[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 24 (Thursday, February 8, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H1405-H1411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE WAR ON TERROR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I hope the gentleman from Missouri 
would just suspend a moment before he leaves the floor.
  I would like to have the privilege to address the subject matter that 
he raised and the issue of the Iraq Study Group. And it is somewhat of 
a long book to read through, but I had a conversation this afternoon 
with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), and I have lifted some 
things out of the Iraq Study Group's report that are clearly part of 
the President's agenda in Iraq, ``The New Way Forward,'' and Mr. Wolf 
assures me that the entire strategy in Iraq is right from the Iraq 
Study Group.
  So I point out to the gentleman from Missouri, and I would be happy 
to yield to him if he had a response, that the plan and the strategy of 
the President's for a new way forward in Iraq is not flying in the face 
of the Iraq Study Group. In fact, it follows directly down the path of 
the Iraq Study Group. If the gentleman from Missouri would care to 
engage, I would certainly be willing to yield.
  I came here to talk about that subject matter, in fact, Madam 
Speaker. And as I listened to my colleagues in preparation for this 60-
minute Special Order, I will just take from the top some of the notes 
that come to mind.
  And one is, from the beginning, the gentleman from New Jersey spoke 
about ExxonMobil's highest corporate profits, the highest corporate 
profits, perhaps, ever in the history of the country, and the promise 
by this Pelosi Congress to provide energy independence. And then the 
gentlewoman from Ohio also spoke about ExxonMobil's profits, and the 
details of that were such that they have $40 billion in profits. Did 
they lower prices at the pump?
  Well, yes. Prices at the pump are a dollar a gallon cheaper than they 
were when oil prices were up to $75 a barrel. In fact, the prices at 
the pump almost directly reflect the lowering of the prices and the 
cost of the barrels of crude oil.
  And then, of course, the argument that there was a class action 
lawsuit against them for $3.5 billion. And one might take that as a 
concern until one sees that that, Madam Speaker, is Alabama. Well, 
Alabama is a venue shoppers' State of choice. Someone who has a 
lawsuit, and the attorneys across this country know this, when they 
want to bring a class action lawsuit, they look around and they say 
what State has favorable laws; what State produces favorable juries. 
Where is the class envy so focused and where they have a belief that 
you can put 12 men and women on a jury and they would lay out a 
punitive case against a company because they see a company as somehow 
or another an evil Big Brother.
  That is how you end up with these $3.5 billion or maybe $9 billion 
punitive damages in a class action lawsuit.
  We have dealt with this, Madam Speaker, in the Judiciary Committee in 
the years that I have been in this Congress, and we passed legislation 
out of the House, and not successful in the Senate, that would allow a 
company that operates in multiple States, in fact, maybe 
internationally, to be able to ask that a case that has been venue 
shopped and taken to a State where there is a minimal amount of 
economic activity but a maximum amount of punitive damages offered by 
the juries there, a State that has that kind of reputation, we have 
passed legislation here in the House that would allow

[[Page H1406]]

that to be changed to a Federal venue rather than a State venue so that 
we can eliminate some of this ghastly profiteering that is taking place 
and the punishment of some of our best corporate citizens that we have 
in America.
  And I sat here tonight and listened to a handful of speakers, and two 
of them turned their focus on ExxonMobil, and they can't seem to 
understand that because we have large and successful oil companies in 
America that they are continuing to invest those profits into research 
and development and exploration.
  The gentlewoman from Ohio lamented that they bought back $10 billion 
worth of their stock. Can she speculate that perhaps that gives them 
enough control now that they can invest more of their profits in 
exploration? And if they invest more in exploration, that means there 
will be more oil on the market, which means then, of course, this law 
of supply and demand, which I believe in, which everyone on the 
Republican side of the aisle believes in, which some of the people on 
the other side of the aisle believe in, that supply and demand will 
drive down our prices. And that is exactly what has been happening, 
Madam Speaker.
  So I have to rise in defense of the companies that have provided 
cheap gas in this country, cheap oil in this country, and even still, 
whatever the price of gas is, milk is still more expensive. But not 
only that, the product that has been free all of my life, that product 
called ``drinking water'' and, in fact, now bottled water, is more 
expensive in the machine at the gas station per gallon than a gallon of 
gas is coming out of the pump right next to it by far. In fact, the 
last time I calculated that, it was a little over $9 a gallon to get 
your bottled water out of the machine at the gas station where gas was 
selling for about $2.15.
  So we need to keep this in perspective. We cannot be punishing those 
companies that are out there exploring and putting this oil on the 
market so that we have the convenience of relatively cheap fuel and the 
mobile society that we have. If we did not have these companies and you 
pulled their expertise and their capital and their reserves off the 
market, we would be far, far more dependent upon Middle Eastern oil and 
much, much more of America's economy and the profits that we have would 
be skimmed off to go to the Middle East to fund the people who are 
lined up against us militarily and philosophically.

                              {time}  1900

  We are trying to get to energy independence. The Pelosi plan doesn't 
take us to energy independence. In the first 100 hours, one of those 
first six pieces of legislation, H.R. 1 through 6, pick your number, 
the one that addressed energy, went out and punished oil companies. It 
said, if you have leases, and particularly some leases that were 
perhaps profitable in the gulf coast, if you have leases that are 
deemed by the government to be profitable, we are going to require you, 
as a company, to renegotiate those leases. If you don't renegotiate, 
then we are going to forbid you, ban you, blackball you, black list you 
from a company that can negotiate future leases offshore, like, 
actually, I believe, domestically in shore on land and in the United 
States.
  Now, what kind of a deal is it when you have a deal, and the Congress 
comes here and passes legislation that says a deal is not a deal. Yes, 
you had a deal. We signed it all in good faith, but we found out it was 
a good deal. So now we are going to take some of that profit ourselves. 
I have spent my life in the contracting business, and I have invested a 
little bit of capital, and I was able to add a little more to it and 
roll a little back in and work hard and take some chances and work 
smart.
  Over a period of time, I was able to build a little capital up and 
get to the point where we could bid some projects that had some 
significant value. I have seen this kind of envy rise up when someone 
looks over and sees the industrious nature of their neighbor and 
decides they want some of that hard-earned profit. I have had it happen 
to me when I had a contract that I had significant profit in.
  I can think of one in particular where I was able to purchase some 
materials because I negotiated. I played my cards right, I went and 
built those relationships with all the people that were involved. It 
was a string of people through bankruptcy and banks. In the process of 
doing that, everything had to come together just right. The timing had 
to be just right. I was at great risk if I was not successful in 
putting that all together so that I could buy a large quantity of dirt 
for a reasonable price and it was handy.
  In fact, when I first talked to the banker about that piece of land, 
he said it would take $25,000 just to retain an attorney to represent 
me in negotiating the purchase of that. That gives you a measure of how 
difficult it was. But, in fact, I was successful purchasing that earth 
on that farm for the purposes of taking it into a project we were 
building, and, of course, I made some money.
  If I had been wrong, if I hadn't been able to complete that purchase, 
then it would have cost me a lot of money. But when the time came, the 
owners sat me down, and the engineers sat me down, and they said, well, 
we see that you are making money here, and now we would like you to 
discount the work you are doing because we think you can afford to do 
that.
  I looked them in the face, and I thought, well, why are you asking me 
to give some of my profit over to the owners? Isn't it all justly 
earned? And isn't it ethical, and didn't I bid this for a price, and 
was not it low bid? Not a no bid, but a low-bid contract? They said, 
well, yes, but we think that you have some to give, and so we are 
asking you to discount your work, do it more cleanly, because we think 
you can afford to.
  Well, what principle are you basing that judgment on because someone 
can't afford to discount something? How can you ask them to do that in 
a free enterprise society? I asked that question of the engineers, and 
they said, well, again, we they think that you can afford to do that.
  So let me ask you a question. If I had lost my shirt on this job, 
which I likely could have done, and maybe even lost my business, would 
you have stepped up and said things didn't go so well for you, here is 
some extra? They just smiled and snickered a little bit because they 
knew it was ludicrous to think that when things go bad that there is 
going to be anybody in there holding my hand or ExxonMobil's hands or 
Shell's or Chevron's or anybody else's. They suffer all of their 
losses, and they have to have a margin in the work that they do.
  We must have successful companies here operating out of the United 
States, and especially developing our domestic supplies of energy. If 
we fail to do that, then we are absolutely dependent upon middle 
eastern oil. If we are up to that 60 percent or so of our oil that is 
imported now, think what it would be like, Madam Speaker, if it was 100 
percent.
  So this effort to go down here and argue that we will see energy 
dependence under Pelosi's term here in Congress, I would submit that 
they have done anything but. They have changed the deal and said the 
Federal Government's word is not good, we want a tax, windfall profits. 
If we can find a way where we are jealous of your profit, we will find 
a way where we can take it and put it into the government coffers.
  A company that will look at that is going to take their profits and 
decide why do I want to invest my profits in further exploration if the 
Federal Government is going to come in and cancel the deal, which they 
have done. I will submit that, perhaps, $40 million that may be 
available, and it is probably a lot more than that is available for 
exploration, that will continue to put oil supply on the market.
  I would submit that it is more likely that exploration investment 
will go overseas to foreign countries, and perhaps even into the Middle 
East and places where we don't have such a stable environment, while we 
sit on massive supplies and energy here in the United States, not 
because the oil is not there, not because the natural gas isn't there, 
but because this Congress has become a jealous Congress. This Congress 
has become a vindictive Congress. This Congress has become a Congress 
that has decided that they are going to play legislative corporate 
class envy against companies that are providing an economic supply of 
energy to this country.

[[Page H1407]]

  I have always had the view that if I didn't like the way someone was 
doing business, if I thought they were making too much profit, then 
that should say to the whole world, well, there is opportunity there. 
If Exxon is making all of this profit, and it has made so many people 
irate that out of six or eight speakers two of them come to the floor 
to speak about that very thing, then I would submit, go out and start 
your own oil company.
  That is the American way. You have a chance to do whatever you want 
to do in this country. Go ahead and get an investor's group together, 
or go buy up a group of oil companies, put them together and go out 
there, and invest your capital, see how you do.
  In fact, I welcome that. I think we need a lot of competition, and we 
need a lot of exploration, and we need to be developing our oil 
supplies more now than we ever have before. This is the time to push, 
because perhaps a generation from now we will have transitioned into a 
lot of other kinds of fuel and gas and oil will not be so important and 
will not be so relevant any longer. It isn't just the gas and the oil 
and the fuel that comes from our crude oil, but it is all the other 
energy supplies out there.
  Now, I understand that the other side of the aisle and the Pelosi 
plan is going to include some things like conservation, and I suspect 
reasonable conservation measures. I think it is awfully hard to 
legislate. I think the markets do more for that than we could probably 
do with legislation. Conservation is a component. But I would ask to 
put in your mind's eye the idea that I call the energy pie. The energy 
pie, shaped like a clock, for example, but slices of that pie, pieces 
of the pie, or the components of it would come from all of the areas 
where we get energy.
  So I would submit that a certain percentage of our overall BTU 
consumption in America is gasoline. Some is diesel fuel. Some is fuel 
oil. Then those hydrocarbons that come from crude oil, and then, in 
addition to that, we have a lot of our electricity, significant amount 
comes from hydroelectric and nuclear and coal fired, especially clean 
coal fired, and we also, then, out of that energy, then, in addition to 
that, we have our ethanol, our biodiesel. We have hydrogen. There is a 
whole list of sources for energy in America, and we need to look at 
that, like all the BTUs consumed in America, a big energy pie, and then 
reprioritize that. Let us change the size of the pieces and grow the 
size of the energy pie.
  I want more BTUs on the market. I want a lot more energy on the 
market. I want to go everywhere we can to get that energy and pour it 
into the marketplace and do it so that we can supply more BTUs than we 
are using.
  If we can do that, we can drive down the cost of all energy. We need 
to do that by adding it by component by component. The ethanol, the 
biodiesel, more coal, more wind, I left that out, the hydrogen, on the 
horizon, the cellulosic ethanol that is coming, piece after piece of 
this energy pie needs to be added together. Then we change the 
proportion of the pieces so that gasoline from middle eastern oil 
becomes a smaller piece, and diesel fuel from middle eastern oil 
becomes a smaller piece.
  Ethanol becomes a larger piece. Biodiesel becomes a larger piece. 
Cellulosic down the line a half a decade from now can really start to 
take hold, and we can replace some of the electricity that is being 
generated by the natural gas with wind energy, and that is an 
environmentally friendly and conservation approach that is good for our 
environment.
  All of these tools are at our disposal, but one of the tools we seem 
to use is we want to punish the corporations that are busily 
contributing to growing the size of the energy pie, and also 
diversifying some of their investments so they aren't just locked into 
the petroleum but adding the diversification out there, so that they 
can contribute also to adjusting the size of the pieces in this larger 
growing energy pie.
  That is how this needs to be done. We need to be doing it by 
complimenting the companies that are competing in the open market, not 
by punishing them, not by defying the rules of free enterprise with 
Congressional action, not by changing the deal, not by jerking the rug 
out from underneath. I would suggest that there is a Chevron find in 
the Gulf of Mexico, I understand it is about 265 miles southwest of New 
Orleans, that may add as much as a 50 percent more to the overall 
reserves or the overall production of oil in the United States.
  With that field opening up, and the necessity to open up in ANWR, we 
can, if we are aggressive, we can reduce dramatically our dependency on 
foreign oil, and then, of course, we add to that the renewable energies 
that I have talked about. We can get there. We will not get there if we 
scare our companies off, if we punish them for doing good and doing the 
right thing.
  So I will move from that energy discussion and move to the discussion 
by the gentleman, Mr. Andrews, on Iran. I want to compliment him for 
the tone and the thoughtfulness and the constitutional discussion that 
he brought here to the floor. I have no doubt that he understands the 
Constitution, and he is correct when he says the power to declare a war 
is with this Congress constitutionally.
  But, also, the commander in chief of our military is the President of 
the United States, and that is clear, and that is a constitutional 
principle that should not be challenged by this Congress. He is the 
commander in chief.
  There is nothing in the Constitution that says Congress shall have 
the authority to declare a war and then micromanage every little 
operation of that war. Simply when Congress declares war, they say we 
send a message to all sovereign nations in the world that we are at war 
with whichever sovereign nations may be the subject of that 
declaration.
  That declaration shows the commitment of Congress to support our 
troops and their mission. I will say that again, to support our troops 
and their mission, and the lead troop is the commander in chief, the 
President of the United States, George W. Bush, who does call these 
shots.
  Our founding fathers understood you cannot fight a war by committee, 
and you can't put your finger into the wind and ask the public to poll 
and ask how you should go about fighting a war. If we are going to sit 
here and say, well, the public polls say that the support for the 
operations in Iraq, the battleground of Iraq, which is a battleground 
in the broader global war on terror, if we are going to take the 
position that this Congress can steal the polls and make military 
recommendations or pass edicts here or take the budget and squeeze down 
our support for our troops or shut it off like they did at the end of 
the Vietnam War, that we can micromanage a war from the floor of the 
Congress?
  It is a ridiculous concept, and it was a ridiculous concept for the 
President of the United States during the Vietnam War, to micromanage 
that war. President Johnson should have turned that over to his 
military personnel at the joint chiefs of staffs, who would have relied 
upon their commanders in the field. If they were not satisfied with 
those results, they would have changed them. It is the prerogative of 
the President to remove generals and appoint new generals.
  Of course, the Senate confirms those higher appointments, as we saw 
happen a little over a week ago, with the confirmation of General David 
Petraeus.
  Now, we find ourselves in this odd dichotomy here, this odd 
contradiction, where Congress has, and I am speaking, I should say 
specifically, the Senate has unanimously endorsed the President's 
choice to be the commander of all operations in Iraq, General David 
Petraeus.
  Personally, I would put into the Record that he is the singular most 
impressive individual that I have met in a military uniform in my 
lifetime. I do not believe that there could be another choice. I do not 
believe that there could be a better choice to head up these operations 
in this new way forward in Iraq than General David Petraeus.

                              {time}  1915

  Not only does he understand the overall strategy, he has written the 
book on counterinsurgencies. He spent years in Iraq. I first met him 
over there in October of 2003 where he commanded the 101st Airborne 
that had gone in and liberated the region about three provinces and in 
the region of Mosul. And there, as I sat and received a briefing from 
him, I will tell this little anecdote about General Petraeus, that is, 
he started to give a briefing.

[[Page H1408]]

  And it was in a way, a classical Powerpoint slide show, but a slide 
show of pictures, the reality of what had taken place there. And he had 
a cordless microphone.
  Now I do not get very many briefings that last an hour and a half, 
unless I happen to be the one that is delivering them. But General 
Petraeus spoke for about an hour or a little more, and the battery went 
dead on his microphone. The moment before the battery went dead, he had 
picked up another microphone that was laying there, and without even 
breaking stride, laid the one down, picked the microphone up with the 
fresh battery in it, and proceeded to complete that briefing that 
lasted about 90 minutes.
  He had the solution sitting there waiting for the problem. He used 
every single minute of the 90 minutes extraordinarily effectively. Not 
only did he talk about politics and tactics and the military deployment 
that they had there, the difficulties that they had faced, he talked 
about how he had called for elections in Mosul.
  Mosul was liberated in late March 2003. They had elections there in 
May of 2003. And at the table later on the next day, I met with the new 
governor of Mosul and the vice-governor of Moss, one a Shiia, one a 
Kurd. One might have been a Sunni and the other was a Kurd. But 
regardless, he had representatives from two different sectarian 
factions there, and then a business leader at the table who was 
proficient in English.
  You could tell by the eye contact of those three men, they were a 
team that was working together. General Petraeus understood the 
military and the tactics, understands them better today than he did 
then, and he understood them very well then. He understands the 
politics. He understands the economics. And he studied this. It has 
been his focus, it has been his life. He loves his soldiers. I am 
looking forward to a completion of this mission in Iraq that will be I 
believe a successful mission.
  Mr. Andrews spoke about Iran. I digressed a bit before I get to that 
point. I support his constitutional conclusion that Congress alone 
declares war. But I would submit, in addition to that statement, that 
the Commander in Chief calls the shots. We declare war, if that is what 
the situation calls for.
  And then Congress shall not get in the way and micromanage the 
operations. No war by committee, Madam Speaker, and no interference 
here on the part of these Members of Congress, except if they have an 
issue then they can do, behind-the-doors oversight. They can have those 
conversations. The President's door is open to the leadership of this 
Congress. We know that.
  If they have those kind of issues, they want to discuss, we have 
classified briefings here. There are plenty of opportunities for 
oversight. If not, you can ask for opportunities for oversight. But to 
set up this Congress and to use the committees and use the committee 
chairs and the ranking members to somehow configure a away to bring in 
motions and micromanage a war is a guaranteed military debacle. There 
has never been a successful committee operation fighting a war in 
history, and there is no way that you can set a precedent here out of 
this Congress, especially as divided and as defeatist as it is on the 
majority side of the aisle.
  It seems to me that the will to win this war runs a successful clear 
distinct victory that would be written by the historians as a distant 
victory, is not really something that is loved and anticipated by the 
people on the other side of the aisle. And this is not a stretch that 
comes out of my imagination, Madam Speaker. But it is simply an 
observation from in this Chamber, when the Commander in Chief gave his 
State of the Union Address last month, now when he spoke about 
committing to victory in Iraq, one-half of this Chamber stood in a 
thunderous standing ovation, and the other half of the Chamber, Madam 
Speaker, sat on their hands in silence, disgraceful silence.
  Could they not know that our troops in the field have televisions in 
real time over there in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and in other parts 
where our troops are today, supporting our troops that are in the front 
lines? Could they not know that our commanders all the way down the 
line to the privates are watching this disgraceful lack of support? 
Their lives are on the line, and they will hear Members from this side 
of the aisle to a man and to a woman say, I support the troops. I 
support the troops. I support the troops.
  And the question to follow is, what about their mission? Do you 
support their mission? And that is when you cannot get a question 
answer from hardly anybody on the Democratic side of the aisle. In 
fact, the Speaker herself declined to say yes to that point blank 
question sometime in December of last year.
  She said it was not a matter of victory, it was a matter of managing. 
Well, they want to manage their way out of there, and I will submit 
that the rule of warfare is, victory goes to the side that is occupying 
the territory at the end of the war. You cannot lift people off with 
helicopters off a U.S. embassy in places like Saigon, and say, well, we 
really won the war, we tactically won the war, we did not lose a 
battle, we won, we left because we wanted to, it was kind of an 
asterisk that those things happened down there.
  We tactically did win every battle. And our U.S. military performed 
courageously, heroically, and gloriously. And they need to be honored 
by every generation from here on out. But we did not win the battle of 
who stood on the terrain at the end.
  And these enemies that we have in the Middle East are a philosophical 
enemy that goes deep back into history. And before I go deep back into 
history, I will speak again to the Iranian issue of Mr. Andrews, which 
is, he criticized the regime of Iran. I agree with him. It is an 
unstable leader that they have. And they have some mullahs that seem to 
be directing the action of that unstable leader. So that cabal in the 
middle appears to me to be, from our view, from our Western 
civilization view, an irrational group of leaders.

  He said the regime must never have a nuclear weapon. I agree, Mr. 
Andrews, 100 percent, they must never have a nuclear weapon. And yet we 
cannot go forward. He said we cannot go for a reckless premature action 
against Iran. I agree with that as well. It cannot be reckless, it 
cannot be premature.
  But does anybody really think that we can make nice enough, talk nice 
enough, be reasonable enough and take our case to the Iranians and say 
somehow can we just put out an olive branch here, and have an open 
discussion and find out what our disagreements. Does anybody really 
think that Ahmadinejad or the mullahs would just then peacefully come 
to the table, and they could be reasoned into a position of giving up 
their nuclear weapons?
  I mean, they came out yesterday, and their announcement was that they 
will continue to develop their nuclear weapons, and they say they have 
a right to do so. But does anybody believe that they can be talked out 
of them? I am wondering what it is about human nature that I see this 
so clearly that they have gone down this path, they will not let go, 
they will not give up.
  Why does anybody on that side of the aisle, Madam Speaker, think that 
they can debate Ahmadinejad into giving up his nuclear missiles and his 
nuclear technology and ability, when I would ask them, how long has it 
been since you have seen anybody in this Congress change their mind 
because of the shear force of a debate?
  I mean, these are not so momentous a decision that we make, but we 
come down here on the floor. And how often can anyone point to a single 
time that they have said something that was so profound, so honest, so 
insightful that another Member said, I did not know that. I am on your 
side, I will switch my position, change my vote, I will be with you 
because you made sense.
  It is so utterly rare in this Congress, why would the gentleman 
believe that we could send negotiators over to Iran, and they would 
say, well, it makes sense to me. We will just demolish all of that 
nuclear capability. We want to sign a peace treaty with you all. We 
will start trading and it will be a wonderful world again.
  The reason that we have a problem there is because we have a 
fundamental philosophical disagreement and misunderstanding. This began 
in Iran when President Jimmy Carter's belief in supporting religious 
fundamentalists caused him to support the return of the Ayatollah and 
the demise of the Shaw in Iran.

[[Page H1409]]

  And when that happened in 1979, that was the beginning of the hostile 
Iran. And it did not take very long before we saw 444 days, 52 American 
hostages paraded regularly in front of our television trying to 
humiliate the United States. And some believe that Ahmadinejad was part 
of that group, they think they have pictures that show him there, a 
kidnapper of American diplomats.
  I do not know. I do not know if that is true or if it is not true. 
But he certainly was not opposed to that that we know. He is for the 
annihilation of Israel, the annihilation of the United States, these 
dictators tell us what they think, and often they follow through on the 
those actions.
  And so, no, I do not trust the Iranian leadership, I do trust a lot 
of the Iranian people. And I would trust the Iranian people to capture 
their freedom if given the chance. I would paint this image in the 
mind's eye, Mr. Speaker, of all who might be contemplating this.
  In the map you will see Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east. 
And right in the middle, linked together bordering the two countries is 
Iran.
  Now, I will argue that Afghanistan today is a free country. And our 
troops were on the ground guarding the polling places. The first time 
ever in the history of the world that since Adam that there had been 
any votes that took place on that soil.
  Today it is a fledgling democracy. It has its problems. Certainly it 
will. We had our problems in the early years. We have our problems 
today. It is never pretty. It is always difficult. But it is always 
worth the effort. But Afghanistan is a free country. Iraq is 
technically a free country today.
  The part that diminishes that freedom is the 80 percent of the 
violence that takes place in Baghdad and within 30 miles of Baghdad. 
But Iraq, much of Iraq is peaceful, it is pacified and it is becoming 
prosperous. I went over there the last time, over the last 
Thanksgiving, I actually spent my Thanksgiving Day eating dinner with a 
good number of wounded troops in Landstuhl, Germany, at the hospital, 
and encouraged by their courage.
  That was the most monumental and profound Thanksgiving that I have 
ever had or ever hope or expect to have. And from there, I traveled 
over to Iraq where I did spend a couple of days in the Baghdad area, 
and then I went to a camp, a forward operating base just out of 
Baghdad, and then on up into Erbil in the north, in the Kurdish area in 
the north.
  I have been to most corners of Iraq over the last few years. I try to 
get there as often as I can to get a feel for what is going on. I do 
not think it is possible to understand that operation over there 
without going there. I was encouraged by the level of peace and the 
growing prosperity, especially that that I saw in Erbil and up in the 
Kurdish area.
  You get out of the plane there, take off your flack jacket, toss your 
helmet in the back, and walk across to the parliament. I sat down with 
some members of parliament there. And then they cooked also a turkey 
Thanksgiving dinner that was something that I have not seen done as 
well in this country. Gregarious hosts and wonderful people. That is 
how I find most of the Iraqi people.
  I do not accept a 60-percent number that was delivered here by the 
gentleman from Georgia, that 60 percent of the Iraqis believe it is 
good or okay to be attacking Americans. I do not know where that poll 
would come from. Maybe if you polled the terrorists you would get a 
number like that.
  But I do not believe, Madam Speaker, that that is the sentiment of 
the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people are grateful that the United States 
has stepped in to liberate them. There is a bit of a power vacuum, 
especially in Baghdad.
  The President's plan is to go in and fill that power vacuum. Muqtada 
al-Sadr has done a job in filling that power vacuum. And he has been 
supported and funded and armed by Ahmadinejad's people in Iran. Iran is 
fighting a proxy war against the United States within Iraq.
  You also have Syria fighting a lesser effective but to a lesser 
degree a proxy war against the United States in Iraq. When the 
President came out shortly after September 11, he said if you harbor 
terrorists, fund terrorists, train terrorists, you are a terrorist and 
we will treat you as a terrorist state.

                              {time}  1930

  Iran is one of those countries. Syria is one of those countries. I 
know of no example in the history of the world where an insurgency that 
could go back and hide and have sanctuary in a sovereign state has ever 
been defeated. You have to take your battle where the insurgency is. 
And if they have got a sanctuary you have to go to their sanctuary.
  That doesn't mean that we need to take on Iran. It means that we have 
got to eliminate sanctuaries. And we cannot delude ourselves into 
believing that we can negotiate a nuclear capability away from Iran. It 
would be just utterly ineffective because they have a goal and they 
have a vision.
  And from that point I would submit that the background here of United 
States history, American history, instructs us on what has been 
historically, and is relevant to today. Madam Speaker, I would submit 
that back in 1783 would be the period of time when the new United 
States made peace with Great Britain. And at that time, we had an 
American Merchant Marine that was sailing the world and trading. We 
have always been a very effective seafaring nation. And as our American 
Merchant Marine sailed and traded to the world and they went into the 
Mediterranean, up until 1783 they had the protection of the British 
Navy because we were, up until 1776, at least a colony of the British, 
and so we are now rectified of their Navy.
  But when we were recognized by Britain and began to fly the American 
flag, and were not under the protection of the Union Jack, 1783, 
America made peace with Britain; and then, 1784, the first American 
ship was captured by pirates from Morocco. Thus began the Barbary wars 
where we took on the Barbary pirates. From 1784 and on up until about 
1815, the United States was engaged sporadically and periodically, but 
actually almost continually in a war again the Barbary pirates along 
the Barbary Coast.
  And before I go into that, Madam Speaker, I need to give a little bit 
more of the history of that region. Barbary pirates in that region had 
been raiding the Mediterranean shoreline, especially the European side 
of that, for years. And I will submit that they had been raiding the 
shoreline for almost 300 years at that point in 1784 when they captured 
the first American vessel.
  Beginning about 1500, 1502, 1503 is when the Barbary pirates began an 
active and aggressive pirating of merchant marines that were sailing 
into the Mediterranean. And their goal was, capture the ship and the 
cargo and the crew. And the most valuable portion of that was all too 
often the crew, because they were pressed into slavery, Madam Speaker. 
And they brought back European slaves to the Barbary Coast where they 
pressed them into slavery.
  And they built many of the edifices that you see there today, the old 
architecture from the 1500 era and on, clear on into the early 1800s, 
about 1830; much of that work was done by Christian slaves that were 
pressed into slavery by Muslim masters. And, in fact, there is a book 
written by a professor at Ohio State University called Christian Slaves 
and Muslim Masters. And he has gone back and studied the coastline, the 
European coastline of the Mediterranean and old church records and 
other family records and old family Bibles and put together a credible 
history of the slave trade by the Barbary pirates as they moved in with 
their corsairs and took over the merchant marine, the merchant ships 
from Europe.
  The Barbary pirates raided the shoreline all around Greece and Italy 
and France and Spain and all the way up the coastline of France and the 
Atlantic into England and on over as far north as Iceland. In fact, 
there is a fairly detailed commentary about 400 Icelanders who were 
pulled from their beds at night just near the shore of Iceland, pressed 
into slavery and sailed back down to the Barbary Coast on the north 
shore of Africa.
  And of all of the slaves that were captured along all of that 
coastline, from Greece all the way up to Iceland, these Icelanders 
survived the least, and they perished the most. They got the least 
amount of work out of them and they died the most quickly. And that 
happens to be some remarks that are written into the historical 
documents.

[[Page H1410]]

  Some say it had to do with the climate change. Some say it had to do 
with the work they pressed them in. Some say it had to do with their 
hearts being utterly broken that they were pressed into slavery, and 
they just lost their will to live. But there is very little, if any, 
genetic remnant of those slaves today because the men that were pressed 
into slavery, and it was almost all men, they were never allowed an 
opportunity to do anything but walk in their chains and row the 
corsairs, or else do their slave labor, building the buildings and 
doing the kind of construction work that built those cities.
  They didn't have an opportunity to procreate, so you don't see their 
genetics in the faces of the people that live on that part of the 
continent today. Occasionally, I am told that there are some blue eyes 
that pop up that look like they might be the descendants of the women 
who were captured aboard ship or offshore, who were pressed into, I 
will say concubinery.
  And so there are some descendants from that, but it is very little, 
from remnants. But all together, Professor Davis documents about 1.25 
million Christian slaves that were pressed into slavery by the Barbary 
pirates, and this period of time would be from about 1500 on to about 
1583.
  Well, it continued from that point forward, and Europe built a 
practice of paying tribute to the pirates and seeking to purchase back 
their most valuable citizens. And it would be those men and women of 
substance. If they had a wealthy family, then they would try to go and 
pay tribute to get that member of the family back. That went on for 
hundreds of years.
  There was a pattern there. It was a business that was being run. And 
when the United States found themselves sucked into that in 1784 when 
our first ship was captured by the pirates from Morocco, that began the 
long conflict that lasted until at least 1815.
  And one will remember that the United States took a posture 
eventually; we paid tribute here, Madam Speaker, out of this Congress 
to the Barbary pirates. And some of those line items that I have seen 
were as high as $250,000 to pay tribute to the Barbary pirates, but 
that would be just one line item. And, in fact, that was a line item 
that was refused. But we paid more than that on an annual basis, and 
that tribute, that bribery got so high that it became as high as 20 
percent of the entire Federal budget to pay off the pirates in the 
Barbary Coast.
  And so we decided that we couldn't afford this any longer, and we had 
two alternatives. One was to outfit a Navy and a Marine Corps and send 
them over there to punish the Barbary pirates and get them to back off 
of any vessel that flew the Stars and Stripes. So we sent our best 
diplomats over there to negotiate with the Barbary pirates; and I don't 
know that we have diplomats of that standing today, but historically 
they will stand very high in the mind's eye of Americans, Madam 
Speaker.
  And so in 1786 Thomas Jefferson, who was then the ambassador to 
France, and John Adams, who was the ambassador to Britain, met in 
London with, and I don't have this name memorized, met in London with 
Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. 
Our American ambassadors, Jefferson and Adams, ambassadors to France 
and Britain respectively, asked Adja why his government was hostile to 
American ships, that even though there had been no provocation, his 
government was hostile to American ships. The ambassador's response was 
reported to the Continental Congress, and is a part of the permanent 
record today that can be reviewed over in the Library of Congress.
  The response from Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to 
Britain from Tripoli, I will repeat, was this, and I quote, ``It was 
founded on the laws of their prophet, that it was written in their 
Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their 
authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war 
upon them wherever they could be found and to make slaves of all they 
could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman,'' and that is the 
term for a Muslim today, ``who should be slain in battle was sure to go 
to paradise.''
  Sound familiar, Madam Speaker, to some of the things that we hear 
today?
  And Jefferson's analysis, his comments upon that valiant effort at 
diplomacy, an effort that has been suggested by Mr. Andrews here this 
evening, Jefferson's analysis was this, and I will paraphrase and 
summarize and not quote, but it is hard to reach common ground, it is 
hard to negotiate with people whose profound religious belief is that 
their salvation is from killing you.
  1786; 2006-2007. We think we have come a long way; we may have not 
gained a single inch in this disagreement, just had some interim 
conflicts and relative periods of peace. I think the American people 
need to understand this.
  And so out of the failure of that diplomatic effort, that valiant 
diplomatic effort, the United States Navy was born, March 1794. The 
Marine Corps joined with the Navy and they went to the shores of 
Tripoli. And that is today in the Marine Corps anthem, ``From the halls 
of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.''
  And our Navy was fitted, and they designed frigates for Americans, 
and these frigates had superior speed and superior maneuverability, 
very much an American thing. That was the first time that Americans 
went to war after the ratification of their Constitution, and they went 
to war with the most modern frigates that had a tactical advantage 
because the technology that was developed by the innovative nature and 
the inventiveness of American shipbuilders. And today we are off in 
space with that same kind of innovation.
  The Marines, when they went to the shores of Tripoli, they knew what 
they were up against to some degree.
  And Madam Speaker, we have all heard Marines called Leathernecks. 
Most don't recall, Marines got the nickname Leathernecks because they 
put leather collars around their neck, thick leather collars when they 
went into battle to reduce the chance that they would be beheaded by 
the enemy. That is how Marines got the nickname Leathernecks. They got 
that nickname over 200 years ago, and it is part of their history and 
part of their lore. And the shores of Tripoli are engraved on their Iwo 
Jima monument over across the Potomac River.
  And so we need to go back and revisit history, Madam Speaker, and 
understand that this enemy is driven by the same philosophy. They still 
believe their path to salvation is in killing us. There are passages in 
the Koran that support this almost verbatim that I have happened to 
have read.
  Thomas Jefferson had a Koran. I understand that Koran came to this 
Congress to be used in a swearing-in ceremony. Some say that he leaned 
towards Islam because he owned a Koran. I will submit that Thomas 
Jefferson also studied Greek, and he had a Greek Bible; he wanted to be 
able to understand the passages in the Bible from the perspective of 
the Greek, rather than relying on the translations from Greek into an 
English version.
  Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the preeminent scholar of his time, 
maybe the preeminent scholar in our history. He took his work 
seriously. Of course he needed to understand ``nosce hostem,'' which is 
Latin for ``know thy enemy.'' And that would absolutely be the reason 
why Thomas Jefferson acquired a Koran, so he could understand that 
enemy that said that it is written in their Koran that all nations who 
should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was 
their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be 
found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that 
every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to paradise.
  What a promise to make. And when that is a profound religion, it is 
impossible to negotiate with. So what we did, we went to war against 
them, and over time put them in a position where they needed to sue for 
peace.
  And I will submit also that Algiers came under attack from the 
British twice and the French once. And they didn't cease their attacks 
on Western Europe--I will say Western civilization and the shipping 
industry within the Mediterranean as a piracy approach, as a government 
policy. They didn't cease those attacks until 1830 when the French went 
in and occupied Algiers.
  And so here we are today with an enemy, globally, in the world, which 
is a segment of Islam. And I certainly respect and appreciate moderate 
Islam. I

[[Page H1411]]

ask them to step forward and be our allies. I believe they are a 
peaceful people and a good-hearted people. And the more I travel and 
the more people I meet, the greater my respect and admiration for the 
goodness of humanity is.
  But there is an element within Islam that is radical Islam, the 
jihadists, the Islamists, as Daniel Pipes has named them. That element 
is a significantly large element and there are maybe 1.2 to 1.3 billion 
Muslims in the world. And according to Daniel Pipes, our Benazir 
Bhutto, 10 percent, and according to Pipes, perhaps as many as 15 
percent, are inclined to be supportive of al Qaeda.
  Now, if it is 10 percent you are looking at 130 million. If it is 15 
percent, add half again to that. That is a huge number of people who 
philosophically believe that their path to salvation is in killing us, 
and that they don't really take a risk with their destiny when they 
attack us because if they are killed in the process, they will surely 
go to paradise.

                              {time}  1945

  That is the enemy that we are against, Madam Speaker.
  Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have left?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Eight minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. And so here we are today with a Congress that wants 
to micromanage a war, and a resolution or two or three over in the 
Senate that undermine our troops, and a resolution promise to come to 
the floor of this House next week that undermines our troops. As I have 
submitted, you cannot win a war by committee. You cannot fight a war by 
committee, but you can undermine the mission and you can put your 
troops at risk by doing so.
  We have top-notch commanders in the field, Madam Speaker. They have 
demonstrated their ability. We have the best military ever put into the 
field. Their morale is strong, their technology is there, their 
training is high. Their sense of mission and duty and sacrifice is 
strong and is profound. They want to complete their mission.
  I traveled over there with a lieutenant colonel who said to me, Don't 
pull us out of this. Don't save me. Don't save me. I volunteered. I am 
willing to take this risk. I want to take this burden off of my 
children. That is my duty to my country and to my family. I want to 
take this burden off my children. Don't try to save me.
  I had some Gold Star families in my office a couple of months ago, 
shortly before I went to Iraq, Gold Star families who have lost a son 
or a daughter in combat over in either Afghanistan or Iraq. As I 
listened to them, they just intensely pleaded with me, Do everything 
you can to promote a successful mission. We have heard much of the 
dialogue, but to look them in the eye and understand that intensity. 
And then, one of the bereaved fathers from California, his first name 
was John, said to me, It's different now. Our children have gone over 
there and fought and died on that soil. The soil in Iraq is sanctified 
by their blood. They paid their price for the freedom of the Iraqi 
people. You cannot walk away and leave that now. That is the vision of 
the Gold Star families. That is the commitment of our military.
  I can't find people in uniform in Iraq that don't support the 
mission, that aren't committed to the cause. But they ask me, why do we 
have to fight the enemy over here, the news media over in the United 
States, and the people that are undermining us in the United States 
Congress? It is an undermining. And I will make this prediction, Madam 
Speaker, that before this 110th Congress is adjourned, there will be an 
amendment or a bill that comes to this floor that seeks to unfund our 
military, one that is written off the pattern of the one at the end of 
Vietnam. And if that amendment comes and it is successful and it shuts 
off funding and our troops are forced by a defeatist attitude in 
Congress to pull out of Iraq, you will see a human suffering like this 
world has not seen since World War II.
  The price for failing to succeed will be cataclysmic. I don't have 
enough minutes to go into the description of all of that.
  But I will submit that we either succeed victoriously and leave Iraq 
a free democratic Iraq that can stand on its own two feet and defend 
itself and be represented by its people, we either do that, or the last 
battle in Iraq won't be fought over there, Madam Speaker. It will be 
fought here on the floor of this Congress through an appropriations 
bill that will seek to jerk the rug out from underneath our sacrificing 
military. And it would put this country in utter disgrace if that were 
to happen.
  So I have introduced a resolution, a resolution that supports and 
endorses our troops, one that recognizes the circumstances that we are 
in, the constitutional power and authority of our Commander in Chief, 
and stands up and defends our troops and our military all the way down 
the line. It says, in fact, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group says on 
page 73 that it could support a short-term redeployment or surge of 
American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad or to speed up the training 
and equipping mission if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that 
such steps would be effective.
  General Petraeus has written the plan. He has determined it would be 
effective; it is consistent with the Iraq Study Group, page 73. Look it 
up. General Petraeus has endorsed the plan, as I said. And on top of 
that, the cochair of the Iraq Study Group, former Secretary of State 
James Baker III, came back to this Congress and said: The President's 
plan ought to be given a chance. He wants us to support the Iraq Study 
Group, and that is the President's plan. That means a free and 
liberated Iraq, not a cut and run.
  Honor the troops for their service and honor their mission, and in 
fact honor their sacrifice. And I will fight this battle here where it 
is at greatest risk, Madam Speaker. And I urge my colleagues to do the 
same.
  I look forward to the debate next week and the open dialogue, and I 
hope that there is a rule that is offered here under the promise of 
this new and open Congress that would allow for amendments to be 
brought to the floor so that resolutions of this type actually have an 
opportunity to be debated in this Congress.

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