[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 22 (Tuesday, February 6, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H1235-H1237]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ENDING THE IRAQ WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the President has isolated himself from 
all the evidence, military advice, members of his own party, and the 
American people. He is not staying the course in Iraq. The President is 
making matters even worse by escalating the war.
  He has ordered at least 21,500 more U.S. soldiers into the middle of 
a bloody and violent civil war. This President has stepped backward in 
history. He is making the same tragic mistakes of Vietnam all over 
again.
  The President's speeches won't stop a bullet, and they won't protect 
soldiers from the tsunami of violence inundating Iraq. Our soldiers 
don't have enough equipment or support. Soldiers know it, but the White 
House ignores it.
  Some of the best newspapers and magazines in the Nation are reporting 
the facts, and they are not just repeating the President's spin.
  From the McClatchy newspapers, here is a recent headline: ``Soldiers 
in Iraq view troop surge as a lost cause.''
  From the San Francisco Chronicle: ``Corners cut in rush to add 
troops; shorter training time, lack of equipment hurt readiness, 
experts say.''
  And the latest issue of Business Week said: ``Military equipment: 
Missing in action.''
  I will enter these stories into the Record.

                          [From BusinessWeek]

                 Military Equipment: Missing in Action


  A new Defense audit says the Pentagon has failed to properly equip 
soldiers in Iraq--just as the President struggles to find support for a 
                             troop increase

                           (By Dawn Kopecki)

       The Inspector General for the Defense Dept. is concerned 
     that the U.S. military has failed to adequately equip 
     soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially for 
     nontraditional duties such as training Iraqi security

[[Page H1236]]

     forces and handling detainees, according to a summary of a 
     new audit obtained by BusinessWeek.
       The findings come as the Pentagon prepares to send another 
     21,500 troops to Iraq and as Democratic leaders levy threats 
     to restrict funding for a war that's already cost about $500 
     billion. The Army alone expects to spend an extra $70 billion 
     on an additional 65,000 permanent troops from fiscal year 
     2009 through 2013. According to Army officials, $18 billion 
     of that will be spent on equipment.
       The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn't been 
     able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have 
     gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary 
     supplies to ``effectively complete their missions'' and have 
     had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for 
     the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with 
     the Defense Dept. Inspector General's office. Soldiers have 
     also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, 
     and communications equipment, among other things, auditors 
     found.
       ``As a result, service members performed missions without 
     the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain 
     equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed 
     missions while waiting to receive equipment,'' reads the 
     executive summary dated Jan. 25. Service members often 
     borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed 
     supplies, according to the summary.
       Pentagon officials did not immediately return phone calls 
     seeking comment.
       The audit supports news reports and other evidence that 
     U.S. troops have been stretched too thin or have performed 
     tasks for which they were ill-prepared. It is likely to add 
     fuel to the opposition to President George W. Bush's decision 
     to send more troops to Iraq in an effort to quell the 
     violence there.
       Already, support for the troop increase is tepid in the 
     Senate, where Democrats are preparing to vote on a nonbinding 
     statement against the President's plan. While lawmakers have 
     threatened to reduce funding for the war, few have publicly 
     committed to using the ``power of the purse'' to block 
     funding for the troop surge. ``The thing we're going to do 
     now is very important, to show the American people that the 
     United States Senate, on a bipartisan basis, does not support 
     an escalation,'' says Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). 
     ``Even the Republicans are very timid in their support for 
     the President at this stage.''
       In the summary of the Inspector General's audit, the 
     equipment shortages were attributed to basic management 
     failures among military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
     U.S. Central Command lacked standard policies for requesting 
     and tracking equipment requirements or for equipping units to 
     perform nontraditional duties. Auditors surveyed 1,100 
     service members stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan from all 
     four military branches, the National Guard, and Reserves.
       The Inspector General recommended that the Pentagon 
     establish new internal controls and policies to address the 
     funding, equipping, and sustaining forces performing 
     nontraditional duties.
                                  ____


                      [From McClatchy Newspapers]

           Soldiers in Iraq View Troop Surge as a Lost Cause

                           (By Tom Lasseter)

       Baghdad, Iraq.--Army 1st Lt. Antonio Hardy took a slow look 
     around the east Baghdad neighborhood that he and his men were 
     patrolling. He grimaced at the sound of gunshots in the 
     distance. A machine gunner on top of a Humvee scanned the 
     rooftops for snipers. Some of Hardy's men wondered aloud if 
     they'd get hit by a roadside bomb on the way back to their 
     base. ``To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long 
     time to come, no matter what we do,'' said Hardy, 25, of 
     Atlanta. ``I think some people in America don't want to know 
     about all this violence, about all the killings. The people 
     back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated.''
       While senior military officials and the Bush administration 
     say the president's decision to send more American troops to 
     pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're 
     already there say it's a lost cause.
       ``What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn 
     around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to 
     kill us,'' said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, 
     Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one 
     evening last week. ``Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting 
     for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that 
     overnight.'' ``Once more raids start happening, they'll 
     (insurgents) melt away,'' said Gill, who serves with the 1st 
     Infantry Division in east Baghdad. ``And then two or three 
     months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll 
     come back.''
       Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than 
     half the city's 8 million people, said the violence is so out 
     of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops 
     may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can 
     bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided.
       Lt. Hardy and his men of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 2nd 
     Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo., patrol an area 
     southeast of Sadr City, the stronghold of radical Shiite 
     cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
       A map in Hardy's company headquarters charts at least 50 
     roadside bombs since late October, and the lieutenant 
     recently watched in horror as the blast from one killed his 
     Humvee's driver and wounded two other soldiers in a spray of 
     blood and shrapnel.
       Soldiers such as Hardy must contend not only with an 
     escalating civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslims, 
     but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. 
     forces.
       ``We can go get into a firefight and empty out ammo, but it 
     doesn't accomplish much,'' said Pvt. 1st Class Zach Clouser, 
     19, of York, Pa. ``This isn't our war--we're just in the 
     middle.''
       Almost every foot soldier interviewed during a week of 
     patrols on the streets and alleys of east Baghdad said that 
     Bush's plan would halt the bloodshed only temporarily. The 
     soldiers cited a variety of reasons, including incompetence 
     or corruption among Iraqi troops, the complexities of Iraq's 
     sectarian violence and the lack of Iraqi public support, a 
     cornerstone of counterinsurgency warfare.
       ``They can keep sending more and more troops over here, but 
     until the people here start working with us, it's not going 
     to change,'' said Sgt. Chance Oswalt, 22, of Tulsa, Okla.
       Bush's initiative calls for American soldiers in Baghdad to 
     take positions in outposts throughout the capital, paired up 
     with Iraqi police and soldiers. Few of the U.S. soldiers 
     interviewed, however, said they think Iraqi forces can 
     operate effectively without American help.
       Their officers were more optimistic.
       If there's enough progress during the next four to six 
     months, ``we can look at doing provincial Iraqi control, and 
     we can move U.S. forces to the edge of the city,'' said Lt. 
     Col. Dean Dunham, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry 
     Division's 2nd Brigade, which oversees most of east Baghdad.
       Maj. Christopher Wendland, a senior staff officer for 
     Dunham's brigade, said he thinks there's a good chance that 
     by late 2007 American troops will have handed over most of 
     Baghdad to Iraqi troops.
       ``I'm actually really positive,'' said Wendland, 35, of 
     Chicago. ``We have an Iraqi army that's actually capable of 
     maintaining once we leave.''
       If the Iraqi army can control the violence, his thinking 
     goes, economic and political progress will follow in the 
     safest areas, accompanied by infrastructure improvement, then 
     spread outward.
       In counterinsurgency circles, that notion is commonly 
     called the ``inkblot'' approach. It's been relatively 
     successful in some isolated parts of Iraq, such as Tal Afar 
     on the Syrian border, but in most areas it's failed to halt 
     the bloodshed for any length of time.

  Across America, the newspapers are filled with stories and editorials 
about the tragic consequences of this war and the dread over the 
President's escalation. From the Seattle Post Intelligencer, their 
editorial published yesterday is titled: ``Iraq War: Advice and 
dissent.''
  While the President is acting like he can go it alone, the PI 
correctly places responsibility on the co-equal legislative branch of 
government: Congress. The PI wrote: ``No resolution, however, can 
absolve Congress of its responsibility to cut off spending on a 
hopeless occupation.''
  It is time for Congress to act responsibly by exercising its 
constitutional responsibility and deny funding for the President's 
escalation of the Iraq War. The history of the Vietnam War shows us how 
to deal with the Iraq War, and I am prepared to apply the lessons of 
history in this Congress.
  In 1970, the McGovern-Hatfield amendment was introduced to stop the 
President from continuing to escalate the Vietnam War. It capped 
funding for troops for a short period of time, after which money could 
be used to bring the troops home and for bringing the prisoners home. 
It didn't pass, but it began a 5-year process that ended the war.
  I intend to offer a similar amendment to the first appropriation bill 
related to Iraq that is introduced in this House. There should be no 
new funding for any escalation of this war, not one dime, because it 
only leads to more U.S. casualties. Resolution in Iraq will never come 
on the bloody streets of Baghdad. It is time for us to act on behalf of 
the American people and on behalf of our soldiers. They deserve our 
strong and unwavering support.
  We can provide that by passing my amendment to channel our funds to 
the immediate redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq, out of 
occupation, and out of harm's way. We have waited far too long to act, 
and our soldiers have paid for our delay with their lives and their 
limbs.
  I believe it is time for Congress to reassure the American people 
that the President cannot go it alone. It is time for Congress to put 
an end to the President's reckless disregard of the truth about Iraq.

[[Page H1237]]

  Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat 
them. The President is doing today exactly what happened in Vietnam. On 
September 1, 1970, George McGovern spoke eloquently on the floor of the 
other body where he introduced the McGovern-Hatfield amendment.
  He said, ``It does not take any courage at all for a Congressman or a 
Senator or a President to wrap himself in the flag and say we are 
staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But 
we are responsible for those young men'' and now young women ``and 
their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war, 
those young men will someday curse us for our pitiful willingness to 
let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on 
us.''
  I believe we must apply the lessons of history, and I urge my 
colleagues to approve that amendment when it comes up so that we can 
begin to end a damnable war that never should have been brought in the 
first place.

                          ____________________