[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 16, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H565-H568]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THREE AMERICAN HEROES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wilson of Ohio). The gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow morning, at 7:24 a.m., the first 
rays of the morning sun will illuminate the markers, the crosses and 
Stars of David at Arlington Cemetery. And about a half hour later they 
will move across the oak ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains and down to 
the slow waters of the Shenandoah River and across the Midwest of this 
country.
  And, Mr. Speaker, they will arrive, about an hour later, that great 
American sunrise, at the small towns in Texas, the hometowns of Audie 
Murphy, who fought with such great heroism in World War II, Sergeant 
Roy Benevides, who was a hero of the Vietnam War, and the hometown of 
Corporal Jason Dunham, who was given, a few days ago, the Medal of 
Honor by the President of the United States for his extreme valor in 
Iraq.

[[Page H566]]

  Mr. Speaker, these three American heroes are tied by a common thread 
to each other and to the American people and to our national purpose, 
in that they all fought for the expansion of freedom.
  Now, Audie Murphy fought in a war, World War II, which was a war 
that, once we had gotten into it and got past that first vote for a 
draft, which I think passed by one vote in this body, and realized that 
it was make or break time for the United States, that it was a war that 
would involve the full commitment of our entire country and all of our 
energies, a war in which there was unanimous support, that it was a war 
in which Audie Murphy fought with such great heroism.
  The war in which Roy Benevides fought was a war that didn't support, 
or didn't involve that unanimous support by the American people, but, 
nonetheless, involved a noble cause, the cause of spreading freedom in 
Vietnam.
  And the war that Corporal Jason Dunham gave his life in to protect 
his buddies in the 1st Marine Division, was a war, similarly, in which 
the United States has entered a long established blueprint for 
establishing freedom around the world, that is standing up a free 
government, standing up a military to protect that free government. And 
he was involved in the dangerous conflict in Anbar Province and gave 
his life for his colleagues in that struggle. So all three of these 
heroes were involved in the greatest American purpose, which is to 
spread freedom.
  Mr. Speaker, we have an interest in spreading freedom, not just a 
humanitarian interest, but a national interest. After World War II, we 
stood up the free government in Japan, and we stood up a military 
apparatus that could protect it. And who would quarrel with the idea 
that we have an enormous interest in having Japan, a free nation, with 
considerable economic and military capability, on that end of the 
Pacific Ocean?
  We also maintained free Germany, that is, West Germany, with the 
Berlin airlift, which was carried out with lots of American expenses 
and involvement and sacrifice. But we did that and, ultimately, that 
resulted in the reuniting of East and West Germany, and after the wall 
came down, the freeing of hundreds of millions of people as a result of 
America's triumph in the Cold War. And nobody would quarrel with the 
idea that having a free Germany in that strategic location was 
important to the United States.
  In our own hemisphere, we maintained a shield around that fragile 
democracy in El Salvador as we stood up that free government and 
allowed them to have their first elections. And nobody would quarrel 
with the idea that El Salvador, which now is an ally of the United 
States in the operation in Iraq, is an important asset for the United 
States in our own hemisphere, an important ally, an important partner; 
and that that is much preferable to the Marxist state which was where 
it was headed when the United States intervened.

                              {time}  2250

  Having free nations around the world in strategic locations 
especially is important to America. I think we all agree with that now, 
we have got a chance, if we succeed in Iraq, and having a country that 
is a friend, not an enemy of the United States, a country that will not 
be a state sponsor of terrorism in the future for the next 5, 10, 15, 
20 years, and a country which has a modicum of freedom for its people.
  Now, you know in spreading freedom around the world, incidentally, 
there are lots of naysayers. There are a lot of people who criticize 
and have criticized the American efforts.
  After all, we only saved half of the Korean peninsula and none of 
Vietnam for freedom. People can point to the cliffs of Normandy in 
France and point out that the country that hosts those American 
gravesides for the soldiers who gave their lives for the liberation of 
France, that country is less than enthusiastic in supporting the United 
States in our efforts to expand freedom around the world.
  You could probably say the same thing about the Government of 
Germany, seeming to have forgotten the ordeal of the Berlin airlift 
that the Americans endured to maintain freedom in West Germany and 
ultimately bring freedom to all the German people. There can be lots of 
criticism about the American plan. But, you know, the American plan, 
the idea of freedom has worked.
  I want to talk just a little bit about the Baghdad plan, the plan 
that the President and the joint chiefs and our war fighting leadership 
in Iraq have put together. Now, somebody along this great tradition of 
critics who like to imply that somehow the road that we didn't take was 
a smooth road, there is lots of criticism of this plan.
  This plan is not guaranteed to work because a lot of it relies on a 
factor that the United States doesn't control, and that is willingness, 
the willingness of the Iraqi military to show up with all of its units, 
to stand and fight, to be willing to engage in battle, and to be 
willing to take the burden of security that presently is carried mainly 
by the Americans.
  But let us talk about this Baghdad plan, because the Baghdad plan 
could be a pattern for the handoff of the security responsibilities 
from the United States to the Iraqi Government.
  In each of the nine sectors in Baghdad that the plan envisions, there 
will be an Iraqi brigade. Now, usually an Iraqi brigade will consist of 
two or three maneuvered battalions. A battalion can be anything from 
500 to 800 people, so it consists of two or three maneuvered battalions 
who will be out in front. They will have some embedded American 
advisors and people who can do things like call in medivacs and direct 
precision fire and do other things that we call combat enablers, so 
they will have American embedded teams helping them.
  Beyond that, standing as a backup to these two or three Iraqi 
battalions will be an American battalion, helping to shore them up, 
helping to give them advice, standing behind them while the Iraqis move 
through the neighborhoods and through the communities in the areas that 
are violent in Baghdad.
  Now, my recommendation has been that we take some of the 27 Iraqi 
battalions that have been trained and equipped that are in the quiet 
areas of Iraq, and nine of the 18 provinces are quiet areas. They are 
areas that involve less than one attack a day. That means that the 27 
battalions that we have trained and equipped that are in those areas 
aren't undertaking substantial military operations right now.
  We make sure that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense saddles up those 
battalions and moves them into the fight, rotates them into the battle, 
principally in the Baghdad area, but they could do the same thing in 
other areas in the Sunni triangle and even out in the al Anbar 
province. That does a couple of things. First, it helps get the job 
done. It moves trained and equipped fighting personnel into a theater 
of battle, and it provides people and equipment to make the necessary 
military operations to settle down Baghdad.
  But the second thing it does is train up the Iraqi Army, because the 
best way to train any army is to put them in military operations. Let 
us put them in military operations.
  Now my understanding that it is, in fact, from those nine quiet 
provinces we are going to have some three brigades that will involve 
six to nine battalions moving from the north and south, from quiet 
areas in Iraq, into Baghdad. We will be moving Iraqi battalions into 
Baghdad. Those have been committed by the Iraqi Government.
  Now, there is no guarantees that all Iraqi forces are going to show 
up. They are going to have to prove that. In the past, they haven't 
always shown up. Although they have battalions that have performed 
very, very well in combat, they have got others that haven't performed 
well.
  Now, we could take this pattern of having two or three Iraqi 
battalions with an American backup battalion, and we could use that to 
get combat experience and operational experience for every single Iraqi 
unit. Presently, there are 114 Iraqi battalions extant. That means that 
we have trained and equipped 114 battalions.
  I am sure that they are at varying levels of end strength, that is, 
personnel, and probably varying levels of equipage. But you only need 
some basic equipment for this urban fighting. You need to have weapons, 
you need to have ammunition, you need to have communications gear, and 
you need to have transportation, and you need to have

[[Page H567]]

soldiers who are willing, willing to obey the chain of command. You 
need to have leaders who are willing and able to lead, and you need to 
have a plan.
  This Baghdad plan, this idea of dividing it into nine sectors, saddle 
up Iraqi units that heretofore have not been operating in Baghdad, 
moving them in, putting them out front, in front of the Americans, the 
Americans are backup, using that basic pattern to run through all of 
the 114 Iraqi battalions and give them combat experience is a good way 
for us to start this handoff in which we hand off the full security 
burden to the Iraqi forces.
  Now, there is no guarantee that this can be done. There is no 
guarantee because one element of this plan is the commitment of Iraqi 
political leadership and the military leadership to carry out what they 
say they are going to do.
  This plan can be a blueprint for the handoff of the security burden. 
I would hope that Members understand that the troops that we are 
sending to Iraq right now are, indeed, reenforcements. Some of them are 
already arriving. They are the reinforcements that are necessary to 
execute this plan. Some 4,000 of them are going to al Anbar province 
where the Marines have requested them, and the balance are going to the 
Baghdad operation and other operations, presumably in the Sunni 
Triangle.
  This is a deployment of reinforcements, and the idea that this body 
or any other body would attempt to cut off American reinforcements to a 
military which is already engaged in combat is unacceptable. I think it 
is unprecedented. We have already made a vote to get into this 
operation. Right now we have got troops engaged in combat.
  When reinforcements are required, and you have troops engaged in 
combat, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that our policy, and our 
policy is directed by the Commander in Chief, it is not directed by 435 
Secretaries of State, that is all the Members of Congress becoming 
Secretaries of State in the House and another 100 in the other body, it 
is not directed by 535 self-appointed Secretaries of Defense. It is 
directed by the Commander in Chief who was elected by all the people to 
lead the militaries of this country. In consultation with our military 
leadership, he has done that. The troops are now moving. We need to get 
behind them.
  That leads me to another issue, and that is I talked a little bit 
about that American sunrise and how it shines first on these stars of 
David and crosses at Arlington Cemetery, and then it moves across this 
country, takes about 3 hours to get to my hometown in San Diego and 
Fort Rosecrans Cemetery there on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. Speaker, in the Midwest it flows over lots and lots of old 
factories and plants that used to represent what we called the 
``arsenal of democracy.''
  When we got into World War II, our allies and our adversaries 
realized very quickly that America had an arsenal of democracy. We had 
a great industrial base. We had an industrial base in which our major 
auto makers were able to turn immediately to making tanks and personnel 
carriers and all the other equipment of war.
  I know that in my own hometown in San Diego, we had an old facility 
you can still see if you drive down by the harbor that used to turn out 
a bomber aircraft every 60 minutes. That means they could have built 
the entire B-2 force in one day and had three hours left over.
  Everywhere across this land, because we had a strong industrial base, 
which were able to transform that industrial base into a wartime 
footing, and it was with the support of that industrial base that the 
armies of the United States moved across Europe, that the Marine Corps 
and the armies moved across the Pacific, and that we brought this war 
to a conclusion that favored the United States of America. An arsenal 
of democracy is pretty important to democracies.
  Today, if you want to look at a big part of the arsenal of democracy, 
you may have to go to some other countries. One country you may have to 
go to is China, because China is cheating on trade and China is 
acquiring hundreds of billions of American dollars, more than we are 
acquiring from them, and as the money piles up in China, they are using 
those billions of American trade dollars to buy military equipment.
  That is why they are able to have some 17 submarines under production 
today while we have a fraction of that. That is why they are able to 
buy and build medium-range ballistic missiles. I predict at some point, 
Mr. Speaker, those ballistic missiles will have an anti-ship capability 
that will present a major threat to the American fleet. That is why 
they are able to start developing a new industrial base for the 
development of a modern tactical aircraft program.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we see this one-way street on trade beginning to 
move the arsenal of democracy offshore. I can tell you in the past year 
on the Armed Services Committee I have looked at certain critical 
components of the arsenal of democracy, and I note that we only have 
one carbon fiber manufacturer left in the United States, and we only 
have, according to our research, one rocket fuel manufacturer left in 
the United States.
  As we look at more and more of the industries that are critical to 
national security, we realize that in many of them we only have one or 
two or three businesses or companies that are left that are capable of 
making particular components that are critical to America's military 
strength.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to change and reverse this one-way street 
trade policy that we have acquiesced to and restore the arsenal of 
democracy.
  It is kind of funny. When China enters a trade deal with the United 
States or competes against an American company, since we are all 
talking football at this time of the year, they start with 74 points on 
the scoreboard before the opening kickoff.
  They give a 17 percent refund of their VAT tax, basically a 17 
percent subsidy to this exporter who is sending out products to the 
United States. When our products arrive at China's shores, they give us 
a 17 percent penalty. That is now a 34 point spread. And then, just to 
make sure that we don't throw a Hail Mary and come from behind and win 
that particular competition on that particular product, they devalue 
their currency by 40 percent, and they increase the spread in points to 
74 points.
  That means that before the opening kickoff in this competition that 
we call world trade between the Chinese corporation and the American 
business and American workers, China has 74 points on the scoreboard. 
Then if we lose the competition, they say, what's the matter? Can't you 
play football?
  China is cheating on trade, Mr. Speaker, and the Chairman of the 
Federal Reserve Board made that clear in his preliminary speech which 
called this manipulation of currency an illegal subsidy. That word 
``subsidy'' was subsequently removed from the speech before it was 
given to the Chinese leadership, but I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that 
that illegal subsidy and that 17 percent penalty that is given to 
American trade goods and the 17 percent subsidy that they give to their 
trade goods as they are moved for export to the United States, that 74 
points on the scoreboard hurts American businesses, it hurts American 
workers and it erodes the arsenal of democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to need the arsenal of democracy at some 
point in the future, and we need to have a trade policy and new trade 
laws that say this: We are not going to live with the 74-point 
disparity anymore, and you can do it the easy way or the hard way. We 
can all start with zero points on the scoreboard, or we will put the 
same taxes on your goods that you put on ours, and we will both start 
with 74 points on the scoreboard. But we are not going to start anymore 
with the score being America zero, China 74.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I hope this is a year in which we pass a bill that 
calls the currency manipulation and devaluation by the central 
government of China what it is, which is an illegal subsidy.
  Let me move on to another issue, Mr. Speaker, because as that 
American sunrise that lit up the Arlington Cemetery at 7:24 a.m. this 
morning moves across the United States, about 2 hours after that, it 
reaches the Southwest border of America. It shines on what I call the 
thin green line. That is the few thousand American Border Patrol men 
and women who defend the borders of

[[Page H568]]

the United States. They have got a 2,000-mile border to defend, Mr. 
Speaker, all the way from San Diego, California, to Brownsville, Texas, 
and we owe it to them to use the best of our technology and the best of 
our resources to make sure that that border is defendable.
  Now, we asked one of our great think tanks, the Sandia Laboratory, in 
fact, that is one of the laboratories that is full of scientists who 
design our nuclear weapons, design the warheads, we asked them once to 
solve a problem for us. We said, what is a good way for us to stop 
drugs from coming across the border from the south?
  They thought about it for a while and came back and gave us a report, 
and the report said we are going to show you something that is not too 
complicated. How about a fence? In fact, how about a triple fence, 
which will slow down the smugglers enough so that your Border Patrolmen 
can catch them, which gives you a fighting chance to halt people that 
would come across illegally?
  Now, this fence, in fact we call it the Sandia Fence because the 
Sandia National Laboratory designed it, is pretty simple. It consists 
of a steel fence. It is right on the border. Then you have a Border 
Patrol road that is about 50-foot wide, and then you have about a 15-
foot high fence with an overhang, and then another Border Patrol fence, 
and then another fence that is a shorter fence. Three fences.
  We built that when Republicans took control of this body in 1994 in 
San Diego. I can remember, because I drafted that language that went 
into the immigration bill that provided for that fence.
  Mr. Speaker, when we built that fence, and we said it had to be 
built, the Clinton administration did not want to build it, and 
President Clinton's own INS representatives fought the fence. But they 
had to build it, because it was the law.
  They said, do we have to build all three layers of fence? We sat down 
with them and said, well, we will tell you what; we will keep the three 
layers in the law, but let's build the first two, and if we don't need 
the third layer, we won't make you build it.
  Mr. Speaker, we haven't needed the third layer, because that fence, 
the 14-mile fence in the San Diego sector, once we built the first big 
piece of that, we knocked down the smuggling of people and narcotics by 
more than 90 percent. We eliminated the drive-through drug trucks, we 
eliminated the 10 murders a year that were occurring on the border by 
the border gangs, and we eliminated the border gangs, because the 
border gangs needed to be able to move back and forth, north and south. 
If they were pursued from the north, they would go south, if they were 
pursued from the south, they would go north. We took away their 
mobility by building that fence.
  Mr. Speaker, that fence works. And the new law that President Bush 
signed a couple of months ago mandates the extension of that fence, the 
San Diego fence, 854 miles across the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico 
and Texas.
  Mr. Speaker, I drafted that bill, that fence provision that was in 
the bill that was offered by Homeland Security, and the first big 
section that I put in was the section between Calexico, California, and 
Douglas, Arizona. That is about 392 miles. That is the number one 
smugglers' corridor, now that we have closed the San Diego-Tijuana 
corridor by fencing it.
  That 392-mile section is a section through which massive amounts of 
people and narcotics are being smuggled. The Department of Homeland 
Security has a mandate. In fact, when we wrote that law, I put in the 
word ``shall.'' ``Shall'' means that this is not an option, it is not a 
goal, it is not something that would be nice to have if you could do 
it. It is a mandate to the Federal Government to build that fence.
  There is available now appropriated and ready to go in the bank, so-
to-speak, $1.2 billion. That may not build the entire 854 miles of 
fence, but it gives you an awfully good big piece of it.
  Something we found out about the San Diego fence was after we had 
built even a third of the San Diego fence, because we channelized the 
smugglers, especially the drug trucks and they had fewer places to go, 
we were able to concentrate our border agents in those channelized 
openings that were still unfenced and we caught lots of them, and our 
interdiction rate went way up, even before we completed the fence.
  So, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing so compelling in this country as an 
idea that the people support which has been passed by both Houses of 
Congress and signed by the President and represents a law that came 
right from the heartland of this great country and which needs to be 
executed.
  The Department of Homeland Security has the obligation of executing 
this law, and I look forward to working with my colleagues, Democrat 
and Republican, over the next several months and making sure that this 
fence gets started. We can start it concurrently in separate sections. 
You can have one contractor build it from mile 1 to mile 5, the next 
guy go from mile 5 to mile 10 and so on. We can immediately see a 
reduction in the amount of people and narcotics that are smuggled 
across this border.
  Let me tell you why we have to build this border fence, Mr. Speaker: 
Since 9/11, it has become clear that border security is no longer 
primarily an immigration issue. It is a national security issue. We 
have to know, very simply, who is coming into our country and what they 
are bringing with them.
  You know something else? We have got 250,000 criminal aliens right 
now in our Federal penitentiaries and our State and local prisons and 
jails, a quarter of a million criminal aliens. They cost us as much as 
$50,000 apiece to incarcerate for a year. That means that each year we 
spend around $3 billion in cash money out of our Treasury to 
incarcerate the people that come across this unfenced section of the 
southern border of the United States. We would save enough money in one 
year on incarceration a loan to build the entire fence. Let's build it, 
Mr. Speaker.

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