big picture in the war on 
terrorism more quickly with Zarqawi's death, with the destruction of a 
major leader in the global terrorist network. The big picture is the 
U.S. chasing these people down and eliminating them.
  It is helping free nations, Mr. Speaker, free nations develop and 
throw off the shackles of terrorism in the Middle East. This, Mr. 
Speaker, will be our topic and our discussion for the week.
  At this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
King) who is so focused on protecting this great Nation and our 
Nation's security.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee 
(Mrs. Blackburn) especially for organizing this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to be here amongst my colleagues for 
whom I have such respect and gratitude for the work that they do on a 
daily basis to help lead this country in the right direction.
  As the gentlewoman from Tennessee mentioned, we are going to talk 
about the big picture in the global war on terror, and oftentimes we 
lose sight of the big picture. One of the reasons is because we are 
watching the news every night, and it seems as though they are setting 
up television cameras or movie cameras in Iraq wherever the IEDs might 
be planted, and they seem to be able to turn the cameras on seconds 
before they detonate an IED and seconds before there is some kind of an 
atrocity that takes place over there. That gives us a very narrow 
picture of what is going on in Iraq, Mr. Speaker.
  But the bigger picture over there is this, and that is that Iraq is a 
battlefield in the global war on terror, and we began this 20 years ago 
or so. It came home to roost when we all realized September 11, 2001, 
that this was not just a sometime enemy, not just an enemy that 
attacked the USS Cole or the U.S. embassies in Africa or did the 
bombing on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, and the list of those kind 
of terrorist attacks went on and on; but it came home to roost in a way 
that Americans all understood on September 11, 2001.
  The bigger picture of it is this that there is a culture out there 
that believes that their path to salvation is in killing people who are 
not like them, and I will contend that that organization that is out 
there, al Qaeda, also remnants of the Taliban, those that are left, are 
really a parasite; and it is radical Islam which is a parasite on the 
religion of Islam. Islam itself as mainstream may well be a peaceful 
religion, but the parasite that rides on them is not.
  The definition of parasite, I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, and the 
other listeners as well, it is a species that rides upon the host. The 
host is Islam. The parasite is radical Islam, and that parasite species 
rides on the host, feeds off the host and reproduces on the host, 
sometimes attacks the host and drops off and attacks other species and 
sometimes gets picked up back up again and rides on the host again and 
starts the cycle all over. That is the case with ticks and mites, the 
whole series of parasites that are there throughout all we know in the 
animal kingdom, and that is the case also with radical Islam and the 
overall religion of Islam.
  We are faced with that kind of an enemy, and that enemy has killed a 
lot of Christians. That enemy has killed a lot of Jews, but that enemy 
has also killed more Muslims than anything else. It gives us a broader 
picture, Mr. Speaker, of what this enemy is that we are up against.

[[Page H3781]]

  But the question we needed to ask ourselves, probably well before 
September 11, 2001, and certainly on that date and every date after 
that, is how do we conduct a war against a global enemy that is 
amorphous, an enemy that does not have uniforms or a territory, maybe 
has a leader or group of leaders, an enemy that simply has an ideology 
of hatred and terror that comes out and attacks people who are not like 
them in order to destabilize and somehow gain their presumably greater 
glory and somehow their salvation in the next life, which I think is 
down below rather than up above?
  Well, as I asked that question subsequent to September 11, 2001, I 
had the privilege to be listening to an address by Benazir Bhutto, who 
is the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. She served two different 
periods of time there, mostly back in the 1990s. She gave an address 
back in Storm Lake, Iowa, town of my birth, to Buena Vista University, 
a small private university there, and a very excellent one, that tracks 
outstanding speakers.
  After her profound address, she and I sat down one-on-one, knee-to-
knee, so to speak, and this certainly was on my mind and it is on all 
of our minds even today. I asked her how do we get to this point of 
victory? How do we bring forth a war on these terrorists to the point 
where we can declare victory? What is our objective going to be and how 
shall we carry out this and conduct this war to reach this objective?
  And she sat for a little while and she said, You have got to give 
them a chance at freedom. You have got to give them a chance at 
democracy. Today, the people in these countries do not have hope. They 
do not have a way to vent their anger. They do not have a way to apply 
their energy for change in a constructive fashion with any kind of hope 
that they can make progress and make this world a better place for 
themselves, their family, their children, and the subsequent 
generations.
  So, consequently, if we can provide that opportunity, then the 
climate that breeds terror will turn into a climate that turns that 
energy towards constructive ends, constructive ends where they would be 
working to improve their families, their homes, their communities, 
their country, their churches, their mosques, their synagogues, 
whatever it might be.
  As I listened to that, I asked her a series of questions about it for 
clarification. I began to think as I drove home that evening this is a 
pretty good formula to put Benazir Bhutto back in power in Pakistan, 
but I am not convinced that it is a solution on how we could prosecute 
and win a war on terror. Yet, I sat down and began to read more and 
more about Islam, in particular the book, ``Radical Islam Visits 
America'' by Daniel Pipes, and I read that through twice with a red ink 
underliner and a highlighter to try to understand the culture, the 
religion, the psychology.
  I put that together with Natan Sharansky's book, ``In Defense of 
Democracy.'' When Natan writes that all human beings have a certain 
energy within them that they will use to try to effect a change, and 
that they will use that energy if that change is to keep them alive or 
if that change is to deal with the minutiae that may seem irrelevant to 
people who will struggle just to stay alive.
  Then, to understand, that we never go to war against another free 
people. Free people do not go to war against free people. So if we put 
that into the equation, there is an energy and a drive for change, by 
Natan Sharansky. We never go to war against another free people. So to 
the extent we can promote freedom and a form of democracy around the 
world is also a formula for more peace and more safety for all 
Americans and all free people.
  We add that then to Daniel Pipes' understanding and to the idea to 
promote freedom, and the President's doctrine which he gave out in his 
second inaugural address, which now we know as the Bush Doctrine, and 
that is, that all people yearn to breathe free, and it is the duty and 
it is the obligation of all freedom-loving people to promote freedom 
throughout the globe and throughout the ages.

  Put that formula all together, and that is the formula for how to 
move forward on this global war on terror and how to finally declare 
victory.
  So we began operations in Afghanistan a couple of months after 
September 11 very successfully, and 25 million people that had never 
before in that place on the globe gone to the polls to select their 
leaders and to direct their national destiny went to the polls and 
voted, and there were American troops in the field, especially our 
troops that I noticed in the field, guarding those paths to the polls, 
guarding those polling sites, and now you have 25 million people in 
Afghanistan. Some would say, and there were many detractors over on 
this side of the aisle, that said, oh, it is another Vietnam; you will 
never be able to get through the Khyber Pass, no one's ever been able 
to go into Afghanistan and come out of there having won a victory; that 
country has always fought off all of its invaders.
  Well, we did not invade them. We liberated them and the Afghani 
people now breathe free and have selected their leaders, and the same 
formula with the same advisers and the same advice was to go to Iraq 
and do the same thing for the same number of people, 25 million people, 
and the American soldiers did that and the marines did that and our 
airmen and our sailors did that and liberated 25 million people.
  They went to the polls three times, Mr. Speaker, in 2005 to select 
their leaders, to ratify a constitution and to put a legitimate 
government in place, and now they are a sovereign Arab nation in the 
Middle East. This sovereign Arab nation has had a difficult struggle, 
and the casualties have been by some measures high, not by measures of 
previous wars, by measures of the contemporary media. It is tragic to 
lose America's best in a struggle like this, but it is the highest 
calling.
  So, today, Iraqis breathe free, and we think that somehow, because 
there is casualties there in the streets of Iraq, it is an intolerable 
level in that civilization. I asked the question, how can they tolerate 
living in a society with this high level of violence, this high level 
of casualties?
  So I went back and took a look at the level of casualties that were 
there, and they need to be measured as a percentage of the overall 
population. We do that, we do that statistically by measuring how many 
people out of every 100,000 die a violent death. Well, that would be 
murder in most societies; and in Iraq, the civilians would be the 
measure, some are victims of IED bombings, some are victims of murder. 
We added up those numbers. There are several Web pages that provide 
that information. We took the most reasonable numbers that we could 
find. It comes to this number: 27.51 Iraqis per 100,000 die a violent 
death on an annual basis, 27.51.
  Now, what does that mean, and to me it really does not mean a lot 
until I compare it to places that I know where I have a feel for the 
rhythm of this place. Well, I by now have a feel for the rhythm of this 
place called Washington, D.C., and my wife lives here with me. I can 
tell you, Mr. Speaker, she is in far greater risk being a civilian in 
Washington, D.C., than an average civilian in Iraq.
  Forty-five out of every 100,000 Washington, D.C., residents die a 
violent death on an annual basis, 45. 27.51 in Iraq out of 100,000, 45 
out of every 100,000 in Washington, D.C.
  If you go to New Orleans, pre-Katrina, before Katrina, 53 per 
100,000, almost twice as many violent fatalities in the city of the New 
Orleans than there are in Iraq as an average civilian.
  Now, we took out the military, took out the police because they are 
involved in combat, but that gives you a measure, Mr. Speaker, of what 
is it like in Iraq. The United States military has provided, first of 
all, liberation for the Iraqis that were dying at an average rate of 
182 a day at the hands of Saddam Hussein, collared him, put him on 
trial, took out Zarqawi and gave them a safer, free society than the 
society that they lived in.
  Statistically, if you want to chart that for the duration of this 
operation from the liberation of the Iraqis in March of 2003 until 
today, there are over a 100,000 Iraqis alive today because the United 
States and coalition forces went into Iraq and took on that calling to 
promote freedom throughout the globe. Now, Iraq stands as near the end 
of the military security solution of the operation in Iraq, at the 
beginning of

[[Page H3782]]

the political solution in the operation of Iraq, where now they have a 
sovereign Arab government, and they are on the cusp of the solution for 
their economics. When they are able to start pumping oil out of that 
ground and sending it around the world and cashing the checks, we will 
see then this lode star of Iraqi being an inspiration for all the Arab 
world. A free Arab world, a prosperous Arab nation, and inspiration for 
all the Arab world.
  I have to believe that as the Berlin Wall went down on November 9, 
1989, and freedom echoed across Eastern Europe, hundreds of millions of 
people breathe free today, I have to believe that same kind of 
contagious desire for freedom will take place in the Middle East among 
the Arab people.
  That is the big picture, Mr. Speaker. That is the vision of our 
President. That is the sacrifice of our military. That is the 
commitment of this Congress, and that is where we are headed. I believe 
and I pray that we will arrive there one day soon, and I expect to be 
around to celebrate that joyous day. I will stand here with our 
military every day until that is accomplished.
  Thank you to the gentlewoman from Tennessee. I appreciate this 
privilege to address this Chamber and the Speaker.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa, and I 
am so appreciative that he mentioned that this is not a sometime enemy 
that we are dealing with. This is an enemy, as he said, that is 
amorphous. They are located everywhere. Terrorist cells are around the 
globe, but it is an enemy with an agenda. Their agenda is to end 
freedom as we know it, and they work at it 24/7. They are an enemy to 
freedom, and we do know that the Iraqi people are grasping at their 
chance for freedom.
  You know, Mr. Speaker, I think it is really quite important to note 
that a development that got swamped by the Zarqawi news, but a 
development that I certainly believe is very critical to our long-term 
security goals, was that the Iraqi Government's confirmation of its top 
three security chiefs was last week. You had Sunnis and Shiites 
standing together as the security chiefs for this nation.
  What an enormous step in the right direction, and we have now had 
tremendously successful elections in Iraq. We have a unified 
government. We now have 275,000 Iraqi security forces that are in 
place.

                              {time}  2145

  So we do know that we are seeing progress in the right direction. 
There are no guarantees, but it is steps in the right direction.
  At this time, I want to yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Carter, who has Fort Hood in his district. Judge Carter has worked so 
diligently with our men and women in uniform, and I thank him for 
coming to talk a little bit about the big picture, about the global war 
on terror, and why it is imperative that we persevere. And I yield to 
the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee. She is a real 
asset to this Congress, and I am just proud to be able to be with her 
tonight to talk about the war on terror.
  I live in a district where on any given day we have between 15,000 
and 20,000 American heroes standing on that wall protecting freedom in 
the United States, in harm's way, giving their lives and limbs and time 
so that we can sit here in this House and so that our children and our 
wives and our loved ones can walk the streets of the United States 
free.
  You know, this war on terror is a war on a cancerous idea that is, 
when you really think about it, is really one of the most horrible, 
horrible things there is; that there is a group of people that are 
fighting a war not against military soldiers as proud warriors marching 
off to war. No. In fact, they do not want to even see an American 
soldier anywhere near them, if they can help it. They want to terrorize 
society. And that terrorism, in their way of thinking, starts with 
civilians, not military.
  We got a real good dose of that on 9/11, a dose that I do not know 
how the American people can ever get it out of their minds. When we 
were attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, they attacked our 
military installations at Pearl Harbor. But when we were attacked on 9/
11, a building full of business folks was attacked. This was not an 
attack on a military target, this was an attack on a civilian target, 
and its sole purpose was to kill American citizens.
  We need to thank the Lord that their timing was slightly off and that 
the building was not completely full. If it had been, instead of 
numbering in the thousands we might have been numbering in the hundreds 
of thousands of people in those two buildings that might have died. But 
that was their purpose. Their purpose was to change how we live by 
hitting us where we live. I just can't think of anything more horrible.
  You know, I was in the judge business for a while, as were several 
people in this room here today, and we know from experience that 
there's a lot of evil out there in the world, and we spent our time 
trying to deal with that evil. And I think, from what I know of my 
colleagues here in the House, we did a pretty good job of fighting 
evil. One of the things we did to curtail evil was we put them away, 
and we put them down so that the price of being evil was a high price 
in the places where we lived. And we are proud of that.
  I think the American soldier knows that the hard part of fighting the 
war on terror, on fighting people who are really not out to fight them 
but are out to fight their children and their wives and their moms and 
dads back home, and moms and dads and children of people in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and many other countries in this world, the Philippines, 
Indonesia, and the list goes on and on and on, they are always 
attacking the innocent trying to live their lives.
  But what is their theory behind this? I have thought about this. And 
I want to say that Mr. King gives some great insight into some of the 
things he has read, and I was fascinated by some of the things he had 
to say. But I think about this, and what they are really trying to do 
is to change the way we live until we just really cannot tolerate 
living that way any longer and we are willing to compromise and give in 
to what they view as a world view, until their radical Islam dominates 
the world.
  They want our school children in Texas, or our school children in 
Tennessee, or our school children in Iowa to get up in the morning, 
every morning, and be afraid to stand at the bus stop, be afraid to 
ride on the school bus, be afraid to go to their school for fear that 
somebody might blow it up, somebody might shoot at the bus, somebody 
might hijack them or kidnap nap them. That is the world they are 
developing right now that we are tearing apart right now in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.
  This is not easy work for our soldiers. Our soldiers are out there in 
a special role that soldiers have never been in. Soldiers are trained 
to fight soldiers. Soldiers are trained to go onto a battlefield and 
fight a battle. And sometimes it is an unconventional battle, and we 
are trained to fight unconventional battles. Our soldiers are not 
policemen, although some are trained as policemen. Our soldiers 
shouldn't be policemen, but today the American Marine on patrol in Iraq 
or Afghanistan has a special mission, and that mission is to make sure 
that the safety of that population is as safe as the safety he wants 
for his population back home.
  And he cares about those people. He cares about those kids. A great 
story I heard when I was back in Iraq was about a soldier walking down 
the street and a little girl comes running out and hands him one rose. 
A beautiful rose. He later gave it to a lady at the hospital who told 
me the story. She explained, and somebody was able to speak the 
language and tell this to the soldier, that that was the only thing 
living left in their garden. But she knew he deserved to have that rose 
because he was keeping her garden safe. This was a little 10-year-old 
girl.
  Now, I'm sure that soldier will go for the rest of his life with the 
memory of that little girl. And I know sometimes they have to be 
standing out there in 115 degree heat with all that armor on and 
saying, man, this is a tough job. But that is the kind of thing that 
tells us what we are fighting for. We are fighting to protect innocent 
human

[[Page H3783]]

beings. Not warriors, but to protect innocent human beings from being 
terrorized until they surrender their freedom and their will to 
terrorism.
  That is what terrorists want. That is what they do. They just attack 
the innocent until the innocent throw up their hands and say, whatever 
you want, you can have it.
  And we have examples of how they have done that. Look at Lebanon. 
Look at the other places around the world where the terrorists have 
just run rampant through the streets until Lebanon, which used to be 
called the Riviera of the Middle East, is now an example of destruction 
when people use the term Lebanon.
  So why are our American soldiers doing this? They are doing their 
duty with pride and with conviction. And I will tell my friends on the 
other side of the aisle who seem to have this cut-and-run mentality, I 
want them to think about the times, and I know they have visited Iraq 
and they have to have talked to the same soldiers that I have talked 
to, but the soldiers that I talked to are proud of what they are doing 
in Iraq. They are confident that they are succeeding in what they are 
doing. They do not understand why the American people don't hear about 
their successes.
  But, folks, even when we don't publicize their successes, they are 
having them. This last week has been a huge step forward in the war on 
terror because we took out the top terrorist. And from his little 
notebook, over the next couple of days we took out 17 other locations. 
Today we had another very successful raid. And we are not only getting 
rid of the bad guys and punishing them for their misbehavior by putting 
them into the Never-Never Land, but we are also capturing things that 
tells us more.
  So I say to the terrorists: Beware. The American soldiers are coming. 
Beware. We are learning every day and we are getting better and we are 
learning more and more information about you, and we are coming to get 
you. We are going to stop what is going on.
  I was real proud to know when Zarqawi was killed that the first 
people at the site were my boys in the 4th Infantry Division. Proud of 
them. They are the guys who caught Saddam Hussein. They are the guys 
who have been up front on every war, as has the 1st Cav. The 1st Cav. 
Gave us free elections. The 4th Infantry Division gave us Saddam 
Hussein, and now the first people on site after that beautiful job the 
Air Force did.
  But you know what, the real war on terror, and we need as American 
citizens to think about this real strongly, is the first time the 
President spoke, I think it was after this thing happened, and he said 
what would be our top policy on the war on terror. He said if you help 
our enemies, you are our enemy. We are taking the fight to the enemy.
  I think that is the right policy. I think the right policy is to say, 
we are not going to stand for people who kill innocent civilians no 
matter where they are, and we are going to stand up to them. Why? 
Because as Prime Minister Blair said right here in this House, it is 
our turn. We are the beacon of freedom in the world. We have the 
resources, intelligently used, to meet the challenge.
  People say, oh, but it is going to be a long war. You know what? I 
think it is going to be a long conflict, but it's going to be a 
conflict that is going to have a series of battles in it. We are 
misdefining Iraq by calling it the war in Iraq. We are misdefining 
Afghanistan by calling it the war in Afghanistan. It is the battles in 
Iraq, the battle in Afghanistan. And maybe whatever we do in the way of 
successes will postpone the next battle.
  Folks, we went into what we called the Cold War, and the Cold War 
included the battle of Korea and the battle of Vietnam and the battle 
of Panama and a lot of other battles that took place. But we won the 
Cold War by sticking to the principle that freedom and democracy and 
the ability to live your life in a world that was peaceful and loving 
was worth fighting for and worth standing up to people who wanted to 
change that and put totalitarianism in place of freedom.
  We have now got a group of people who are fanatics and who want to 
put this radical Islam in place of freedom. And, unfortunately, once 
again, we have to stand up and be counted. And we will, as long as we 
produce people like I have met at Fort Hood and many other places where 
I have gone with the military, these quality young men and women. And 
as long as the American people are willing to stand the ground and do 
the job we back here have to do to win the war on terrorism, we will 
succeed.
  Mr. Speaker, it is critical that the American public realize that the 
only thing standing between us and another 9/11 is the will to face the 
terrorists' onslaught not only with our troops but with our hearts and 
minds in America we should stand up for what is right. There is right 
and there is wrong in this world, and imposing the will by terror, by 
Islamic terrorists, is wrong.
  Standing up for freedom and letting our kids be able to go to the 
park and play without fear of terrorism or wander the streets or your 
wife to go shopping at the grocery store or you be able to go to work 
every day without the fear of terrorism, that is right. It is the 
freedom we fought for and died for in this American country, and it is 
the freedom the whole world should be able to enjoy.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say, I am proud to say that I am an 
American and that Americans stand for right, I yield back to the 
gentlewoman.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much how well the 
gentleman represents his constituents at Fort Hood, and I know he is so 
very proud of them and the work that they do.
  I, likewise, am so very proud of my men and women at Fort Campbell, 
men and women of the 101st, there in Montgomery County, Tennessee.

                              {time}  2200

  How appropriate that the gentleman from Texas referred to them as 
heroes, because indeed they are. And as they work to gather in the 
trust and confidence of the Iraqi people, the trust of a little girl 
who brings the rose from her garden to one of our military men and 
women, the trust of an Iraqi citizen who takes the key out of a lock of 
one of Saddam Hussein's former jails and hands it to an American 
soldier and says, ``Thank you, thank you for my chance at freedom.''
  Mr. Speaker, those are the stories that we are hearing day in and day 
out. They are coming to us from our men and women in uniform who do 
understand the big picture, who do understand that we have an enemy 
that would like to change our way of life.
  It is imperative that we communicate that message that we are not 
going to stand for that. We are not going to stand still and let that 
happen. You know, I think it is really quite interesting that sometimes 
the liberal elites try to couch this debate about Iraq as to whether it 
was wrong or whether it was right to go in and free millions of people 
from Saddam Hussein, whether it was worth it. Many of the leftists 
think it was not worth it. They would like to just sit down and talk 
about this. I believe we should put that question aside for a moment 
because it really does simplify the question of our involvement in 
Iraq. It oversimplifies it. The question ignores the relevance of Iraq 
to America's national security framework.
  You know, as the gentleman from Texas said, our daily lives, how we 
go about them, when we are made more unsafe, when our national security 
is made unsafe by the existence of a hostile and isolated Middle East 
ruled by murderous thugs and their terrorist supporters, then we have 
to do something about that. That is a fact. I challenge anybody to come 
in and argue with that.
  The truth of this fact is written in the blood of Americans and the 
citizens of dozens of other free nations, the people who have been 
murdered by terrorists, spawned in the Middle East over the past 40 
years. Whether anyone believes we should be in Iraq for the sake of 
freeing an oppressed people is something we could haggle about all 
night, but it is not the point of our mission there. We should be in 
Afghanistan, Iraq and in the Middle East actively working to put an end 
once and for all to the systems of government that have promoted and 
celebrated brutal attacks on America, on Europe, and in countries 
across Africa.
  If we do not, we are going to suffer again and again. We are in Iraq, 
we are in Afghanistan because President Bush and the American people 
decided on

[[Page H3784]]

September 11, 2001, that enough was enough. Could we have stayed out? 
Of course. Could we have continued responding to terrorism as a case of 
civil disobedience? Of course.
  We could have decided to simply contain this region and hope to 
contain the terrorism that grew there, but that did not get to the root 
of the problem. And the price of that policy would have continued to be 
periodic September 11s. That would be the price. This country had to 
decide whether we were willing to pay this steep price of letting the 
Middle East continue for another 30 years as it had for the past 30 
years.
  We have had a real champion of freedom join us in the U.S. House of 
Representatives this year, another judge from the great State of Texas; 
and at this time I want to yield to Judge Poe from the great State of 
Texas.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee 
for allowing me to make some comments on the war in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.
  Tennessee is named the Volunteer State. It was some of those 
Tennesseeans who volunteered to help my State, Texas, become a free and 
independent nation back in 1836, another example that to be free it 
always costs something. We called upon those volunteers to make a 
difference in freedom, noting that every person serving in Iraq and 
Afghanistan is a volunteer. Many of them are on their second and third 
tours of duty, volunteered because they understand the importance of 
what they do.
  We just recently learned that the United States Army has met not only 
its enlistment goals but more enlistments than they had predicted 
because many Americans, the young of our Nation, understand the 
importance of what is going on. They know there is a war going on out 
there, and it is a war against terrorists. It is a war the terrorists 
started, and terrorism is not something we desire; but it is certainly 
something we must destroy.
  We cannot negotiate with terrorists. We cannot sit down at a 
conference table and say come let us reason together. It is not going 
to work because you see, terrorists are determined to kill people, not 
just soldiers, not just sailors or marines, but all people, any people 
that get in their way. And that includes their own people. That 
includes military and nonmilitary. It includes civilians, the old, the 
elderly, women, children. It includes people in hospitals recovering 
from sickness. Anybody they think will cause terror in the hearts and 
souls of the world they murder, and they kill throughout the world. 
That is the way terrorists operate, and the idea that we can even 
negotiate with them is almost as absurd as the idea that we can appease 
those individuals.
  Appeasement comes up every time some nation, like our Nation, has to 
go to war to fight for our freedoms and liberties. It came up in World 
War II, and appeasement was talked about even in Washington, D.C., 
appease the Germans, appease the Japanese, give in, try to ignore. Of 
course, we saw what happens. Appeasement never works with terrorists 
because they are determined to become more criminal-like in their 
activity and promote their desires no matter what it takes.
  I, like you and many Members of the House, have been to Iraq. I have 
seen the Iraqi people. I have seen our military and was fortunate to be 
there last year and when the Iraqi people had their first free 
elections in the history of their nation. It was quite the honor to be 
one of two Members of Congress to see that event.
  Of course, the skeptics and critics say, as the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee says, the northeastern elites, they said the Iraqis do not 
understand freedom or democracy, it will never work; and every election 
starting with that first election and every subsequent election after 
that proved that Iraqis want freedom. They have tasted it, and they do 
not want to let it go. And they are fighting for it just as much as our 
troops are fighting for it.
  Of course, I visited with our troops. They all say that we are 
winning the war on terror. And we are winning the war on terror. One 
thing that an Iraqi woman said to me at the voting booth, she had cast 
her ballot, had that purple stain on her finger, proudly walking down 
the street defiant of the terrorists because they said if you vote, the 
terrorists will kill you, and of course they did kill 57 Iraqis that 
voted that day. Anyway, she came up to me, she had tears in her eyes. I 
had an interpreter with me and she said to the interpreter and he told 
me, she said, We Iraqis are grateful to America for giving their youth 
to us.
  What she was saying was she was aware, as the Iraqis are, that 
Americans die so other people can live and live free.
  You know, 2,400-plus Americans have died in this war. Eight of those 
who have died are from my congressional district down in southeast 
Texas. I have talked to the families of those marines and sailors and 
airmen and soldiers that have been killed. Those families grieve in 
their own way, but they say to a family that they were proud of their 
son and they will be proud of America if America stays the course and 
finishes the job that their kids started in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
Finish the war, win the war, Mr. Poe, win the war. I heard that so many 
times. Win the war that my son died in.

  And I say to those families and other families that this country will 
win that war on terror. As has been said here on the House floor, it is 
going to be a long war. It is not an easy war. It is an unconventional 
war because we fight by the rules of engagement, the United States. We 
go after the terrorists. The terrorists, unlike any other war in world 
history, are determined to kill anybody in their way, including the 
innocent.
  But we will not let those that have died and those that will die, die 
for nothing because they are dying for something. They are dying for 
two things. They are dying for the welfare of the United States of 
America. It is in our best interest to take the fight to the enemy, and 
we are doing that. We are going to track them down wherever they show 
up in the world, and we are going to eliminate them. They are beginning 
to believe us that we will track them down. And we also are fighting 
this war because of that word freedom.
  It is important that Iraq and Afghanistan be free nations. They have 
never tasted freedom. They have tasted it now; and as I said, they do 
not want to let go of it. President Kennedy said it better than I can. 
He said, you know, this country will bear any burden. We will pay any 
price. We will support any friend, we will oppose any foe to preserve 
liberty.
  That is our mission statement given by President Kennedy over 40 
years ago, and that is what our troops are doing.
  Freedom has always cost. It always will. Good things have cost. It 
cost us 7 years of hard war against the British. After we gained our 
independence, gained our freedom, the British did not believe it, and 
they attacked us again in the War of 1812. They burned this building 
down, and they burned the White House. They burned every building in 
Washington, D.C. except for two because they were trying to make sure 
that America was not a free Nation. So we had to fight them again.
  Freedom has cost this country, and it has cost other countries; and 
Iraq is one of them. We do not get freedom by sitting down at a 
conference table and saying, let us reason together so we can be a free 
people.
  There is no substitute for victory. It is the only path to freedom, 
and I hope that folks in this Nation understand the great job our 
troops are doing and are as committed as they are to winning the war.
  Down in southeast Texas, I have the distinction of having the Port of 
Beaumont. It is the number one military deployment port of cargo going 
to Iraq. It comes from Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, and it is the place 
where our troops come home. Most of the troops coming back to my area 
are National Guard troops. You see, down in southeast Texas when the 
National Guard comes home, we have parades for them. Schools and 
businesses close, and everybody turns out on Main Street waving the 
American flag. We are proud of what our troops are doing. We 
understand, as most Americans understand, they are doing a good job and 
they are putting their lives on the line for that simple word that 
people since the beginning of the world have wanted, and that is 
freedom.
  So this country I do not think is ever going to flinch and it is 
never going to

[[Page H3785]]

flee and we certainly are never going to fear because we will never 
fail the war against terrorism, and I hope we will be successful.
  I appreciate the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) allowing 
me to make these comments. I hope we will continue the dialogue and the 
perseverance to be successful and to spread the word not only in 
America but to those terrorists who live throughout the world that they 
can run, but they can certainly never hide because the American 
fighting man is going to track them down.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. I 
thank him for mentioning that our men and women in uniform are 
volunteers and they have chosen to fight.
  I, like him, have spent time with these men and women and their 
families and on Memorial Day talked with the aunt of a young man who 
came to one of the memorial services. And after I spoke, she came up 
and with her broken heart she said, Mrs. Blackburn, you're so right, he 
was there because he wanted to be there and you're so right. He knows, 
he knew that we were winning, that we are winning the war on terror.

                              {time}  2215

  And yes indeed, he understood the mission. Our families, our military 
families know this, Mr. Speaker, and they know that this Nation has 
decided not to play hostage, not to be held hostage. Our men and women 
in uniform are paying the price to fight this war so that we are not 
having to fight it on the streets of Washington, D.C., or Memphis or 
Nashville or L.A. or anywhere else in this country. We have made a 
choice not to be bullied and not to live with the gun pointed at our 
head. And I give credit to our President. And, Mr. Speaker, I credit 
the American people for making a tough decision. War is never easy. War 
is never, ever easy, but we have to remember the big picture in this 
and that picture is we have to have a democratic ally in the Middle 
East. This is about freedom and free people. It is about expanded 
democracy and education. It is about rooting out terrorists and 
disrupting their networks and their way of working and their beliefs so 
that they don't import it and place it on us. It is about slowing them 
down and eventually making it impossible for them to work.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk about whether we are winning or 
not. And we are winning. But this is not easy. There are going to be a 
lot of dark days ahead. This is not an easy fight. It is not easy for 
us. It is not easy for our military men and women and their families. 
It is not easy for the Iraqi people. And there is a tremendous amount 
of frustration when they take a couple of steps forward and then a few 
steps back and a couple of steps forward and another step back. And 
just as in the past 3 years we have had some victories to celebrate, we 
have also had some very tough times. But we come to the point of 
saying, is it a necessary action? And yes, indeed, Mr. Speaker, it is a 
necessary action. The defense of freedom is a necessary action for our 
great Nation. It was the only decision that put America on the 
offensive when it came to the war on terrorism and our national 
security because freedom is worth fighting for.
  As I close the hour this evening and begin this week's debate, I want 
to focus where I began in talking about the big picture. Ronald Reagan 
often said, we could bet on hope or we could bet on fear. You can bet 
on hope or you can bet on fear. He chose to bet on hope. And, Mr. 
Speaker, I know why. And I know why the American people choose to bet 
on hope. It is that hope, that desire that lives in our heart for a 
better tomorrow.
  I love quoting Margaret Thatcher and her comment when she talks about 
America. She would say it is more than a superpower, more than a great 
Nation. America is an idea. America is an idea. What a great idea it 
is. It is the idea of freedom. It is the idea of opportunity. It is the 
idea of hope. And this week we look forward to talking about hope for 
our future, hope for the future of our children, hope for the future of 
the Nation of Iraq.

                          ____________________