[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.

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