[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 43 (Tuesday, March 13, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H2440]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TIME TO REFOCUS EFFORTS IN THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, my intention this morning was to come here and talk 
about the need to refocus our efforts in the war against terrorism out 
of Iraq and towards Afghanistan, because, after all, when we were 
attacked on 9/11, those who attacked us came from Afghanistan, not from 
Iraq. And President Bush in the very beginning and even now continues 
to confuse the American people by suggesting that the Iraq war had 
something to do with 9/11, which it did not.
  However, I just listened to my colleague on the Republican side and I 
have to respond to him somewhat before I move on to the issue of 
Afghanistan. I want to commend the Speaker and commend the Democratic 
leadership for the supplemental appropriation bill that they are 
putting together and that will likely come to the floor next week. It 
was clear in the November election that the American people want a new 
direction in Iraq. They realize that the war in Iraq was begun for the 
wrong reasons, that it was not a response to 9/11, that a lot of the 
information that was provided to this Congress when the vote was taken 
to authorize the war was misleading and inaccurate. The fact of the 
matter is that Congress does have the power to declare war and Congress 
also has the decision as to whether to fund the war. And this is a 
supplemental appropriations bill that is going to fund the war and 
provide the funding for the troops. But at the same time Congress needs 
to point out that this war needs to move in a new direction and that it 
is not acceptable to simply give the President a blank check and say, 
okay, you can move ahead with your surge and essentially escalate the 
war.
  We had a majority in this Congress, including a significant number of 
Republicans, who just a couple of weeks ago voted on a resolution that 
said that the escalation and the surge was a mistake, that we are 
opposed to that. And so there has to be some effort in this spending 
bill, which is our prerogative, to indicate why the war has gone in the 
wrong direction and what needs to be done to end it and ultimately get 
our troops out of there. That is what we are doing as Democrats and I 
believe we will have a consensus to achieve that and I think that it 
will lead in a very short period of time to us getting out of Iraq and 
leaving the Iraqis to decide their own fate. It is time for that at 
this time. We shouldn't be sending the resources and we shouldn't be 
sending our soldiers into a situation where they no longer belong.
  My intention today was to come to the floor and talk about, rather 
than sending our soldiers to Iraq and all the resources we are sending 
to Iraq, that we should be focusing more on Afghanistan, because that's 
where the Taliban were and they continue to be. That is where al Qaeda 
began and continues to exist, including those who were in charge of al 
Qaeda. And we are not doing enough in Afghanistan. There is a new 
offensive now on the part of the Taliban which began last month in 
February and we are trying to counteract that. But we're not focusing 
on that because we're spending too much time focusing on Iraq in terms 
of our resources and our troops.
  Now, the President finally came to the realization a few weeks ago 
that this was the case and he started to talk more about what we needed 
to do in Afghanistan. He sent Vice President Cheney there. Vice 
President Cheney made the point. He also went to Pakistan because 
Pakistan has this border area where we believe al Qaeda and the Taliban 
are headquartered and where they simply hide out and regroup before 
they begin their attacks from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Vice President 
Cheney went to Pakistan as well and made the point to President 
Musharraf that this is unacceptable, you cannot continue to harbor 
these terrorists, you have to do something to make sure that they are 
driven out of Pakistan and that they are not being supported by those 
local authorities or those within the intelligence service in 
Afghanistan that seem to be providing support to al Qaeda and to the 
Taliban.
  But we need to focus on the issue of Afghanistan in terms of our 
resources, not only in terms of our troops but also in terms of 
reconstruction efforts. The Taliban are essentially being financed by 
increased production of opium and ultimately, of course, heroin. That's 
how they are financed. We need to deal with local reconstruction 
projects that will allow the Afghanis and particularly the farmers to 
do things that are not related to the opium trade so they can grow 
crops other than opium and sustain themselves. This is a major effort 
that we have to concentrate on and not enough is happening.
  I would point out that in the supplemental appropriations bill, we do 
provide more money for this effort, because the Democratic leadership, 
as Speaker Pelosi realized, that we are neglecting the war in 
Afghanistan where the terrorists began. Let's refocus on that. But this 
supplemental bill is the answer to the problem and it brings us in a 
new direction.

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