[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 166 (Tuesday, October 30, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H12209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PRESIDENT BUSH'S SUPPLEMENTAL $200 BILLION REQUEST IS A STEP IN THE 
                            WRONG DIRECTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, October 22, 2007, President 
Bush requested an additional $46 billion for U.S. operations in Iraq 
and Afghanistan. This is on top of the original $150.5 billion 
requested at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2008, bringing the total 
amount requested to $196.4 billion, more than 10 times the original 50 
to $60 billion cost estimated by the White House in 2002.
  A Congressional Budget Office, CBO, estimate that was released on 
October 24 determined that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost 
more than $2.4 trillion, amounting to nearly $8,000 for every American 
through the next decade. Notably, the war in Iraq accounts for about 70 
percent of the $2.4 trillion cost estimate.
  Meanwhile, the administration is satisfied with continuing our 
military operations in Iraq, functioning on borrowed time and largely 
borrowed money. The result is a limited budget to advance our 
priorities at home, like aiding the increasingly unstable real estate 
market and providing adequate health care for our children.
  Mr. Speaker, the war in Iraq continues to be mismanaged. As a senior 
member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I received 
testimony from Secretary Rice on October 25 regarding corruption in 
Iraq, private contractors and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. 
Unfortunately, I must say that I walked away with very few answers.
  There were very few, if any answers at all, for why President Maliki 
issued an executive order to stay the corruption investigation of his 
cousin, the Minister of Transportation.
  There was no answer for why individuals in Secretary Rice's own 
department, such as Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for 
Iraq Reconstruction, have described U.S. anticorruption programs as 
lacking a strategic plan and corruption levels amounting to a 
``secondary insurgency'' that threatens to undermine U.S. and Iraqi 
efforts to build a stable democracy.
  There was no answer for why, according to a recent Government 
Accountability Office report, the United States Embassy in Baghdad, 
``does not have a firm plan or strategy for addressing the next steps 
in the development of the system,'' despite the substantial U.S. 
investment.
  There was no answer for why Secretary Rice has permitted contractors 
in Iraq, such as Blackwater, to escape justice for crimes they have 
allegedly committed, blaming it on simply a hole in the United States 
law, while providing them with the stamp of impunity.
  And finally, Mr. Speaker, Secretary Rice provided us with no answer 
for why, despite the United States spending over $300 million in 
taxpayer dollars during the course of 2 years to improve the capacity 
of Iraq's ministries. And with $255 million more sought for next year, 
progress has been stalled, not only by poor security, but also by 
pervasive corruption, a shortage of competent personnel and sectarian 
and political control of appointments.
  Yet, despite all of these shortcomings, despite State Department's 
lack of ability to forestall corruption in the Iraqi Government, 
despite its mismanagement of paramilitary contractors, and despite the 
President's overall failed policy in Iraq, the President has come to 
Congress once again in the 11th hour requesting billions of dollars 
more in funding for the wars both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, under the presentment clause of the United States 
Constitution, Congress, having the power of the purse, has the 
responsibility to execute fiscal constraint and fully investigate such 
war funding requests, not to act with a rubber stamp, especially when 
the President refuses to provide adequate health care funding for our 
Nation's neediest children.
  Therefore, as we consider the President's war budget request, we must 
listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people and 
challenge President Bush to shift from failed policies in Iraq to a 
strategy that is fundamentally diplomatic and weighs heavily on the 
assistance of the international community. We owe this to over 3,800 
brave soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq to date. We also owe 
this to our hardworking constituents whose tax dollars have in part 
continued to fund the war in Iraq.

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