[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 75 (Tuesday, June 13, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3901-H3905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CROSSROADS IN IRAQ
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mack). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is
recognized for the remaining time until midnight as the designee of the
minority leader.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, tonight I wish to speak about Iraq, a
separate and distinct war from the war on terrorism. Those who are
terrorists with their genesis in Afghanistan have a goal of creating a
fundamentalist Muslim caliphate all across the Middle East. The
insurgents are Baathists and Sunnis in Iraq who have as their goal a
separate and distinct one of toppling the government that is there and
creating their own.
My friends on the other side of the aisle wish to confuse the battle
against terrorists and the battle against insurgents in the country of
Iraq. Tonight I wish to speak about Iraq because we are at a strategic
crossroads as a Nation regarding that war.
I wish to speak about the health of our military that is being
drained by the war in Iraq. As a matter of fact, we are sustaining a
battalion's worth of casualties every month wounded and killed in Iraq
and Afghanistan. The number of attacks on the American and allied
forces is at the highest level since the insurgency began despite the
increase of America combat operations and the introduction of some 40
new Iraq security forces and battalions.
An ABC poll shows that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the
situation in Iraq. What is responsible for us arriving at this point? I
have to say a lot of good words about our military, the finest we have
ever had, they are doing a superb job. I am proud of them, and every
American should be. But there have been operational strategic mistakes
sadly made by the administration that has brought us to this point at a
crossroads in Iraq.
First, allowing the looting; second, not having a plan for the
aftermath, although duly warned; by dismissing the Iraqi Army rather
than giving them a paycheck and a shovel; failure to plan and have
American civilian professionals from the State Department,
Transportation Department, Agriculture Department, and Judiciary with
the right skills to advise the Iraqis when they took over their
governmental ministries; the failure to react to the wartime collapse
of the Iraqi military and security police forces; and the decision to
disband the Army, as I mentioned; failure to have a
[[Page H3902]]
sufficient number of American troops at the beginning and later as
General Eric Shinseki warned.
This is a year of transition in Iraq. The bill that we passed last
year, the defense bill, stated that calendar year 2006 should be a
period of time of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty with
Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and
sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased
redeployment of the United States forces from Iraq.
If we are not able to redeploy our forces from Iraq, the health of
our military will be seriously endangered. We are wearing the troops
out. Not just the troops, but the equipment. As a matter of fact, Mr.
Speaker, 13,849 members of the selected reserves have had three
deployments, and 10,408 have been deployed more than three times. Well,
where do we go from here?
We have to do our best to train those Iraqis, let them and their
government know that the ball is in their court. We have to make sure
they are properly equipped, and I might also say that the equipment of
the Army and Marines Corps ground equipment is wearing out. Some of it
is wearing out from two to nine times the peacetime rate.
We have global interests, potential threats from elsewhere, North
Korea, Iran, Taiwan Straits and the like. We must be prepared for any
future threat. That is why it is important that this be a transition
year, 2006.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Mr. Meehan).
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and I
want to commend his efforts as the ranking Democrat on the Armed
Services Committee for making sure, as other Democratic members have,
that the men and women who serve this country get the equipment that
they need to succeed. Many of us were stunned to see so many of our men
and women put into harm's way without having enough uploaded Humvees
and Kevlar vests.
I also want to acknowledge the gentleman for considering the
casualties that we are taking. I believe the gentleman said a battalion
per month. A battalion per month.
What effect is this going to have on the long-term implications for
national security and our military? One of the things a country has to
do in a time of war is tell the truth about what is happening in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Yet the administration continues to think that the
American people cannot handle the truth or do not want the truth. We
experience setbacks. We have strategies that do not work. They continue
to tell us we should stay the course and everything will be all right.
We have no accountability on the part of the Congress, either the House
or the Senate, to hold the administration accountable for what their
policies are or aren't.
Members of the Armed Services Committee tonight, Democrats on that
committee that have served on the committee traveled, I think every
Democrat has been to Iraq at least twice, will follow me and tell you
that the administration is simply not being candid, honest and truthful
with the American people about the situation in Iraq. As Mr. Skelton
indicated, we went into Iraq without enough troops. General Shinseki
told us we were going to need a few hundred thousand troops. What did
they do at the Pentagon, they put him out to pasture as if he did not
know what he was talking about.
The reality is that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating. Mr.
Skelton talked about the insurgency in Iraq. Ninety to 93 percent of
the insurgents in Iraq are from within Iraq. There is an outside group
of somewhere between 8 and 10 percent terrorists that have come over
the border. It makes you wonder why the President said to every
terrorist in the world, Bring it on. Bring it on.
There are more attacks today in Iraq by the insurgency than ever. The
situation is growing worse because the insurgency is growing stronger.
Sectarian violence is becoming more common, and violent crime is on the
rise. I am not just saying these things, the facts support these
things. Despite the claim that the available combat power of the Iraqi
security forces is increasing and the operational tempo has
significantly stepped up, violent insurgent attacks have increased
every month this year. That is a fact.
Violent crime in Baghdad is at its highest level since August 2003.
That is a fact.
Insurgent attacks have increased every month this year, and that is a
fact. But we keep hearing about how things are getting better.
Insurgency is as large today as it has been at any point in Iraq. That
is a fact.
The administration has been stressing to us that reconstruction is
going well and that progress is being made, and certainly in some parts
of the country that is true. But you cannot look at the totality of the
circumstances and say that the administration is being honest or
truthful with the American people.
While we debate here tonight, residents of Baghdad receive 3.9 hours
of electricity per day. Let me repeat that: 3.9 hours of electricity
per day. So it is great that those satellite dishes are up, but people
are unable to use them. Before the war, people in Baghdad could depend
on 16 to 24 hours a day of electricity, and this past month, it is only
17 to 20 percent of the prewar output.
It is really hard to focus on democratization when you live by
candlelight and cannot store your food. Drinking water is not readily
available either. Back in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority
stated that the goal was to have 23 million of the 26 million Iraqis
with access to potable water.
{time} 2330
Do you know where we stand today in that goal? Just a little over 8
million Iraqis have safe access to drinking water. This is
significantly lower than pre-war levels and about a third of what the
CPA was aiming at. We have failed to do our jobs in terms of providing
electricity, providing the water, providing the economic development,
providing jobs. Any country in the world with a 40 percent unemployment
rate is going to have an insurgency.
Now, maybe the administration could point to success in building a
train station, but we can't have success without providing the
necessities of life. So the administration talks about how much safer
things are. But the reality is, if you look at the facts, you see that
staying the course is just not an option for the United States. We have
to look at the facts. We have to look at the fact that the challenges
in Iraq are growing every day. Our military is stretched to the limits.
20,000 Americans, brave American soldiers have either been injured,
seriously injured, or have been killed. So what we would like is a
debate on Iraq, not some kind of political statement that merges Iraq
with Afghanistan, with Spain, with London, and put it all together and
call it the war on terror and say we support our troops. We all want to
win the war on terror. We all want to make sure that we support our
troops. But we really ought to have a discussion of what is going on in
Iraq. And there are members of the Armed Services Committee who have
been trying to get that discussion, trying to get that accountability
who are here today. And I want to yield to the gentlewoman from
California to continue this discussion.
Mrs. TAUSCHER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think many of us
find ourselves deeply distressed that we are here to talk about a so-
called week about the war on terrorism when we were promised months ago
by the majority leader a debate on Iraq.
There is a convergence here of themes that have been deeply
disappointing to me for well over the last 2 years, as I saw the
administration begin to use terms like the ``global war on terror'' to
begin to cover for what has clearly been a mistake in Iraq. I am here
tonight because I believe it is high time for a change of direction in
Iraq.
I honor the sacrifice of our fighting men and women and their
families. With 2,498 American deaths in Iraq today since the beginning
of the military operations, it is time that the Bush administration
finally levels with the American people. I think we first have to go
back to where, the beginning, to when, after the September 11 attacks
and after this House, Democrats, Republicans, along with the Senate and
the American people, agreed that we had to topple the government, the
Taliban government in Afghanistan that had harbored the al Qaeda
terrorists that had attacked us on September 11.
And after we took that government out and began to move that
operation
[[Page H3903]]
toward, hopefully, a successful Afghanistan, we began to hear the
drumbeat of talk out of the administration that Iraq was a big threat
to us, that we had mushroom clouds in our future, that this was a
country with a leader in Saddam Hussein who was an imminent threat to
the United States. Many of us in the post-September 11 time believed
that we had to do something more than just fly flights over Iraq and
deal with those issues that we had to really move and to do things to
create the kind of coalition of not only the willing but the capable
that we had when George Bush's father went after Saddam Hussein in the
first gulf war.
The real issue right now is what have we done in Iraq to make sure
that we can actually succeed. And I think that what we have,
unfortunately, has been a number of mistakes by the civilian leadership
in the Pentagon. We have heard them all before. The litany is long and
getting longer. It begins with not really understanding the context of
Iraq. It begins with not really understanding that we needed more
troops on the ground after we took Saddam Hussein's government down
than we actually need to do the taking down of the government.
It began with not really understanding the context and the construct
of those, the sects in Iraq and the enmity and the fear and the kind of
reprisals that you would see if the Sunni minority that had been in
power during the Saddam time actually had the Shiia come back into
power and realized how badly they had been treated for 25 years. We
have had multiple governments in Iraq, and this mission has morphed and
constantly been redefined by the administration to fit the latest
catastrophe.
What I really hope we can do over the next few days is have a
Democratic position begin to emerge. Our friends on the other side like
to talk about truth. And Daniel Patrick Moynihan did have that great
saying about people can have their own opinion, but they can't have
their own set of facts. Well, my grandmother from Ireland used to tell
me that saying it doesn't make it so. And what is really clear is that
we have to have a movement forward by this administration to not only
admit the mistakes that have been made, but to be sure that we actually
can bring our troops home sooner and safer. We want to honor the
sacrifice of our troops, but at the same time we want to bring them
home sooner and safer.
I am happy to yield to my colleague from New Jersey who is going to
continue this conversation, Mr. Andrews.
Mr. ANDREWS. I thank my friend for yielding. The job of the American
troops in Iraq is to fight for the cause for which we have sent them to
fight, and they are doing an honorable and brave and magnificent job;
and we are all proud of them and we all support them. The job of the
President, as the leader of the executive branch and the Commander in
Chief is to make policy decisions as to how and where to use those
forces. And we have grave doubts about whether he has made the right
decisions in Iraq. In fact, the record shows he has made a series of
poor decisions that put the country in great trouble.
But the job of the Congress is to oversee and ask the questions as to
whether the policymakers in the executive branch, from the President on
down, are doing the job that we want them to do. This Congress, this
majority in Congress has failed to do that job, has failed to ask the
questions that need to be asked:
Why did the Pentagon ignore the advice of the Chief of Staff of the
Army, General Shinseki, and send fewer than half the number of troops
that he recommended? Why did the administration ignore the advice of
their own State Department experts and immediately disband the Baathist
Party, the whole thing? Why did they further ignore the advice of those
experts and disband the Iraqi Army, the whole thing?
Why did they not guard the ammo dumps that are now providing the fire
power that is making IEDs that are killing Americans every day? Why did
they not properly set up supervision of the prisons so that we have the
national scandal of Abu Ghraib and the grave damage it has done to the
reputation of this country around the world?
And I think the central question that vexes us tonight is why have we
still not organized our intelligence functions on the ground such that
we can't predict and stop the actions of maybe 25,000 people in a
country of 24 million people? Why is it that the resistance is always a
step ahead, that the ability to stop them is a rare occurrence? The
fact of the matter is the Congress hasn't done the job that it needs to
do because the majority is serving as a rubber stamp for the policies
of the administration, rather than as a coequal branch asking the tough
questions that ought to be asked.
Let's start with these: Do we have the intelligence forces on the
ground to figure out where the resistance fighters are, who the
resistance fighters are, and what they might do next? Have we reached
out to our allies in the Arab and Muslim world who deal with this
problem on a daily basis to get the best of their practices and the
best of their advice? The numbers of Iraqi forces, we were told before
the 2004 election in this country, that several hundred Iraqi security
forces were trained and ready to step up and defend their own country.
Rather than growing, it seems that number is shrinking. It dropped
precipitously after the 2004 election in this country. It has never
been predictable. It has never been stable. It has never been
measurable.
The job of the Congress is to ask the hard questions and come up with
the right answers. But if you deny the fact that the questions have to
be asked, as the majority has, you will never come up with the right
answers. You will lose the faith of the American people, and you will
undercut the mission of those in the field. We support, respect, and
admire the efforts of those in the field. That is why we should be
asking the hard questions.
I would like to yield to my friend from California who is not only
asking good questions but providing some of the answers, my friend Mrs.
Davis.
Mrs. DAVIS of California. I want to raise an issue that I think has
really not gotten a lot of attention, and that is the fact that our
troops have been asked to play roles that they really didn't train for.
One moment our troops are being asked to work with civilians in Iraq
and with the local governments. They are being asked to teach them
negotiating skills. And then in the next minute, they are being asked
to go outside and control the chaos that is swarming in the streets.
Well, you know what? We know that our soldiers have answered these
calls, and they do it better than anyone could have ever expected them
to. But the fact that they have had to perform these different roles is
disturbing evidence of the way the President and his civilian leaders
have planned so poorly for this war and the aftermath that we are still
in today.
But don't listen to me. Listen to General McCaffrey who has made
numerous trips to Iraq and to Afghanistan and he has publicly stated
that that critical interagency coordination that was really important
to get the kind of provincial reconstruction themes are just beginning
to emerge now up and running. What disturbs me is not just the fact
that our military has been asked to perform those tasks; but in the
place of people who should have been performing those tasks, we have
very inexperienced and young individuals who really have never played
that role before.
So just now we see some changes; we see that they are trying to put
together the right Foreign Service officers in the field. Even today,
Secretary Rice said she is still struggling to do that in many cases.
What was needed was a plan for post-occupation Iraq that honored the
sacrifices of our troops. And instead they have been given this burden
unnecessarily and at great cost.
I join in applauding my colleagues, as we all are, trying to raise
the facts and the realities of Iraq today. And I yield to Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. I thank the gentlewoman from California. This is the
year of transition. It is up to the Iraqi people. It is up to the Iraqi
Government. It is up to the Iraqi forces. They are going to have to
take it upon themselves with the assistance of the wonderful Americans
that are there to make this transition work.
I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder.
Mr. SNYDER. Last week, Mr. Speaker, all 28 Democrats of the House
[[Page H3904]]
Armed Services Committee signed a letter to Chairman Duncan Hunter
asking for the reinstatement of the Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations. Now why do we do this? Because 10 years ago when the
Republicans took over control of Congress that subcommittee on the
House Armed Services Committee was eliminated and the intent was that
oversight, bipartisan oversight was to be conducted by the other
subcommittees. That has been a failure and we have seen that as members
of this committee, some of us for almost a decade now. It has been a
failure particularly during this time that our Nation is at war.
Our troops deserve the kind of effective government oversight that
they deserve. So what are we talking about? We have had corruption, we
have had fraud, we have had gross mismanagement; and it undermines the
war in Iraq. Anthony Cordesman, the noted expert from CSIS, concluded
that we have wasted about half of the $22 billion of U.S. funds that
have been spent so far in reconstruction, and much of the $34.6 billion
of Iraqi funds. The Special Inspector General for Iraq reconstruction
concluded that ``corruption is another form of insurgency in Iraq.'' So
what are we talking about? We have spent about $1.8 billion on
electricity reconstruction projects, but the pre-war capacity has not
yet been reached for electricity generation.
We have spent $650 million of USAID money on oil production
infrastructure, but we still have not reached the pre-war level
production capacity. We have spent about $690 million of U.S. dollars
on water and sanitation projects in Iraq, and yet the percentage of
Iraqis with access to drinkable water has fallen to 32 percent from the
pre-war level of 50 percent, and the percentage of Iraqis with access
to sewer and sanitation has dropped from 24 percent to 20 percent.
Here is the problem: our troops are dying and bleeding to give the
Iraqi people a chance to do well for themselves and their family, to
have drinkable water, to have a safe place to raise children, to have
the kind of electricity and the kind of things they need for modern
civilization. And yet, because of the inadequacies of the way the
administration is conducting the war and monitoring the payments of
these monies, that work is not getting done and the Democrats on the
House Arms Services Committee are saying tonight we have got to do
better.
I would now like to yield to Mr. Rick Larsen from the State of
Washington, also a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
Mr. LARSEN of Washington. I rise today as we reexamine why Congress
and the administration diverted attention from our fight against
terrorists and terrorism in order to invade Iraq.
{time} 2345
The current administration has gotten too many things wrong in Iraq
and has totally misinterpreted the lessons of the post-9/11 world. It
is up to Democrats to get things right in Iraq so we can refocus our
military efforts to fighting terrorists around the world who want to
harm us.
Today I ask my colleagues: Will we realistically confront terrorists
and terrorism with all the elements of our national power, or will we
continue to ignore a proven approach to follow a shop-worn, idealistic
approach that drains our military of its resources and America of its
good will with the very partners that we need to fight terrorism? That
is the choice our country faces.
The administration has made countless mistakes since the start of the
war in Iraq. As Congress looks to clean up the mistakes that have been
made, Democrats must speak out against this administration's tendency
to overlook problems and instead push for a policy that centers on
oversight of U.S. taxpayer dollars. We must respond to the public's
frustrations by creating a secure future for our military and
reestablish a foundation for American efforts to fight terrorists and
terrorism around the globe.
We can only do that by confronting and repairing the waste, fraud,
and abuse that plagues our efforts in Iraq. We need to emphasize that
our commitment to U.S. taxpayers is equally as important as the
commitment we have made to the Iraqi people.
I ask the American people to consider the legacy this administration
has handed us in the defense budget as we spend billions of U.S.
taxpayer dollars without the tools and ability to track these dollars.
Will we tolerate the squeeze that will force choices between weapons
and warriors because of a lack of administration foresight and lack of
congressional oversight? I believe the answer is no.
We must consider the legacy of waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq. Why
are we not getting results for our taxpayer dollars? We do not know
because the institution endowed by the Constitution that is responsible
for protecting your taxpayer dollars is practicing overlook instead of
oversight. Parents who are monitoring their children on the Internet
are providing more oversight than the United States Congress.
We learn of events and stories through the media once the waste,
fraud, or abuses have reached comic proportions. We know that
Halliburton has overcharged both the U.S. Government and the
Development Fund for Iraq by over $260 million. The Department of
Justice brought criminal indictments against a former CPA contracting
official and a contractor for a series of frauds costing taxpayers $13
million, and the CPA lost control of $19.6 billion in Iraqi oil funds.
As Congress overlooks expenditures of billions of U.S. taxpayer
dollars in Iraq, it ignores responsibility to provide a secure future
for our military.
Just in closing, I join my colleagues in commending our U.S. military
working in conjunction with Iraqi security and Iraqis themselves for
locating and eliminating Abu Musad al-Zarqawi. His terrorist violence
is gone. But we have learned in Iraq that fighting a ``classic
guerrilla-type war'' means that a victory like killing Zarqawi cannot
be celebrated too long. Much remains to be done in Iraq, and Democrats
have to make right where the administration has gone wrong. Our
obligations compel us to ask the tough questions that are currently
ignored.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from
Missouri, for yielding.
This is a very, very important subject. We, the members of the House
Armed Services Committee, support our troops and we are for victory in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the global war on terror. We welcome the
recent good news. We are glad that they took out Zarqawi. But there is
more work to be done.
I also serve on the House Committee on the Budget. I am particularly
interested that we pay for this war, that we do not borrow the money to
support our troops from China and Iran and nations like that because
those nations are increasingly large creditors of our country at a
crucial time when we do face a global war on terror.
And where are we getting so much of this money to fund this war? From
foreign nations. Where are the war bonds for this war? Where are we
borrowing from our own people to pay for this war? What are we paying
with for our troops? It is simply not being done by this
administration.
But I am joined tonight by two outstanding military veterans who are
also members of the House Armed Services Committee. First to speak is
the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Solomon Ortiz, who has got terrific
experience not only in the military but in preparing our troops for
war.
Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much, Jim.
Tonight we want to begin an honest discussion about where this Nation
stands in the war that we are prosecuting. And I think that we owe this
to the young men and women whose lives are on the line each day, their
families, their futures.
Supporting the troops has got to mean more than bumper stickers on
pickup trucks, my friends. We need to give them what they need. You
know, it wasn't too long ago when my good friend Congressman Reyes and
I and about eight other bipartisan Members took a trip to visit 25
military bases around this country. In 4 days we visited 25 bases that
were in deplorable condition. We were here in this facility on 9/11
having a press conference to let the American people know where we
stood and the conditions of the bases that we inspected, the
infrastructure.
[[Page H3905]]
A few minutes after that, a plane struck the Pentagon. We never were
able to give the American people the conditions of the military bases.
I have been to Afghanistan, and I have been to Iraq. But nobody has
been to Iraq more than my good friend Congressman Reyes. And I would
like for him to give us an assessment. He is a veteran. He has been to
Iraq more than any other Member. My friends, let us be honest with the
American people and tell the American people what we need to do.
Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, tonight we start what I hope is the first of
a series of honest discussions with the American people, something we
have been unable to do up to now.
There are a number of issues, a number of problems with where we find
ourselves as a Nation tonight. One of the biggest problems is we have
not shared the sacrifice.
As we speak here tonight, 2,498 of our Nation's finest have been
killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; 18,000 have been wounded with over
8,500 unable to return back to duty.
Do we honor and revere and love our troops? Absolutely. Do we respect
and honor the sacrifices that their families have made and are making?
Absolutely. Are we concerned about those that are yet to fall, those
that are yet to come back with wounds? Absolutely.
Part of the debate that we want to have on this particular issue is
to make sure that we do not debate other auxiliary things except Iraq.
Iraq is the area, ground zero, for the kinds of issues that we are
dealing with, the kinds of things that my colleagues have spoken about
tonight. The kinds of things we have failed to do as a Congress in
exercising our oversight responsibilities.
I have been to Iraq six times, to Afghanistan 12. I have visited with
our troops. I have seen them. I have shared the environment that they
share. As a veteran who served 13 months in Vietnam, which seems like
in a different era, I can relate to the kinds of things that are going
on in the theater of combat. But the one thing that has been missing
for us, in my opinion, has been the ability of this Congress to hold
the administration accountable, to do the oversight that is necessary
and so vitally important. That is the debate that we want to have on
this very important topic.
So with that, my good friend and colleague, a member of the Armed
Services Committee, Congressman Udall, will now speak.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I know the hour draws near, and
we have to conclude the day's business. And I want to join my
colleagues from across the country who serve with me on the Armed
Services Committee to make the point that this is just the beginning of
this discussion. We have not had time tonight to talk about recruiting
and retention and the developments that have occurred in those areas.
We have not talked about equipment and the need to replenish the
equipment that not only the active duty force is using and leaving
behind but the National Guard as well.
I know my colleague Mr. Cooper from Tennessee hears, as I do, from
returning soldiers and marines about all the equipment that is not
coming home that would be available in my part of the country to fight
fires and respond to natural disasters, to help on our border in the
southern regions. Just recently I had a chance to visit with the Marine
Corps leadership; and if I am not mistaken, the number that they shared
with me that is necessary to replenish all the equipment that the
Marine Corps is leaving behind is on the order of $5 billion, a very
significant number.
So I know we want to leave a little bit of time for Mr. Spratt and
Mr. Skelton to conclude, but I hope that this discussion will continue,
particularly that we can focus on the real changes we face when it
comes to retention and recruiting; and I know my good friend Mr.
Skelton is well aware of this in the part of our country in the
Midwest.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Victory in Iraq is of primary importance. But it is really up to the
Iraqi Government, the Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqi people. We
are and we have been doing and, of course, we will continue to be of
great assistance. The primary importance is that the Iraqis assume more
and more of their own security and of their own destiny.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Spratt).
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Skelton for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, the mission in Iraq has been plagued from the start by
poor intelligence, by poor planning for the post-war, and by disdain
for the advice from our allies and even our officials. Ignoring the
Army's Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Defense deployed too few
troops, failing to foresee the insurgency that followed the war. Many
of those deployed were not properly equipped with body armor or armored
vehicles, forced to improvise in the field. The troops were assigned
duty that they were not trained for. But let me add here they have
performed magnificently. They rose to the challenge. They showed they
still have that GI genius for field expedience. They improvised.
But the lack of planning and the lack of preparation has cost us
dearly; 2,514 Americans have paid the ultimate price: they have died.
17,774 have been seriously wounded.
Since this is the end of the debate, let me go to the bottom line.
First of all, let me say the most important cost we have incurred is
for the precious lives that were lost, 2,514; 1,774 who were wounded.
But the costs also are considerable. They are not a determinant,
obviously. We have troops in the field and are unstinting in our
support of them. But when the costs run into hundreds of billions of
dollars, they have to be considered.
Here is what the cost of the first Persian gulf war was: $61 billion.
Of that our allies chipped in in kind $10.6 billion, in cash $48
billion. The total cost to the United States out of pocket was $2.1
billion. That is what happens when you form a real coalition and have
allies and do not go it alone.
Here is what happens when you go it alone. This has been the
ascending cost of the war in Iraq, Iraqi Freedom: starting out at $51
billion, it rose to $77 billion in 2004, to $87 billion in 2005, and to
$100.4 billion this year, the estimated cost. And here is what the cost
per month is: $8.4 billion. That is what the current cost works out to.
That is a burn rate in Pentagon jargon; $8.4 billion a month is the
cost of the war currently.
Finally, adding all of that up, through the year 2006, you can see
that the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom has been $318.5 billion. The
cost is not the determinant. We can afford whatever it takes to defend
this country. We want to be, as I said, unstinting in support of our
troops. But when the cost gets to be $318 billion, $8.4 billion a
month, it has to be a consideration. And that is similarly what we are
saying tonight.
The President spoke several weeks ago and said that probably his
successor in 2010 would be the person who decides whether or not and
when American troops would be redeployed. He did not even mention the
cost of the current undertaking. It is not just a dollar cost. It is an
opportunity cost. For every dollar consumed here is a loss of dollars
otherwise that could be spent on modernization and on the
transformation of our forces.
Last year when we passed the Defense Authorization Act for 2006, the
House and Senate, and the President by signing the bill, enacted a
provision that 2006 would be the year of transition, when Iraqi troops
would begin to take primary responsibility.
This is simply what we are calling on the President to do, to begin
moving us in that direction as we resolved we should have done last
year, particularly in view of the cost.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker for allowing us to
speak tonight. This is a very, very important debate.
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