Congressional Record, Volume 153 Issue 30 (Friday, February 16, 2007)

[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 30 (Friday, February 16, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H1862-H1869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION

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. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this profound honor to
have the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the United
States House of Representatives, the People's House.
I would reflect that all week long, starting really on Tuesday
morning, we have had a series of marathon debates taking place here,
Mr. Speaker, marathon debates that ranged in the area of 12 hours a
day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday until after 1 a.m. this morning,
taking up again this morning shortly after 8 o'clock, and then moving
on until mid-afternoon, when we finally had a vote on the resolution,
the resolution that was offered by the majority, the resolution that in
one voice said, we honor the troops, and the

[[Page H1863]]

other voice said, but we are opposed to the reinforcements and opposed
to the surge that the President had ordered, the surge that is already
in motion, the troops, many of them have already been deployed, and it
is not possible to back out of this.
So the voice that came, Mr. Speaker, to the people across this world
was answered and was heard in a lot of different ways.
On one side of it, the antiwar movement within the United States, the
activists, liberal left, the protesters that are, at least if not the
people that were in the streets during Vietnam, were descendants of the
people that were in the streets during Vietnam, philosophically, if not
literally, and in many cases it was both. They heard a message, which
is, at every cost, the Speaker's leadership is going to drag our
military and pull our Commander in Chief back of their commitment to
the Iraqi people in the Middle East.
And the other voice, a voice was heard by a number of American
people, stalwart patriots, people who believe in the destiny of America
and understand that there is a price to be paid by each succeeding
generation because of the decisions that are made by the preceding
generations. We are the recipients of the sacrifice of our Founders and
of every generation's sacrifice, starting with the shaping of the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, those veterans of the
Revolutionary War, those who supported the effort in the Revolutionary
War, those who shaped the Constitution, Mr. Speaker, those that built
the economy, those that built the churches, those that built the
schools, those that built the communities that link together, which is
this greater American civilization, we are the beneficiaries.
The decisions that they made July 4, 1776, to pick a point we all
understand, we benefitted from that decision. And it was a hard
decision. And it wasn't a decision that was made without great concern
or without great debate. There was. And there was dissension on both
sides.
Some of the people that were opposed to freedom, a free nation, were
identified as the Tories, the people that aligned with the British.
They didn't think it was worth the price. They didn't want to risk the
blood. They didn't want to risk the treasure. They thought that they
could suffer the indignities and the injustices that were being poured
upon them from the crown, and that was more tolerable than the price
that would have to be paid for freedom.
But freedom won out. Freedom was established. And they pledged their
lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, and they did so knowing
that they might very well lose their lives and their fortunes, but they
would never lose their sacred honor. That was the creed that came from
the Founding Fathers, and that was just the Revolutionary War. Of
course, it was the biggest and most significant.
But, shortly after that, we had another conflict, and one of those
conflicts, Mr. Speaker, was one that started out over in the
Mediterranean. The hostilities between the United States and the
British concluded in 1783. That was when the military victory was won
by George Washington, and that was when, also, the protection of the
Union Jack that flew over the seas and the oceans was removed from the
protection of our Merchant Marine.
So 1783, our Merchant Marine, our ship sailing on the high seas, lost
the Union Jack protection, the intimidation of the British Royal Navy,
1783. 1784, American ships were attacked and boarded and pirated, and
our sailors were forced into slavery, and the cargos were sold, and the
ships were put back into the fleets of the Barbary pirates, the Barbary
pirates being the predecessors of the enemy that we have today.
And it is an interesting study in history, Mr. Speaker, to see what
unfolded here in the history of the United States when we sent our best
diplomats over to the Mediterranean to negotiate with the Barbary
pirates. Those were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
Now, I have here a copy, Mr. Speaker, this is of the papers of Thomas
Jefferson, right here, volume nine. This is dated 1785, November 1,
1785 to 1786. This is the report that Thomas Jefferson returned upon
his conclusion of his diplomat mission to the Tripoli pirates.
In a paragraph that he has written to the American commissioners and
John Jay he says, soon after the arrival of Mr. Jay in London, we had a
conference with the ambassador of Tripoli at his house. This ambassador
of Tripoli was a representative of the Islamic Caliphate. And he says,
he writes, ``We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the
grounds of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them
no injury,'' meaning the United States of America, ``and observed that
we consider all mankind as our friends, who had done us no wrong, nor
had given us any provocation.''
In other words, the statement that came from Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams was, to the ambassador from Tripoli, we consider you
friends. We have had no hostilities toward you. We have not provoked
you in any way. We are simply sailing our ships on the high seas and
providing open commerce and trade like any country would do. Why do you
attack us? Why do you kill us? Why do you press our sailors into
slavery?
Jefferson answered, The ambassador from Tripoli answered us that 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, the authority of the Koran. I continue quoting, 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.
That is from the negotiations that took place in 1786, and that is
from Jefferson's report to John Jay.
Now, here we are, 2006. We are going through this debate, Mr.
Speaker, and I am hearing over and over again there is a reason why
they hate us. We should understand why they hate us. If we could figure
that out, maybe we could change our ways and we could find a way to
accommodate our disagreements, because surely there are two sides to
every argument.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I am here to submit that Thomas Jefferson
understood this thing clearly. He understood a principle that I laid
out this afternoon in debate called nosce hostem, which is a Latin
term. It comes from the Roman legions, and that is Latin for ``know
thine enemy''.
The Romans understood, and they were the most successful long-term
military legions in history all the time up to that point and maybe in
all of history. They had to know their enemy, and they had to
persevere, and that is where that term came, nosce hostem, know thine
enemy.
Thomas Jefferson understood the same thing.

{time} 1730

And, in fact, his curiosity and his compulsion to understand and know
the enemy caused him to go out and buy a Koran, and that Koran was part
of his opposition research, if you will. And Jefferson's being one of
the most curious individuals as a figure in our history and maybe the
most learned man of his time, he studied Greek so that he could read
the Greek Bible and do the translation himself. He wasn't quite
satisfied with just King James. He wanted to do that comparison because
he was that much of an intellectual and he had that level of curiosity.
He had the same level of intellectual curiosity in understanding our
enemy the Barbary pirates; so his study of the Koran, I am confident,
concurred with his report back to John Jay that was handed over to
Congress, that report that says they believe their path to salvation is
in killing us.
So Jefferson persevered in his endeavor to understand our enemy. He
studied Koran, understood our enemy, put the report in place, and in
that one simple paragraph is an explanation of our enemy today. And
there is quote after quote after quote that have been brought forward
here by my colleagues on this side of the aisle in the last several
days that support that statement. Statements made by Osama bin Laden,
statements made by Zawahiri, statements made by other leaders of al
Qaeda where they say their religious duty, their responsibility, is to
keep attacking infidels; infidels, being defined as unbelievers in
their Koran; unbelievers, being those who have not sworn allegiance to
Islam.

[[Page H1864]]

And you saw that in that quote where he said that they continued to
attack us wherever we might be found until we either converted to Islam
or pay homage or are beheaded. And historically looking back, most of
us recognize when we say ``leathernecks,'' that means the Marine Corps
today. That nickname came from the Barbary pirate wars when they went
to the shores of Tripoli, and our Marine Corps wore heavy thick leather
collars, Mr. Speaker. Those collars were worn to reduce the number of
marines that would be beheaded by the swinging swords of the Barbary
pirates.
The beheadings of today are not anything new. These are beheadings
that go back throughout time, throughout the Crusades, clear back to a
thousand years ago, Mr. Speaker. And our enemy believes they are
fighting that same war. They carry that same grudge. But furthermore,
it is a religious conviction on their part. It is not something that
can be negotiated away. And to believe that we could resolve this
conflict by negotiations is a myopic and naive position. We cannot. If
that were the case, I am going to trust Jefferson would have found a
way, Adams would have found a way, all of our negotiators in the past
would have found a way. Some of them would have found a way at least.
But we fought the Barbary pirates, and it was a herky-jerky, hit-and-
miss, not always successful effort. But we did occupy some land there,
and we did force them into submission, and we did get a kind of an
agreement to resolve the disputes. But the battles between Western
civilization and the Barbary pirates and the radical world of Islam of
that era really didn't end until 1830, and I am going to go on record
here in the Congressional Record, Mr. Speaker, when the French
culminated a military operation and occupied Algiers. When they did
that in 1830, that was essentially, at least for modern times, the end
of the violence. Scattered incidents to be sure, but for the majority
the end of the violence between the radical Islamists who were the
Barbary pirates of that era up until 1830 and then move us forward to
about 1979 when these hostilities started again. They lay dormant. They
were essentially in submission. They didn't have many tools to work
with. Some of them had been colonized. And during that period of time,
they didn't get ahold of governments. They didn't have a place to
start. They didn't have an ability transportation-wise to come out here
and attack the rest of the world.
But things happened and we moved into the modern world. And when the
Cold War was over and there was no longer this titanic struggle between
the world's two Superpowers and that power vacuum, in came al Qaeda. In
came the Taliban. In came the radicals to fill that void. And the
philosophical support became there. The funding was there from oil. The
real oil wealth began to pour into those Islamic states in the 1970s.
And if you remember the oil cartels of that era, the gas lines here,
Jimmy Carter's legacy, the 444 days of 52 American hostages paraded in
front of the television, and the only way they were going to be
released was to elect a President that they were afraid of. So that is
why you saw the split screen of Ronald Reagan taking the oath of office
and those 52 hostages being released at the same time. But that became
the beginning of this constant battle that we have now with the
jihadists of today. And they have been empowered by oil wealth,
families that are wealthy, by the religious network of radical Islam.
Now, to help explain this a little bit, Mr. Speaker, I use an analogy
here that is something that I have not heard from anywhere else. I look
around and I think how do I compare what is going on? How am I to stand
up and say I am opposed to the radical Islam, these jihadists, without
directly attacking Islam itself? Many times the President has made the
statement that Islam is a ``religion of peace.'' I am looking for more
evidence of that before I am going to step up and resoundingly endorse
that statement, but I am not willing to indict them at this point, Mr.
Speaker. I would rather compare it this way: I am going to say the
radical Islam, the jihadists, are a parasite that lives on and within
the host called Islam.
Now, Mr. Speaker, when you think about what that means, a parasite
living on and within a host, a parasite will ride on a host, feed off a
host, reproduce off a host, drop off and attack other species, but also
attack the host species. This goes on over and over again. And I could
take you down through some different species of parasites to make my
case, but it remains a biological fact that that is what a parasite
does.
A parasite doesn't respect its host to the point where it will
refrain from killing the host. Sometimes the parasite will kill the
host. Think in terms of a tapeworm that will draw all of the nutrients
out of the host until the host becomes so scrawny and so disheveled and
so weak that the host actually expires. That will happen. There are
other parasites that will do the same thing, but there are many
parasites that will attack more than one species.
This parasite called radical Islam, these jihadists, attack many
species. They attack every species of Homo sapien, for that matter.
They attack Jews as their preferred target. They attack Christians as a
preferred target. They attack capitalists as a preferred target. And
when they can do a two-fer, a Jewish capitalist, a Christian
capitalist, a Western civilization representative, secular capitalist,
they are all for doing that because they know that that destabilizes
the civilization that they abhor.
This parasite called jihadists also attacks Islam itself. Moderate
Muslims are killed in greater numbers than anybody else historically
over the last 30 or so years because the destabilization that takes
place is where they thrive. This parasite called jihad, the jihadist,
lives and it grows and it thrives in an anarchy.

So they are seeking to create anarchy. They are attacking the host
called Islam, but a host will always provide that food. It will provide
the transportation. It provides a home for the parasite. The parasite
jihadist, radical Islam, lives within Islam. And so radical Islam goes
to the mosques where they preach their hatred and they help sort out
those that are truly convicted on the jihad side. The most radical of
those are identified by their response, their reaction, and they are
connected to and recruited out of the mosques. Many people who go to
the mosques are peaceful people. They all aren't. And that is a center
where the communication comes through.
The language itself is another tool that helps this parasite called
jihadists communicate. So the Arabic language itself is a conduit, Mr.
Speaker; a common conduit through the language, a common conduit
through the mosque system, a common conduit because of common
nationalities and identification with each other. You tie that all
together and then you pick the radicals out, and that is how you sort
out the species of the parasite jihadists.
But the host hasn't done much to eradicate the parasite from its
midst. I haven't seen Islam step up and decide that they are going to
eradicate radical Islam from their midst. No. For a number of reasons.
One, they are afraid to confront them. They don't know what the price
will be. Another one is they are not quite sure they really want to
side with the people that are on our side of this argument. Some of
them are also dancing in the streets with their radical jihadists when
something goes bad for the people on our side, this Western
civilization, which I think encompasses the world that the jihadists
are opposed to. Western civilization including Christians, Jews, the
Judeo Christian ethic, the free market ethic, the liberal democracies
that we have that provide freedom for people and give us this
flexibility to define our own future. They hate freedom, as the
President has said many times, and they attack freedom.
So, Mr. Speaker, this is a difficult nut to crack. And I would like
to charge Islam with eradicating that parasite in their midst. I do
think it is part their responsibility, but I am not hearing them step
up to this task. So I am looking forward to the day that that happens,
Mr. Speaker, but until it does, we have a war to fight.
We have a task ahead of us, and this task that is ahead of us is a
great big, difficult task. And it is far more difficult today, Mr.
Speaker, than it was a week ago because of the message that came out of
this Chamber all week long, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

[[Page H1865]]

and this morning up until mid-afternoon, and especially because of the
vote; the vote that passed a resolution that said we support our troops
and oppose their mission. I mean a third grader can figure out that
that logic doesn't fit. You have got to do one or the other, and they
are tied together. You don't send your military off and ask them to put
their lives on the line for a mission that you don't believe in. And to
say to them, ``I am all for you, buddy, but if you get shot over there,
if you give your life over there, I can't say that you did it for a
good cause because it is a bad cause.'' That is what got said over
here.
This is a good cause. This is a just cause, Mr. Speaker. And our
troops have been undermined today and yesterday and the day before and
the day before that. And now they have got to carry out a mission, and
it is a lot harder than it has ever been over there.
And our enemy has been encouraged, Mr. Speaker. They have got the
words that have been said over here, these quotes put up. They have got
to be all over al-Jazeera, over the Islamic blogosphere. There have got
to be people dancing in the streets all over the land where they
recruit our enemies because they know what this means. They know what
it means because they study history.
And, Mr. Speaker, I have studied history as well. And part of that
history is, first of all, the United States of America is a Nation
that, up until the conclusion of the Korean War, had never lost a war.
We had been successful in every conflict that we had engaged in. And I
grew up under that. I grew up with a military father and military
uncles on both sides of the family. They sat around a lot and talked.
The United States of America, of all the Nations in the world, has
never lost a war. And the reason we haven't lost a war is because we
believe in freedom.
And you are a lucky young man, Steve King, for being born in the
United States of America. You could have been born anywhere else, but
you were born here. You are a recipient of that freedom that they
fought for and each preceding generation had fought for. And I was
extraordinarily blessed. I am, Mr. Speaker, but I was raised with a
reverence for that freedom and the understanding of the price that was
paid for it. And up until that time we had been successful in every
conflict. They didn't quite define the Korean War except to say, well,
we won that, but nobody talked about that very much.
I bring this up, Mr. Speaker, because I picked up a book a little
while back. I had to do a little searching to find it. And the title of
the book is How We Won the War. By General Vo Nguyen Giap. He was a
Vietnamese general who commanded their troops throughout the entire
period of time that they were in conflict with the United States of
America in Vietnam. And his comment in there that caught my eye first
was ``It all began when the United States failed to win a clear victory
in Korea,'' Mr. Speaker.
If you remember, Korea was resolved in the early 1950s, I think 1952,
but when it was resolved, it ended up being on the 38th parallel. We
had pushed the Chinese back north of the 38th parallel. We had gone
north to the 38th parallel with U.N. troops as well, and pushed back to
the 38th. The resolution came, and we shut down the fight on that 38th
parallel line, which is pretty much back to the same line before the
invasion came from the North Koreans.

{time} 1745

So it was fought essentially to a draw, and the line was the same
line that the war began on. My father and their generation didn't
acknowledge that we failed to win that war. They neither acknowledged
or said or even implied that we lost it. I think we fought it to a
draw.
But when General Giap took over in Vietnam, Dien Bien Phu came along
in the mid-fifties and the French had lost, and President Kennedy
ordered our troops into Vietnam in 1963, by my recollection, and the
Vietnamese had to look at what was coming at them. This big industrial
Nation, this sleeping giant, formerly sleeping giant, there was only
about not even two decades after World War II, a huge, powerful
industrial, military and economic force in the world, was coming into
South Vietnam to help support the freedom fighting people in South
Vietnam. He had to come to a conclusion on how they were going to fight
so great a nation.
He had seen the French lose their resolve at Dien Bien Phu. They lost
their resolve along the way. And he knew something Clausewitz had
written about in his book on war years before, when Clausewitz said the
object of war is to destroy the enemy's will and ability to conduct
war. Will and ability, two factors that are the targets of war.
Now, you can destroy the enemy's ability to conduct war. You can wipe
out all their tanks and take all their guns. You can take their swords,
knives and hatchets. They can be totally devoid of arms. But if they
still have the will to fight, they are going to come at with you with
sticks and clubs and fists and boots, if they still have the will. That
is what Clausewitz understood. It is a two-section effort when you go
to fight a war. You are going after the ability to conduct war, the
enemy's ability to conduct war, and you are trying to destroy their
will to conduct war.
So as Giap analyzed that, he realized he could never destroy our
ability to conduct war. We could always pour more and more munitions
into the fight. We could send our ships and planes over and we could
always pour more bombs in there and always could bring more soldiers
in.
So the strategy was how do you then attack, damage, weaken and
destroy the United States' will to conduct war? And the North
Vietnamese, General Giap in particular, recognized that their best ally
in that war wasn't an AK-47 or a ChiCom grenade. What it was was the
anti-war movement in the United States.
So they encouraged that movement, and nurtured it and negotiated with
it. And they brought Jane Fonda over there and put her in a gun
emplacement in Hanoi, and that encouraged the anti-war movement here in
the United States. They sent the photo-op back. There were a number of
photo-ops like that.
You heard from the great Sam Johnson at this very microphone earlier
this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, when he talked about how the voices of the
anti-war leaders in America were transmitted across loud speakers in
the Hanoi Hilton where Sam spent far too many days, 2,500 days in
captivity, and how those voices demoralized our POWs in Vietnam.
But General Giap understood, we are destroying the United States'
will to conduct war. The frontal assault on the will of the American
people was going on relentlessly and persistently, and it says in his
book, their best ally was the anti-war movement here in the United
States.
So here we are today, Mr. Speaker, and the enemy has been encouraged.
There is nothing that came out of that side of the aisle that
discouraged the enemy. I can't think of a single word, maybe one
speaker, and that would have been a little bit qualified, that would
have discouraged the enemy. Over on this side, just hearing Sam
Johnson, if I were the enemy, my feet would tremble in my sandals.
We have to understand that there are two parts to this war, the
ability to conduct war and the will to do so. And we don't conduct wars
here in the United States any longer looking at that as two different
things we need to assault. We are trying to fight a nicy-nice war with
limited targets and rules of engagement that keep our military from
doing the job that they could do.
There isn't a strategy to destroy the enemy's will to conduct war. It
is just a strategy to destroy the enemy's ability, I should say limit
their ability, try to shrink down the arms and funding they have coming
in, and try to limit the transportation routes of the insurgents as
they infiltrate into Iraq.
That is not enough, Mr. Speaker, but at least we are in a position
where we can go forward and win this war if the will of the President
and the will of our military can overcome the encouraged and supported
will of our enemy, which has been encouraged and supported by many,
many voices here on the floor of this Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I point out also the legacy of Korea and Vietnam. That
legacy has already been reflected by one of the leaders of our enemy
within Iraq, and this is Muqtada al-Sadr. He is the leader of the Madi
militia, and he has been

[[Page H1866]]

a thorn in the side of the United States for a long time. I identified
him as somebody that had to go a long time ago, at least as far back as
early 2004.
I have to say in memory of Charlie Norwood, this man needs a dentist,
and wherever he is going to go, Charlie is going to have no chance at
him.
But this individual, Muqtada al-Sadr, said over Al-Jazeera TV on the
evening of June 11, 2004--I was in Kuwait City waiting to go into Iraq
the next day--Sadr came on Al-Jazeera TV and said in Arabic, with the
English crawler underneath, he said, ``If we keep attacking Americans,
they will leave Iraq the same way they left Vietnam, the same way they
left Lebanon, the same way they left Mogadishu.'' Muqtada al-Sadr, June
11, 2004, and that was Al-Jazeera TV.
That voice out of that man. And when I heard that, I concluded, he
has read General Giap's book. He understands maybe not what happened in
Korea, but he understands what happened in Vietnam. He understands that
he has got to continue to fight, to break the will of the American
people here, here in the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, because
the last battle in this war, if the United States doesn't ultimately
prevail, will be fought right on this blue carpet, right in this place
right here. It won't be fought over there in Iraq, it won't be fought
in the Middle East anywhere. It is here.
Here is where our vulnerability is, Mr. Speaker. Here is where the
battle needs to be fought, and here is where the battle needs to be
won, for our posterity and for the liberty and freedom we have been
passed from our Founding Fathers. Sadr knows it.
I will submit this, Mr. Speaker: If we don't prevail in Iraq, and I
believe that tactically we have every opportunity to do that, if we
don't prevail in Iraq and Jack Murtha gets his way and troops come out
of Iraq before there is a clear victory, then this man comes back into
power. He is probably done talking about how to get Americans to leave
Iraq.
But I can tell you Osama bin Laden will surface, or Zawahri will
surface, and I will bring their picture down here to the floor, Mr.
Speaker, and I will make a statement then. But I make the prediction
now, you will see a picture of either Osama bin Laden or Zawahri or
whoever the leader of al Qaeda is, and underneath it I will put the
quote from them which will go something like this: If we keep attacking
Americans, they will leave Afghanistan the same way they left Vietnam,
the same way they left Lebanon, the same way they left Mogadishu, the
same way they left Iraq.

And every time we lose our resolve and the legacy becomes the legacy
that has been stipulated to us by Muqtada al-Sadr, it gets harder and
harder to win the next war, harder and harder to have the will to
conduct war, harder and harder to destroy their will, when they know
that there is a legacy of us losing our will, us losing our nerve, a
legacy of Members of Congress demonstrating a lack of spine, a lack of
understanding of history, a lack of commitment to the legacy that has
been handed to them and handed to all of us by our founders, Mr.
Speaker.
So, I would reiterate, nosce hostem, know thy enemy. War, according
Clausewitz, the object of war is to destroy the enemy's will and
ability to conduct war. No one can destroy our ability, but we don't
have the will to match our ability. And that was proven here today, Mr.
Speaker.
And one of the members of the Democrat party said, and I applaud him
for saying so, it does our military no good for the people on our side
to sit in the corner and boo when they have been ordered into battle.
We need to be on their side.
Who would go into the bleachers and boo their home team and think
somehow the home team was going to perform better? Who would believe,
when you hear the voices that came out of here for the last 4 days, Mr.
Speaker, or I go back to the presidential campaign as it went through
for 2004, where we heard continually ``wrong war, wrong place, wrong
time.'' All we heard from another Senator in Massachusetts, it was all
a war cooked up by oil people in Texas.
Voice after voice after voice of quasi-leaders of the United States
have spoken, and it has undermined our troops and it has weakened their
resolve, and it has empowered and emboldened our enemies. And when they
are sitting in a hovel in Iraq making an IED and watching their Al-
Jazeera TV, Mr. Speaker, and they hear the voices that came out from C-
SPAN from the floor of this Congress, do you think that they make more
bombs or less? Do you think they have more or less courage to plant
them, more or less courage to attack Americans, more or less resolve to
continue the fight, more or less perseverance because of the voices
that came collectively from this side of the aisle and this Congress,
Mr. Speaker?
We all know the answer to that. The answer is they have more resolve,
more persistence; they will make more bombs, they will attack more
Americans, and more Americans will die because the booing from this
section has encouraged our enemy, and I got to bury some of those
soldiers in my district, as do most of us. And that breaks my heart,
because I understand it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be, Mr.
Speaker. It didn't have to be and it doesn't have to be. And others
will say, but it is. It is the price of a democratic system and a
democratic process. And they say it is patriotic to speak about our
disagreements.
So, if one yells fire in a crowded theater and 50 people are trampled
to death on the way out and there was no fire, did they abuse their
freedom of speech? And don't we know that there is a Supreme Court
decision that says your freedom of speech doesn't extend to the right
to yell fire in a crowded theater? Verbatim and specifically the answer
to that, Mr. Speaker, is yes.
So how can we give a pass to people whose words cost more lives? And
beyond the lives, people's whose words alter our national destiny and
make us poorer for it and diminish our potential and affect our future
and burden our children and put them at risk, Mr. Speaker? I can't
tolerate that.
As I travel over to the Middle East and settle in and talk to the
soldiers there on the ground, and I like to do that more than anything
else over there, Mr. Speaker. I will walk into a room, maybe a mess
hall, climb aboard a C-130. I will say, anybody over here from Iowa?
There have been a couple of times there hasn't been. Most of the time
there is somebody there from Iowa.
I will sit down, and it is our immediate bond, and I will ask them
what is going on here on the ground? What do I need to know? What do
you want me to know? And please rest assured I will not identify you or
take that information to your officers. This is something for me,
because it is my duty to do this kind of oversight.
And I hear continually, I am proud to fight for freedom, I am proud
to serve my country, Congressman, but why do we have to fight the
United States news media too? Why is there a conflicting message coming
out of Congress? Why do we have to take on that part of this battle? We
are fighting the enemy over here. We need to know that Congress is
behind us.

{time} 1800

One of the lieutenant colonels that I travelled over there with made
a statement to me in one of those late evenings as we were talking this
over deeply and profoundly. I will not use his name either because I
have not asked him that I could do so, but I will use the quote.
And he said, Do not save me, pacifists; do not save me. I volunteered
for this. I want to be over here fighting for freedom and liberty
because I know the world will be a safer place. I want to take this
battle on for my children so they do not have to live in fear and they
do not have to carry on this fight.
They are all volunteers, and they say do not save me. I will take my
chances. I volunteered for this war. I want to save my children from
this burden.
Who are we? Who are we to micromanage a war and try to pull our
troops out after all that blood and treasure has been invested in
freeing Iraq and giving them an opportunity for freedom? Who are we?
I had gold star parents, Mr. Speaker, come into my office a week
before I last went to the Middle East. So this would have been the
third week in November, and several families had lost a son or a
daughter in combat over in Iraq or Afghanistan.
We had a lot of profound discussions in there, and I listened to
them. They

[[Page H1867]]

had travelled over to Iraq themselves and taken on the risk to go
there. They had met with Iraqis. They had been welcomed into the homes
of the Iraqis, and the Iraqi people showered them with gratitude for
the measure of freedom they have today, even with the insecurities that
are part of that, the gratitude for the sacrifice that Americans have
given, their lives for Iraqi freedom and American safety and world
safety.
And of all the things that were said, one that struck me the most,
Mr. Speaker, was a father who had lost his son from California. His
name is John. I have forgotten his last name, if I actually ever heard
it, and he said, It is different now. You cannot pull out of Iraq. Our
sons died there. They gave their lives for the freedom of the Iraqi
people, and we are going to have more safety in America because of it?
You cannot pull out of there. It is different. That soil is sanctified
with the blood of our children.
Mr. Speaker, I challenge anyone to look that man or a father in the
eye and say I think I know better, I think we ought to concede, I think
we ought to admit and pull out and declare defeat like somebody said
this war cannot be won, cannot be won, cannot be won. If I put a word
search on there, ``cannot be won'' over and over again, hundreds of
times it got said here in the last 4 to 5 days.
Mr. Speaker, I point out that Iraq, 80 percent of the violence is
confined within 30 miles of Baghdad. You just look at the area that is
there, Baghdad standing kind of alone in the middle. I checked this all
out in the World Factbook just because that is where we go for
information. Baghdad represents 1/2500th of the land area of Iraq, and
we are saying we cannot prevail because 1/2500th of the land area has
some people in there that are battling us? 1/2500th, one day of the
life of Sam Johnson when he was in the Hanoi Hilton, one out of his 25
days, 1/2500th of the land area of Iraq, and we want to say we do not
have the will. Every ability in the world, but we want to say we do not
have the will to persevere, even though that soil is sanctified with
the blood of our sons and daughters.
It will be a disgrace here on the floor of this Congress, Mr.
Speaker, and I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr.
Sali) who I am sure came down here with his heart full and look forward
to whatever he might have to say.
Mr. SALI. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to tip my hat to
the good gentleman for his efforts on the floor and for the compelling
argument that he has made here.
The idea that our young people, young men and women, have gone to
Iraq, gone to Afghanistan, they have spilled their blood there for a
purpose that would become meaningless if we withdraw without finishing
the job over there, that is something that makes the discussion I think
a little different.
All of us are tired of the war. All of us are tired of the casualties
that have been inflicted. What we have to do is keep our eye on the
ultimate goal, what it is. Is it to quell a disturbance, a dispute that
has arisen between different Islamic groups? No, it is not. It can
never be.
It has to be the security of the United States. For those folks who
have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, for their lives to have meaning, we
have to consider what that goal is.
The national security of every person in this country, those
interests have to be paramount to everything else that we consider.
They have to be paramount to our distaste for the fighting that has
gone on. They have to be paramount to every life that has been lost.
Mr. Speaker, for those lives that have been lost to have meaning, it
has to be that we will save more lives by their efforts that have been
there than if we just pull up stakes and quit. If we do not get that
job done, if those radical Islamists are allowed to declare a State, if
they have a home, a base from which to operate, we will repeat the
events that happened when the Taliban had a home base in Afghanistan.
The recipe is before us. We have seen it before. We will have a
repeat of something like 9/11.
The only choice that we have as a Nation is to continue that job over
there, to get it finished as best we can. Is there a perfect
prescription for that? No, there is not. Is it going to be easy? No, it
is not. Will we have more casualties? Unfortunately, we will, and yet
we must continue this fight so we will not dishonor those who have paid
the ultimate sacrifice to this point in the conflict.
I thank the good gentleman.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Idaho, and I appreciate
him coming down here and adding to this dialogue.
I had a chance to collect my thoughts a little bit during that, too,
and a number of points that I did not make here.
First, I would like to say the argument is it is a civil war and we
should not be involved in a civil war. We have been involved in a
number of civil wars, and we will be involved in more civil wars. The
same people who say we cannot be involved in a civil war say go into
Darfur. Well, that is a civil war.
The same people said we should have gone to Rwanda. I am one of them
that thought we should have gone to Rwanda. It was horrible. We could
have done something about it, but it was a civil war.
And that list goes on and on, but let me define a civil war so it is
a little more clear, Mr. Speaker, to the people that care, and that is,
that you will be able to identify a civil war in Iraq when you see the
Iraqi military and the Iraqi police force line up and choose up sides
and decide they are going to start shooting at each other. They are not
doing that. They are keeping order all that they can. They march
forward in uniform. They stay together, and that is one thing that says
it is not a civil war.
Another one seems to me to be the most obvious and that has not been
brought up here, and that is, I know of no entity of the five to eight
competing factions within Baghdad that is trying to unseat the elected
government of Iraq. It is accepted. The people went to the polls and
voted in greater numbers percentage-wise than we do here in the United
States, and they elected their leaders. They ratified their
Constitution. They elected their leaders, seated their prime minister.
So Iraq is a country that is a sovereign country. No one is trying to
unseat the government. It is not a civil war. Yes, there is sectarian
strife, but it is not so much to do with religion as it is so much the
power vacuum that is going on. It is not a civil war.
We cannot constitutionally micromanage a war. The precedents for that
are utterly weak throughout history, even though there was some
struggle with that a number of times. But the precedent that remains
was here in 1973, after Richard Nixon finished the Vietnamization
process, moved our troops out of Vietnam, then a wounded President
during the Watergate era was forced into a situation where this
Congress shut off all funds from going to Vietnam, and that was on the
land of Vietnam, in the skies over Vietnam and the seas offshore
Vietnam.
The bill, and I just looked at it again yesterday and I read it a
number of times, the bill said none of these funds or any funds
heretofore appropriated shall be used on Vietnam, over Vietnam or
offshore in Vietnam, which kept all of our military from supporting the
South Vietnamese Army which was defending itself after the Treaty of
Paris and the resolution of that issue.
Now the North Vietnamese broke the treaty. The South Vietnamese did
not have support. They did not have munitions, which we promised them.
They did not have air cover, which we promised them. We could not even
do a naval bombardment to support them from the seas because this
Congress jerked the rug out from underneath that. And the disgrace lies
yet in our history books.
Sam Johnson also went back to Saigon here just not too long ago,
within the last number of weeks, and laid a wreath at the U.S. embassy
where we lost 10 to 12 Marines as you saw them being air lifted off the
top of the U.S. embassy. Ten to 12 marines does not sound like much.
That was the cry and the agony of a Nation, but those 10 to 12 Marines,
think in terms of the millions of skulls that are piled in southeast
Asia that came in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the human tragedy.
I would say, Mr. Speaker, that none of us could pick up one of those
skulls in The Killing Fields, and say this was

[[Page H1868]]

a Cambodian skull or a Vietnamese skull or an American skull. And I can
tell you, God does not draw the distinction, but he understands what
goes on in a conscience of humanity and the conscience of a Nation.
One would think that this Congress, Mr. Speaker, would have learned
from that colossal error and be able to stand and have enough resolve
when we are in a situation where Baghdad is surrounded, and by the way,
Baghdad is not a stronghold. I asked a commanding general at the time
of our ground forces within Baghdad, and I said, What is this about a
stronghold? Are there places you cannot go? He said we go everywhere we
want to go. We go when we want to go there. Sometimes we do not want to
squabble. Sometimes we go in there because we want to pick a fight, but
there is no such thing as a stronghold. So that resolves that.
I wrote an editorial a while back, Mr. Speaker, and released about
December 20 because December 22 was the anniversary of General
McAuliff's retort to the Nazis at the battle of Bastone. History will
record, and you will remember, Mr. Speaker, the 101st Airborne in World
War II was surrounded in Bastone. Bastone, a city that had seven
highways coming to it, it was the confluence of the transportation and
a critical area that had to be held and controlled for whichever side
was going to be successful in the Battle of the Bulge.
When the Nazis surrounded the 101st at Bastone and were mercilessly
shelling them, they sent a message in that demanded our surrender.
General McAuliff's response was, ``Nuts.'' Nuts, Mr. Speaker. Nuts,
Nazis. They had to go all kinds of linguists and ask what does this
mean? How do you translate this into German? It did not translate very
well into German because that was the American spirit that echoed
through that word, ``nuts.'' Nuts, we have got you right where we want
you. We are going to stay and hold our ground.
They did so, and to this day, the 101st will tell you, they did not
really need Patton to relieve them, they would have won anyway. But
Patton did come, history shows. They held their ground. Bastone was
held. The Battle of the Bulge was turned back and the Nazi regime was
destroyed forever because of American courage and American guts and an
America that said ``nuts'' when they were surrounded in Bastone.
Mr. Speaker, today, 2,499 parts of 2,500 parts of Iraq are
essentially pacified, and are there under our control. Parts of Baghdad
essentially are all that is left.

{time} 1815

Baghdad surrounded, it is not a stronghold. And if we pull out of
there, history will rule us as nuts. Nuts, a weak nation, a weak nation
that didn't have the resolve, Mr. Speaker.
I will put one more point in here, and hopefully I can get this done
within the time that I have, and that is the straddle that is taking
place with this resolution, Mr. Speaker. The straddle that gives the
majority side of this thing an argument that they are right, no matter
what the results are in Iraq. And that is, the way the resolution
reads, they support the troops but oppose the mission.
Then they go on and say, we are going to do a slow bleed. Jack Murtha
says we are going to do a slow bleed and we are going to eliminate the
President's ability to conduct these operations in Iraq.
Well, all right. So if the President's plan succeeds and Baghdad is
pacified and the government of Iraq grows stronger and more stable, you
will hear from over this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, over and over
again, ``See,'' they are going to say, ``we were right. It took us to
encourage the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military to step up to the
plate and do the job. If we hadn't done that, the Americans would have
held their hand and been their training wheels forever. They never
would have learned to defend their country.'' That will come out of
that side if history makes it clear that we are successful in Iraq.
And if we deploy out of there and Iraq turns into what I believe will
be a disastrous chaos and cede the Shi'a region of the Iraq to the
Iranians, who essentially have significant influence in there now, that
would be 70 to 80 percent of Iraq's oil as well. It would give Iran
control of the global export quantity of the oil. Iran would then have
control of 42.6 percent of the oil that would go on the market, which
is absolutely enough to control the market and enrich them
fantastically and let them buy their nuclear capability and intimidate
everyone in the Middle East and everyone in Europe and intimidate the
United States as well. They would not be limited.
That is what happens if we pull out and the catastrophe, not to
mention the human catastrophe, not to mention all the skulls that will
be stacked up in Iraq like they were stacked up in Southeast Asia to
the numbers of 3 million. That is the catastrophe there, Mr. Speaker.
But I am going to compare this. There was only one country that was
guaranteed to be on the winning side in World War II, and that was
France, because they were on both sides, Mr. Speaker. They were on both
sides because you had Charles de Gaulle's freedom fighters, and they
had gone into exile into Great Britain and continued their ``Free
France'' battle going on. That was part of the effort, and we supported
and helped them.
But you also remember there was the Vichy French. The Vichy French
jumped right into bed with the Nazis and they staked their claim there,
and that was Marshall Petain. And the French, not much of their country
was destroyed really in World War II. Paris certainly held together
pretty good, and I am glad it did.
But if the Nazis had won and prevailed, the Vichy French would have
emerged to the top. And then the French would have said, see, we got on
the right side of this war, we avoided a lot of conflict, and Marshall
Petain now is our president who is cutting a deal with Hitler. Or, as
it turned out, it turned out to be Charles de Gaulle instead.
Straddle the issue, go right down the middle, prepare yourself to be
on the victorious or at least be right, no matter what the results.
That is what this resolution does, Mr. Speaker. It allows the
majority party and those that voted for this resolution to make the
claim that they are right, no matter what happens. And they brought not
one word of strategic plan to resolve this issue in Iraq. Not one. In 4
days of debates, not a single plan came out of that side of the aisle,
not one.
None came out in the campaigns, either. They never stepped up and
said, ``This is what I would do.'' Except some said, ``I would cut and
run. I just wouldn't call it that.'' Some of that went on. But, beyond
that, there was nothing, except they said we need a strategic plan, we
need a better plan.
And one of them came here to the floor and said, ``I used to command
a carrier task force offshore of Afghanistan,'' which would be by my
look of the map the Arabian Sea. And he says, ``My job now is to come
here and plan a strategy to resolve the issue in Iraq.''
And I reflected, Judge Louie Gohmert found himself wanting to
legislate from the bench in Texas, so he ran for Congress because he
knew constitutionally this was the place to legislate.
But that Member, Mr. Speaker, if he wanted to micromanage a war,
should have kept command of his task force and the Arabian Sea. This is
no place, Mr. Speaker, to micromanage a war. Our job constitutionally
is to fund it, and the Commander in Chief's job is to run it, and we
have endorsed his authority to do that.
As these amendments come and these appropriations bills come, one
after another in this slow bleed that has been promised, we will know
that the constitutional authority doesn't exist to do that. The
President has the authority to take the money that has been
appropriated and to do intradepartmental transfers and I will say
interdepartmental transfers as well to fund the military however he
sees fit to protect this Nation.
And if this party sees fit to starve our military and put them at
risk, then woe are we. But they have also taken responsibility for the
results of this war by this.
So I will say, Mr. Speaker, this resolution that passed here on the
floor today, it assists our enemy. It assists our enemy. It assuages
our enemy. It

[[Page H1869]]

encourages our adversaries. It provides benefit for our enemies. It
encourages the bad guys. It provides comfort and charity to the
criminals. It encourages and exhilarates our enemy. It provides favor
and gifts to the enemy, our foe. It is a handout. It is help to the
insurgents. It is relief and reward for the opposition. It is salvation
and succor for terrorists. It emboldens and encourages.
This day on this floor of the United States Congress will live in
infamy, and I pray it may not be a precedent for the future of America
and for our national destiny.
Mr. Speaker, I would make another point, and that is I have decided I
will follow General Petraeus, and you have decided you will follow
General Pelosi.

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