[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 52 (Monday, March 26, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H3019-H3020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE VICE PRESIDENT AND THE IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT

  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the Chair.
  Well, Vice President Cheney was in form last weekend in Florida 
addressing a small group behind closed doors. He attacked the House of 
Representatives for passing the Iraq Accountability Act. I am not 
certain whether it is because he objects to the fact that we are going 
to make this administration review the readiness of our troops, their 
equipment, before they're rushed to Iraq in an attempt to escalate the 
war. They don't want that kind of accountability, because it failed our 
troops, from day one, on equipment and readiness.
  And then maybe it's the other part, the part where we are going to 
demand accountability of the Iraqi Government. Time and time again 
President Bush sets benchmarks. ``Those benchmarks will be met.'' They 
are never met. There has to be a diplomatic and political component. 
You cannot resolve a civil war with military force in Iraq. But time 
and time again the Bush administration has let the Iraqi Government 
skate. This bill says they will meet the President's own chosen, 
President Bush and al Maliki's, own chosen guidelines and benchmarks or 
we will begin to bring our troops home. Plain and simple, not a war 
without end, not a war that will be settled by future Presidents, as 
George Bush said a year ago, but if this administration and the Iraqi 
Government fail to do what's necessary for our troops, we are not going 
to strand them in the middle of a civil war.
  But the Vice President objects to those things. He says if they 
really support the troops, then we should take them at their word and 
expect them to meet the needs of our military on time, in full, no 
strings attached.
  Let's review the administration's record on those issues. Let's 
review how the Bush-Cheney administration met the needs of our troops. 
First of all, it was an unnecessary war. They were pursuing a necessary 
war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden. Remember them? Dead 
or alive? Dead or alive? They abandoned that war for an unnecessary war 
launched under false pretenses in Iraq.
  Now, something called the Office of Special Plans phonied up the 
intelligence. Dick Cheney put together the Office of Special Plans with 
some of his own hand-picked people, I think one of whom is now on the 
way to jail, in fact, Scooter Libby. In fact, he personally, 
unprecedented for a Vice President, kept visiting the CIA and saying, 
no, they didn't have the intelligence right yet. I.e., they didn't say 
what he wanted. Niger yellow cake, Chalabi, all that stuff. He was so 
wrong. And then he said, ``Simply stated, there's no doubt that Saddam 
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'' Vice President Cheney in 
August of 2002 as he was pushing us toward war.
  But then on the eve of the war, even after their myths about weapons 
of mass destruction, the yellow cake, the aluminum tubes had started to 
fall apart, he said, ``We believe that Saddam has in fact reconstituted 
nuclear weapons.'' Vice President Cheney. A man who has been so wrong 
and put our troops in harm's way unnecessarily, jeopardized the 
security of the United States by distracting us from the real fight in 
Afghanistan, challenges this Congress on the Iraq Accountability Act? 
No, I think last November the American people started to ask about 
accountability for him and his supposed boss, George Bush.
  And then let's look at their military planning. General Shinseki, a 
good man. They fired him. It was said we didn't need 350,000 people. 
Rummy said, ``Oh, don't worry. We can do it with 100,000 or so.'' 
Shinseki said, that would lead to strife, civil war and chaos. He was 
right. They fired him. But presidential economic adviser Larry Lindsey 
said, ``It's going to be very expensive. Very expensive.'' No, Cheney 
and his cohorts said, ``No, don't worry. Iraq can pay for it 
themselves.'' Well, we are now at $2 billion a week, hundreds of 
billions of dollars on this war. So wrong.
  And then our troops, how did they serve them? Vice President Cheney 
again, ``We believe we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. I think 
it will go relatively quick. Weeks rather than months.'' So they didn't 
give our men

[[Page H3020]]

and women body armor, didn't have armored Humvees, they didn't have the 
equipment they needed. Congress had to uncover those scandals after we 
heard from the troops in the field. We had to provide it over the 
objections of this administration, and this guy has the gall to say we 
aren't serving the troops as they want to keep our troops mired down 
forever in the middle of a civil war?
  This is extraordinary. And, most recently, Vice President Cheney last 
year, no, 2 years ago, ``I think they're in the last throes, if you 
will, of the insurgency.'' I guess he still believes that.
  These people have done an extraordinary disservice to our troops, our 
country, our national security and the fight against true terrorism 
that attacked us on 9/11. We will not be distracted or bullied anymore. 
The Iraq Accountability Act is a strong response to their mismanagement 
and it offers the United States a way to bring this war to a successful 
conclusion and soon.
  Bring the troops home.

                          ____________________