[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 112 (Tuesday, September 12, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H6399]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 12, 2006 (House)]
[Page H6399]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr12se06-131]                         



 
              QUESTIONING SECRETARY RUMSFELD'S LEADERSHIP

  Mr. EMANUEL. I ask permission to speak out of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Illinois is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, over the weekend we have heard from two 
generals who have a role to play in our war in Iraq. Brigadier General 
Mark Shide stated that during the runup to the Iraq war, Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone who tried to plan for 
the postwar environment.
  I am quoting General Shide. He said that Secretary Rumsfeld did not 
want any planning for the postwar environment, quote, because the 
American public will not back us if they think we are going over there 
for a long war.
  Well, that strategic thinking has given us a long war. Also, on the 
front page of the Washington Post on Sunday, the general and a director 
that is head of the military for Anbar Province says he has too few 
troops to secure the western part of Baghdad and Anbar Province and 
make what needs to be done, rather than as insurgency there, as the 
security in that area, that is mainly a Sunni area, we have a rapid 
insurgency that says it is now out of control.
  There is no precedent in American history for a Secretary of Defense 
to intentionally send too few troops into battle without the equipment 
that they need, and without a plan to finish the job. Nowhere in 
American history has a Secretary of Defense made such decisions that 
put men and women in the American national security in harm's way than 
Secretary Rumsfeld.
  The Secretary tried to hide a long war by creating an endless war, 
and in the process he gave the insurgency in Iraq room and air to grow 
into a full civil war to where General Abizaid, the other day in front 
of the Senate, testified we are on the doorstep of a civil war.
  I am going to tell you, General Shide is not the only general that 
says this. Major General Batiste, who commanded 22,000 troops on the 
ground in Iraq, quote, Rumsfeld and his team turned what should have 
been a deliberate victory in Iraq into a prolonged challenge. General 
Anthony Zinni, former commander of the U.S. Central Command for the 
Mideast, quote, we are paying the price for the lack of a credible 
planning, for the lack of plan. Ten years of planning were thrown away, 
thrown out the window. Major General Paul Eaton said of Secretary 
Rumsfeld, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally 
and tactically.
  Lieutenant General Newbold of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is head 
of all operations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff: ``My sincere view is 
that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a 
casualness and a swagger that are the special province of those who 
have never had to execute these missions--or bury the results.''
  Now, I do not think that our Armed Forces is a place of social 
promotion. These men that we invested in did not get to their positions 
as generals or lieutenant generals or brigadier generals because they 
are fools. They have all come to the conclusion that the Secretary of 
Defense, Don Rumsfeld, has led our Armed Forces as the Secretary of 
Defense poorly and to the point that we have the greatest strategic 
challenge, national security challenge, of a generation because of 
Secretary Rumsfeld's failures to execute his responsibilities. He sent 
too few troops and he sent them in without a plan for the occupation 
knowing full well we were going to have it, as if he was hiding 
something from the American people, which has now become fully obvious 
to the American people we are in for the long haul here.
  And what do the Republicans and this Congress make of this record? 
Vice President Dick Cheney said the other day, Sunday, on the show: 
``If we had to do it over again, we'd do exactly the same thing.'' Just 
more of the same. Albert Einstein said the first sign of insanity is 
doing the same-old-same-old and expecting a different result.
  Now, the President keeps giving the Secretary of Defense a pass. In 
the words of Lieutenant General Newbold, the head of operations for the 
Joint Chiefs: ``The Bush administration and senior military officials 
are not alone in their culpability. Members of Congress, from both 
parties, defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility 
for oversight.''
  General Newbold is right. When Secretary Rumsfeld came out with a 
plan for war that didn't include a plan for the peace or the 
occupation, this House, the Republican House, refused to ask why.
  When Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki told Congress it would take 
more than a couple hundred thousand troops more than Rumsfeld was 
planning to use, this House refused to ask why he was sacked and why 
Secretary Rumsfeld disagreed.
  When Secretary Rumsfeld sat by when Paul Bremer disbanded the Iraqi 
military in his plan of de-Bathification, sending half a million Iraqi 
soldiers into the insurgency, this House, the Republican House, refused 
to ask why.
  According to Colonel John Agoglia, ``That was the day that we 
snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and created an insurgency.''
  It is time for a new direction in the war on terror. It is time for a 
new direction in the war in Iraq. The Democrats will provide that 
leadership.

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