[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 47 (Monday, March 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H2650-H2657]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE COUNTDOWN CREW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, for the past 2 months, myself and others 
have been coming to the floor to talk about the impending tax increase 
that we face in this country if the majority doesn't act in something 
just under 1,400 days, and we will see this huge tax increase and all 
the majority has to do is run out the clock. They have to do nothing to 
see this tax increase be put back in place when the tax cuts that we 
passed in early 2001, 2002, 2003 will expire.
  But tonight we are coming to the floor, and we think it is fitting to 
talk about the fourth anniversary of Iraq and what is happening in Iraq 
and, most importantly, what is going to happen on this House floor we 
think this week but maybe not until next week.
  It was fitting tonight that we had a moment of silence for our men 
and women in harm's way. It was very fitting. But it is also fitting 
that the United States Congress is very clear to the men and women in 
harm's way that we support them. And we don't just support them in 
standing up on the House floor talking about it, but we support them in 
a concrete way, and that is making sure that they are getting the funds 
that they need, making sure that the United States Congress is sending 
a message to our enemies around the world that we are behind them; that 
we are not going to shortchange them; that we are not going to pull the 
rug out from under them; that we are not going to put a time line in 
place that is going to allow our enemies to know when and what we are 
going to do, we let our enemies know that they just have to run out the 
clock.
  And if they run out the clock, that we are going to be gone and they 
are going to be able to be back in Iraq, they are going to be back in 
other places around this world doing harm to many people, including 
Americans. So it is absolutely important that our men and women know, 
and this supplemental is going to be the key. It is going to be the key 
for our men and women to know that we are behind them. And what the 
majority party is putting forth, at least we think what the majority 
party is putting forward, has created a confusing and inflexible 
timetable for the Americans' withdrawal from Iraq.
  From what they have said, and we only know in press accounts and I 
will read many of those press accounts, and I would encourage you to go 
to www.gop.gov and see last week's press conference with the leadership 
of the majority party, the Democratic leadership talk about their plan, 
and just watch it for about a minute and you will see just how 
confusing it was to not only the American people but to the leadership 
of the majority party.
  As I said, they have put in place timetables for withdrawal, with 
forces leaving as early as July 1 and concluding their removal no later 
than August 2008. Now, we can talk and talk and talk, but our enemies 
see that, and they will just go back into the shadows and they will 
just wait until we are gone to be able to wreak havoc on Iraq and the 
Iraqi people.
  An example of what is in the supplemental, at least that is what we 
have heard, we are not sure but this is what we have heard: that none 
of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this or any 
other act may be used to deploy any unit of the Armed Forces to Iraq 
unless the chief of the military department concerned has certified in 
writing to the Committees on Appropriations and on Armed Services at 
least 15 days in advance of deployment that this unit is fully mission 
capable.
  Now, if that is not micromanagement, I don't know what is. I think 
the lessons of Vietnam have been lost on the majority party. That is 
micromanaging the war. That is what caused us great detriment in 
Vietnam.
  The next thing is: the President certifies in writing to the 
Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Armed Services that 
the deployment to Iraq of a unit that is not assessed fully mission 
capable, he is required to fill a report detailing the particular 
reason or reasons why that unit's deployment is necessary. If that is 
not micromanagement, I don't know what is.

[[Page H2651]]

  We have one Commander in Chief, clearly stated in the Constitution, 
not 535 commanders looking to micromanage a war. This requirement ties 
the hands of the President in committing more troops to fighting 
required by red tape and lengthy explanations, cost of time, and the 
risk of lives. That is micromanaging the war. I think it is very, very 
clear. And, again, I would urge anybody that is interested to go to the 
Web site and see the Democratic House leadership's press conference 
last week, and you will see just how clearly they are confused.
  So how can the American people not be confused? How can our men and 
women in harm's way not be confused about what this Congress, what this 
House is about to do?
  Just a couple of press accounts talking about the supplemental. The 
Washington Post, The Washington Post described the Democrat plan as: an 
attempt to impose detailed management on a war without regard to the 
war itself. Micromanagement. The Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles 
Times called for the bill to be vetoed. Imagine that. And I quote the 
Los Angeles Times saying this, not me: It is absurd for the House 
Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, San Francisco, to try to micromanage 
the conflict and the evolution of Iraqi society with arbitrary 
timetables and benchmarks. The Los Angeles Times is saying that; it is 
not the Washington Times. If it were the Washington Times, my friends 
on the other side of the aisle would say that is a conservative paper. 
But it is the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post saying this.
  Now, my friends on the other side like to talk about the Iraqi Study 
Group, and the bipartisan Iraqi Study Group did not advocate, I repeat, 
did not advocate a firm timetable for withdrawal in its December 2006 
report, because those folks knew that it was a bad idea to give our 
enemies a time certain as to when we would be out of Iraq.
  The National Intelligence Estimate released in January warned of the 
perils of an early troop withdrawal. And it said: If Coalition forces 
were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this estimate, we judge that 
this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale 
and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq. More death, more destruction.
  Now, you can't have it both ways. You can't stand up and quote the 
Iraqi Study Group and the National Intelligence Estimate and pick out 
bits and pieces of it. There are certainly things in there that they 
said that we all need to pay attention to, but these are extremely 
important statements that were made.
  I am sure I can go on and on quoting newspapers around this country 
that say similar things that The Washington Post and the Los Angeles 
Times are saying. And, again, I want to remind people what the Los 
Angeles Times said: It is absurd for the House Speaker to try to 
micromanage the conflict and the evolution of Iraqi society with 
arbitrary timetables and benchmarks. It is absurd for us to give our 
enemies a timetable for them to know when to lay back so they can 
regroup and wait until we leave, so that they can go back into the 
country of Iraq, set up bases, and wreak havoc on the people of Iraq.
  The other thing about this supplemental that is distasteful to me and 
I believe others on the other side is that they have loaded this 
supplemental with spending. They have used our troops as a bargaining 
chip to increase domestic spending. Now, our troops deserve better than 
that, not to be used as a bargaining chip. This is a supplemental. This 
is for emergency spending, this is for the war, this is for something 
that our troops need. And I hope that those on the other side that have 
talked on the this floor night after night about irresponsible domestic 
spending, that they won't stand for it to be put in a supplemental that 
is to be used for emergency spending on this war.
  Republicans rejected last year $14 billion of domestic spending not 
related to the war. We had a clean supplemental. And I hope my friends 
on the other side will reassess what they are about to do and use this 
supplemental, use our men and women in harm's way as a bargain chip.
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. Would the gentleman yield for one second?
  Mr. SHUSTER. I most certainly will.
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. I just want to share, those who are joining us 
tonight have joined the Countdown Crew. We meet the first night of 
votes each legislative week. We can be reached by e-mail at 
CountdownCrew@mail.
house.gov.
  And the one thing that I would like to share from my perspective, we 
hear a lot of statements about a desire to support the troops. And I 
have said for the last 2\1/2\ years that, if we say we support the 
troops, it is important that we listen to what they have to say. As a 
former member of the 82nd Airborne Division and other military units 
with comrades serving in all the major line Army units, commanding 
brigades, serving on the senior staffs, receiving e-mail reports on a 
weekly basis, even from a platoon leader who is in Sadr City right now, 
we get a somewhat different perspective on the politics and debates 
that are going on back here in the House Chamber. And I would say this 
from a perspective of looking at the fiscal implications of decisions.
  When we talk about the supplemental spending, the vast majority of 
money, and the original clean bill before politics got involved was 
designed for one thing, it was designed for troop support, it was 
designed for equipment reset, it was designed to provide support for 
provincial reconstruction teams for the transition of Iraqi security 
forces to be effective in their mission on the ground.
  Unfortunately, due to the Hatch Act, the troops themselves don't have 
a voice where they can come into this Chamber and debate, and so as we 
have seen on numerous occasions, opinion is often substituted for fact. 
And it is an honest opinion; it is an honest viewpoint. I think we have 
honest disagreements. I think one thing that both sides can agree on is 
that there were strategic mistakes that were made early in the campaign 
due to institutional infrastructure and process issues that are endemic 
in the United States Government and need to be reformed.
  But the truth of the matter, at the moment, is we have people in 
harm's way that are deployed forward who actually watch C-SPAN, who 
watch these debates. Many of them are friends of mine that I have known 
for well over 30 years and we have served together, a number of us 
served together in the Middle East. And the perspective that I would 
bring is this when we talk about emergency supplemental spending, and 
it comes back to an aspect of fiscal responsibility, to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania's point earlier: a supplemental spending bill is 
designed specifically to augment needs that were not covered in 
regularly budgeted, authorized, or appropriated lines.

                              {time}  2030

  And to put this into context, there are many divisions in the 
Congress, particularly in the Democratic Caucus, regarding the war. We 
are all well aware of them. I have many friends on both sides of the 
aisle. There are honest disagreements and disputes. But the one thing, 
to quote my friend, Hal Rogers from Kentucky, where he said, 
``Attention K-Mart shoppers,'' at the end of the appropriations hearing 
last week. ``A variety of spending provisions have been placed in a 
military supplemental bill that have nothing to do with national 
security in order to encourage those to vote for it.''
  And I want to put this into context, that over $20 billion in 
nonmilitary, nonnational security spending has been included. They 
include $283 million in milk subsidies that are already funded in other 
programs. It includes $74 million for peanut storage.
  Now, when I went to flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama, at the 
U.S. Army Aviation Center, there were two great economic engines in the 
area. One was the United States Army Aviation Center that trained the 
pilots for the U.S. Army, the rotary wing force that provides our air 
assault and attack helicopter capability worldwide today, and also the 
peanut industry. The last time I checked, the peanut industry was not 
directly related to American national security.
  Twenty-five million dollars are in payments to spinach producers on a 
national security supplemental bill. And this also rescinds $89 million 
in homeland security funding that allegedly would have lapsed in fiscal 
year 2006.
  The reason that I bring these up, and the billions of dollars in 
spending, is

[[Page H2652]]

not to highlight honest disagreements about policy issues which have a 
rightful place in this Chamber.
  And my friends on the other side are certainly entitled to their 
views, the basis of their perception. I certainly have my views on the 
subject which are different from many in the administration and on my 
side of the aisle as well. But the one thing that I will share is let's 
translate these dollars into reality from a fiscal perspective.
  When Secretary Gates came over to testify before the Armed Services 
Committee in his first hearing in January of 2007, the first major 
request, and I was very heartened by this, was a request to increase 
the end strength of the United States Army by 96,000 soldiers. Now, why 
that number is important, I have advocated for nearly 5 years for a 
100,000 soldier increase to the end strength to deal with and augment 
the operations tempo that our troops have experienced since the draw-
downs in the mid-1990s. The rate and the pace of that transition is 
very significant upon our soldiers. And as a matter of fiscal 
responsibility for the investment that we have made in them and the 
commitment that we have made to them, I think it is important that we 
see that increase. And I was very heartened to see an acceptance of 
that need in the civilian appointed leadership of the Defense 
Department.
  But here is the fiscal issue. When we talk about $20 billion in 
nonmilitary spending that were put on that supplemental bill, here is 
what $1 billion means. Regardless of your views on national security, 
$1 billion roughly translates into 10,000 fully equipped light infantry 
soldiers and fully trained and accessed into the military.
  The reason that that number is important to keep in mind, at the end 
of the day, as we talk about force structure and staffing, I would ask 
my friends, would it have not been a more prudent use of our national 
security dollars and emergency supplemental, rather than going for 
programs or peanuts and spinach and the milk program, which I think 
would be more appropriately addressed jurisdictionally in the farm 
bill, to use that money, if there was a need, to assess it for troop 
training, to augment the needs for the conflicts that we are going to 
be facing in the 21st century, which are going to be significant. And I 
think that those conflicts would have come regardless of our policies 
there.
  But nonetheless, this approach, I believe, is a poor use of fiscal 
stewardship and begs the real question at the end of the day of what we 
actually have voted for from a policy change, a world view change when 
we changed Speakers in January. As I have shared with many when we get 
asked about how is this going to be paid for, every working family in 
America making between $30- and $50,000 will have a $2,098 tax increase 
if those tax cuts are not extended and made permanent by 2010.
  And with that I will yield back to the gentleman, but I just wanted 
to clarify that point from a national security perspective. Understand 
that it would be helpful for, I think, the American people to 
understand there are many nongermane issues and spending lines that 
have been added on this bill that have nothing to do with our current 
national security situation.
  Mr. SHUSTER. I appreciate the gentleman pointing that out. And with 
your background, you are most qualified to do that, point out some of 
the things you pointed out.
  I would now like to yield my friend from Texas, Mr. Conaway.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for hosting this 
hour tonight. It is particularly important, given it is the first of 
these hours for the week in which rumor has it that the war 
supplemental will be on the House floor this week up for debate. We 
don't even have really good rumors as to whether or not the other side 
will recognize the normal order of business with appropriations bills 
and bring it to the floor as an open rule, as has been the tradition 
certainly under the 12 years of Republican leadership. And so we are 
anxious to see the arrival of this first spending bill, if the other 
side brings it with a modified closed rule or a closed rule.
  Mr. SHUSTER. May I interrupt the gentleman for a second? Did you say 
we are not going to have an open rule? Because I was under the 
impression that the Speaker and the leadership of the Democratic Party 
campaigned that they were going to have open rule after open rule, and 
they weren't going to put bills on the floor that didn't give the 
minority their rights. Are you telling me that it is not going to be an 
open rule on this supplemental?
  Mr. CONAWAY. If the gentleman will yield back. We don't know for 
sure. I know that, during the debate last week, the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee could not confirm his instructions from his 
leadership as to what he should be doing. In other words, were we going 
to have an open rule, as has been the tradition. Well beyond the 12 
years' takeover that the Republican's experienced, it has just been a 
tradition on each floor that we bring an appropriations bill to the 
floor with open rules. And as late as last week, the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee, a guy that you would think would be in the 
know, would be in the inner circle, in the inside skinny with respect 
to the Democrat leadership, even he didn't know what the Speaker had 
decided in this arena.
  So the caveats placed in there, the restrictions on our ability to 
fight this fight, the instructions to the President, I want to speak at 
from a little different angle. You yourself talked about the advantages 
that gives our enemies if we have a date certain that we have to be out 
of Iraq. That is pretty obvious. It doesn't take a lot of common sense, 
it doesn't take a lot of warfighting experience to understand that if 
you give your enemy that kind of an advance notice, that that is a 
clear advantage to the enemy.

  I want to look at it from the other side. I want to look at it from 
the side of our troops. How do we ask good men and women who defend 
this country with their lives to fight under those considerations?
  One of the great lines that the other side has used to argue about 
the war is, well, if we would have just known in 2002 what we know 
today, we would have voted differently. Well, yeah. Right. Well, let me 
maybe take a bit of a twist on that. How do we face that mom and dad in 
March of 2008 whose son or daughter has been maimed or killed? How do 
we look them in the eye and say, yeah, you know, if we had known in 
March of 2007, when we were setting the arbitrary and artificial dates, 
that your son was going to get killed in March of 2008, gee, we would 
have set the date at March 28 or January 31.
  And so what we are doing to our troops is that we are undermining 
their morale, their strength of purpose by asking them to do things 
that are just unbelievably untenable. Night after night after night we 
listen to these floor speeches and we hear people build a case that in 
their mind we need to get out. We have had a couple earlier tonight, in 
fact, Mr. Speaker, that went through a litany of information they have 
used, they have gleaned to make their decision that we have lost this 
fight and that we need to get out.
  Well, this body, from time to time, like daily, has its integrity 
challenged. Each one of us has a challenge to our integrity all the 
time; whether it is from a campaign contribution that we got and they 
are trying to link it to some sort of official act, all those integrity 
issues play out in the media constantly, and we rarely get our day in 
court. We rarely have an opportunity to stand tall and vote our 
conscience. I am going to argue, Mr. Speaker, that the Out of Iraq 
Caucus and all those other Members who have come in here night after 
night after night saying we have got to get out of Iraq have got an 
opportunity to vote their conscience this week.
  I will argue, Mr. Speaker, that there are only two legitimate 
positions with respect to what we are doing in Iraq. The first, that I 
agree with, is to fight this fight and win it. The other legitimate 
circumstance is to get out today. There is no half ground. There is no 
half-stepping it. There is no run up the white flag and retreat the way 
that this supplemental would argue. There are no other choices but to 
fight the fight or get out.
  And so all of these colleagues of ours that have night after night 
after night preached about getting out of Iraq have got an opportunity 
to demonstrate their integrity to their convictions. We will see how 
they vote. Will they vote the party line, come down here, 233 of them 
strong, vote in favor of this supplemental with these restrictions on

[[Page H2653]]

them that are unworkable in the extreme, but that put our men and women 
in harm, that make it very difficult for our combat leaders?
  Our good colleague tonight is an experienced pilot in the Airborne. 
How do you ask a sergeant, how do you ask a first lieutenant to go do a 
dangerous mission in the last half of March of 2008, knowing that by 
the end of the month we are getting out of there? And how do you ask 
people to do that? You simply can't. You can't ask people to do that. 
You can't ask people to put their lives on the line under that kind of 
a restriction.
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. I think, to the gentleman's point, I received 
some correspondence from a colonel who came back from Iraq recently, 
and he shared this perspective. He shared that he had worked for 
General Abizaid, and he just made the comment, General Abizaid, the 
Central Command Commander, made the comment that dealing with Islamic 
radicalism is something that you want to do as an away game. And unlike 
different times in our history that, again, regardless of perceptions 
of the decisions that were made before you and I came here to be 
engaged in this conflict, there are second- and third-order effects 
that will be inherited by a precipitous withdrawal.
  And when I go back, I listen to so many different voices with so many 
different perspectives, but the one unity of purpose that they say is 
that there would be profound consequences. In fact, one of the ones 
most recently was a friend who was in Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, 
which I believe President Clinton reinforced an operation in 1993 to 
capture a tribal leader, a warlord, Mohammed Farah Aideed. This friend 
and Task Force Ranger shared that at the end of the Blackhawk Down 
incident, where America, frankly, lost the information war despite 
completely removing this militia, he shared with me over coffee 
recently and said, you know, little did we know that there were al 
Qaeda technical advisers who had served in Afghanistan fighting the 
mujahedin and were sent by Osama bin Laden to assist these groups 
because they were dealing with Americans and the consequences of 
leaving, when, in fact, he said if we had simply been able to stay, it 
would have sent a very different message. We could have accomplished 
the mission of apprehending the foe.
  And to your point, again, the troops, I think, oftentimes 
inadvertently are used as human shields in debate, but we don't get 
down to the issues of what they really see on the ground and the 
perspective that they bring to this discussion.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I appreciate my colleague's comment. This war, this 
fight has been compared with Vietnam. I think it is a lousy comparison. 
I think it is flawed on every level. But if we look at what happened 
when America withdrew, under Democratic leadership, withdrew, 
Democratic House, withdrew from Vietnam, look what happened to the 
people of Vietnam, the boat people exodus, the death inside Vietnam, 
and then the spillover into Cambodia with Pol Pot, 2 million lives lost 
under that ripple effect.
  But the one thing that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
have yet to answer, in addition to how do you face that mom and dad as 
a part of this artificial deadline, how do you manage the disaster in 
Iraq if we did pull out tonight, if we did get our guys out of there? 
The regional fight, the spillover into other countries, the 
humanitarian suffering on an incredible scale, how do, in fact, we 
manage that disaster if your answer is that we have to get out of Iraq 
tonight?
  Mr. SHUSTER. And the gentleman, the point he just made is they try to 
compare Iraq to Vietnam, and it is not a good comparison at all. But, 
when the United States Congress is going to make an attempt to 
micromanage a war, that is going to be a comparison to Vietnam, and the 
same outcome is going to be not a good outcome. And like you said, the 
disaster that occurred, what happens after we leave and there is a 
disaster, human disaster of people, mass exodus from the country? So I 
just wanted to make that point.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Let me finish off, and I will yield back for a little 
bit. We are talking about young men and women's lives who have 
volunteered to do a fight for us on our behalf, to fight an enemy that 
is really bad individuals, to stand between us and those bad 
individuals.
  I even hesitate to bring this point up, but you look at this 
supplemental that has been proposed, an additional $21.8 billion added 
to it, and I would argue, and I am, on an individual basis, were it not 
in this bill, I would be for it. I think we have got some disaster 
relief and some other kinds of things that we could be for, but it 
appears to be an attempt to circumvent the PAYGO rules, that this, the 
other side beat our heads about, beat us about the head and shoulders 
with all during the campaign. In other words, if you declare the milk 
thing a disaster, then it doesn't have to be held up to PAYGO.
  All of this emergency spending is outside the PAYGO rules under the 
Democrat leadership. So they have spoken with forked tongue, so to 
speak, that they would cling to the PAYGO rules, and yet on this first 
big appropriations bill, they come whistling in here with an additional 
$21.8 billion.
  I would even question part of the $103 billion that the President 
proposed. I am not sure that Katrina is still an emergency. Yeah, we 
have issues in Katrina. Yeah, we have issues with what is going on in 
New Orleans, and we have a got a lot of money in the pipeline backed 
up. I think we ought to figure that out first before we throw 
additional moneys at it.
  So the $99 billion that is for the war fight, for the reset, for the 
troops that are in harm's way, we would, I think most all of us would 
agree on. But beyond that we have got some real challenges from a 
spending standpoint. Those issues pale in comparison to putting a hard 
deadline on getting out of Iraq and the serious consequences that that 
leaves our military commanders on the ground.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. SHUSTER. I think it is absolutely right, and I think the 
gentleman is right to point out that is really going to be a defining 
moment for many Members of this body, especially our colleagues on the 
other side, who, as you quite eloquently pointed out, that the choice 
is either stay and fight and have a strategy work to help the people of 
Iraq or get out.
  So I hope the folks that come down here, and there were some here 
tonight that have come down night after night and for the last several 
months have talked about the need, the desire to get out immediately, 
we are going to see. Are they going to stand up and be true to what 
they have been talking about to the Nation on this House floor for the 
past several months, or are they going to bend to the will of their 
leadership?
  As well there are other Members on the other side of the aisle that 
have said they will not stand for micromanagement of the war, they will 
not stand for putting timelines in to give our enemy the ability to 
fight a different kind of war and hurt and kill our soldiers. So this 
is going to be a defining moment.
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. I think your point on that too, if I might 
interject, the Members of the other party, for whom I have great 
personal respect though I disagree in execution of the policy, are 
those that have been very staunch and very consistent in their 
opposition to the use of our troops in offensive operations overseas.
  And the reason that I bring that up is that some of the statements 
that have been made, and I am not referring to provocative statements, 
simply positions that were taken, had been controversial in their own 
caucus as well as in the Congress in general. But the reason that I 
bring it up is that those convictions, I think, echo at one point where 
we have mutual agreement, and on a variety of issues. And the point I 
called for during the debate a few weeks ago on the resolution 
regarding whether one accepted the ability of the Commander in Chief to 
authorize the combatant commander to reinforce troops on the ground was 
this: that if we are going to have a real vote that affects real people 
in the field, then we need to use the power of the purse of the United 
States Congress to vote to cut or sequester funding related to that.
  And I think that is a noble cause regardless of which side one is on 
in that from the standpoint of the Republic. I know where I am. I am 
with my former

[[Page H2654]]

comrades who are in a country right now to make sure they have the 
resources they need. But one of my friends, one of our colleagues, made 
a comment last Thursday night that there was a bit of a fishing 
expedition going on for votes, and the irony wasn't lost on me when I 
actually saw the list of appropriations he was talking about: $120 
million for the shrimp and Manhattan fishing industries, that would 
equip over 1,000 of our light infantry soldiers with what they need to 
do their job; $5 million for those engaged in the breeding, rearing, or 
transporting of live fish, think what $5 million can do from an 
operational standpoint.
  We start going through this in detail, and we see $16 million for 
additional office space for the House of Representatives.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Here, here. All under the emergency basis. We are 
totally out of office space and it is an emergency that we don't have 
that office space sooner.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I wanted to talk a 
little bit more about the politics of this. And, again, I want to read 
something that The Washington Post wrote on March 13. I took bits and 
pieces out of there, but I think it is pretty consistent throughout the 
whole editorial. And again to remind my colleagues if they have 
forgotten, The Washington Post is no friend of the Bush administration, 
and it is no supporter of Republican causes. But I will give The 
Washington Post credit that it takes a position, thinks about it, and 
comes down many times on the different side of the issue, or at least 
they are thoughtful about it.
  And this Washington Post editorial, ``The Pelosi Plan for Iraq, it 
makes perfect sense if the goal is winning votes in the United States.
  ``The only constituency House Speaker  Nancy Pelosi ignored in her 
plan for amending President Bush's supplemental war funding bill are 
the people of the country that the U.S. troops are fighting to 
stabilize. The Democratic proposal doesn't attempt to answer the 
question of why August 2008 is the right moment for the Iraqi 
Government to lose all support from U.S. combat units. It doesn't hint 
at what might happen if American forces were to leave at the end of 
this year, a development that would be triggered by the Iraqi 
Government's weakness. It doesn't explain how continued U.S. interests 
in Iraq, which holds the world's second largest oil reserves and a 
substantial cadre of al Qaeda militants, would be protected after 2008. 
In fact,'' The Washington Post says, ``it may prohibit U.S. forces from 
returning once they leave.
  ``In short, the Democratic proposal . . . is an attempt to impose 
detailed management on a war without regard for the war itself.
  ``Will Iraq collapse into unrestrained civil conflict with `massive 
civilian casualties,' as the U.S. intelligence community predicts in 
the event of a rapid withdrawal? Will al Qaeda establish a powerful new 
base for launching attacks on the United States and its allies? Will 
there be regional war that sucks in Iraq's neighbors such as Saudi 
Arabia and Turkey? The House legislation is indifferent. Whether or not 
any those events happened, U.S. forces would be gone.
  ``Ms. Pelosi's strategy leads not toward a responsible withdrawal 
from Iraq but to a constitutional power struggle with Mr. Bush, who has 
already said he will veto the legislation. Such a struggle would serve 
the interests of neither the Democrats nor the country.''
  And, again, that is coming from The Washington Post. So don't listen 
to a Republican Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, a conservative 
Republican from Pennsylvania. Listen to what The Washington Post has to 
say. And they are pointing it out over and over again: this is a bad 
plan; this is a bad war supplemental. And, again, I believe that it 
uses our men and women in harm's way as bargaining chips and it makes 
it more dangerous for those men and women in Iraq.
  And it also is going to destroy their morale. If they find out they 
are going to be pulled out in 2 months or 6 months or 18 months or 
whatever the Democratic proposal is, which we are not quite sure, what 
is going to give a young marine or ranger the will to go kick in a door 
where the bad guys are when he sits back in his quarters and says, 
Well, I could be out of this place in 3 months or 6 months. I mean, it 
is going to destroy the morale of our men and women.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I would like to add one aspect that hasn't been 
discussed. We hate to engage in too much speculation, but let us assume 
that this thing passes and the President vetoes it or let us assume 
that cooler heads prevail and this thing fails this week on the floor. 
What next? What is this Congress going to do to actually continue to 
provide the funds needed, this $99 billion that is needed right now, 
this year, this fiscal year to fight this fight? What will be the next 
step? How will we, in effect, bring this about? What kind of a scramble 
will go on that is totally unnecessary?
  Instead of dealing with the problem now in a rational, thoughtful 
manner, this Democratic majority sees fit to play a giant game of 
chicken, it seems like, to run at this thing in what I believe is an 
irresponsible manner with loading another $21.8 billion of funding on 
it, getting away from what the true nature of it is, trying to incite a 
veto by the President, trying to flex muscle and see who is the 
strongest as opposed to what do we need to do to deal with the troops' 
needs and then separate that from the broader discussion of where we 
should be.
  So I think we are on a collision course that has the potential for 
being very disruptive and very harmful to the men and women who fight 
this fight on our behalf.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I would certainly like to welcome here 
tonight and yield to one of our newest Members of the House from Ohio 
(Mr. Jordan).
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
and appreciate the chance to say a few words. I was over making phone 
calls in my office and clicked on C-SPAN and saw what you guys were 
talking about and thought I would come over and maybe just share a few 
things.
  For those who are advocating that we just up and leave, that our 
military come home, that concept scares me to death because of the 
message. And I know you have talked about this some here on the floor 
this evening. The message that sends to the people who want to do us 
harm and want to do people harm all over the planet is a dangerous 
message and it scares me to death.
  And I am reminded of, if folks will remember, shortly after the 9/11 
attacks, that terrible day, where the President gave several speeches, 
where he talked about the fact that if you are a country that harbors 
terrorists, finances terrorists, trains terrorists, and are looking to 
produce weapons that are going to cause great harm to a great number of 
people, if you are doing those things, we, the United States of 
America, are putting you on notice that we are not going to tolerate 
that. And it was amazing that shortly after those speeches that Moamar 
Kadafi, a guy who hadn't necessarily been a great leader around the 
world and not necessarily a good guy, how quickly after those speeches 
Mr. Kadafi suddenly found the Lord and saw the light and said, wait a 
minute, I want to cooperate with the United States of America now in 
their fight against terrorism around the world. He saw the message. He 
got the message. Now, if we do what some are advocating in the Out of 
Iraq Caucus, some are advocating that we just up and leave and not win 
in Iraq, not succeed in our mission, for those who are advocating that, 
think about the message that sends to the Kadafis of the world and how 
dangerous that message is for the credibility of the greatest Nation in 
history, the United States of America.
  That is what scares me to death about those on the other side and 
what they are pushing not only in this supplemental but what they have 
been talking about for several months now. That is a scary, scary 
message when it comes to our foreign policy and the success of our 
mission and the safety of our men and women in uniform who have been 
fighting the good fight, defending those principles and values that 
make this country great. That scares me to death.
  And that is a simple point I want to make, but I think it never hurts 
to reinforce that point, which is so fundamental and why we are still 
engaged in

[[Page H2655]]

this struggle and why I think it is so important that we win and we 
continue to do what the Commander in Chief and General Petraeus want us 
to do over there in Iraq today.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio.
  And I think you are right. I think it is important. I think that one 
of the things that we learn as citizens, we learn here in Congress, is 
your word. Your word is what matters, and if your word is good, then 
people trust you and people know they can count on you. And I think 
that is exactly your point. If we pull out in Iraq, our word to not 
only our enemy, our enemy knows that if we pull out that our word is no 
good to stay there and fight them, but our friends around the world are 
going to say you can't count on America. And I think that is an 
extremely important point, and that is maybe the core of this. We need 
to stay and make sure the Iraqi people have control of the security on 
the ground. And I think that while it is too early to tell if the new 
strategy in Iraq will succeed, there are tangible indications that it 
is working.
  The joint U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown is fulfilling its primary 
objective to reduce violence in Baghdad. Bomb deaths have gone down 30 
percent. Execution-style deaths have decreased by nearly half in the 
last month. Iraqis are taking on an increased role in security of their 
country. Nine of the Iraqis' 10 army divisions are taking the lead in 
areas of operation. And today almost 329,000 Iraq security force 
members are working to secure their country. And the political 
benchmarks are being met. Last month the Iraqi Government approved a 
budget, approved a national hydrocarbon law, and just last week they 
convened a regional conference of 13 nations to discuss these concerns. 
So things are moving forward. There was a poll out, the largest poll 
done in Iraq in the last couple of years, the London polling firm 
Opinion Research Business found that in a survey of over 5,000 Iraqis 
that by a 2-1 margin, Iraqis prefer living under the current system 
than they did under Saddam. So there are positive signs there.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. And the 
gentleman is exactly right. Of course we wish things had progressed 
quicker and faster. We wish all our men and women were home. But there 
is good news to talk about. And one fact that I think gets lost 
sometimes, every single life that is lost is a tragedy. We wish it 
didn't happen, whether it is our service men and women in uniform or 
whether it is an Iraqi civilian in that country, but the truth is there 
have been fewer American service men and women killed in 2006 than 
there were in 2005. There were fewer American service men and women 
killed in 2005 than there were in 2004. Of course, you would never know 
that fact if you just listened to the national news every night.
  There are good things happening, as the gentleman pointed out. The 
other thing I would just say is this: to get the kind of country that 
we need there and the kind of things happening that we need to happen, 
it is going to take a little time. I am reminded that in 1776 we 
declared independence. We made our quest for liberty and freedom here 
in the United States. It took us 13 years to get a Constitution that 
works and is still serving us well today. And we came from a culture 
that appreciated liberty and appreciated freedom.
  It is going to take some time for this nation, which has never really 
known freedom or liberty, to get to that point where they can value 
those principles that make our country so great. So good things are 
happening, and we should talk about those more in our quest to make 
this country work.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SHUSTER. I thank the gentleman for coming down.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  I want to make sure, Mr. Speaker, that as we talk tonight about an 
incredibly serious matter that those listening don't have a sense that 
we have a callous disregard for the men and women who are fighting this 
fight. We stand up here night after night and talk about the sacrifices 
made and the dedication of this all-volunteer force, and the phrase 
kind of rolls off our tongue very easily.

                              {time}  2100

  I want to make sure that those listening understand that each one of 
those lives lost is incredibly precious.
  When I am out and about in the district in Texas talking to folks, I 
typically ask the question, how many folks have someone they know 
serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and a lot of times a lot of hands will 
go up.
  I will then ask, no, I need to know how many people out here have 
somebody in harm's way that when they hear about a death in Iraq, their 
stomach gets in a knot until they know it is not their loved one, and 
most of the hands go down. So we are fighting a fight there that while 
it has a dramatic impact on an awful lot of lives, broadly across this 
country, day in and day out, most Americans aren't really affected by 
this sacrifice, by this magnificent fighting force that we have in 
place.
  I typically challenge that audience to say, look, anytime you hear 
about sacrifice for this country, dying for this country, fighting for 
this country, make sure you think about it in the terms of some 
specific person. Not the global group, because that defuses the impact. 
That lessens the tugs at our hearts and helps us deal with it. I want 
you to think about some specific person that has given their life on 
behalf of this country.
  For me, it is a high school buddy of mine that died in Vietnam, a 
Medal of Honor winner. I look at all that I have done since he and I 
graduated from high school. He gave up all of that so that we could 
live in freedom today.
  We have got the exact kind of men and women fighting in Iraq today 
and in Afghanistan today and in other places around this world that we 
don't get to talk about that are laying their lives on the line, laying 
their futures on the line, laying their ability to walk a daughter down 
the aisle at her wedding, the ability to hold a grandchild, and all 
those kinds of things that those of us who make it into this stage of 
life have gotten to do. Yet our men and women volunteer to take on 
these responsibilities, take these risks, and put themselves between 
you and I and some really, really bad people.
  So as we come to this Chamber night after night to talk about this 
fight, we need to make sure we understand exactly who it is we are 
talking about, who we are talking to.
  We got an e-mail 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, when we were debating that 
nonsense on the meaningless, toothless House resolution from a buck 
sergeant in Mosul who made the comment, he said, you know, the 
professional veneer we keep in place that says that debate, that 
conversation going on back in America, has no impact on our ability 
total fight, our moral, he said that veneer is very thin. Underneath, 
we are angry, we are mad. We think we are being sold out.
  So the things that we say in this Chamber and in front of newspapers 
and televisions have a deep impact on the men and women who fight this 
fight. It is almost as if we taunt them when we talk about, well, we 
are going to support you, but we don't believe in what you do. We want 
to support you, but we think you are screwing things up. We want to 
support you, but we are not going to pay for it.
  All of those kinds of things are a mixed message that has deep 
impact, and while I would defend my colleagues' rights to continue to 
say those things and have those opinions and debate those things, I 
would also challenge them to understand the deep impact they have as 
they make those statements, as they talk about their positions, as they 
put forth their ideas on what we should and should not be doing in 
Iraq. It comes with a great responsibility that each one of us brings 
to this Chamber when we talk.
  Mr. SHUSTER. I think the gentleman makes an excellent point. This 
country, there are people in this country, the political discourse, we 
agree, we disagree, we debate, but the wonderful thing about it is we 
can do it, and people aren't tortured and drug off to prison and 
killed.
  As a matter of fact, I was on the Mall last week in the morning with 
another colleague of ours, and we went up to the war protestors. They 
had their tents up and their signs up. It was really quite a 
magnificent picture of the war protestors, and behind it was the United 
States Capitol.
  I started to talk. We were talking about why they were opposed to the

[[Page H2656]]

war and why I wanted to continue to support our troops there. I said, 
you know, in some countries of the world, Iraq, Iran, many of those 
countries, almost all of those countries in the Middle East, you cannot 
be doing this. They wouldn't allow you to do this. In fact, they would 
kill you. They would take you off and kill you possibly. And you would 
be lucky if you were killed because most of the time they would torture 
you before they would kill you.
  So this country is a great country, and what we are doing over there 
is we are trying to help a nation stabilize, trying to help a nation 
build a democracy, and that is not easy. That is difficult. As our 
colleague from Ohio pointed out, the Revolutionary War in 1776, it took 
13 years for the Constitution.
  A story I like to tell, because it happened in my district, during 
the first year of George Washington's second term, we had already got a 
Constitution, we elected a President, George Washington, not once, but 
the second time. In that first year, the Whiskey Rebellion occurred in 
western Pennsylvania. The farmers in western Pennsylvania didn't like 
the tax, so they revolted. So George Washington, it was the only time 
that a Commander in Chief mounted up on a horse and took the soldiers 
into the field, had to ride up into western Pennsylvania and put down 
that rebellion.
  We as Americans sometimes forget that it took us a long time until we 
were able to establish democracy. So it is not easy. We need to 
remember our history, that it takes time. It takes time especially when 
you are a nation that has never known democracy; never known democracy, 
but certainly has that feeling, has that sense of wanting freedom.
  I think that there is no doubt that the Iraqi people, as well as any 
person, any people in the world, or every people in the world, want 
freedom. They have a desire for freedom.
  Mr. CONAWAY. If you look at our history, if you look at the year 1776 
and you study George Washington that year, he got up every day thinking 
that was the last day of the revolution. His army in many cases was in 
tatters, it was unpaid, it was underequipped. He could not have made 
the certification that the Democrats are demanding that this President 
make in order to send a single unit into combat; Washington could not 
have made that certification and he would have had to give up.
  He got up every day thinking, This is the last day of the deal. I am 
sure there were critics all over the place saying we are done, it is 
over, this grand experiment that turned into America, turned into 230 
years of a beacon for liberty and democracy around the world, would 
have failed had he not stuck to this plan and stuck to the 
understanding that we could win this fight. And it was hard. Good men 
lost their lives every day, and it was hard.
  We are there at the same place today in Iraq. It is hard and good men 
and women risk their lives and some lose their lives every single day. 
I mourn with the families and I cry with them, just as you do, when 
somebody from the district is killed or maimed or injured. This has 
serious consequences to what we do. But failure in Iraq, a disaster 
that would be an immediate pullout, is simply unacceptable on every 
level.

  Let me switch gears for a minute, and then I will let my good 
colleague close, with some good news, totally unrelated to the 
supplemental except that it does have to do with this year's financial 
results.
  As you know, I am a CPA and I like to look at numbers and all those 
kinds of things. If you look at the first 5 months of fiscal 2007, our 
revenue collections into this Federal Government are up $81 billion 
over the equivalent 5-month period in fiscal 2006. An additional $81 
billion has been collected, not because we raised taxes, not because we 
had any changes to the Tax Code, because we haven't implemented any of 
those, but it is because this economy is ginning along. Expenses are 
also up almost $26 billion. So the net of those two is that we have got 
a deficit for the first 5 months of fiscal 2007 that is $55.5 billion 
less than the equivalent 5-month deficit for fiscal 2006.
  I just wanted to inject a little great news into the conversation and 
get that into the record. These numbers come directly from the Treasury 
Department's monthly financial reports that are available on the Web 
for anybody to look at. I wanted to highlight those numbers tonight as 
we finish up this Countdown hour that we spent tonight talking about 
Iraq.
  These are grave times, tough times, hard times, and I think our 
resolve is firm. We will see this week the integrity of our colleagues 
in this Chamber as to how they vote, how they have talked in this 
Chamber versus how they vote on this deal.
  There are only two positions: stay and fight, win this thing and be 
successful; or get out, get our folks out now. There is no half step in 
between that you can orchestrate any kind of a justification that makes 
any sense. It will be interesting to watch our colleagues as they 
struggle with this vote this week, with their own integrity and their 
own ideas of what is right and wrong.
  With that, to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I will yield back. 
Thank you for having this Special Order tonight.
  Mr. SHUSTER. I thank the gentleman for joining me and appreciate that 
report on the revenues to the government. Once again it proves that tax 
cuts do work. It increases the economic activity in this country, which 
generates more revenue not only for the government, but for the good 
people of America that are out there working hard every day. They are 
able to put more of that money into their pockets instead of sending it 
to the bureaucrats in Washington to spend it.
  I think it is important on this fourth anniversary that we did speak 
about what is happening in Iraq, and most importantly what is going to 
happen on this House floor.
  The American people, I was told by Colonel Walt Piatt in Afghanistan 
when I visited there a couple years ago, and I was talking to Colonel 
Piatt, who is from my district, and we were talking about the effort 
and the needs of the troops and the military equipment, and he said to 
me, you know, America's power is not its soldier, it is not its 
weaponry, it is not the bombs we create. The strength in America is the 
will of the American people, because if the soldiers know that the 
people are behind what they are doing, in support of what they are 
doing, they can accomplish anything.
  I think what is going to be said here on this House floor, because 
the House, we are the people elected, we are the leaders elected from 
our districts, 435 districts, and what we say here is going to go a 
long way in whether we are going to be successful in helping the Iraqis 
building a democracy, in stabilizing that country and helping long term 
what is going to happen in the Middle East.
  So it is going to be very critical what is said here on the floor in 
this war supplemental. Are we going to use it as a political ploy, use 
it as a bargaining chip, use our men and women as bargaining chips to 
get spending to things that don't belong in this war supplemental, or 
are we going to do the right thing, and that is you support our men and 
women with the funding that they need? Are we going to support them?
  That is going to be a large step in proving to them that we are with 
them, that we are behind them and that we are not going to put in 
arbitrary deadlines that are going to give our adversaries and our 
enemies a leg up on us.
  So this is going to be an absolutely critical week for America. It is 
going to be a critical week and a defining moment I believe for the 
majority party, because I don't believe, and I think it is pretty 
clear, the American people don't like conflict, don't like war, don't 
like death, don't like destruction. Nobody likes that. But the American 
people do not want to lose in Iraq. I think that is very clear. And 
this war supplemental, putting in these arbitrary timetables, is a 
prescription for that.
  It is micromanaging this war by the politicians in Washington, just 
like many on the other side of the aisle say is what happened in 
Vietnam. That was wrong in Vietnam, and yet they are standing up on the 
House floor this week and the past couple weeks proposing that we do 
just that, micromanage this war. 435 Members of the House, 100 
Senators, they are not the Commander in Chief.

[[Page H2657]]

  The Constitution is clear. When you are fighting a war, you need one 
leader. When you are fighting a war, you leave it to the professionals, 
you leave it to the generals, you leave it to the colonels, you leave 
it to the men and women that are trained to do this, not bring it on 
the House floor. And as I said and as The Washington Post has said, 
trying to micromanage this war is the wrong thing to do for the Iraqi 
people, it is the wrong thing to do for the American people, and it is 
the wrong thing to do for the men and women that are in harm's way.
  So I hope we are able to come together on this House floor and strip 
out many of those things that are in here that just make it unworkable 
and bad for the American people and the military.

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