[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 143 (Tuesday, September 25, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H10897-H10899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2245
   THE POLARIZATION OF WASHINGTON: FACTIONALISM IN AMERICAN POLITICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Altmire). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me this time and 
recognizing me. Just so folks who are here can kind of plan on their 
evening, I don't intend to go more than a half an hour, but there are 
some things that have been on my mind that I wanted to talk about.
  In 2004, we passed a law that every school or college that receives 
Federal dollars must teach about the Constitution on September 17, the 
day the Constitution was adopted. We call this Constitution Day, or 
Citizens Day.
  I found myself thinking about this from the perspective of my 
witnessing what is taking place in Iraq, where they're wrestling with 
their constitution. And so I found myself thinking that we can learn a 
lot about ourselves and our great Nation by looking at one of the 
world's oldest civilizations and its people, a people struggling under 
the most difficult circumstances to construct a governing constitution 
that will allow them to unite their nation, survive and prosper.
  In my first visit to Iraq in April of 2003, I literally had to sneak 
into the seaport city of Um Qasr near the Kuwait border. The State 
Department was helping me, but the Department of Defense was trying to 
track me down and stop me from entering this historic land. As I 
approached the border, the British guards at the gates were asking for 
identification. My Save the Children driver, talking with DoD officials 
by satellite phone, was cooperating with them as little as possible, 
and I sat quietly in the Land Rover's front seat feeling like an 
anxious prisoner trying to gain my freedom by escaping into Iraq, not 
trying to get out.
  We did get into this land of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and so 
began my first of 18 trips seeking to exercise my constitutional 
responsibility of congressional oversight over a reluctant executive 
branch.
  The irony of this experience was not lost on me. Here I was trying to 
fulfill my responsibility as the chairman of the National Security 
Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, with 
specific jurisdiction over both the Departments of Defense and State, 
and one of these Departments, Defense, was trying to prevent me from 
exercising that responsibility, and the other, State, was trying to 
help me carry it out.
  So why would we want such oversight? The reality is, if more Members 
of Congress had done proper oversight and gone to Iraq, abuses like Abu 
Ghraib never would have happened. Some Members would have toured the 
facility, and one of the soldiers in that dysfunctional Reserve unit 
would have quietly approached a Member and said, Sir or Ma'am, I don't 
know the first thing about being a prison guard, and by the way, some 
pretty bad stuff is going on here. The Members of Congress would more 
than likely have waited until the soldier left, and then asked some 
tough questions of the supervisors and demanded to see all of the 
facility. If he or she had gotten any ``push back,'' they would have 
come home asking even more questions, and the military would have been 
forced to look into the issue and take corrective action before things 
got out of hand.
  Abu Ghraib was about a military unit run amuck. With proper 
oversight, the abuses would have been easy to correct and been 
corrected without a lot of fanfare or publicity. The press would not 
have had a story, our Nation's reputation wouldn't have been in 
question, and a primary recruitment cry of al Qaeda would never have 
existed.
  As it was, Abu Ghraib happened. The press ran the story, with little 
obligation or inclination to contain it, particularly after part of it 
was out. Al-Jazeera and al Qaeda used it to inflame the Muslim world, 
and hundreds of American soldiers, sailors, marines and air men and 
women died as a result.
  In our Constitution, there are checks and balances between the 
executive and legislative branches, but the fourth estate, the press, 
is on its own. Our Founding Fathers knew the tension between the 
legislative and executive branches makes both branches perform better, 
our country stronger, and our people safer. The fact is, the failure of 
the first Republican Congress to consistently do aggressive oversight 
hurt the President, his administration, the country and helped them 
elect a new Democratic Congress.
  The first year I traveled primarily outside the umbrella of the 
military, staying in places like Um Qasr, Basrah, Al Kut, Arbil, 
Sulaymaniyah and Khanagin. That year turned out to be an undeniable 
disaster. Regrettably, the President sided with Defense and Rumsfeld. 
State and Colin Powell were put on the sideline. Paul Bremer was 
brought in to rule as a dictator, and I saw firsthand the result of 
such a government. The voice of everyday Iraqis was not being heard, 
and predictably one bad decision piled on another.
  Following the faithful decision to arbitrarily disband their police, 
border patrol and army, as I traveled outside the umbrella of the 
military, I was continually asked by everyday Iraqis, why are you 
putting my neighbor, why are you putting my uncle, why are you putting 
my brother, why are you putting my cousin, my nephew, my father, my 
son, why are you putting my husband out of work? Why can't he at

[[Page H10898]]

least guard a hospital? That question still haunts me to this day. You 
see, Wilfredo Perez, Jr. of Norwalk, the first Fourth Congressional 
District casualty, was killed guarding a hospital.
  I found myself asking, why did we leave 26 million Iraqis no 
indigenous security in a country larger than New England? Why did we 
put so many Iraqis out of work, leaving the general population 
completely defenseless and in the process endangering all our troops?
  Yes, one thing is clear. During the first year, the voices of the 
people of Iraq were never heard. They had no representation, their 
dictator wasn't even an Iraqi, but an American who had no real sense of 
their wants and fears, and certainly no sensitivity to their culture. 
If only we had listened in the beginning and allowed Iraqis, not us, to 
shape their future.
  Their anger was palpable. Americans, if you are here as our guests, 
you are welcome forever. If you are here as occupiers, we will fight 
you to the death.
  When we transferred power to Iraqis in June of 2004 and allowed them 
to establish their own government, they, and we, saw what turned out to 
be 18 months of tangible progress. To their immense credit, in January 
of 2005 they elected a transitional government, wrote their 
constitution, ratified that constitution in an October plebiscite, and 
just 3 months later elected a government under their new constitution.
  The year 2006, however, was another matter. The Samarra bombing 
ignited sectarian violence. It took 4 months just to form the Maliki 
government. And once in power, Prime Minister Maliki, particularly in 
the early stages, lacked the political will to get things done.
  With this small margin of supporters and belief that the government 
needed to be more deliberate and not rush the tough decisions, it has 
been difficult for Iraqis to find common ground based on our timeline 
on when things need to get done.
  But before we become too self-righteous about what Iraqis have done 
or should have done, it cannot be lost on any of us that our 
Constitution was preceded by the Articles of Confederation, and 13 
years, from 1776 to 1789, of blood, sweat and toil. And even then, we 
did not get it perfect. If you were black, you were most likely a slave 
and two-thirds a person. In fact, dialogue about the issue of slavery 
and how to deal with it was such a non-starter, it wasn't even 
discussed.
  As an American history major in college, I truly loved studying about 
our Federalist era. I marvel at how so many great men found themselves 
in one place with such a difficult and monumental task: build a Nation, 
establish a democracy, create a Republic. We are seeing Iraqis faced 
with a similar challenge. The meetings of our Founding Fathers in 
Philadelphia were filled with passion, courage, devotion, great 
intellect, humor, optimism, experience, and most importantly, a 
willingness to take chances, build trust, and compromise for a common 
goal and a greater good.
  There was George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, 
and of course Connecticut's own Roger Sherman, to name a few. Thomas 
Jefferson was absent, but he was not absent when it came to the Bill of 
Rights, demanding its inclusion if Virginia was to be part of the 
Union.
  I haven't identified an Iraqi George Washington, Madison or Franklin, 
nor have I seen in the Iraqi governing council the dynamics found at 
our own Nation's Constitutional Convention.
  The tension between Virginia and New Englanders seems like child's 
play compared to the ethnic gravitation of the Kurds towards autonomy, 
and even more significantly, the sectarian conflict between Shias and 
Sunnis. One thing is clear to me: while Iraqis wrestle with sectarian 
violence, they do not wrestle with their nationality identity. They 
know who they are. They are Iraqis, people of two great rivers, 
descendants of the Fertile Crescent, where, as they tell me, it all 
began.
  So when I ask an Iraqi, Are you Sunni? They reply, Yes, I'm a Sunni, 
but I'm married to a Shia. Or when I ask, Are you a Shia? They often 
respond, I'm a Shia, but my tribe is Sunni, or my son or daughter is 
married to a Sunni.
  In the United States, I am constantly being told Iraq is not a real 
country. But when I'm in Iraq, I am told, We are Iraqis. We are the 
cradle of Western civilization. Your roots come from us. We may be 
Sunni or Shia, but we are all Iraqis. This point was emphasized to me 
by an Iraqi intern who worked in my office during the 2006 summer. He 
told me he never thought or identified himself as a Sunni. He always 
thought of himself as an Iraqi until his family in Baghdad became 
threatened by Shia militia and sought refuge among other Sunnis. This 
is not an irrelevant point.
  When it comes to the creation of a diverse nation, sectarian and 
nationalistic tendencies can break a country apart. It was not at all 
certain our 13 colonies would form a perfect union, but fortunately 
patriotism trumped nationalism, regional and sectarian tendencies 
lurking beneath the surface.
  While Iraqis don't seem to have the optimism or experience to govern, 
they have the passion, humor, intellect, devotion and courage that 
would match the bravest of any of our patriots. As an example, I think 
of Mithal al Alusi, whose meeting with me in my Washington office a few 
years back after his two college-age sons were killed 2 months earlier 
during an attempt on his life. Mithal had attended a conference of 
Muslims, Christians and Jews in Israel, and upon return to Iraq was 
taken off the Supreme National De-Ba'athification Commission and 
stripped of his security. There were already two attempts on his life 
before the third, which killed his only children. The assassins have 
made it clear they will not stop trying to kill him until he is dead.
  So there he was, sitting in my office, a truly marked man, and I said 
to him, Mr. al Alusi, you cannot go home. I will do everything I can to 
enable you to stay in the United States, to which he replied, in true 
disbelief, I can't leave Iraq, my country needs me.
  A year later, I visited Mithal in the so-called government's Green 
Zone, where we found him a place to live so at least in his home he and 
his wife could be safe.

                              {time}  2300

  During this visit, I noticed there were no pictures of any family 
members, so I asked him if he would show me a picture of his two sons. 
He brought out an 8-by-11 color print protected by a thin plastic sheet 
which he told me he keeps in a file because his wife cannot endure the 
sadness and pain of looking at her two precious sons. The picture shows 
Mithal's arms stretched out around both his sons, they are taller than 
he is, with his head leaning on the shoulder of one of them. It was 
such a loving image that it breaks my heart to think of it and know 
that his is not the only Iraqi story of intense devotion, sacrifice and 
loss.
  This great Iraqi patriot, Mithal al Alusi, was elected to the 
parliament later that year. So how is this new government doing? The 
Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, in the early stages of government, reminded me 
of a sixth grade dance where little interaction takes place except for 
a brave few willing to risk some contact. They interact a lot more now, 
but as a fledging democracy, the Shias, who constitute 60 percent of 
the population, understand ``majority rule'' but struggle with the 
concept of ``minority rights.'' This struggle over minority rights is 
the center of their differences. The Shias fear repeating history and 
losing power to the Sunni minority. They believe if this happens, like 
in the past, we will not be there to help them. And Sunnis fear having 
little or no power under an unsympathetic majority. In Iraq, it is easy 
to advocate for majority rule. They get it. The majority rules. But it 
is very difficult to explain and advocate for the power and freedom 
that comes to a nation that protects its minorities and makes sure they 
are not outside the government but an important part of that 
government.
  As I witnessed democracy take root in this ancient land, I will never 
take for granted the essential nature of ``minority rights.'' Minority 
rights is the lubricant that makes the whole system work. Without it, 
democratic governments would come to a grinding halt.
  So we have a people that have spent 4 years and 5 months trying to 
create the perfect union for themselves. With the death of over 3,780 
of our troops and over 12,512 seriously wounded, and the

[[Page H10899]]

expenditures of over $1.5 trillion, we are losing patience with Iraq. 
Americans feel justified, given the sacrifice of our military and the 
expenditure of so much money, to lecture Iraqis how they need to get 
their act together, forgetting they didn't attack us, we attacked them. 
And then, we proceeded to eliminate their security, all their police, 
border patrol and army after Saddam, to add insult to injury, had 
already let out of jail all the criminals throughout Iraq.
  One U.S. politician after another berates the Maliki government and 
the Sunni, Shia and Kurds for their intransigence and failure to work 
out their differences and find common ground. I can't help but wonder, 
who are we to talk? When was the last time Republicans and Democrats, 
House and Senate, White House and Congress, worked together on any 
major piece of legislation facing our country? The Senate, once again, 
has only now begun to pass any of its 11 appropriations bills necessary 
to fund the government. And by the way, the new funding should be done, 
but won't be, by October 1. We can't even agree in this Chamber on what 
to do in Iraq. The irony of that is mind-boggling. We blame Iraqis for 
not agreeing. And we can't agree.
  So what about us? When it comes to Iraq, the former Republican 
Congress was blatantly partisan. The new Democratic Congress has 
returned the favor. And a very opinionated press, rather than 
encouraging Republicans and Democrats, the White House and Congress to 
come together, has picked sides and marshaled the facts to fit their 
own conclusions.
  It is hard to know, I might add, with a press that is accountable to 
absolutely no one, where you can go to get the unadulterated facts. The 
reality is we went into Iraq on a bipartisan basis with two-thirds of 
the House and three-quarters of the Senate supporting the resolution to 
use force. The only way we are going to successfully bring most of our 
troops home is if we come together, find common ground, and compromise.
  But I don't think this is likely to happen in the near future since 
both sides of the aisle seem captive to their so-called party's base. 
The Republican religious right and the Democratic anti-war impeachment 
left leave most Americans wondering, who is speaking for us? In this 
highly intense, politically charged environment, the answer is, 
practically no one.
  The largest number of Americans aren't on the right or the left. The 
bell curve is pretty much in the middle of the political spectrum. In 
the past Presidential election, 42 percent of the American people said 
they were neither red nor blue, Republican nor Democrat, but purple. 
This leaves Republicans and Democrats with just 29 percent support 
each. Why is this relevant? The majority of Americans are not being 
heard or represented.
  The majority of Americans are not being heard or represented.
  The extremes focus on ideology and berate the fact that, according to 
them, the Republicans and Democrats are no different from each other. 
So they keep pushing extreme positions. But the American people are 
still in the middle of the political spectrum. They want solutions, not 
ideology. They want problems solved, not ignored. And they are getting 
neither.
  Our Constitution was created by men who knew the meaning of 
compromise. During their time together, they grew to trust and respect 
each other. In the process, they gave up hardened views. They allowed 
themselves to be drawn to the middle of the political spectrum. In the 
process, they created the United States of America where the people 
rule and have ruled for 218 years.
  The question that confronts all of us today in Congress is, do we 
have this same capacity, like our Founding Fathers, to grow to trust 
and respect each other, give up hardened views and find solutions to 
the plethora of inconvenient truths that confront us? Of this we can be 
certain. Now is not the time for Congress and the White House to do 
nothing. There are so many inconvenient truths we must confront, but we 
won't successfully address any of them until we have honest debate and 
until compromise and coming to the middle becomes something Americans 
value again.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for spending your time with us, and I thank 
the staff for allowing Members to address this Chamber tonight.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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