Congressional Record, Volume 154 Issue 14 (Tuesday, January 29, 2008)

[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 14 (Tuesday, January 29, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H547-H552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

IRAQ ASSESSMENT

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, as we begin to talk about our national
security and our troops and the surge and the success of that and why
our troops choose to defend this great Nation, I want to stop and just
join Mr. Gingrey in congratulating his mother on her 90th birthday.
Certainly, Helen Cecelia Gingrey sounds like the type of woman that
truly takes a leadership role, first of all, in her family and role
models that leadership and how to carry that out in how to encourage
children to dream big dreams and have great adventures in their life
and to desire that.
That is something you learn at a mother's knee. That is something you
see role modeled by parents, and Mr. Speaker, that is something that we
need to keep in mind as we are here on the floor of the House in this
body, as we make decisions about how our Nation moves forward in this
21st century.

[[Page H548]]

We need to remember that there are future generations that are
relying on us to be certain that this Nation stays secure. There are
future generations that are looking to us that go every single day and
say, what will my tomorrow be like? Is my community going to be secure?
What is America going to look like when I am 20, when I'm 30, when I
get ready to retire?
We would do well to be mindful of that every single day as we make
decisions that affect America's families and realize, yes, indeed,
those families are our greatest treasure. Those precious minds of those
precious children are indeed what we are to be protecting and be
certain that they have the ability to dream those big dreams.
So to Dr. Gingrey's mom, Helen Gingrey, happy birthday. We all
congratulate you, and we are so pleased that we live in a free Nation
and we can stand on the floor of this House and celebrate those
birthdays and join your son in wishing you happy birthday and many,
many more.
Mr. Speaker, I recently did return from a trip to Afghanistan and
Iraq to visit with our troops. And tonight I want to spend some time
talking about what has been going on in Iraq and the success that we
have seen there, the success that our troops have brought to bear on
Iraq and on the environment that is there.
Just about 3 weeks ago, we had the 1-year anniversary of the surge,
and everyone had a lot to say about that surge and a lot to say about
how successful they thought it would or would not be. I think, Mr.
Speaker, it's very easy for us to be Monday morning quarterbacks or
armchair quarterbacks and to always have our opinion of how we think
these things are going to work out.
The 101st is in my district in Tennessee. We also have the National
Guardsmen from our State that have been deployed, Reservists who have
been deployed, and we would always say we need to be listening to the
troops that are in the field and the commanders that are there on the
ground.
We saw a change about a year ago. The change was in the form of the
surge. The implementation of that surge was carried out by General
David Petraeus. He was joined by Ambassador Crocker as they moved
forward with the preparations and the implementation of that surge, and
we have seen results.
Over the December and January period of time, we had the opportunity
to visit, and I am pleased to be joined tonight by my colleague from
Texas (Mr. Burgess) who has been on the ground in Iraq several times, I
think six times he has been to visit our troops in Iraq. And he wanted
to join me tonight for a few minutes and talk about what he saw and
give a firsthand account of what he saw.
I'm so pleased that he has chosen to join us because one of the
things our troops mentioned to us on our trip was, We are fighting
every day. We are in a war. And we are winning significant battles
every single day. And we want the American people to know we are
fighting. We are giving it our all, and yes, indeed, we are winning
every day.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think it's important for us to realize that a lot
of times, success comes in odd ways. Progress comes in unexpected ways.
And it is not just on a trajectory where every day is better and better
and better. We take a few steps forward, we take a few steps back. We
take a few more steps forward, we take a little step back. But when you
add it up, you are trending the right direction.
That is certainly what we have seen in the success of the surge. We
have seen every major news outlet declare it a success. The American
people know that it is a success. And our troops are to be commended
for that success. Certainly, the President was right in making that
commendation last night.
As I said a moment ago, Dr. Burgess from Texas who's been to Iraq six
times wants to join us and share his impressions of what he saw on the
ground in Iraq, and I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for
yielding to me.
It is kind of ironic. We were here on the floor of this House last
night. The House was full, Members on both sides. We heard the
President deliver his final State of the Union address, and of course,
as is typical for a State of the Union address, he touched on subjects
near and far, went through the domestic agenda, went through the
foreign agenda.
When he got to talking about the conditions on the ground in Iraq, I
don't know about the gentlelady from Tennessee, but I was just
absolutely struck by the scene in this House when he commended the
troops for the activities and the success that they had achieved on the
ground. One-half of the House stood up and applauded; the other half
sat on their hands.
And Mr. Speaker, I don't know if there's been another time in
American history when America goes to war, sends their sons and
daughters to war, America is winning the war, and it's become something
we don't want to talk about. There's other things that command our
attention now, and we'll go on to other things.
The gentlelady was right, it was a year ago that we stood on the
floor of this House and debated for hour after hour after hour on the
efficacy of sending additional troops to Iraq. We were told by the
majority leader over in the Senate, the Democratic majority leader,
that the war was lost; there was no need to send additional men because
we had already made the decision in the Senate, or the other body in
the Capitol of the United States, that the war was over and the war was
indeed lost.
The gentlelady's right, you can pick data points to prove whatever
you want to prove in Iraq. They're all over the map, but if you look at
trend lines over time, you begin to see a story taking shape, and that
is the story that began to take shape in April of last year, perhaps a
little reinforced in June of last year, July of last year.
My most recent trip to Iraq, my sixth trip, I wasn't sure what I was
going to find because when you picked up the papers, the data points
were scattered all over the place, but little by little, the story came
out. And about a week after I was there in July, the New York Times
finally broke the story, hey, there's a war we just might win going on
in the country of Iraq, written by two individuals who, quite frankly,
aren't always on the side of the President of the United States, so it
seems, in their writings in the New York Times. The New York Times
itself is not always on the same page as the President in a lot of
foreign policy issues, but there it was in black and white for all to
see.

Now, I went to Iraq in July of 2007. I very much wanted to go because
I knew that the surge had started. I knew that General Petraeus had
committed to come back and present data to Congress in September of
2007 to talk about the success, or lack thereof, of the additional
reinforcements that were sent into the country of Iraq. And I knew that
this House, I knew myself as a Member of this House, was going to have
to come to some decisions or some conclusions, if it's working it or
it's not working; if it's not working, we will have to rethink the
strategy.
So it was an important trip for me to take because I knew on every
other trip that I had taken to Iraq what I saw on the ground bore no
resemblance to what I was seeing on my television screens on CNN and
CBS and the evening news and the morning shows. You have to go and look
at it for yourselves to be able to understand what is happening.
You know it's not an easy job. It was a brief war, but it's been a
long hard slog to get to where we are today, and history will have to
decide whether the investment in time, the investment in lives, the
investment in families who are deprived of their loved ones during
these long deployments, history will decide the accuracy of the words
that we speak tonight.
But I will tell you from the strength of that last trip in July and
what I have seen reported since that time, I have to believe that this
country going forward is going to be in far better shape in 10 years',
20 years', 30 years' time because we have an Iraq that has an
opportunity now to be a stable partner in a quest for peace in the
Middle East, as opposed to a haven and an outpost for continued
terrorism in that part of the world.
In July of 2006, I took a trip to Iraq. Peter Chiarelli on that trip
said, you know, it's funny, I don't know want to make of it, but in a
part of the country of Iraq that is very, very dangerous, al

[[Page H549]]

Anbar province, a city called Ramadi, we don't know what to make of it
but some insurgents that were in the hospital yesterday turned over all
of their arms to our soldiers, and we'll just have to wait and see what
develops. In fact, he asked me not to talk about it when I got back in
July of 2006 because, again, he was not sure what that meant.
July of 2007, fast forward to that time. We got off the C-130 in
Baghdad International Airport, get on the helicopters and are
immediately taken to Ramadi. Ramadi, that was too dangerous a place to
travel to a year before, was our first stop. We met General Gaston of
the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force there on the ground in Ramadi.
Ramadi is a city about the size of Ft. Worth. Ft. Worth, Texas, is the
largest city in my district back home. It was the provincial capital of
the resurgent caliphate as established by al Qaeda in western Iraq.
The reality, though, was that things had changed enormously over that
past year and in ways that, quite honestly, had not been reported in
the press back here at home. Again, I didn't know what I was going to
find when I went there, but I have to tell you the job that was done by
the Marines in the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, the job that was
done by the troops on the ground on these long deployments that they
were undertaking, the job was truly phenomenal.
A year before I would not have been able to travel to the city of
Ramadi. Now, not only could I travel to the city of Ramadi, after the
briefing, after the endless Power Point that the military always gives
you when you go over there, we got in vehicles and drove to downtown
Ramadi.

{time} 1945

I've got to tell you, I was a little concerned; General Gaston, are
you sure that it's okay for us to go to downtown Ramadi? Last year,
General Chiarelli said it's kind of dangerous out there. He said,
``Let's go.''
We drove downtown. It was a Saturday morning, early on a Saturday
morning. We drove to the market. It looked like a market any other
place in the Middle East. There was a lot of activity. In fact, there
were the typical sights and sounds of a city that has, perhaps, seen
better days. They were working on some sewer pipes. There was, in fact,
a little bit of construction going on.
But this photograph was taken last July 17th in the city of Ramadi.
This shows the shops. I don't know where all this stuff came from. If
this was an American market, I would assume all this stuff came from
China. I'm not sure where it was made. But all of these wares were for
sale, and there was shop after shop after shop lined up and down either
side of the street.
You can see the faces of the young men there; a little bit of
curiosity, all of these Americans showing up and walking through their
streets. I'm sure for them it was a sight that they had not seen too
often. But again, you see on the faces of these young men, these are
not faces that are suspicious, these are not faces that are fearful,
these are faces that are smiling. They were, in fact, glad to see us.
And I found out a few minutes later why they were glad to see us; they
were hoping that we had a pen or a quarter. They had apparently been
well coached by our marines. Their school was going to start in a few
weeks, and because they would be attending their classes, they were
anxious to know if we had a writing instrument that we might part with
that they could have.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield.
Mr. BURGESS. I'll be happy to yield.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I would like to put that photo back up, if you do not
mind.
Now, I think it is significant that you're talking about Ramadi,
which is in al Anbar Province. And you're talking about a photo that
was made during the summer, July 14, 2007, which is the photo stamp
date that is there on the photo. And if I am picking all of this up, it
looks like tools and implements that are hanging in the ceiling of the
shop, and plastic buckets, rubber buckets, and probably some plastic
hampers that are there. And when I was in Iraq, I noticed that there
was lots of produce that was also being sold in some of the shops.
But one of the things that is of interest to me is the photo that
you're showing indicates to us that we do have import and export that
is taking place, and we do have commerce that is taking place. And so,
as you were on that street in Ramadi, how many shops did you see; do
you remember a number? How many were lining the street? And how far did
you drive from the base into town to begin to see this type of commerce
and the happy kids that are obviously learning how to do a little bit
of retail merchant work there?
I yield back to the gentleman.
Mr. BURGESS. Well, I'll be honest, I don't remember the number of
shops. There were many. Perhaps on the side street that we were on, at
least a dozen on one side, and then a similar number on the other side.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield, a dozen shops in any of
our towns in our districts is a pretty good number of shops. So, we've
got a lot of commerce that is beginning to take place there. And I
yield back.
Mr. BURGESS. And of course I do need to make the point that this was
an area that just a few months before had seen some of the most intense
fighting. And many of the buildings at the front of the street, well,
let's just put it this way, a JDAM doesn't do anything for your drive-
up appeal. And there were several buildings that obviously had suffered
the scars of war. But as you went a little further down the street, you
began to come upon scenes such as this.
And I would simply point out that at the very edge of the photograph
here, and I had forgotten this, we see a brightly colored garment set
that looks like it would be appropriate for a woman to wear. I saw more
women on this trip to Iraq than I can recall seeing at any other trip
where I had been through the country. And it was, to me, reassuring
that the female members of Iraqi society felt comfortable enough to
travel out to the shops on a Saturday morning and be with their
husbands and their children, as you so eloquently point out, as
commerce was breaking out all over on the streets of Ramadi.
Again, I just want to show another picture of some children. These
guys were pretty curious as to what was going on with all of these
strange folks that had shown up and were walking through town. Again,
you can see in the background some additional brightly colored wares
for sale. This fellow turned out to be fairly inquisitive. And he had a
keen interest, again, in writing instruments that I want to assume
that's because his school was starting up in a few weeks' time.
What has been described as ``The Anbar Awakening,'' we heard the
President reference it last night, began in the city of Ramadi where
the Sunnis began to recognize, you know, these guys from al Qaeda;
they're actually not our friends. They refer to the Americans as
occupiers, but maybe it's the al Qaeda guys that are actually the
occupiers. And we do believe that at some point the Americans want to
go home, but we can't say the same for our friends in al Qaeda. And the
Sunni sheiks, the tribal leaders in the towns, rapidly turned it. And
to hear it be described by our marines and our soldiers there, it
literally turned on a few weeks' time, some rather intense fighting as
the surge began to mount its full reinforcement, and then suddenly
things changed dramatically for the better.
And for me, on this trip, the one thing that I saw that was different
from any other trip that I had taken over there on the ground, now, we
can criticize the Baghdad government, and both sides of the aisle I
know will do that with regularity, I may do so before this night is
over, but the local political shift that's taking place on the ground
in Iraq, the county commissioners, the city councilmen, the mayors that
are doing the kinds of work that you want your local government to do,
you know, quite honestly, I go home every weekend and the people are
happy to see me. But if there's a problem at home, most of the time
they're not going to call their Congressman; they'll call their mayor,
they'll call their county commissioner, or they'll call their county
administrator or their county judge because those are the folks that
are closest to the people, and it's up to them to deliver for their
constituents, the same conditions we have here in our districts back
home.

[[Page H550]]

The local political shift really is what, to me, is the fundamental
building block of the return of civil society, a civil society that had
been so badly damaged under the years of Saddam, a civil society that
has been so badly damaged by the war and then the insurgency that
followed is now beginning to take hold. And it is very effective.
Now, the question remains, will the central government in Baghdad
respond to the needs of those local officials with enough dispatch that
they are, in fact, bolstered and supported by the central government in
Baghdad? It is sometimes startling to me to think that a government so
young can already have such an entrenched bureaucracy that is slow to
act. But nevertheless, we hear some stories coming out that there is
more and more of this type of activity occurring. But again, the
stability at the local level was something that I don't think I can
tell you that I had witnessed on any of the five previous trips through
that country. All of those trips more dealt with the security that our
forces were establishing. Now we see the security that is actually
being established by the Iraqis themselves.
They had a job fair, I understand, in this part of town about a week
before and hired everything that showed up. And there were a lot of
people that came. The jobs were fairly labor intensive. Again, there
had been a lot of bombing in the city. There was a lot of concrete
littering the street that had to be picked up. The reinforcing steel
that was embedded in the concrete had to be broken out or dissected
out. There were several groups of men that were straightening out this
rebar to use as reconstruction projects. But again, the work was going
on. And the mood, this was July in western Iraq, it's 10 o'clock in the
morning and probably already 125 degrees, but the mood of the people
was truly something that I will always remember because they were doing
for themselves the types of things that free people want to do for
themselves. And it was a wonderful feeling. And you know the soldiers
could feel it, too, when they walk through these towns.
The ability to give to these young men a life ahead of them that they
wouldn't have had, they would have been conscripted into Saddam's army
and fought a war at someplace or other; they now have a life ahead of
them that really, quite honestly, their parents dared not hope for them
and now it is brought to them courtesy of the United States Marines,
United States Army.
I yield back to the gentlelady from Tennessee, and I want to thank
her for allowing me to participate in the discussion this evening.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman for yielding back the time. And
I am so pleased to see these pictures. And I appreciate so much his
participation in this, and the conversation about the establishment of
commerce and how he witnessed this firsthand with shops that were open.
As he said, one little side street where they went there were about 12
shops that were on that. And indeed, these are more like stalls that we
would have at one of our swap meets or flea markets. But as you can
see, they're full of kids that are happy, that are playing, that are
enjoying being around the normalcy of a life. They are full of commerce
and goods, items that are coming in for sale. We even saw soft drinks,
Coca-Cola. In Afghanistan, we saw cell phones that were being sold. So,
in this region of the world, the commerce that is there on the ground.
And in talking about Iraq, the gentleman mentioned the local
stability. And indeed, that was something we had the opportunity to
witness, also, and we're pleased to see that. We had a visit to Urbil
in Kurdistan, had the opportunity to go to the home of the Prime
Minister of Kurdistan. We drove to that home. Mr. Speaker, I want to be
certain that everyone realizes what I just said. We drove to the home
of the Prime Minister of Kurdistan for lunch and joined him where he
thanked us profusely for all that the U.S. Armed Forces have done for
that region, not only in the past few years, but for the decade prior.
While we were in Iraq, we had the opportunity to go to the home of
Deputy Prime Minister Barzani, to his home in the Green Zone to meet
with him. And I will tell you, we visited with him about how hopeful we
had experienced the mood of the people. There is a sense of hope that
things are getting better, that there is a return to normalcy in their
everyday life, and how encouraging to us it was to witness this
hopefulness.
His comment to us was, we know that sometimes people get frustrated
with us, but do not give up this mission. Do not give up on this
mission because things are trending the right direction. Indeed, Mr.
Speaker, it's all important components in winning, in having Iraq be a
nation that can function with some predictability, stability and self-
governance.
It is also important because, as we look at defeating terrorists who
want to defeat us, it is important that we win the war of ideas. And
the photos that Dr. Burgess shared with us, the young men in those
photos, we have to win the war of ideas with them to reach them, to
make certain that over the next decade, as they begin an adult life,
that they make a choice to live in freedom rather than choosing a life
under a dictator.
Indeed, our job is also to make certain that our troops have what
they need to do their job. And that is a responsibility of this House,
as the President said last night. And certainly, as we are in the midst
of a swing, a dramatic swing, if you will, in the momentum in Iraq,
especially on the security situation, it is imperative that we pay
close attention to meeting the needs of those troops.
Now, quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you, I do not think it
is helpful to this situation that we debated over 30 different
resolutions about Iraq and timelines and withdrawals and trying to
micromanage what is taking place on the ground because there has been a
swing and a shift. We have transitioned from 2.5 years of increases in
violence with more than 24 weeks of a steady decline.
Now, Dr. Burgess mentioned, when we go to Iraq, and I want to clarify
one thing here before I move on, this week I had the opportunity to
visit with the Tennessee Marine Family Association, and what a
wonderful, wonderful group of moms and dads and brothers and sisters
and marines who have retired from active duty. And I enjoyed my time
with them tremendously. And one of them said, you know, tell me, when
you go to Iraq, why do you go? And are you taking the troops' time away
from work in the field? And I said no, we go because we are asked to
go, especially those of us that have posts. As I've said, Fort
Campbell, the 101st is in my district, and they invite us and ask us to
come and see how they are carrying out their mission and experience
that firsthand with them.

{time} 2000

But as Dr. Burgess said, when we make those trips, we have the power
points and we have the briefings from the commanders on the ground and
we have the opportunity while we are there to hold a town hall meeting,
if you will, with our troops that are deployed and are carrying out
this mission. So I have put some of that endless power point onto some
charts that I would like to share with those who are watching us this
evening.
The first chart that I'm going to show you is one that comes from our
commanders there in Iraq, and it shows their assessment of al Qaeda
Iraq. And many times people will see AQI, that is, the abbreviation for
al Qaeda Iraq, and where they were when the surge began last year. And
you can see the dark red areas. It shows where they were operating, and
the pink areas show what were their transit routes. And you can see how
in the city of Baghdad where they were operating, and then as you look
at the country you can see where they were transiting in and out of the
country and then where they were holding their primary areas of
operation. Again, the pink shading is their transit areas, and the red
is where they were operational and where they were working. And the
inset is Baghdad and what we saw in Baghdad and how that looked before
the surge began.
Now I want to move to the second chart and show you what this looks
like today. This is what Iraq looks like today. And, again, this is not
my chart. This is a chart from our commanders on the ground in Iraq.
This is their assessment.

[[Page H551]]

So, Mr. Speaker, to the American people that are watching this
tonight, I will simply say this is the chart that is your commanders'
assessment of where al Qaeda is as of December 2007. And, of course, al
Qaeda is still a threat. Of course, they are still there. But as you
can see, by looking at the pink areas and the red areas, this has been
diminished. They have been pushed out of the urban centers, look at the
inset, with Baghdad. You can see where they have been squeezed down and
where they have been moved to and how much smaller their area of
operation is and how much smaller their transit area is. They know that
the Iraqi people, the Iraqi forces, and the U.S. Armed Forces and our
coalition forces mean business on this.
Look at the map of the entire country. When you can see their egress,
ingress with the surrounding countries, and then see the pockets where
al Qaeda Iraq is still operational. So they have been pushed out of
many of the urban areas, and they have been moved over into some of the
isolated rural areas.
I want to touch base too on our troops' contribution to this because
it has been significant. Our U.S. Armed Forces and the 30,000 that went
in for the surge made a marked difference. And I think there is, of
course, the physical strength that our troops brought to this, the
firepower, if you will, and the training and the strength and the
determination. There are no better forces on the face of the Earth than
the U.S. military. And we also have to recognize the Iraqis and the
force that they brought to bear on this.
When we talk about the surge, sometimes many of us think only in
terms of the 30,000 of our troops that have led the way in this fight.
What we have to realize also is that we have 110,000 Iraqi troops that
have lent their power to this effort, 110,000. They were joined in this
effort by 70,000 local citizens.
Dr. Burgess mentioned earlier the local stability, and there is a
reason for that. You had 70,000 Iraqi citizens that basically banded
together in what we would call a ``neighborhood watch,'' and they
decided to take things into their own hands and to take responsibility.
And in many of these areas in the surge the Iraqi troops would lead.
They were coached. They were trained. They were supported in so many
ways by our U.S. military and by our coalition forces. And the local
Iraqi citizen groups would work with those military forces, those
combined forces. So together you had 180,000 Iraqis working with our
30,000 U.S. troops that have made this surge successful and have
changed that map so that it looks today like it does, with al Qaeda
being moved into some isolated areas and with more of the country being
able to function with a sense of normalcy.
Now, we've already talked a little bit about al Anbar province and
the success that was there because that is where al Qaeda Iraq had
planted its flag. It was the capital of the caliphate, and that is
where they were going to put down roots, if you will. What we saw
happen in al Anbar province during the surge, I think, is just nothing
short of remarkable, and the photos that you've just seen from the
streets of Ramadi and the commerce that was taking place and the
difference that the surge has made there. Basically, the citizens of
Ramadi and al Anbar province said we are sick and tired of this. We do
not want al Qaeda Iraq to be running the show in our town. So they
joined with the Iraqi troops and the U.S. troops, and they literally
threw al Qaeda out.
So many of the experts tell us that this is the first place that the
Arab people have stood up to their own and have rejected, openly
rejected, al Qaeda and have defeated al Qaeda. And I think that that is
significant. And, Mr. Speaker, I believe and I certainly am hopeful in
believing that we are going to see other areas follow the lead that al
Anbar has set.
Now, we have seen some other effects of that team effort over the
past year, and I want to move on to a couple of other charts. Now, this
is the overall attack trends, Iraq attack trends; and it shows you what
has happened, if you look from December 2006, and where your attacks
were in December 2006, with over 5,000, and then you go up into April
and May where they reach their height, and then you can see where they
have dropped down, less than half, and the reduction that is there. It
is actually down about 60 percent by the time you get to December 2007.
That is the difference that the surge has made. From December 2006,
where you're up above 5,000 attacks and then coming down where you have
seen that number drop by about 60 percent. That's the difference that
the surge has made in the overall attacks.
Well, let's look at the IED explosions. This is something that our
constituents always ask us about because they hear so much about the
explosive devices and the way these IEDs and these IED systems are
developed and set up and the way those explosions are carried out.
You can see, if you go in here and you look at December 2006, where
they are. They move up in June to a high of about 1,700, and then take
a look over here, about 700 in December. And there you go from
beginning to the end of surge, the year of the surge, and what you have
seen. It is almost as if you have al Qaeda jumping in here and saying
we're not going to let them get the best of us. They give it a shot,
and then in June look how every single month you're dropping. And
that's the difference that a year of the surge has made.
Let's move on to another figure on this chart, the killed-in-action
figure. And as we look at this chart and we see the dramatic drop that
is here, Mr. Speaker, we feel so deeply for the families that have
experienced a loss, and at Fort Campbell we have seen some losses
recently, and we just continue to hold those families close. And we are
grateful, so grateful, to them for their service, for their sacrifice,
and we grieve with them in those losses. And we know that over the
course of the year we have seen a dramatic decrease in those losses.
Now, chart number six, the Iraqi civilian deaths attributed to
violence, these have dropped significantly. And you can see in December
2006, where we were at about 3,000 and then where we are way down, well
under 1,000 by the time we get to December 2007. So this shows us how
security is improving. Ethnosectarian violence has dropped by about 85
percent. All of these are the right type trend. And it shows how things
are moving a little bit at a time, moving in the right direction.
We know there are no guarantees. This is tough. Our military men and
women know that they are fighting and winning every day. But, Mr.
Speaker, I will tell you they do know that they are seeing some
successes, that security is improving, and that they are seeing some
success with economic issues. And I want to give you just a couple of
examples of these.
I had made a comment as we were leaving Baghdad the other night, and
it was in the evening; so you could see the lights in Baghdad. I had
been going in and out to visit our troops since 2003, and for the first
time it really looked like a city. You could see the lights on all over
the city and cars driving on the streets. You could see outdoor
restaurants. You could see colorful awnings. You could see fruit stands
and market areas. And it really was beginning to look like a city. And
I did a little checking to see what kind of success stories we could
find with the work that USAID and some of our organizations are
providing to the area to see that commerce stand up and that sense of
normalcy return. So let me tell you a quick little story, Mr. Speaker,
and I think this is great.
We love success stories. We love it when we have someone who by their
bootstraps pulls themselves up and realizes a wonderful dream of having
a business or building a company. We as Americans love that
entrepreneurial spirit. And I loved this story of Amhed who is in the
Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad, and he was able to get a $2,500
microgrant. Now, I know many of our constituents may have been reading
in the paper about some of the microgrants and the microbusinesses that
are going into Iraq and other countries also to help entrepreneurs
start these businesses.
Well, Amhed used his grant to buy chest freezer shelves and an awning
to open a store. And the store is now self-sufficient. It is supporting
him and his family. He now is a merchant with his store, his produce
store, on a corner there in the Mansour neighborhood in Baghdad. And it
came about because there was a grant that helped him to get that store
in place.

[[Page H552]]

Now, this is important, Mr. Speaker, because you wouldn't go take out
a loan and you wouldn't be approved for that loan if there was not the
ability to put things in place and begin to see some success in that
neighborhood.

{time} 2015

Well, we also have another one, a juice merchant, that used a USAID
microfinance grant and opened a juice factory in Baghdad. There's lots
of pomegranate juice and orange juice and the different juices they are
beginning to manufacture and bottle and sell. This juice factory in
Baghdad, with a microfinance grant from our USAID, has created 24 full-
time jobs in Baghdad. That one little grant. And that gentleman is now
making that juice. Of course, I said, well, I hope that Ahmed is one of
the customers of the juice factory and selling that juice in his store
on the corner, his produce store on the corner.
Now, I know that there are some who want to say that the security
improvements aren't meaningful because we are not seeing enough
political progress in Iraq. I will tell you that, and I think we all
agree, that that political progress has not moved forward as quickly as
we would like to. But we were reminded last week as we visited with
Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus that the Washington clock and
the Baghdad clock move at different speeds. You know, I guess that as
impatient as many times as we are, we do have to realize this is a
country that was under a dictator, a very brutal dictator for over
three decades.
We are beginning to see some very encouraging signs of political
progress, and I think this year is going to be a year when we see some
more of that. Just over a week ago, the Iraqi Parliament did pass what
was for them a very difficult law. They have taken a long time to look
at de-Ba'athification reform, and that was passed. It has been
difficult for them to address that central question of how the Iraqi
people are going to deal with their past and with the legacy of Saddam
Hussein.
The law has gone through their parliament, and it has passed. It was
passed with Shiite sponsorship, which is significant. We have also seen
some key Sunni political blocks return to parliament, to return to
their work to be a part of the process.
Those are very encouraging steps. They are steps in the right
direction. Certainly, the success of the surge has allowed the ability
for this to take place. We have also seen the Iraqi Government has
developed and is working on an ambitious budget. We are certainly
hoping that they are going to do the same thing as they work through
this current year. We have seen some encouraging signs of critical
power sharing arrangements within the Iraqi Government. Their Prime
Minister, Nouri Maliki, is apparently more willing to share power with
the three-person presidency council, which represents each of the major
sects in Iraq. So that is another sign that is very encouraging to us.
Anybody who is a serious and objective observer can say that the
surge has worked. They admit that. We know that we are going to face
more debate in the coming year over the length and nature and the size
of our mission in Iraq. I would encourage all of my colleagues to take
the success of the surge to heart and to be certain that they are not
trying to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory, but that they are
being fair to our troops, that they are recognizing the success that
these troops have given us in the surge, and that they are taking time
to commend and thank the troops and the commanders that are on the
ground.
I think it's fair to say, Mr. Speaker, that we all, I know I
certainly appreciate those troops and their families, and I appreciate
having the opportunity to support them and to let them know how much I
appreciate having that opportunity to support them and also to honor
them and to honor their families. My hope is that as we go through 2008
and as we look at our legislative agenda, Mr. Speaker, I hope that the
work of this body will honor those men and women who honor us every
single day, who honor the legacy of freedom every single day by the way
that they choose to carry out their job and by the way they choose to
represent this great Nation.

____________________