Congressional Record, Volume 153 Issue 133 (Monday, September 10, 2007)

[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 133 (Monday, September 10, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H10348-H10354]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

REPORT ON IRAQ BY GENERAL PETRAEUS

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as the gentlewoman from Texas who just preceded me
stated, we just completed a memorial dedication remembrance ceremony on
the steps of the Capitol as Members on both sides of the aisle came
together led by our distinguished Speaker, our distinguished majority
leader, and our distinguished minority leader. We came together in a
very bipartisan way to once again pay tribute to the lives that were
lost, indeed, and to their families, and to our first responders and
the lives that were lost on their part and, of course, the City of New
York on that great tragic day, that

[[Page H10349]]

great tragedy that occurred 6 years ago today, Mr. Speaker.
Before we went to the steps, the majority leader made a statement to
our colleagues on this floor, which I fully support and endorse. I
paraphrase his comments, but basically what Mr. Hoyer said to us, just
a few minutes ago, was that the terrorists, the extremists, those who
hate our way of life and hate everything about this country, our great
country, brought us to our knees, but they didn't bring us down. And
they will never bring us down.
I absolutely agree that it showed the resolve of the American people
that they can't bring us down. They got our attention, absolutely. And,
Mr. Speaker, today, of course, also is the day that General Petraeus,
the commander of Multinational Force Iraq, the four-star general, the
combatant commander on the ground in Iraq, along with our ambassador to
Iraq, Ryan Crocker, gave their report to the American Congress, to the
House of Representatives, they will do the same thing over the next
couple of days to the Senate, and directed this report to the House
Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Speaker, there were 111 Members of those two respective
committees present for this hearing today, which went on almost 7
hours. It was an opportunity for Members on both sides of the aisle to
come together to listen carefully to a report that we mandated in our
emergency supplemental spending bill that was passed March of this
year, some 6 months ago.
Mr. Speaker, the thing that bothered me about this report was that in
this town, last week, in this Congress, indeed, we heard nothing but
negative comments about the messenger and what he might bring in regard
to this report to suggest that it would be less than honest. Mr.
Speaker, the New York Times today ran an article that basically showed
a picture of General Petraeus and said, underneath the caption of that
picture, General Petraeus is General Betray Us, to suggest, Mr.
Speaker, that this general, our combatant commander of Multinational
Force Iraq, would lie to the American people for some political
advantage.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to my friend from
Mississippi. I think that he may have a copy with him of that
particular ad. I will be happy now to yield to the gentleman from
Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
Mr. WICKER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. I thank him
for the remarks that he has already made.
Actually, it is not usually my practice to come before this House and
defend the New York Times. But it was actually an advertisement, a
full-page advertisement taken out in the New York Times by the ultra-
leftist group, moveon.org. I have a copy of it right here.
Mr. Speaker, it is by George Soros and moveon.org. It says: ``General
Petraeus or general betray us? Cooking the books for the White House.''
I was astonished to see even moveon.org attack the messenger as they
did today and attack the credibility and integrity and, if you please,
the patriotism of this great servant who has served so many years in
the military and who was confirmed unanimously in the United States
Senate. It was and is an insult. It shows the level to which the
opponents of this surge and those who would legislate defeat in Iraq
would go.
I was glad to see Ranking Member Duncan Hunter and Ranking Member
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen take this group to task during the hearing and to
call on members of the committee at the hearing today to disassociate
themselves, whether they agree with our policy in Iraq or not, to
disassociate themselves from this type of smear tactic that we saw
coming from moveon.org in the New York Times in the form of this full-
page ad.
Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I was disappointed that more Members on both
sides of the aisle didn't rise and denounce this scurrilous attack on
the integrity of one of our great public servants.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Mississippi before I yield to my colleagues, the gentleman from
Minnesota and also the gentleman from Tennessee. But I thank the
gentleman firstly from Mississippi for bringing that New York Times ad
so that our colleagues on the floor can see just how despicable this
is. Now, at the bottom, you can't see the fine print, but moveon.org
disavows itself from any political affiliation.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to give the Members of this body an
opportunity to repudiate that ad. I have introduced a resolution. I
understand our leadership on the Republican side will have a resolution
to just say to the Members, please, in a bipartisan way, this cannot
stand, and we cannot tolerate this. I think we will get an overwhelming
show of support for that resolution.
I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman. I have a remark I
would like to make in a few minutes. I know our friend and colleague,
the gentleman from Tennessee, has some comments he would like to make.
But I was struck, in view of the discussion we are having right here,
that today in that hearing that the gentleman was just talking about,
the Joint House Armed Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee
hearing, that General Petraeus was forced, I believe is the right word,
to do something that I find absolutely extraordinary.

{time} 1945

I have got his report right here to Congress on the situation in
Iraq.
In the second paragraph, after he thanks the chairmen and ranking
members, he says, ``At the outset, I would like to note that this is my
testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to
my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been
cleared by nor shared with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or
Congress.''
To think, one of the finest officers in the American Armed Forces
felt it necessary to put this in the opening two sentences of his
testimony, I find shocking and distressing. I am sure we will have more
to say about that later.
But it is not only in response to this scurrilous ad, unforgivable ad
that moveon.org has written, but, frankly, as my colleagues here know,
there have been comments made by some of our colleagues directly
challenging and questioning the integrity of General Petraeus. And when
I saw this today, I was just appalled that we have reached that point.
Mr. GINGREY. The gentleman is so, so right. Here we are talking about
a four-star general, West Point graduate, 35 years of military service,
third rotation in Iraq, to have to put up with that kind of despicable
attack. And, like I say, we are going to give our colleagues on both
sides of the aisle an opportunity to repudiate that, which I am sure
they will.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Tennessee,
Mr. Wamp.
Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his continued
leadership.
It is not just General Petraeus that moveon.org attacks. One of the
distinguished, I think very reasonable members of the Democratic Caucus
here in the house, Brian Baird of Washington State, also has been
protested by moveon.org in his office since he returned from Iraq in
August and basically told what he saw. He came back and just said, this
is what I saw: There is progress, and we shouldn't leave precipitously
because there will be major consequences.
He told the truth. He is an honorable guy. He serves here in the
House. I respect him. He is a Democrat, and moveon sends hundreds of
people to protest at his office. It is a political agenda, and it is
unfortunate.
I grew up a Democrat. The first half of my life I was a Democrat; the
second half I was a Republican. I don't think either party has an
exclusive on integrity or ideas, but I think this is so far over the
top.
There used to be things that we did in this country as Americans, not
as Democrats and Republicans. This should not be about winning the next
election or the last election. Wars should not divide us along Democrat
and Republican lines, and everything should not be seen through that
prism, and moveon.org is shameless to do this. It is shameless, this
advertisement in The New York Times, and, as the gentleman from Georgia
said, everyone in this body should condemn

[[Page H10350]]

what they are doing to try to win elections over our men and women in
uniform in Iraq.
My nephew is serving there in Iraq right now. I hate it that he would
turn around and see this in a full page ad in a major newspaper against
the most equipped leader to lead our forces in Iraq that our country
has to offer, period, is who this is.
For them to slander him in this way for political gain is un-
American. What they have done is un-American. They have the right under
the Constitution to say it, and we have the right as Americans to
reject it, and everybody in this House should do that.
Three main things, while I have an opportunity to speak tonight.
The mission is just. We lose sight of that sometimes, that our men
and women in uniform are doing and carrying out what is right for our
country at this very volatile time in world history.
It is also easy to forget that over half the Democrats in the United
States Senate and almost half the Democrats in the U.S. House of
Representatives voted to remove Saddam Hussein by force. And others
will come and say, oh, George Bush sold us a bunch of bad information.
Listen, if there was any bad information, everyone had the same
information, and many of us voted, from both sides of the aisle, to
remove Saddam Hussein by force. It is just very convenient now to say,
oh, that was them and not me.
It is hard to take responsibility for your actions. It is hard to
stand before the American people and say we need to work through this
together. We need to stand behind our troops until they prevail, until
we have victory and not retreat in Iraq, instead of saying this is all
about them. It used to be in this country about us. We did things like
this together, and we didn't retreat so the world would see us walk
away from our commitments. This mission is just, number one.
Number two, the military has been extraordinary. They have been
great. You heard General Petraeus say that today. What the Marines have
done in Anbar, the progress that has been made there, it wasn't even
hardly covered by the GAO report. They didn't even talk about the
extraordinary success, civilian casualties way down, 80 percent success
in the Anbar Province.
The moderates are even siding up with us and saying ``We don't like
al Qaeda. They are cutting off our people's fingers. They are killing
our children. We want to fight with the Americans against these
insurgents.''
That is not the way it was before we strengthened our forces and had
this success in Anbar. The military is performing in an extraordinary
way and the tribal governments are now siding with us. That is progress
by any definition.
The military is succeeding in Iraq. You may not want to hear it,
because, as one of your distinguished leaders said, you are in trouble
politically if we succeed as a Nation in Iraq. That is what he said. I
hated that he said it. That is terrible. That is an indictment on
politics in America. We all win if we beat these terrorists in Iraq.
Everyone in this country wins. The military is succeeding.
Number three, the political progress in Iraq is not happening. That
is true. We need to be honest about it. I wish personally we could get
rid of the Maliki government because I think it is deplorable. But we
promoted free elections and that is what we got, and we can't very well
turn around now and say, oh, we didn't like who you elected. Get rid of
him. They have got to do that. That is the tough work of freedom. They
have got to do that. I hope they do. But that is up to them.
Politically, we are not succeeding the way we need to succeed in Iraq,
and all of us in this House have an obligation to come together and see
that through to completion.
Let me just close with this: I have worked for 13 years in a
bipartisan way. I have scars on my back to prove it. I have made people
on my side of the aisle livid with some of the positions that I have
taken working with the other side. But I will not----
Mr. WICKER. Amen.
Mr. WAMP. You didn't have to say ``amen.''
But I will not cooperate with anyone for our soldiers, sailors,
airmen and marines to walk away in defeat or to leave prematurely
before we can hold our head up and say ``America has succeeded with
this just mission in Iraq.''
I don't want to stay for 5 years or 10 years. I think it is a matter
of months before we can see real, live redeployments. But the military
leaders need to do that. It doesn't need to happen on the floor of the
U.S. House of Representatives. We can't micromanage this war, and we
sure as heck shouldn't be sending signals that we are going to pull
them out, because that is the worst thing we can do for the long-term
interests of our country.
The Middle East is in chaos. The Wall Street Journal said it well
last week. The worst religious and political pathology in the history
of the world is in the Middle East, and now you add to that nuclear
weapons, terrorism, IEDs and control of the world's oil supplies, there
is a lot at stake.
This is not Vietnam. Nothing like it. Nothing like it. It is a whole
lot worse, the stakes of losing in Iraq. I believe that deep in my
soul, and I am going to continue to say that on the floor of this
House. We need to stand together as a Nation and stand together behind
our men and women in uniform until we can leave in victory and drive
back this terrorist threat at this point we are fighting in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee,
because he knows of what he speaks and he speaks it well.
You know, this situation with the ad that the gentleman from
Mississippi so kindly brought to the floor so all of our colleagues who
may not have seen it in the newspaper this morning would have an
opportunity to know exactly of what we are speaking about tonight, the
gentleman from Tennessee suggested that sometimes people want somebody
else to do their dirty work.
Mr. Speaker, look at this first slide to my left. Here is the quote:
``No one wants to call Petraeus a liar on national TV, noted one
Democratic Senator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The
expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.''
This was last week, an anonymous Democratic Senator being interviewed
by Politico.com.
Well, lo and behold, it looks like one these outside groups indeed
are doing the dirty work of calling General Petraeus ``General Betray
Us.'' How despicable.
As I said just a few minutes earlier, Mr. Speaker, we are talking
about a gentleman, a patriot, a great leader who has served this
country honorably and selflessly for over 35 years. He has risked his
life in combat. He accepted lengthy deployments away from his family to
defend our Nation and its citizens from its enemies.
For this, Mr. Speaker, he deserves the respect, the admiration and
gratitude of every single American, and not disgraceful slander from
despicable groups like moveon.org. Is that Phil Gingrey coming up with
an original statement? No. I am quoting Senator Joe Lieberman. God
bless Senator Lieberman.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to our distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman
from North Carolina, Virginia Foxx.
Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Gingrey. I appreciate your allowing me to
join you and these other very articulate people who are here tonight
speaking on this issue.
I was not here as a Member of Congress on 9/11/2001, but I am very
pleased to be here tonight. As we were outside singing The Star
Spangled Banner and our colleagues in the majority were talking about
our being united, I was thinking about the fourth verse of The Star
Spangled Banner, which very seldom gets sung, but I think is something
that is so appropriate for the time that we are in right now.
This is the way it goes. I know it by heart, but I didn't want to
take a chance tonight, so I am going to look at my notes just in case.
It is really my favorite verse.

``O, thus be it ever when free-men shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

[[Page H10351]]

And this be our motto: ``In God is our trust.''
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.''

When Francis Scott Key wrote those words in 1814, they meant a lot.
They mean just as much or more now, and I am, like my colleagues,
absolutely appalled at the approach that has been taken to the
situation that we are in now by many on the Democratic side.
It is appalling that they would question the integrity of the very
men and women who are giving them the chance to stand up and lambaste
them and slander them the way they are. They completely have forgotten
what happened on 9/11. Many American people have forgotten. They don't
understand the threat that this country is under and what we are doing
to preserve our freedom.
There is such irony in the fact that these people would get up and
say this again against the people who are risking their lives so they
can stand up in the safety of this country and speak freely. It just
absolutely blows my mind that they are able to do that. They are being
given the ability to speak freely by people risking their lives and
people losing their lives every day.
There is an arrogance of this Congress too, I think, the arrogance
that demanded this report, the arrogance that says we are failing,
when, in the face of all of the statistics, things are going so much
better. There is an arrogance that says that if there is no strong
national government, then things aren't going right.
You know, people have forgotten that this country was founded to have
a strong local and State governmental structure, and the local and
state governmental structures in Iraq are working well. No, it is not
going as well as the national level, but compare what we have done with
what they have done. We have accomplished very little under the
leadership of this Democratic house in the last 8 months; very, very
little. You compare that to what they have been able to achieve and
think about us.
I spoke to a class today, three classes, actually, in my district,
and I said to those students, the American people really don't realize
in many ways the radical idea that this country was when we were
formed. When people came to the United States, before it was the United
States, they came here for freedom. They came seeking freedom. All they
had ever known was freedom.

{time} 2000

When Britain tried to clamp down on us, people said we are not going
to put up with that. All the people in this country have ever known is
freedom. All the people of Iraq have ever known is repression. We have
asked them to do in a couple of years what took many years to develop
in this country; and, again, it was a totally radical idea never
perpetuated anywhere before. And yet they are doing very well at the
local and provincial level, just like we did.
And now this Congress comes in and says if you don't have a strong
national government, you have nothing. You are a failure. That is just
not true. And I am simply appalled, too, at the people who want us to
lose. How can they not understand the impact of our losing the war
against the radical Islamic jihadists? This is not a war in Iraq; this
is a worldwide war. One piece is in Iraq, and in many ways we are
blessed that we have a concentration there where we can deal with it,
because we are stopping them all over. They have not attacked us again.
We have successfully defended ourselves from another attack, but they
simply do not want to acknowledge it. All they see are the negatives,
nothing positive.
And I, again, am appalled at the attitude of the people who want the
United States of America to fail. My attitude to them is if you can
find a better place to live, go live there. If you can't, then stay
here, help us defend this country. Help us support our troops willingly
to fight for our freedom. Help us to bring liberty to other places in
the world. Then we will see a safe world. If not, go someplace else and
live.
Mr. GINGREY. I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina with such
prescient words she brings to us.
I want to bring my colleagues' attention to the next poster I have
got. I am going to give two quotes, one from General Petraeus from the
hearing today and the other from Ambassador Crocker.
First from General Petraeus: ``To summarize, the security situation
in Iraq is improving, and Iraqi elements are slowly taking on more of
the responsibility for protecting their citizens. Innumerable
challenges lie ahead. However, coalition and Iraqi security forces have
made progress towards achieving sustainable security. As a result, the
United States will be in a position to reduce its forces in Iraq in the
months ahead.'' That was from the testimony of General David Petraeus.
Later in the hour we will talk a little more about specific
recommendations for troop withdrawal that General Petraeus made.
I will read that quote from Ambassador Crocker in just a minute, but
at this point I see my friend from Mississippi is still with us, and I
would like to yield to him, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr.
Wicker).
Mr. WICKER. I appreciate my friend yielding, and I have also been in
need of a poster before and not been able to find it. If the gentleman
would put that quote from General Petraeus back up, I will refer to it
while he looks for the other quote from the ambassador.
To emphasize this point again, coalition and Iraqi security forces
have made progress toward achieving sustainable security. Now, that is
the testimony of this well-respected general that we have entrusted
with this very important mission.
And it disturbs me, Mr. Speaker, that often the message of the
accomplishments doesn't get through to the American people. We hear
only about benchmarks not quite being met or expectations not quite
being realized. For example, people point to the fact that an oil law
has not yet been enacted by the leadership in Iraq and submitted to the
Iraqi Parliament.
As a matter of fact, as the testimony indicated today, oil revenues
in Iraq are up and the revenues are in fact being distributed out to
the local governments and the provinces. Now, this is in the absence of
a final piece of legislation enacted by the parliament. But the fact
remains that under this interim procedure that they have now, the oil
revenues are there. Iraq is exporting oil for the first time in quite
some time, and the oil revenues are being distributed out where they
can benefit the people. That may not be a benchmark of legislation, but
it is a real accomplishment; and it is the sort of thing that General
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were talking about.
Also, there has been much made of the fact that there has been no
reconciliation statute enacted into law over there. But as was pointed
out today in the testimony, former members of the Iraqi Army, former
Baathists, if you please, are now being accepted into the government
and being given pensions from the government and many of them are being
accepted back into the security forces there in Iraq.
Now, a law hasn't been passed, but in my opinion that is de facto
reconciliation and de facto amnesty for these people who were formerly
in Saddam's Iraqi Army. By the thousands, these people are being
integrated back into the mainstream of Iraqi security forces.
Also in the Anbar province, it is well known at least in this capital
city that the sectarian leaders all across that province have turned on
al Qaeda. They were in league with them a year ago. They have now
turned on them, and they are helping the United States and coalition
forces because they realize that their future does not lie with this
destructive, violent al Qaeda force, but with the forces that would
bring freedom and liberty and self-determination to more Iraqis.
Sectarian violence is down, as Senator Lieberman and Senator McCain
pointed out in their op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, and I
would commend that to our colleagues. There is an excellent bipartisan
piece about that. Sectarian violence is down all over the country, down
70 percent in Baghdad alone. So there are real accomplishments there.
Certainly, as the general said, innumerable challenges lie ahead. The
assessment is optimistic, but it is sober

[[Page H10352]]

and this is no rosy scenario; but there is much reason to be
optimistic.
Let me just say this about the feeling of the American people: I know
that they are frustrated about this. This war has gone on longer than
expected, and they have been conflicted about it. But I believe after
being home for much of August and talking to my constituents, I think
the American people do want us to succeed in Iraq. They realize that
failure there, that withdrawal there, that leaving too early would
leave a huge void that probably al Qaeda would fill and probably our
detractors in Iran would fill, and they know that would be a disaster.
They want success, and I think these two gentlemen who testified before
us give us a good opportunity for success.
A few moments ago we gathered on the east steps of the House of
Representatives, and we commemorated the sixth anniversary of the
terrorist attacks on 9/11. Two other speakers on the floor today were
not Members of the House of Representatives at that time. I was, and I
shall never forget the resolve and the determination of the Congress,
both ends of this building, both sides of the aisle, on that day to
defeat these terrorists.
The al Qaeda terrorist network that we are fighting in Iraq today is
the very same network that brought down those two buildings in New
York. They are the very same network that sent a plane crashing into
the Pentagon. And they are the very same al Qaeda that had a plane
headed toward Washington, DC, which undoubtedly was headed towards the
Capitol Building.

We are still fighting al Qaeda, and I appreciate people like
Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus who are fighting that war as
capably as they know how. Al Qaeda must be defeated, Mr. Speaker. And
our best opportunity, our greatest chance to defeat al Qaeda today is
to be successful in Iraq. That's what I would urge my colleagues to
support, and I believe that is what the American people want us to do.
I thank my friend for calling this Special Order.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi. The
gentleman is right, I was having a little trouble finding that poster
because I don't have that poster; but I do have a smaller copy of it. I
guess you would call this a slide, Mr. Speaker.
But I did want to read this quote from the testimony of Ambassador
Crocker before I call on my colleague, Colonel John Kline. Here is what
Ambassador Crocker said: ``A secure, stable democratic Iraq at peace
with its neighbors is attainable. In my judgment, the cumulative
trajectory of political, economic and diplomatic developments in Iraq
is upwards, although the slope of that line is not steep. The process
will not be quick. It will be uneven, punctuated by setbacks as well as
achievements, and it will require substantial United States resolve and
commitment.''
I think the ambassador and General Petraeus served this country
extremely well today in their testimony, and their facts were accurate.
Mr. Speaker, with that I want to yield to my colleague on the House
Armed Services Committee, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline).
Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to pick up on some of
the comments that our friend and colleague, the gentleman from
Mississippi, was addressing when he was talking about some of the
information in the testimony that we heard today from both General
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.
I have the testimony from General Petraeus here in my hand. Mr.
Speaker, I thought I would touch on a couple of the points that he
made. He says that the progress our forces have achieved with the Iraqi
counterparts has been substantial. He says, I see improvements in the
security environment. The level of security incidents has decreased
significantly since the start of the surge of offensive operations in
mid-June. Civilian deaths have declined considerably. He says locals
have increasingly supported our efforts. While he says al Qaeda
certainly is not defeated, it is off balance and we are pursuing its
leaders and operators aggressively.
This report is not all rosy. General Petraeus made the point several
times during the over 6 hours of testimony that we had today that he
doesn't want to look at this from a rosy standpoint or a pessimistic
standpoint or an optimistic standpoint, but from a realistic
standpoint; and I believe that this great leader, this great general,
this man of great integrity and competence and capability did just that
for us today.
One of the things that came up repeatedly during the hearing today
was a reference to another report and another hearing that we on the
Armed Services Committee heard about last week. General James Jones, a
former commandant of the Marine Corps, the former Supreme Allied
Commander Europe, was the head of a commission, a very distinguished
commission, I might add, one of the most experienced I have ever seen,
that had military officers and senior noncommissioned officers and
experienced law enforcement personnel go over to Iraq with the charge
to evaluate the Iraqi security forces.

{time} 2015

Repeatedly today, and sometimes last week, we heard our colleagues
saying, well, General Jones came with a very pessimistic report, and he
had great concerns that things aren't going well. And one of our
colleagues actually asked the question, General Petraeus, how do you
square, how do you reconcile, if you will, these differences in
reports.
And I remember thinking, Mr. Speaker, when I was in that Armed
Services Committee hearing and listening to General Jones and his
exceptionally well-qualified colleagues, that the hearing that we were
experiencing was not at all like the news reports, perhaps like the ads
we saw earlier today, but was not at all like the news reports we had
seen before the testimony in the Armed Services Committee.
And just as an example, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to quote just a few
things that General Jones and some of his colleagues said during that
hearing.
He said, our first conclusion is that the Iraqi security forces as a
whole cannot yet defend the territorial integrity of Iraq. This is not
necessarily an alarming conclusion, he said. They're able to do more in
terms of combating the internal security threats to Iraq, and that's
positive. He said, we've noted improvement in the internal security
missions such as denying the safe haven to terrorists, and this
progress is likely to continue in the months ahead. He says, the Iraqi
security forces can bring greater security to the provinces in the next
12 to 18 months, assuming a continuing rate of progress. He said, the
impact of the surge has had a tactical success for both Iraqi and
coalition forces in the Baghdad region.
That doesn't sound like a pessimistic report or out of step with what
General Petraeus said today. It's what we have known for some time, and
I'm sure that my colleagues on their trips to Iraq have had the same
experiences and reports that I have, and that is, that the Iraqi Army
has been making steady progress but the police forces are in some
disarray and need of major improvements.
In fact, General Jones and his commission recommended that the
national police force, a relatively small group of 25,000, be disbanded
and distributed to other forces and that the much larger Iraqi security
police be strengthened. Again, not at all out of sync with what we
heard today.
And in fact, because I had heard in previous trips to Iraq that the
Iraqi Army was doing well and the Iraqi police was not doing well, I
said to General Jones, well, this seems very consistent with the
message that we have heard for some time. So I'm not surprised to hear
you say that, and you probably weren't surprised to find that yourself.
And I thought this was amazing. He said, and I will check my notes
here to make sure that I've got this right, he says, I was pleasantly
surprised. I'd been going to Iraq off and on since 2003 in my NATO hat,
and again, he was the commander of NATO, but I think I did not expect
to see the will that I saw in the Iraqi Armed Forces to take the fight
to the enemy. I did not expect to see the length and breadth of the
institutions that are functioning that you need to support an emerging
army, the training bases, the recruiting, the recruit training, NCO
schools, counterintelligence schools, training corpsmen. All of those
things exist. We know that because we saw them.

[[Page H10353]]

This was a very highly experienced group of four-star and three-star
generals, sergeants major, police chiefs that went, and this was their
assessment when they came back. And again, this seems to me very
consistent with General Petraeus' report today that said, well, things
are still tough over there, but the surge is working and we're making
progress. I know my colleague wants to talk about some of those
recommendations in a bit, but I just want to go to one more.
Mr. GINGREY. The point you made, of course, about the Iraqi national
police, General Jones, you're right. I was in that same hearing with
Representative Kline last week, Mr. Speaker, and General Jones did talk
about this Iraqi national police force of about 25,000 that in the past
was rife with corruption, and of course, a lot of changes in the
leadership, as General Petraeus pointed out today, that has occurred.
But I think it's important, and I think Mr. Kline would agree with
me, for our colleagues to understand that the press in the last week,
talking about the Jones report, suggested that the entire Iraqi
security force was incompetent and corrupt when, indeed, 49,000 is only
about 10 percent of the 550,000 Iraqi national army and combined police
force. So many of them are doing a good job, as you pointed out in the
hearing today.
Mr. WICKER. If the gentleman will just yield on that, I'm glad that
both of my colleagues have pointed this out, Mr. Speaker.
In just the short time that we've been hearing quotes from this Jones
report, which I very much appreciated, I don't know how many times the
gentleman from Minnesota read the word ``progress,'' progress in this
respect, progress in other respects, challenges of course, but
progress, progress, progress, the word ``success,'' the words
``pleasantly surprised.''
So it would certainly be inaccurate to say that the Jones report was
totally negative and that the Petraeus report was somehow far
different. So I very much appreciate the gentleman pointing that out,
and I simply wanted to underscore the very optimistic words that the
general had in his testimony.
Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I thank the gentleman for that. Reclaiming my
time, if it's mine to reclaim, I'm not sure sometimes in these Special
Orders whose time it is. I think it's the gentleman from Georgia's, but
I don't want to have my colleagues or Americans believe that General
Jones or General Petraeus came with nothing but good news. That's not
the case.
As we discussed earlier, the Jones commission recommended some major
changes in how the police is trained and equipped and how it functions
and how it's organized, that they were highly critical of the Ministry
of the Interior and how they're functioning and, in many cases, failing
to function. So there are clearly problems, but the Jones report, the
Jones commission did not come back and say that all is lost and Iraqi
security forces are all failing.
In fact, that paragraph that I read quoting General Jones talking
about how he was pleasantly surprised about the terrific progress of
the Iraqi Army underscores that some good things are happening.
I thought it was interesting in that hearing, as my colleague from
Georgia no doubt remembers, during the question-and-answer period, the
former Deputy Secretary John Hamre, former Deputy Secretary of Defense,
was asked some questions about what we should do in Iraq, should we
leave or should we leave quickly or were things too bad. And he said in
part, and again I'm quoting, but we have strategic interests that are
larger than just Iraq. I mean our continued influence and presence in
the region, the ability to get continued access to energy resources,
providing a counterweight to Iran. We have large strategic interests.
Every one of those interests would be seriously diminished if we had to
crawl out of Iraq or run out of Iraq.
I think that is significant, Mr. Speaker. He made the point that when
we leave Iraq, we walk out of Iraq on our terms, having defeated in
large measure al Qaeda and left an Iraq with a promising future with
the violence under control and political progress being made.

And so I just think that we have seen some unfortunate, really
strident partisan statements made in the last week or so, and I guess
it's unavoidable that people tend to go to sources that match their
perspective. But I thought that the constant referring to the Jones
Commission's report as somehow undermining what General Petraeus was
saying or not consistent with it or indicating that all was lost in
Iraq was simply not correct. And these quotes were part of many in what
I thought was a very thorough, complete testimony and thorough hearing
when we had the members of that commission in before the Armed Services
Committee.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would have time to stay, I
would be glad to yield back to him as we go forward, but absolutely
this Jones report last week, I couldn't believe what I was reading the
next day after hearing the report and hearing General Jones, retired
Four-Star General Jones, Marine, former Marine commandant, and Colonel
Kline, a Marine, knows him well. He was one of 20 members of that
commission.
Again, this commission was created by the Congress, by the new
majority, as we passed that emergency supplemental spending bill back
in February or March, 6 or 8 months ago, to tell us, you know, what's
the situation with the Iraqi security force, both army and the police,
and not just, as we pointed out earlier, the national police.
And almost to a person, the members of that panel who spoke, not all
20 did, but they gave encouraging news. They pointed out the
shortcomings, of course, of the national police and the Iraqi police
force that was not perfect. They didn't give us some Pollyanna,
glossed-over, varnished report. They told the truth. But as Colonel
Kline points out, I thought it was an encouraging report. Of course,
you would never have known it, Mr. Speaker, by the headlines the next
day. So the gentleman may want to comment on that.
Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. If the gentleman would yield for just a
minute, that's what struck me is that, very much like General Petraeus'
testimony today, the media discussion and the political discussion and
the partisan discussion that led up to the testimony simply didn't
match the testimony that we heard in either of these hearings.
For example, I'm sure that many of our colleagues were surprised, and
frankly I was, to hear General Petraeus say that it's tough but we're
making progress, and we're making progress to the point where I'm going
to recommend that we draw down our forces to the presurge level of
brigade combat teams and we do it by next July. I was surprised that he
put that date in there and that certainty in there when he made that
statement.
He said we're going to start drawing down this year, brigade combat
team is going to come back, Marine expeditionary unit is going to come
back, and we're going to continue to draw down through the spring and
into the summer. And that is consistent with the original intent of the
surge. It was temporary with what the Iraq Study Group said about a
temporary surge, and in fact, I think it's very consistent with what
the Jones commission said as well.
Mr. GINGREY. In fact, I think General Petraeus said that that Marine
expeditionary unit will be brought home next month.
Mr. KLINE of Minnesota. I believe that's right.
Mr. GINGREY. I thank the gentleman again.
Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield to one of my
colleagues, another of my colleagues I should say, on the House Armed
Services Committee, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight
Investigation, a new subcommittee, a good subcommittee chaired by my
good friend, majority member Dr. Vic Snyder, and I'm speaking of the
gentleman from Missouri, Representative Todd Akin, and at this time I'd
yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. AKIN. Thank you very much, and thank you for taking some time to
run through a series of events that actually in the last couple of days
seem a little puzzling to me, I might have to say.
My recollection is is that General David Petraeus, his credentials
were reviewed over in the other body, and they took a vote as to
whether or not he was the guy that we're going to put front and center
to be in charge of the

[[Page H10354]]

entire campaign in Iraq, and he got a unanimous vote in the other
legislative body. That says an awful lot of people had to vote for him
to get a unanimous vote over there.
Also, as I recall, it was just not so long ago that the Democrat
party, who's in charge of both the House and the Senate, made the
request that in September General Petraeus would come before the
legislature and would make a report as to what the findings were, would
let us know how things were going. Many people were very skeptical
about the reorganization, the restructuring of our war in Iraq, around
the idea of the surge, but people trusted General David Petraeus. They
trusted him because he has an excellent reputation and record as a
soldier, but he also is a straight shooter. He doesn't sugarcoat
things. He explains it the way it is.
And so it was with some sense of alarm and a little bit, I have to
say, with a sense of frustration that we saw in the New York Times this
calling General Petraeus where they say ``General Betray Us.''
What we're doing is taking somebody that before we thought they had
good credibility, we're going to guess what they may say to us, we
think we may not like what he has to say, so now we're going to try to
destroy his reputation. I think that's a shame.
My son has served over in Fallujah. As you have mentioned, I also am
on the Oversight Committee.

{time} 2030

One of the things that has been consistent with every witness, week
after week over a period of months, every witness we could scrounge up,
conservative, Republican, liberal, Democrat, you name it, the one thing
those witnesses said was, first of all, they said if we pull out of
Iraq rapidly, there is going to be a huge bloodbath there.
The second thing is that the whole region will be destabilized.
Everybody agreed to that. Now, some people said, well, there is nothing
we can do about it, so we ought to pull out now and cut our losses.
Other ones said, no, there are some things we could do about it. But
everybody agreed that a rapid drawdown of troops is not what we should
be doing in America.
After listening hour after hour to all these experts, I came to the
conclusion of this simple fact, and that is, it is the least-cost, most
logical best alternative for us to just go ahead and win the war in
Iraq.
We are more than halfway, and trying to turn around and back out,
make excuses and try to lose is just going to be much more costly than
moving forward and doing a good job.
That's what the general has outlined today in very credible
testimony. I was very thankful that he is here. I am thankful that you
took the time to help us to be able to talk about this very important
subject about how we proceed and the sense of good news. There is a
little light at the end of the tunnel is what it seems like to me.
Mr. GINGREY. Light at the end of the tunnel, indeed. The gentleman is
right on target.
As we conclude this Special Order hour, I want my colleagues to take
a good look at this ad that ran today in the New York Times.
I know it's hard for the Members to actually see the text, or you can
see the picture; but, basically, what it says, the caption is:
``General Petraeus or General Betray Us?'' With a big question mark.
Then under that: ``Cooking the books for the White House.''
The first and last paragraph, I will quote, let me read this to you,
this is what MoveOn.org, a political action committee says.
Mr. AKIN. Isn't MoveOn.org generally associated with the Democrat
Party?
Mr. GINGREY. I hope not, I say to the gentleman from Missouri. I
think if you look at their funding trail though you would find that
they haven't contributed probably too much support in any way, shape,
or form to Republican Members.
But hears what they say about General Petraeus: ``General Petraeus is
a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before
the election, he said there was 'tangible progress' in Iraq and that
`Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.'
``And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops
in Iraq, said `We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously
going to do everything we can to build on that progress.' ''
Then their final paragraph, I skipped the middle one, they say:
``Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone
knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear
of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops.
``But we won't hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable
for withdrawing all our troops, General Petraeus has actually said,
will need to stay in Iraq for as long as 10 years.''
Finally, they say, MoveOn.org, today, before Congress and before the
American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray
Us.
In conclusion, as the majority leader said a few minutes ago, before
we walked out on the steps, to commemorate and honor the American
people on the sixth anniversary of that tragedy of 9/11, we did that in
a bipartisan way. This is not a political argument that we bring to the
floor tonight, and this business, if we are winning in Iraq, the
Democrats lose. If we are losing in Iraq, the Democrats win. If we are
winning in Iraq, the Republicans win. This is not about who wins
politically. This is for the American people.
We are going to win. We are going to let victory have a chance. We
are not just simply blindly staying the course.
In regard to this surge, this is exactly what the Iraq Study Group,
Lee Hamilton and former Secretary James Baker, recommended to the
Congress; and this is what the President has done.
I commend him for it. I think we are making progress; but there is,
indeed, as the gentleman from Missouri said, light at the end of the
tunnel, a bright light. We need to give victory a chance.

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