[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 6 (Thursday, January 11, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H402-H403]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 AMERICA NEEDS A FOREIGN POLICY THAT DOES NOT PUT THE INTERESTS OF OIL 
          AND OIL DICTATORSHIPS ABOVE THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, America needs a foreign policy that does not 
put the interests of oil and oil dictatorships above the interests of 
human life. It is not surprising that I don't support the escalation of 
U.S. troop levels in Iraq as asked for by our President last night.
  President Bush cannot lead America to military victory in Iraq, 
absent a viable, political solution that puts Iraq's internal affairs 
back together and redeploys our soldiers out of the role of being an 
occupying force. His statement is 3 years too late and hundreds of 
thousands of soldiers short.
  The President refuses to see that his strategy to combat terrorism is 
transforming Iraq into an Islamic Shi'a state with the relegation of 
the Sunni and the escape of Christians. Is this lop-sided result really 
in the interests of regional peace long term? Why should our U.S. 
forces, the President says he wants to deploy to Baghdad and Anbar 
Province, be used to do the cleanup work for the new Shi'a-led 
government. The growing insurgency inside Iraq, and any American 
sentiment both inside and outside of Iraq, will not be quelled by 
sending more U.S. troops. It will ripen it.
  There is now only one choice: Iraq must take responsibility for its 
own security as part of a broader political solution that works. But 
how can that political solution work when minorities in Iraq feel so 
underrepresented? That is why the international community and Iraq's 
neighbors must, no matter how difficult, become engaged in diplomatic 
efforts.
  Throughout the Muslim and Persian worlds, the President's policies 
have emboldened anti-American leaders in Lebanon, in Iran, in Syria, in 
Bahrain, in the Palestinian Authority, in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt, in 
Pakistan, even the Horn of Africa now. The Bush doctrine of preemptive 
war, test marketed in Iraq, succeeded in deposing Saddam Hussein and 
determining whether or not he possessed weapons of mass destruction.
  It is time, therefore, for the President and us to declare victory 
and transform the operation. As decorated CIA intelligence officer 
Robert Baer has written: ``We are at war in America and throughout the 
Western world, at war with an enemy with no infrastructure to attack, 
with no planes to shoot out of the sky, with no boats to sink to the 
bottom of the seas, and precious few tanks to blow up for the amusement 
of viewers of CNN.''
  Baer contends the only way to defeat such a faceless enemy is by 
substantial increases in human intelligence, and I agree. But that 
intelligence has been lacking. Even in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, 
almost no one speaks Arabic. Dr. Edward Luttwak, a strategic affairs 
expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, observed 
that the U.S. general who led the operation to apprehend Osama bin 
Laden neither spoke Arabic nor showed any interest in learning it and 
depended upon translations of intercepts to detect him.
  Importantly, we can ask ourselves, after 5 years, why hasn't the 
administration filled that human intelligence gap so fundamental to 
success. Maybe they really don't want to know. So now with the 
President's proposal to accelerate more forces, those units are going 
to deploy with too few personnel or with significant numbers of new 
personnel.
  This decreases unit cohesiveness and individual proficiency. Many 
units are facing three or more deployments, far beyond what was 
originally anticipated. We know that previous escalation of troops in 
Iraq have yielded no more success. Without a political solution the 
President cannot hold the ground by dispatching more U.S. groups or by 
continuing his escalation of the employment of greater and greater 
numbers of unaccountable, contracted forces and mercenaries to 
compensate for the lack of security and rising anti-Americanism.
  Our military's time-honored values of duty, honor, and country are 
being eviscerated by an operation that is depending more and more on 
hired guns

[[Page H403]]

to police the streets, on bounty-seeking contractors to guard important 
sites such as the oil wells, and foreign nationals to carry out 
internal security operations in Iraq. I don't call that the freedom the 
President talked about last night.
  Iraqis have proposed dividing Baghdad into nine sectors and policing 
them with Iraqi troops as American soldiers are redeployed as backups. 
That might work. But the U.S. most of all needs a broad political 
strategy that addresses the rising levels of global terrorism the Bush 
policy is yielding and the growing anti-American sentiment that is 
brewing in Iraq and the Muslim world beyond.
  That strategy demands significant new human intelligence networks, 
not standing armies. Moreover, we need international diplomacy to 
engage all nations that border Iraq to seek a resolution to the strife.
  Mr. Speaker, America needs a foreign policy that does not put the 
interests of oil and oil dictatorships above the value of human life. 
Just as the Bush administration took office, this country is importing 
an additional 1 billion more barrels of oil per year. Tell me there is 
no connection between our utter dependence on imported petroleum and 
the deployment of our precious troops to the Middle East and Central 
Asia.

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