[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 133 (Monday, September 10, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H10354-H10361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ AND THE MIDDLE EAST
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for
60 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as I said a number of times in the
past, it remains a tremendous honor to step here on the floor of the
United States House of Representatives and address you about how this
dialogue that we have across America is a great big national
conversation, 300 million people, many of them talking about the very
subject matter that my colleagues in the previous hour have discussed,
and that being the issue of the global war on terror.
Particularly, because of the hearing today, the joint hearing between
the Armed Services Committee, and it used to be the International
Relations Committee, and now it's the Foreign Affairs Committee, many
of our colleagues in the room of the 435 Members of Congress, over 100
in the room and many others were watching television in offices and in
gatherings around this Hill. There was a national conversation going on
and taking place here.
As we move forward with our discussion, one of the things that
happens is, as talking members of the 300 million people of America
carry on their conversation, a consensus forms. As a consensus forms,
it works that the constituents across the country call up and write
letters and send e-mails to and stop in and see their Members of
Congress and their staff.
As that goes on, if the American people are informed, if they are
informed honestly and objectively, if they can get there, they can get
their eyes and their hands and their ears on the facts, the American
people often come to an appropriate and proper conclusion.
But it happens to be a fact that nearly every week that we have been
in session in this 110th Congress, now into September, having gaveled
in here in January, nearly every week, there has been at least one bill
on the floor, that was a bill, I believe, sought to undermine our
efforts in this global war on terror.
Except for last week, there wasn't one. Yet, the commitment that was
made on the part of the request to Congress, and on the part of our
military and the President, was to deliver a report here to Congress by
September 15, on or before September 15, that would be an objective
update on the operations in Iraq, which I will stipulate again is the
most centralized, the most contested battleground in this global war on
terror.
[[Page H10355]]
We all knew this report was coming, and today we received that
report. That report was delivered here to Congress in written form and
verbally by General Petraeus and by Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Well, it's interesting that when the date of this report became
something that was published and people were aware of, that's when the
debate began.
We started to see an intensity of the different amendments and the
resolutions that came before Congress. There are no resolution to
unfund the war and call our troops home, but resolutions to try to do
that without having to admit that that was the effort. As each one of
those resolutions came up, by my view, each one of them one way or
another failed with the American people. The argument was continuing.
The debate was continuing.
The people that were invested in, let me say, cut-and-run policy and
tactics in Iraq, those people thought that they were going to win this
argument with the American people, before General Petraeus brought his
report before Congress. That's why those resolutions came to this floor
every week, in my view, and that's why the media was delivered, message
after message, that there was a failed effort in Iraq.
That's also why I and many of my colleagues went to Iraq during that
period of time. I made my fifth trip over there on the last weekend of
July with a number of my colleagues in codel Burgess. On that fifth
trip, it's hard to say, even when you go back to the same place, what
was different. Because you will see sometimes different people, and you
get a bit different report.
But one thing you do is get briefings, internal briefings, classified
briefings, from our top officers that we have and compare the
information that comes from General Petraeus and General Odierno and
Ambassador Crocker and Admiral Fallon. Those people that are at the
front of this that are in the lead that are calling the shots from the
highest levels, all the way down through the ranks, when you walk into
a mess hall and simply say is there anyone here from Iowa, pretty soon
you have a table full, know their hometowns and know some of the people
that they are related to and know that there is an instant contact
there. We compare notes Iowan-to-Iowan and then compare those notes
with the briefings that we receive from our top officers.
Close the door and have an intense, classified discussion with
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, then come back here to this
Congress and listen to the debate and watch the effort here on the
other side of the aisle, the effort that I believe was invested in
defeat. I will say even a significant number are still invested in
defeat.
But, yet, they thought they could win the debate and convince the
American people that the cause was lost in Iraq. They thought they
could win the debate before General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker
delivered their report to this Congress that it would be a moot point.
Whatever it was that General Petraeus might offer today, they wanted to
have the American people convinced. A majority number of Members of
Congress were convinced that it was a lost and failed effort in Iraq.
Well, enough information came out from that part of the world; enough
Members went over and saw for themselves. Enough Members like myself
went into al Anbar province that, according to General Petraeus today,
was politically lost a year ago. It was a hopeless case a year ago.
As I was there the last of July, every single tribal area in al Anbar
province, and I would remind the body, that that is one-third, Anbar
province is one third of the geographical area of Iraq. It represented
over half the deaths and violence of Iraq. It was the center of al
Qaeda in Iraq. Ramadi was the center of death for the country.
Still, every single tribal area in the entire province of that one-
third of Iraq was, a year ago, controlled by al Qaeda. Hamas was
preaching an anti-U.S., anti-coalition, anti-Iraqi defense force
message.
But as I match the maps, as the tribal zones change and the sheikhs,
the tribal leaders, got together, the they made a commitment to come
together to kill al Qaeda with coalition forces and with Iraqi defense
forces. Every single tribal zone, every sheikh in all of al Anbar
province came over to the coalition side, to the side of freedom, and
to the side of a free Iraqi people.
When that happened, there was a dramatic sea change in al Anbar
province. If you looked at the map of the tribal zones, it was already
a year ago painted red because that was al Qaeda. Today, every tribal
zone in al Anbar province is green, meaning they are on our side now,
they are with us. They said they want to come kill al Qaeda with us.
That was their message.
When you see that kind of briefing, and you hear the briefing that
came from General Petraeus today, but some of this information came out
piece by piece, week by week, as there was an effort to undermine our
effort in Iraq, came to a head today. Those who were invested in defeat
had to make a case today that there was something weak about this
military effort, something weak about the security effort, that there
was something disingenuous about the delivery, about the report that
was delivered today.
What I saw today was truly two highly intelligent people with worlds
of experience in the Middle East, Ambassador Crocker and General
Petraeus.
As I saw them with their delivery and their presentation and the
facts that they laid out carefully, completely, objectively, with
caution about those parts that aren't going so well, brought out before
we heard the good news about the parts that are going well, this was a
stellar report that the American people can take to the bank. We don't
have all the problems solved in Iraq. There is a ways to go, and maybe
a long ways to go. It's not going to be easy, but it looks far better
today than the news media has characterized it to be.
So there is much to be said about this momentous day today, this
watershed day today, the records that were accumulated from General
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. As I watched my colleagues listen to
that delivery and ask their questions and probe, I can only reflect
that the people that came out of this thing with their integrity intact
were the ones delivering the report. The ones who were their critics
were silenced in the end. That's the conclusion that I think an
objective media will be reporting tomorrow.
But at this point, I recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Zach
Wamp.
Mr. WAMP. It's a privilege and an honor to come back down to the
floor tonight. I want to talk on two fronts, really. The one is about
Iraq and the other is the threat of radical Islam, Islamofascism, as
some people call it; but I think it's important here right on the cusp
of the sixth anniversary, tomorrow of 9/11, to remind our colleagues
and our fellow countrymen that we are not only not out of the woods,
but that these threats are grave. They are grave this week.
It's easy for everyone in this country to get lulled back into
complacency or look for the comforts of our living room and shopping
malls, but we face a huge growing and imminent threat from the terror
itself here on our homeland.
We come, as members of the Republican Policy Committee tonight, we
just left a briefing downstairs from a Lebanese Christian named
Brigette Gabriel, who wrote a book called ``Why They Hate Us.'' Some
would ignore her, but, frankly, coming from that world and able to go
on Internet chat rooms and read Arabic and know what's going on out
there, we should listen. We should listen very carefully to what's
happening in the world of radical Islam.
{time} 2045
I think it is very ironic that some of the very people who may have
said a few months ago, ooh, let's embrace the Iraq Study Group's
recommendations today would say, no, too late. We even heard that today
from distinguished Democrats, some of them, too late. Too late. Too
late for what?
Let me tell you, this is not good news. We're at war. There is no
good news. But this is positive news from the battlefield. And I think
it's very ironic that in Anbar, and now spreading from Anbar originally
out through the tribal groups and the provinces, where we're making
real progress is among the moderates, which is kind of
[[Page H10356]]
the Iraq Study Group's recommendation, is convert the moderates to
allies. Work to get them to stand against the radicals; work to get the
tribal leaders to say, al Qaeda is the enemy and we're now with the
Americans and our allied forces. That's happening. But I'll bet you
some people don't want to hear that positive news. That's the reality
on the ground. That's important.
I would also say, though, in a macroscale, where some of the Iraq
Study Group's recommendations can be very instructive today for all of
us is we need to engage moderate Islam, not just in country, in Iraq,
but throughout the world, because just the sheer numbers of growth
within Islam, if you read the demographics, for instance, in Mark
Steyn's book, ``America Alone'' it's overwhelming; 5 years out, 10
years out, they swamp us in population. If you think Americans or
Europeans are growing as a population, we're shrinking. We are
shrinking. There's fewer and fewer of us every decade and millions and
millions more Muslims.
And if the moderates within Islam won't stand against the radicals,
that's why I reach out to the gentleman from Minnesota here in the
House. Man, if there are freedom-loving people within Islam, where are
they? They need to speak out. They need to be aggressive, and more and
more of them in Iraq are because their relatives have been killed by al
Qaeda. And once they kill your relative, maybe you're going to speak
out. But they're intimidated; they're squashed.
Let me give you an example. Mark Steyn just tells us recently of a
book that was published called ``Alms for Jihad; Charity and Terrorism
in the Islamic World.'' A guy named Jay Millard Burr wrote it. Great
research in Saudi Arabia where all this oil money, and we heard this
downstairs from Brigette as well, using the Saudi Arabian oil money to
promote terrorists around the world, period. It's happening. This
documents, ``Alms for Jihad,'' how they're funneling through charities.
A man named Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz heads it up. The charity is
called the Khalid bin Mahfouz or Blessed Relief Foundation. Millions of
Saudi oil dollars into this charity that funds al Qaeda directly. This
book exposes the whole thing. So you need to go to Amazon.com or Barnes
and Noble to get the book. But guess what? You can't get it. It
vanished. It was bought up, taken out of circulation, financially, they
took the book off the market.
Let me tell you, folks, in this country, from Dearborn, Michigan to
right here in Virginia, Falls Church, Virginia, oil money from the
wahabis in Saudi Arabia training up young people in this country, under
a global Shari'ah, Islamic law, bringing them up against America in
this country today.
Listen, this, to me, at the sixth anniversary of 9/11, is a call to
action for Americans who've been lulled into complacency thinking that
somehow this conflict is about Iraq. If we would just leave Iraq, all
of our problems go away.
I'll say to you tonight, Mr. Speaker, this is not about Iraq. Iraq is
the venue, it's the theater, it's where al Sadr is, it's where the
Iranians and the Syrians have come, it's where they've recruited, it's
where the fight is, but it's not about Iraq. It's about us and radical
Islam at war. That's the theater. But let me tell you, it could just as
easily be here tomorrow. God forbid it, but it could be just as easily
here.
They have virtually taken some parts of Europe in terms of public
opinion. They've challenged laws of countries and states in their
courts, challenging Islamic law should take precedence, and that's what
they would like to see here.
You may say, oh, he's wild; he's off the reservation. Not true. This
is the way it is. They're using our very porous borders to come at us.
And we're not secure. We're ignoring the threat.
Let me tell you what the Wall Street Journal editorial said last
week. It said, the world's most political and religious pathologies,
combine with oil and gas, terrorism and nuclear ambitions. In short,
unlike yesterday's Vietnam, the greater Middle East, including Turkey,
is the central strategic arena of the 21st century as Europe was in the
20th century. This is where three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa,
are joined. He goes on to say, so let's take a moment to think about
what would happen if the last Black Hawk helicopter took off from
Baghdad International. And he goes on to talk about Iran's influence in
Iraq, emboldening Iran.
Clearly, Ahmadinejad said less than 2 weeks ago he can feel the
United States in retreat in Iraq, and we've lost our will. And that
when we leave because they force us out, Iran is prepared to fill the
vacuum. That's what he said 2 weeks ago. We can ignore it if we want
to. But let me tell you, a precipitous withdrawal that the left in this
country is asking for, a forced withdrawal from Iraq today, will lead
to the most destabilization in the world that we have seen.
And let me tell you, this threat we face, nobody wants to hear this,
is greater than the threat of Nazi Germany. And if people say we had no
business in Iraq, then we had no business storming the beaches of
Normandy because the Germans didn't attack us. But we knew it was our
obligation, as the leader of freedom in the world, to go and save
Europe from Nazi Germany. We did that. We're doing it again, and it's
uncomfortable.
As I said in the previous hour, my nephew's over there. Specialist
Jeffrey Watts is fighting in Iraq for us tonight. I'd love for my
nephew to come home, but not until we can leave in victory; not until
we leave an Iraq and a Middle East that's more secure than they were
yesterday; not until we can assure the American people that Iran is not
going to rise up and seize control with nuclear weapons in the Middle
East, unless you want to accept Armageddon.
I actually know how the story ends. I know the Bible from cover to
cover, and I'm prepared to go on across that river at any time. But
I've got to tell you, unless you're willing to just accept those
ramifications, that's how high the stakes are in Iraq.
This is not George Bush's war. This is America's fight. We committed
it together. Some people would like to blame it on others now and not
accept the responsibility. But this is America's fight against radical
Islam, and it will go on for years to come, even when Iraq is over. And
there'll be a time where Iraq is not the central theater. I'm concerned
we're going to be fighting radical Islam all the days of my life.
The question is, are we going to stand up, as generations before us
have, and defend freedom. Are people like my nephew going to be willing
to go and stand between a real threat in our civilian population,
because that's what this is. And don't think for a second that it's all
about Iraq. Some people dressed in pink would have you believe that.
It's not true. And I'll tell you, what some of them are doing is
downright un-American, and 50 years ago they'd have run them out of
here on a rail.
I'd be happy to yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his
delivery. And I reflect that General Petraeus' last part of his
prepared testimony said, in closing, it remains an enormous privilege
to soldier again in Iraq with America's new Greatest Generation. Our
country's men and women in uniform have done a magnificent job in the
most complex and challenging environment imaginable. All Americans
should be very proud of their sons and daughters serving in Iraq today.
He also said that he believes that this is perhaps the most
professional military to ever take to the field. And I recall a
discussion that we had in Baghdad just about 5 or 6 weeks ago, and the
statement was made that this is not only the most professional but the
best military that's ever been put into the field, that's ever gone to
war.
And one of the remarks they made, in addition to well-trained and
brave and dedicated and well-equipped and patriotic and all of those
adjectives that we use, one of the other ones was and the most
perceptive. The most perceptive.
And that caught me off guard, Mr. Speaker. I didn't expect that. But
I understood what that meant; to have the perception to know the
difference on when to shoot and when not to shoot, when to be the
ambassador and when to be the soldier. That's one of the hardest
things, and sometimes a decision has to be made in a split second. And
that's what they meant by the
[[Page H10357]]
most perceptive military to be sent off to war.
And again, much was said today, much will be said about today. But at
this point, I'd be happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the
chairman of the Policy Committee from Michigan, Mr. Thaddeus McCotter.
Mr. McCOTTER. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. I just want to touch
on some points regarding strategic basis of the surge and some of the
goals, some of what we've heard today. Your indulgence. Just touch upon
some of the general themes that our Nation faces in the war for
freedom.
Mistakes in the past in Iraq have been rectified under the Petraeus
plan. As I have said and many here have said on our side of the aisle,
in the early days of the problems of reconstruction, we believed that
you could not impose democracy from above in a top-down approach, but
you could unleash liberty so that it could rise up, much as the
American Revolution did, to take its own shape as the Iraqi people were
emancipated from the shackles of Saddam's oppression.
What General Petraeus is doing, in conjunction with Ambassador
Crocker, is they are going into the towns, they're going into the
tribes, they are going into the bedrock of the population of Iraq, and
with the surge, providing the security to protect these individuals in
these towns from the collective and systematic terror of the enemy, so
that average Iraqis can make the local political shift to liberty and
away from the insurgency. This is being done not simply through the
utilization of military force. In fact, the success on the ground in
the local levels and in the provinces and in our cooperation with the
tribes is built upon and hastened by this political shift among the
population.
In any counterinsurgency operation, the critical element is to
separate the population from the insurgency. This can be reasoned, if
we look back at some of the statements of the grand guerilla warrior,
Chairman Mao. When asked about how his guerilla operations and
insurgencies against the nationalist Chinese would work, he said, our
people will be as the fishes amongst the water of the people. What you
have to do is separate the fish from the water. This is why the
critical testimony I believe we heard today was that every single
Iraqi, everyone in Anbar Province and elsewhere where we are seeing
progress is being given the ability to make the free, conscious
decision to reach for their liberty. They are not being terrorized
because of the valor of our troops and the plan and the reconstruction
efforts that are flowing into these areas that show they have a
transactional benefit in this transformational change. And this is
hastening the local political shift which I believe undergirds our
chances for victory in Iraq. This is also what undergirds the good news
that we had today, at least the welcome news that, because of the local
shift amongst the population and the improved security that is
concomitant to it, General Petraeus has proposed a reduction of 4,000
troops by the end of the year and a reduction of 40,000 troops by July.
Even if our Nation is so divided that we cannot unite in the cause of
victory in Iraq, at least let us unite with the welcome news that 4,000
now and 40,000 of our fellow Americans citizens are going to be
returning from harm's way to their loved ones.
{time} 2100
To have individuals derive this as a token gesture is to accuse
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker of what the accusers themselves
are doing, which is to play politics with the lives of our troops. We
have seen, despite all evidence, despite what the military's assessment
has been, repeated calls for the immediate withdrawal of the United
States forces from Iraq. This would be irresponsible not only to our
troops in the field but to the people of the region, especially the
Iraqis themselves, who would be slaughtered.
When one decides to engage in a strategic withdrawal in the face of
enemy, military experts generally concur that this is one of the most
dangerous maneuvers forces in the field can attempt because your
numbers are getting smaller as the enemy is becoming emboldened and
encroaching ever closer to you. The wholesale withdrawal on a date
certain, which is an arbitrary dictate from politicians in Washington,
for those who believe that this is a proper course of action, I ask
them to check into how the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan went, and
they might reach another decision.
Further, to call this a token gesture not only belittles the
sacrifices that our troops have made to reduce the security problems in
these areas and to help get this local political shift, it also
diminishes and belittles in a callous way the true joy these troops'
families are going to feel when their loved ones come back.
To me that is something that is not a token. That is something that
relieves the painful anxiety of every waking minute these families
spend wondering if their loved one will come home. I highly doubt that
the military mothers in my district or throughout America are ever
going to consider any troop coming home from accomplishing their
mission as being a token gesture.
Be that as it may, it is also critical that we understand, in this
period of time, that ours is the latest generation duty bound to defend
freedom in its hour of maximum danger. Thus we must ever remember,
through this crucible of liberty, our course is tough but our cause is
just.
The enemy is the sire of tyranny; we are the children of liberty. By
heinously invading our Nation on September 11, 2001, and killing 3,000
innocent American souls, the enemy announced we cannot co-exist. In
consequence, it is clear a world condensed by an Internet cannot endure
half slave and half free. Yes, many times in the life of our free
Republic, we have been called upon to face danger and to defeat it, and
we have always done this and secured it by advancing a simple elemental
truth that has served us well: to ensure our own liberty, we must
ensure liberty to the enslaved.
Thus in this trying time, it is imperative that we demonstrate that
our devotion to liberty transcends their obsession with death. And
united amongst ourselves and other free people, with prudence, we can,
we must, and we will, for the sake of our children and the generations
of Americans yet unnamed, we will win and we will walk our path, and we
will widen the cause of human freedom.
I thank you for allowing me the chance to address you.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan,
the chairman of the Policy Committee, for the insights he has shared
with us tonight.
And we get those insights on a fairly regular basis here, and it is
quite interesting to track the intellect of Mr. McCotter and causes me
to reflect upon the constitutional limitations that this Congress has,
Mr. Speaker. And in spite of the bill after bill, resolution after
resolution, and policy piece after policy piece that have been brought
forward here by almost an average of one a week the entire 110th
Congress, there are only just a few things that we have the
constitutional authority to do when it comes to war, Mr. Speaker. And
the first thing that Congress can do is raise an army and a navy, and
that is constitutional, and by implication, an air force. It's clearly
a constitutional responsibility of the Congress. And the second thing
we can do is we can declare war, and that is constitutional
responsibility also that is clearly defined in our Constitution. And
the third thing we can do is fund the war.
But there is no provision in this Constitution for micromanaging the
war. That goes outside the bounds of our constitutional authority. The
management of the war and, in fact, the micromanagement of the war lies
within the authority, the constitutionally invested authority, of the
Commander in Chief. That is why that is drafted in the Constitution in
that fashion. It gives the authority to the Commander in Chief because
our Founders went through a difficult Revolutionary War period. They
were the Continental Congress. They were essentially a confederacy that
had gathered together because of a common cause. And the Continental
Congress raised the Continental Army, and the Continental Army was an
army that was driven by consensus. And they understood the difficulties
in fighting a war if you had
[[Page H10358]]
to reach a consensus before you could move forward and make a decision.
They knew you had to have a Commander in Chief, a Commander in Chief
who could evaluate all the information, gather his officers around him,
gather the information, and then make a definitive directive to be able
to give an order to take bold action with intelligence, with military
action, both offensively and defensively. They understood that. They
learned some bitter lessons during the Revolutionary War. You can't
fight a war by consensus. You have got to have a Commander in Chief at
the top. That's why the Constitution is drafted in the fashion it is,
and that's why the Constitution prohibits us from micromanaging a war.
And yet the effort continues, an effort by this Congress, to
micromanage this war that's going on. I recall the Speaker and the
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee sitting over there in Syria
negotiating with a person whom we have declared to be a state sponsor
of terrorism, and the chairman of that committee announced we have a
new Democrat foreign policy. Well, I would like to think that when you
pledge an oath to uphold this Constitution, you also are obligated to
read it and understand it. And in that are the limitations that say to
us, Congress, you can raise an army and a navy and by implication an
air force and you can declare war and you can fund them, but you can't
micromanage that war and you can't conduct foreign policy. Both of
those things are forbidden by the Constitution. They are vested in the
Commander in Chief, our chief executive officer, because we have got to
speak with one voice and we have got to fight with one effort. It can't
be a divided effort, and it can't be an effort to undermine our
military.
I would be happy to yield to the fast-thinking, slow-talking
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me
before he yields to the gentleman from New Mexico, because as I join
this hour Special Order and I am hearing from my colleagues, some of
the brightest minds and best speakers on our side of the aisle, I don't
think I could stand to go behind all four of them. So I am happy to
have the opportunity. But it's awfully tough following my colleagues of
the likes of the chairman of the Policy Committee and part of our
leadership.
But I wanted quickly, Mr. Speaker, to again pay tribute to General
Petraeus and also Ambassador Ryan Crocker. I just want to point out, in
regard to Ambassador Crocker, I was reading his bio before they
testified before our two committees today, the 6\1/2\- to 7-hour
testimony, physically an ordeal, but Ambassador Ryan Crocker, I think a
lot of people, Mr. Speaker, don't know his bio, and I don't have time
to read it all. But suffice to say that in September 2004 President
Bush conferred on Ambassador Ryan Crocker the personal rank of career
ambassador, career ambassador, the highest rank in the foreign service.
This is the character of the man and the men that presented this report
to us today.
And, basically, we cut right to the chase, and what they said is, now
is not the time to quit, and give victory a chance. You can slice it
and dice it any way you want to, but that is basically what they said
to the 111 members of those two committees, the House Armed Services
Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Relations.
And so I just want to make three points, though, Mr. Speaker, that I
have thought about and that I have heard in the last couple of weeks on
reasons that I have heard Members give for wanting to give up and not
give victory a chance.
One of them was this business of, well, you know, it has been too
great a strain and stress on our forces. We don't have enough troops
back home. What if some other conflagration, war, would break out
somewhere in the world in the next year, 2 years, 5 years? We don't
have enough troops. We need to bring them home.
Well, Mr. Speaker, retired General Jack Keane, the Vice Chairman of
the United States Army, Vice Chief of Staff, spoke to us last week as
well, and he also spoke on Saturday morning on Washington Journal. I
hope some of my colleagues saw that. But what General Keane said, and I
agree with him so much, is, You mean to tell me that you want to accept
defeat? You want to lose the war, a war of this magnitude, as the
gentleman from Tennessee pointed out, and what all is at stake in
regard to the Middle East in this global war on terror? You want to
give up that war so that you can bring the troops home and then restock
and get ready for the next potential conflict and that's a good trade-
off? I don't think so.
And I want to say another thing, Mr. Speaker, that I have heard a lot
of people say: We can't afford this war. We cannot afford to spend $750
billion, almost $1 trillion and counting, on this war because we need
to rebuild our infrastructure in our country. We need to shore up our
bridges. Obviously, that was in the news because of the tragic
occurrence in Minnesota. Or we need more money for Head Start, or we
need more money for K-12 education, or we need more Pell Grants, or we
need to have more money for the food stamp program and the farm bill or
whatever you can come up with.
Let me tell my colleagues, if you don't spend the money to protect
the American people, what good do all these other things do us when you
see what can happen and did 6 years ago today on 9/11 when over 3,000
were killed and the economic blow to this country was over $2 trillion?
You talk about destroying some infrastructure. That's what it's all
about when you let your guard down and you don't stand up and be secure
in this country.
And last but not least, I have heard many say, well, you know, our
troops are coming home injured and many of them are suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder or syndrome. That's where you wake up at
night, having nightmares, and maybe for the rest of your life you can't
get over the mental trauma that you have gone through in a time of
difficult war.
Well, let me tell you something my colleagues, as a physician Member
of this body. You talk about post-traumatic stress syndrome. You think
a lot of them are coming back with that now? You think that that is a
tragedy? Well, you just wait and see the numbers that come back with
mental illness and post-traumatic stress syndrome and nightmares and a
life of anxiety when they have to come back knowing that their comrades
in arms have died in vain, their buddies in the foxhole have been blown
to smithereens by some improvised explosive device and they have to
come home a loser. And we are not going to let that happen, and I think
that is what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were telling us
today: let's give victory a chance.
With that I will say, finally, as I conclude, who wins politically?
Who cares. The American people lose if we lose in Iraq. That is what is
important. This is not about the next election; this is about giving
victory a chance.
{time} 2115
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. And I
appreciate your passion and the rapidity with which you speak tonight,
Mr. Gingrey.
I would be happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the
gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).
Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. King. I appreciate the work that you're
doing on this issue on the eve of 9/11.
It behooves us all to remember exactly what happened. It behooves us
all to remember the loss of that 1 day, and like my friend from Georgia
says, over $2 trillion in loss from America's asset base that day, and
even worse, the 3,000 lives that were lost.
I went to Iraq on Thursday evening. We left after votes on Thursday,
flew all night long, and ended up in Iraq on Saturday and Sunday. And
we spent the night in Baghdad on Saturday night and Sunday visiting
with the troops and visiting with Iraqis.
I was struck by the cautious optimism that General Petraeus related
to us today, a very cautious optimism that the trend lines are
favorable, that we're seeing some lessening of violence, and that's the
sort of things that I found there from the troops in the country. I
wanted to visit with our soldiers one on one. I had the opportunity to
ride into Baghdad with troops who were going for the first time. I sat
across from a Captain Serrano from Chicago and was able to talk to her
about the 2-year-old daughter that waits at home for her. Her husband,
[[Page H10359]]
who is engaged in going through sheriff's training to hopefully work
for the sheriff's department there. And we're asking the sacrifice of
young men and women daily to be there and stand in the gap to stand
between the terrorists and ourselves.
I have one of my friends who says, I hear America is at war. He said,
America is not at war, America is at the mall, our military is at war.
I think if we've made a mistake since 9/11, it's in failing to accept
our responsibility individually, every single one of us, our
responsibility to be engaged in this problem, because we are literally
fighting for the future of freedom throughout the world. The terrorists
who hate us hate our way of life. They hate our freedoms. They hate the
films that come out from the West. They think they're corrupting their
young people. They think that our society is decadent and that we're
corrupting their cultures, so they simply want to annihilate us. That's
the difference between a democracy or a republic and the tyrannical
states of radical jihad that say that we will annihilate the West and
we will annihilate America and Americans.
I remember, on this eve of 9/11, President Bush's three goals. It was
very simple. He said, first of all, if you harbor a terrorist, you are
a terrorist. But then he said we're going to do three things: We're
going to uproot the terrorist training camps that exist throughout the
Arab world. We're going to stop the training and the production of new
radicals. The second thing he said is we're going to stop the funds
that flow from supposedly legitimate compassionate organizations when
actually they're funding terrorists. So we're going to uproot the
training camps, we're going to stop the funding of terrorists, and
finally, we're going to take the fight to the terrorists.
Now, there are many on the left who say that Iraq is not about the
terrorists. The terrorists are coming in from Syria, they're coming in
from around the world, they're coming in from Iran. This is the site
where we are fighting terrorists. Now, maybe it began that way, maybe
it didn't begin that way, but it's the way it is now. And if we walk
away from that country, the general consensus is that Iraq will fall
within days to the terrorists, to the terrorist state of Iran.
After Iraq falls, we're going to see difficulties in Egypt and
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar. And pretty soon you can see
that every one of our friends in the Arab world is at risk. And there
are people who ask me, well, how could those countries fall? Just
remember back to 1979 when the shah of Iran was making great progress
in westernizing that country, and in a matter of days was thrown from
power, his whole government collapsed. We stood by, President Jimmy
Carter stood by and did not lift a finger for our friends. And that's
exactly how the falls will occur at this state.
The difference is that now we import over 60 percent of our oil, and
most of it comes from the Middle East. If those countries fall, the
terrorists have said they're going to cut the supply of oil off to the
world. They will plunge the world economy into chaos. And that's how
they're going to create the economic destruction of the United States
and of the West.
I went to Israel earlier this year. They said if you leave Iraq, you
will allow us to fall, because they saw the same scenario that I'm
repeating, that all of our friends in the Middle East will fall, and
then ultimately Israel says ``we will fall.'' Now, my personal belief
is that Israel is our first line of defense against terrorists. They've
been fighting since their inception against radical jihads in the
Middle East. They are our first line of defense, and if they fall, what
calamity and what terrors await for us in this country? There are many
who say that it's just a fabrication, that it's not true, and yet we
see the signs all around us.
As I visited with our troops in Iraq over this past weekend, I
conveyed one message, that we thank you. We thank you for your service
and we thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for serving your
country honorably, and we thank you for serving your country well. As
the gentleman from Iowa mentioned, this is one of the messages of
General Petraeus, that this may be the best military the United States
has ever had.
I do not believe the terrorists can win. I do believe that there are
those in this Congress and those in this country who can cause this
magnificent military to fail. And if they fail, I don't know where the
hope for humanity comes. I don't see any other country in the world
willing to fight for freedom and to fight to resist the radical jihad
that threatens us all; to fight to resist and to fight to retaliate
from circumstances like 9/11/01.
So that's what we're doing today is remembering those events 6 years
ago, remembering what our responses were and what our anger was on that
evening as we contemplated the events of the day. Both sides, Democrat
or Republican, in those days were of the same mind, that we need to get
to the terrorists before they get to us. I'm not sure where we came off
of the rails and where we've lost so much consensus. It's not good for
the United States and it's not good for the world because we're still
in a very difficult circumstance fighting a very difficult battle, one
that General Petraeus today said is going to be awfully hard.
It's going to be a long struggle, and it's a struggle that will be up
and down. He believes our young military men and women are sufficient
to the task. I do also. So I would yield back to the gentleman from
Iowa by saying thanks to our troops. I hope that we all keep them in
our thoughts and prayers.
God bless you to the troops, and God bless America. I thank the
gentleman from Iowa.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico, a veteran
and a C-130 pilot himself, and now a passenger in C-130s over in Iraq,
year to year picking up firsthand information, veterans, active-duty
personnel, just this last weekend. That's the level of involvement that
you see here on the part of a lot of Members of the United States
Congress, Mr. Speaker.
One of those other individuals who has had a high level of
involvement is an individual who led codel Burgess in the last weekend
of July over to Iraq, a number of stops, Bayji, Balad, Baghdad and
Ramadi, those places come to mind. And I very much appreciate the
leadership and the initiative it took to put that together and to lead
that trip over there.
I would be happy to yield all but the last 3 or 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess.
Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and the notation
made of the exception of the last 3 or 4 minutes, and I will do my best
to accommodate that.
I get asked by a lot of people, why in the world did you make this
sixth trip to Iraq in July. You knew what was going on there. What did
you expect to see that was going to be different? But I knew we had
today's hearing coming up. I knew it was coming down the pike at us
fairly fast. I knew the news hadn't been good out of the country of
Iraq for about the 10 months before July. I had been in Iraq in July of
2006, had thought there was some measure of success that was beginning
to be felt then, but then we had August, September and October, pretty
rough months by anyone's estimation. And so I will admit, I was
significantly pessimistic when we made that trip back in July.
But I knew we were going to hear from General Petraeus today. And I
knew that every time I had been to Iraq before I came away learning
something that I hadn't seen on CNN or even Fox News. There was
information that can only be available to you by going for yourself and
looking for yourself, feeling, touching, smelling the situation on the
ground.
Now, I get a lot of concern from people when I go back home in the
district who say, yeah, that's all great what we're doing for Iraq, but
we don't know that we care that much about the Iraqis. I will tell the
citizens of this country, it is in America's best interest that we
succeed. Where we cannot be successful in Iraq, and you've heard other
people talk about it this evening, let's be honest, it's not a
political party that loses a car, it's not a Congress that loses a war,
it's not a President that loses a war, it is a country that loses a
war.
And again, I reiterate, it is in America's best interests that we be
successful because an Iraq that is stable, an Iraq that is able to
participate in its own security, an Iraq that is able to act as an ally
or partner for peace in
[[Page H10360]]
the Middle East, what a difference 20 years from now looks like with
that scenario compared with an Iraq where we leave prematurely,
descends into chaos, is enveloped by Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, you
name it. And the chaos that has been evident in Iraq in the past
suddenly envelopes the entire Middle East, with a country like Iran
emerging as the victor.
Now, the surge or the reinforcements that we talked about really
since January of this year, I think it's probably worthwhile to just
touch on the timeline that we've been through this year. Remember, it
was January 26, not that long ago, that General Petraeus was
unanimously confirmed by the Senate, sent off with a pat on the back
out the door, and no sooner had the door closed behind him when the
Senate began sniping and criticizing his activity. He hadn't even
gotten into the country yet.
Ambassador Crocker. You heard my friend from Georgia talk about the
wonderful resume of Ambassador Crocker. Many of us who were here in the
spring of 2003 remember Ambassador Crocker as one of those stalwarts
who came at 10:30 every morning and briefed us in the Armed Services
Committee room, whether we were members of the committee or not, came
with General McCrystal and briefed us every morning as to what was
going on on the ground in Iraq. And I was really very grateful to
Ambassador Crocker for having taken the time to do that so meticulously
when the active combat phase was going on.
On May 26, we finally passed the emergency funding and Bush signed it
into law. Mid-July, we took a trip over to Iraq. Again, I didn't know
what I was going to see. I was prepared to accept bad news if bad news
was all we were going to find. But the reality was the city of Ramadi,
which was absolutely off limits to me in July 2006, that's the first
place we went. After we landed in Baghdad, we got on the Black Hawk
helicopter and immediately went to the city of Ramadi, had a briefing
by the Second Marine Expeditionary Force, had a briefing by Colonel
Jacobsen there on the ground. After the briefing, instead of just
shaking hands and parting ways, we went downtown. We went to the
market. We walked through the market. We talked to children in the
market. We saw things for sale in the market. We talked to a man who
was concerned that one of our JDAMs fell on his building. And I will
tell you, it doesn't do much to drive up a deal if that happens to your
building.
But nevertheless, we had a very one-on-one, close-up discussion with
Iraqis on the street in Ramadi. And a year ago, no one in their right
mind would have taken a Member of Congress to Ramadi; it was far too
dangerous.
Now, you can imagine how gratified I was. We got back. We got a call
from the White House, and we were invited down to present our findings.
I even tried to downplay it a little bit; well, there's some good news,
but we've got to be careful because we've had nothing but bad news out
of Iraq. And then a week later, two guys from the Brookings
Institution, a place that I don't normally agree with, two guys from
the Brookings Institution come up with an op-ed that says, this is a
war we just might win.
Throughout all of that, for the last week we have seen the steady
drumbeat of efforts to undermine the credibility of General Petraeus
and Ambassador Crocker prior to their hearing today.
Today, we did have the House hearing, tomorrow there is going to be
the Senate hearing. Arguably, there was not a whole lot new that was
discussed because everything had been leaked in the New York Times in
the weeks leading up to the hearing. And General Petraeus did say that
he expected there was a possibility he would bring one of the Marine
units home before the end of September, and that there was reason to be
optimistic if things continued on this course, there was reason to be
optimistic that other troops could be brought home early, beginning in
December, much prior to fulfilling the 15-month rotation that was
originally posed to them.
{time} 2130
That would be good news. I hope he is correct in that. I hope he is
successful.
The data collection that went on leading up to this briefing, always
for the last year you can pick data points out of the air wherever you
want to make them. But the discipline to evaluate the trend lines is
what is so critical. Today we saw those trend lines established and the
data meticulously collected before those trend lines were established.
Not all of them showed good news. But a preponderance of them show a
positive effect that has happened in Iraq since our reinforcements
arrived.
None of us can predict what is going to happen beyond the end of this
year. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, as we sit here tonight on the eve
of the anniversary of 9/11, I am terribly concerned about what might
even happen tomorrow. None of us knows what tomorrow holds. Didn't we
learn that lesson Monday, September 10 in 2001 when it seemed like
there just wasn't much happening in the world? We have another tape
from Osama bin Laden. We are told there is another one out there. What
does all this mean? None of us knows for sure. But I reiterate that we
are living in a very dangerous time. Now is the time for us not to show
weakness and retreat from Iraq. Now is the time for us to redouble our
resolve, make certain that we are successful, and for every one of us
to give thanks that we have leaders like General Petraeus and Ryan
Crocker to lead us in this perilous time.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas. Again, I thank
him for leading a codel over there. That was one of the most meaningful
that I have been on. I picked up a lot in watching the observations of
my colleagues and listening to their questions, as well. It is fresh
information and helped fill in a lot of the blanks we might have had
going into this hearing that we had today.
I would, again, be happy to recognize the chairman of the House
Republican Policy Committee, Mr. Thaddeus McCotter, for the balance of
the time this evening.
Mr. McCOTTER. Thank you. The gentleman from New Mexico, the good
doctor from Texas and other speakers have touched upon a fundamental
point. I wish to stress what General Petraeus said in terms of what an
American victory would look like and then ask a question of those who
would support an immediate withdrawal.
In his own letter to the troops, General Petraeus said that what we
need is for the Iraqis to become solely responsible for their own
security. That means a very small footprint, if at all, of the United
States in Iraq militarily. Secondly, it will depend upon the local
reconstruction, reconciliation, and security of the average Iraqi which
will then drive the national reconciliation. Between those two pillars
of local reconciliation and security will come a stable and free Iraq
that no longer creates terrorists, but captures them instead.
But as we are the children of liberty, as we are a Nation that
proudly proclaims it is conceived in liberty, that since every human
being has an unalienable, God-given right to breathe free, to have the
right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, I ask my fellow Americans
who support the immediate withdrawal this: If we betray our fundamental
commitment to liberty to the people of Iraq and watch them be
slaughtered in the sands, what will we ever be able to offer them again
to turn them from the enemy and towards us? If we betray our own
profession of the desire to liberate them, to let them share in their
God-given rights the same way we have, we will be ideologically
disarmed in the war for freedom.
I assure you we will rue the day that we betrayed not only them but
the inherited legacy that we have received from the greatest
generations of Americans who preceded us and allowed us to live in the
majestic America that we know today.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Michigan. He poses a
question that is a difficult one for those who want to withdraw from
this operation, the simple cut-and-run version, to answer. It is left
for those to answer, Mr. Speaker.
I would point out also that yesterday I did a memorial dedication at
Charter Oak, Iowa, for all of the military personnel that have come
from that area since the beginning of the conflicts, since that area
was settled. It starts with the Mexican-American War, goes to the Civil
War and on up to today.
[[Page H10361]]
They placed out in the field there by the memorial 4,200 flags
representing the lives of the Americans that have been sacrificed in
this global war on terror in this quest for freedom. It also represents
50 million people that live free today that didn't at the beginning of
this global war on terror.
I looked back at the dedication and the sacrifice of all of them, and
I added to that dedication another sacrifice, a sacrifice that we hear
very little of, and that is those over-5,000 Americans who gave their
lives during a time of peace during the period between Desert Storm and
the beginning of this global war on terror, 510 a year, Mr. Speaker.
I thank you for being recognized. I thank all the speakers here
tonight that have spoken up for freedom.
____________________