[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 56 (Wednesday, April 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H2135-H2140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Madam Speaker, and good job on my
name pronunciation. I have a hard time with it too.
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to begin the 30-Something
Working Group's special order hour tonight. Speaker Pelosi has given us
the privilege to come to the floor night after night to talk about the
issues that are important to the American people, from our generation's
perspective. And it is something that we have appreciated for a number
of years because we've had an opportunity to engage the next generation
of Americans, who clearly are yearning for their government to be
responsive to them, to have their confidence in their government
restored.
And tonight what we want to focus on, particularly because General
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came to Capitol Hill this week to talk
about the so-called progress, or lack thereof, which is a better
expression, in the war in Iraq, we felt it was important to highlight
tonight the absolute cost of the war in Iraq and the toll that it is
taking on, not just our military troops, but their families and on
America as a whole.
And I think there is no more telling statement that could be made
than the one that was made by General Petraeus himself in response to
Senator Evan Bayh's question, or comment, that there was much ambiguity
in Iraq. And General Petraeus conceded that point.
General Petraeus stated this week, in fact I believe it was today,
that in Iraq we haven't turned any corners; we haven't seen any lights
at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the
back of the refrigerator, he said, referencing President Bush and
former Vietnam-era General William Westmoreland's famous phrases.
It is clear that we have made virtually no progress, and that the
only things that we are celebrating at this point is that there has
been a reduction in violence. I wonder what that has brought us. What
has that brought Americans?
Well, let's go through what the so-called progress in Iraq that was
described by General Petraeus today and this week, what that's brought
us.
We spend about $339 million in Iraq every single day, Madam Speaker.
$339 million. And I'd like to go through the actual monetary costs of
the war in a little bit. But let me just talk about what $339 million
would get us and the investments that we could make in America,
domestically, in the event that we were not hopelessly mired in this
war in Iraq.
$339 million would get us 2,060 more Border Patrol agents that could
be hired to protect our borders for a year.
18,000 more students could receive Pell Grants to help them attend
college for a year with $339 million.
48,000 homeless veterans could be provided with a place to live for a
year.
317,000 more children could receive every recommended vaccination for
a year.
955,000 families could get help with their energy bills through the
Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, that's the LIHEAP program,
for a year.
Nearly 480,000 women, infants and children could receive nutritional
help with the WIC program for a year.
2.6 million Americans without adequate health insurance could have
access to medical and dental care at community health centers for a
year for $339 million.
More than 100 local communities could make improvements to their
drinking water with help from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for
a year.
I could continue on and on, Madam Speaker, listing all the important
investments that we could and should be making, were we not spending
$339 million in Iraq every day.
Now, let me just make that comparison again. I'm talking $339 million
that we're spending in Iraq every day, and the list I just went through
details what $339 million would buy for a year.
Now, I went home to my district a couple of weeks ago when we went
into recess and talked to my constituents, had a lot of interaction
with them. And you know, what was amazing was how top of mind the
economy is.
We're less than a week from the April 15 tax deadline, and I'm sure
that there are folks out there tonight that are sitting and doing their
taxes while trying to figure out how they're going to write that check
when they're done, and wondering how they're going to take their child
to the doctor if they don't have health insurance, wondering how
they're going to make sure that they can put food on the table and fill
their gas tank, because now that gas is over $3 a gallon, really over
$3.30 a gallon, it boggles the mind of my constituents and I know the
constituents of virtually every Member, no matter what party we
represent, that we are actually still, 5 years later, in Iraq, with an
administration that just doesn't seem to get it; that doesn't seem to
be willing to recognize that it is time to bring our troops home; that
we have taken too great a toll.
The question that my constituents and that Americans are asking is,
how much is too much? At what point do we say the cost is too great?
I think you have to take a look at the toll that this is taking on
military families. If we're not going to say that the investments we
can't make because we're spending so much money in Iraq are worth the
cost, then let's look at what the military leadership is saying about
the toll that this war is taking on our troops.
An Army study of mental health, and this is from an article a couple
of days ago, April 6 in the New York Times, an Army study of mental
health showed that 27 percent of noncommissioned officers, a critically
important group, on their third or fourth tour, exhibited symptoms
commonly referred to as post-traumatic stress disorders. That figure is
far higher than the roughly 12 percent who exhibit those symptoms after
one tour, and the 18\1/2\ percent who develop the disorders after a
second deployment, according to the study which was conducted by the
Army Surgeon General's mental health advisory team.
So we're not talking about organizations conducting studies examining
the mental health of our troops that are outside the military process.
We're talking about military organizations that are saying that the
strain on our troops mentally has really reached a breaking point.
We have combat troops that have been sent to Iraq for a third and
fourth time, where more than one in four, more than one in four, show
signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official
Army survey of soldiers' mental health. There is an increasing alarm
about the mental health of our troops and, at some point, something has
to give.
Again, when do we say enough is enough? When do we say that we have
to make sure that we can focus on the needs here in the United States
of America?
We are struggling with an economy that is at its breaking point. Yet,
the economy in Iraq seems to be thriving. The Iraqi government is
actually dealing with a budget surplus, and we are facing a deficit.
There's something wrong with that picture, Madam Speaker.
Let me just, I really want to turn, I think people should be given a
really clear picture about the monetary cost that we are dealing with
when it comes to this war, this ongoing and continuous war in Iraq.
This is from our nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report,
the Cost of Iraq War Rising. Here's the breakdown of what we're
spending in Iraq per year, per month, per week, per day, per hour, per
minute and per second.
If you take a look at the number per year, the amount per year that
we are
[[Page H2136]]
spending in Iraq, we're spending $123.6 billion per year.
Now, that's a hard number to maybe get your mind around. Billions and
millions of dollars are very big numbers that most people aren't
dealing with every day in their daily life.
So let's go down to the monthly expenditure that we're making here.
That amounts to $10.3 billion.
But if we want to drill down a little bit further and deal with the
weekly and daily expenditures, weekly, we're spending $2,376,923,077.
Per day we're spending almost $339 million, as I described a few
minutes ago.
But hourly, this is really the number, Madam Speaker, that I think
will hit home with virtually all Americans. We are spending, hourly, in
Iraq, and this is, again, third-party validator, the nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service report on the cost of the Iraq war and
its rising cost. Per hour we are spending $14,109,589 in Iraq.
I don't think it's necessary for me to go down to the minute and the
second. I think the point is well made. $14 million an hour. I mean,
that is just unbelievable.
{time} 2100
How many is too much? When do we say that the toll that this is
taking on our troops is just beyond our capacity? Since the start of
the war in Iraq, we have had 4,013 brave American men and women in
uniform that have been killed. We have an estimated almost 30,000
servicemembers that have been wounded in Iraq, and as of March 1, more
than 31,300 have been treated for noncombat injuries and illness.
According, again, to the Army's own mental health advisory team,
soldiers who are on their second, third, and fourth deployments report
low morale, more mental health problems, and more stress-related work
problems.
Now, Madam Speaker, these numbers right here really sent chills down
my spine. An estimated three-quarters of a million troops have been
discharged since the war in Iraq began, many of whom have had
compromised mental and physical health. An estimated 260,000 have been
treated at veterans' health facilities, nearly 100,000 have been
diagnosed as having mental health conditions, and an additional 200,000
have received some level of care from walk-in facilities. That is just
unbelievable.
I can tell you that I have been to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to
visit our wounded troops that have come back from Iraq. I've told this
story during the 30-Something Working Group in the past. I will tell it
again because really, as a mom with young kids, it was so disturbing to
me.
I walked into this young soldier's room to talk to him about his
injury and to talk to him about what he went through, and his wife and
his 6-year-old little boy were in there with him. And I had a nice
chance to chat with the little boy. He was very exuberant and excited.
It was really a lovely conversation. He was so excited. His dad had
just come back from his third tour in Iraq, each of a year. Now
remember, this little boy was 6 years old, and the father was telling
me he had a stress-related mental health injury, and the father was
telling me about how he was supposed to be finished with his tour in
August, was still hoping to go back, by the way, which is amazing
because these troops that represent the United States of America are
just absolutely so committed and so patriotic, and really, I just so
admire their bravery.
But what the little boy said when I had a chance to talk to him, he
said he was so excited, my daddy is coming home after August. And when
he said that, it occurred to me that this little boy being 6 and his
father having been through three 1-year deployments in Iraq, this
father had missed half of his son's life. Half of his son's life. That
just was mind-boggling to me being a mom of 8-year-old twins and a 4-
year-old. I just can't even imagine. I have children close to that age,
and I can't imagine having missed half their life. I mean, that just
takes a toll on families. It takes a toll on marriage.
Madam Speaker, even the time that myself and other parents serving in
Congress here are away from our families, I know the toll that it takes
on my husband when I'm here just working in Washington and not with him
and leaving my kids with him to make sure that he gets them bathed and
gets their dinner and the homework is done and all of the things that
have to be done on a daily basis with families. It takes a toll that I
am here and not with him to help him do that.
Add the stress of your family member being thousands of miles across
the world in a war zone, in a war situation, not knowing whether
they're going to ever come back, the not knowing when they're going to
come back because the military keeps extending these tours of duty,
keeps sending them back, does not give them enough rest in between the
tours of duty. The Army, over the last several years, has extended the
rest, extended the tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, Madam
Speaker, so now we are beyond a year for deployments. And General
Petraeus said we may be able, by the end of the summer to pull back the
length of the deployments from 15 months to 12 months, but we're still
going to be at 140,000 troops once we draw down the amount of the
surge. That means there is no difference, Madam Speaker, between where
we are now and where we were before the start of the surge. How do you
call that progress?
Someone is using a different dictionary than I am if that's progress.
I mean, the dictionary that I use to define ``progress'' says that we
see improvement, that the quality of life improves, that there's a
light at the end of the tunnel, which General Petraeus clearly said we
do not see right now.
I want to just quote, and in the 30-Something Working Group, we try
to use third-party validators. So it is not just our words that we use
to demonstrate the statements that we are making; we try to back up our
words with evidence.
So let me talk about the cost to military families from military
leaders' perspective.
General George Casey said recently on March 26 in the Wall Street
Journal that 15-month-long deployments are impacting on their families,
it's impacting on their mental health. We just can't keep going at the
rate that we're going.
General Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff: Our readiness is
being consumed as fast as we build it. Lengthy and repeated deployments
with insufficient recovery time have placed incredible stress on our
soldiers and our families, testing the resolve of our all-volunteer
force like never before.
Let's go down to what retired Admiral William Fallon, the former
commander of the U.S. Central Command said: I will certainly tell you
that I think our troops are in need of a change in the deployment
cycle. We've had too many, from my experience, of several of our key
segments of the troop population, senior NCOs, mid- to junior officers,
on multiple rotations. He said, I look at my commanders, and some of
them have logged more months in Iraq in the last decade than they have
at home by a significant amount.
Can you imagine? More months in Iraq over the last 10 years than they
have at home. Imagine the cost, the toll that that takes on their
families. Let us go beyond the toll on families.
It is pretty clear that we have had a dramatic increase in the cost
of fuel and the cost of a barrel of oil just during our time in the
last 5 years in the Middle East. We have gone from gas prices being a
little more than $1, about $1.26 or so, to now gas prices being well
over $3.30 and expected this summer to reach $4 or more.
I can tell you that I am a minivan mom, Madam Speaker, and I
regularly drive my kids around our community and car pool with the best
of them. The last time I filled up my tank, which was last week, it
cost $65. Now, the last time I talked about how much it cost me to fill
up my tank, and Mr. Ryan remembers this, I really feel like this is 30-
Something redux. I mean, really. It's deja vu all over again. You could
roll back the tape to 2, 3 years ago when we were talking about the
cost of the war in Iraq and the impact, and we are basically saying the
exact same thing. It is just unbelievable.
But the last time I talked on the floor, spoke on the floor about how
much it cost me to fill up my minivan, it was about $55. And that's
really only been about a year since the last time we talked about the
impact of oil prices. And what the leaders that look and examine this
information have said is that any time we have extended involvement in
the Middle East, you see
[[Page H2137]]
a dramatic rise in oil prices that coincide with that.
The price of gas and the price of oil, in this environment and in
this economy, is just devastating to American families.
So you have extensions of impact and extensions of costs beyond just
the toll that it takes on the troops themselves, the toll that it takes
on their families. There's a toll on America. There's a toll on
society. I mean, it's so disconcerting and it's so disheartening to
listen to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who seem to
just be in utter denial. I mean, they just keep saying the same thing
over and over.
And we've been talking about the cost of this war, and I'm so glad to
be joined by my good friend, Congressman Tim Ryan from the great State
of Ohio who I have shared many an opportunity to speak on the floor
about the things that Americans care about in the 30-Something Working
Group.
It's just shocking that the administration is continuing to expect
more of the same and to have there be more of the same and to expect a
different result. There really is, and I would be happy to yield to the
gentleman.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As we've gone through this debate for years and
years and years, as you said, we've been on the floor talking about
this for a long time; and you start to hear these arguments, the same
ones over and over and over regardless of what the facts are on the
ground.
And the issue, I think, that has become most apparent, and some say
the surge was a success. Some say, well, maybe it wasn't. Some say
there hasn't been any political success. Some say there has been some.
I think this has kind of gotten boiled down to one point. Some people
are saying we need to stay. And you know what? Maybe, maybe if we
accept that argument, maybe they're right. Maybe we should stay. But
they're only going to stay at the expense of the future of this
country. We will bankrupt this country if we continue to stay in Iraq.
And when you look at all of the great powers over time, they get too
extended, too far out, too far out ahead of themselves; and what we are
saying here is there is a reality on the ground that we need to deal
with in order to address the issues that are facing the United States
of America. This is about making sure that we are a strong country. If
we are not a strong country, we are of no good to anybody else.
And the point that we are trying to make and that the Speaker is
trying to make and the Democrats in the Senate are trying to make and
like-minded Republicans are trying to make is that we can't sacrifice
the United States of America for Iraq.
Now, we do bear some responsibility because we went in, but you can't
continue to say that we are going to borrow, because we don't have this
money. We are borrowing it all. $3 trillion is what the projections are
now for the cost for Iraq when you factor in vets coming back and
health care and what not. $3 trillion? We are going to borrow it from
China and Japan and OPEC countries to fund a war that we are not having
any political progress at all?
The sides are not reconciling. They're not moving forward in the
political process. That's a problem.
So, even if you say we need to stay, you need to then be willing to
spend enormous amounts of money, United States dollars, over the course
of the next several decades and, as some people have said, over the
course of the next hundred years.
And what we are trying to say is, we've got problems here at home
that we need to deal with. We've got an energy crisis. We've got a
health care issue that needs to be dealt with. Growing inequality. We
can't afford to spend $3 trillion on this war.
Now, I don't think that's unreasonable because the strength of the
country is at stake, and all we have to do is look around. We don't
have this money. And this isn't just us. Joseph Stiglitz, Noble Peace
Prize economist, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no
such thing as a free war. The Iraq adventure has severely weakened the
U.S. economy whose woes go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can't
spend $3 trillion, yes, $3 trillion, on a failed war abroad and not
feel the pain at home.
This is a political reality that we have to deal with in the United
States of America. And we are making difficult decisions. No one is
saying yank the rug out. We are saying have a responsible, planned exit
in which this country and the soldiers that we have trained and the
close to $1 trillion that we have spent already, that investment, allow
these people to take over their country.
I think there's a little bit of a misperception that there is not
going to be, like we are going to be able to just leave Iraq, whenever
it is, tomorrow or 10 years from now; and if we do it right, that there
is not going to be any conflict, we will just kind of sneak out and
everything will just harmoniously arrange itself.
And I think we need to realize that whether we get out 6 months from
now or a year from now or 8, 10 years from now, there's going to be
conflict. You have got groups of people that have hated each other for
thousands of years. And there is not going to be any real polite
settlement of this dispute.
{time} 2115
And so we need to realize that. And by realizing that, I think it
helps us get to the point where we say, well, maybe we need to just get
out now because this dust-up is going to happen anyway.
And when you look at what happened the other day with the Iraqi
offensive onto this militia group and then a thousand Iraqi soldiers
left and abandoned the mission, would they have left if we weren't
there? That's a question I think we need to ask, would they have left?
But they know we're there. This is part of the problem.
We're creating a welfare state. These people are in a state of
dependency upon the United States, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And if we
continue to be there all the time, we're never going to leave, we're
always going to be here for you. You know, you see all the time, this
is the equivalent of a 35-year-old person still living at home with
their parents. They get into a state of dependency, and they can never
be responsible.
And I understand all the dynamics. I didn't want to go into this war
in the first place, I was against it from the beginning, so we've got
some responsibility to bear. But haven't we made the investment? And we
know at some point they've got to step up and make their own way here.
So I think a lot of us are just saying, let's just do it.
I yield to my friend.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Exactly. A lot of us are saying, it's time,
that it is time to begin the drawdown, to begin to bring our troops
home.
Many of us that believe it is time to begin the troop withdrawal,
we're not talking about precipitous withdrawal. Our friends on the
other side of the aisle like to, you know, they're really excellent at
using strong language and scare tactics. And it's always interesting to
listen to them try to exaggerate beyond all reasonable proportion what
it is we're saying instead of actually listening to what we're saying.
It would be nice if they would also listen to their own constituents
because I have a feeling that they're not hearing anything different
than what we're hearing when we go home, particularly when they are
staring down the following facts:
Nearly 1.7 million U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq and
Afghanistan since September 2001; 1.7 million U.S. troops. That's 1.7
million different individuals. More than 599,000 have been deployed
more than once. More than 782,000 servicemembers, Mr. Ryan, have been
deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan that are parents with one or more
children. Forty percent have been deployed more than once. Nearly
35,000 troops have been separated from their children for four or more
deployments. And Mr. Ryan, I talked a little bit about that 6-year-old
boy that I met when I went to Walter Reed whose dad had missed half his
life. And I also talked about the toll that those separations from
their families take on the parent who is gone, but particularly on the
parent who is home, holding the fort down, making sure that they can
move their children's lives and their lives forward by themselves and
the stress that that brings on a family and on a marriage. The
statistics that we know about say that, according to the Center for
American Progress, 20 percent of marriages of deployed troops are
headed for a divorce right now based on a
[[Page H2138]]
survey done by the Center for American Progress. According to a report,
again by the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team, work-related problems
due to stress, mental health problems and marital separations generally
increase with each subsequent month of the deployment. So the length of
these deployments is taking its toll on families.
An estimated 2,100 troops tried to commit suicide or injure
themselves last year, which is up from 350 in 2002. That's an
astronomical jump. I mean, we've got the facts right under our noses.
When do we say that we care about these troops as people, not as
fighters, not as defenders of America, but as people? And when do we
recognize that there is a limit to their ability to hold down their
lives and to be able to return to a quality of life that they had
before they left? The insensitivity is mind boggling, and the refusal
of this administration to recognize that there is a cost and a toll
that is being taken on these families, on the individual troops, on the
United States of America and on our economy.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentlelady yield?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I don't know if you've had an opportunity to see
the documentary, and I haven't seen the documentary, but I've seen Phil
Donahue talking about the documentary that he did, it's called ``Body
of War.'' And it's basically these soldiers who have come back and the
injuries that they're dealing with, the folks that we see going up to
Walter Reed. And talk about an eye-opening experience when you first go
to Walter Reed and you see these 21, 22-year-old kids without legs,
without arms, severe brain damage, brain trauma, you know, all of the
gruesomeness. But I think Donahue does a good job by bringing this to
life and doing a documentary, Eddie Vetter does some of the music on
it, so it's really a compelling case. But it goes to the point that
we're all talking, you know, we're all talking numbers, 4,013, and
29,628 injured. I mean, these are numbers, but these are families that
have been ripped apart, that will never be the same.
If we have an opportunity and enough facts to stop this thing,
because it's not in the best interest of, obviously, a lot of these
families, but this country, and you look at the human cost, as Ms.
Wasserman Schultz has said, is tremendous. The financial aspect of this
is detrimental to the future of this country. The readiness of our own
troops, the lack of readiness, to be able to address some of these
problems. And this is not something that you have to believe the
Democrats or believe a politician on, this is retired Major General
Punaro, Commission on the National Guard and Reserve, ``we think there
is an appalling gap in readiness for homeland defense because it will
be the Guard and Reserve that have to respond for these things.'' Army
Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody said the Army, ``no longer has fully
combat ready brigades on standby should a threat or conflict occur.''
We're not making this up. In this country, we need to be prepared to
responsibly, prudently, and practically disengage ourselves.
Empower the Iraqis. We've trained them for years. You know, I hate to
always fall back on this example, but it's like when you're getting
ready for a football season or a basketball season or a baseball
season, you go through spring training and then the game is on a
certain day and the coaches are coaching you, at some point you've
taught the team all you can teach them, you've practiced as much as you
can, and you're not fully ready for the game, but you've got to go
play. And the coaches can't go on the field for you. And that's the
situation we're in.
The Iraqis are never going to be perfectly prepared, Ms. Wasserman
Schultz. It's never going to be perfect. There's never going to be a
perfect time where all these people are trained to the tee and we're
going to be able to say, now they're ready. Because you always make
mistakes, you're never trained enough, you're never prepared enough,
especially when you're dealing with all the cultural issues that we're
dealing with.
So what we're arguing is that they're never going to be perfectly
ready. And I think there would have been a better chance the other day
of these thousand soldiers sticking with the mission that they had and
staying there, but they knew the Americans were there, and so it became
convenient to say, I'm out of here, the Americans will take over.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think it's clear, and you're absolutely
right, I think it's clear that the time has come. And this is not just
our opinion, but it's clear that Americans believe that the time has
come to shift our focus to the dire situation that we have with our
economy.
And I can tell you, anecdotally, when I went home to my district
during our recess, I had town hall meeting, and I do at least one town
hall meeting every recess; when I did this last one, I actually, Mr.
Ryan, had to bring Iraq up myself, otherwise the entire focus of the
questions and the comments from my constituents would have been the
economy. I actually had to affirmatively talk about the war in Iraq.
And there was significant responsiveness on the part of my
constituents, who agreed, it is long past time to bring the troops
home. But really, at the top of their mind right now is the economy.
And just to illustrate that point, there was a new poll done recently
by the New York Times, a CBS poll that showed 89 percent of those
surveyed believe the cost of the war has contributed a lot or some to
the United States' economic problems. When they were asked, from what
you know, how much do you think the cost of the war in Iraq has
contributed to the U.S. economic problem, a lot, some, not much, or not
at all, 66 percent of people who responded to this survey said that it
has affected the economy a lot. And add 22 percent more to make 88
percent who believe that it has affected the economy even at all.
Now, this week obviously it was a big deal that General Petraeus and
Ambassador Crocker were coming to testify in front of Congress on the
progress, or lack thereof, that has been made. There were lots of
newspaper headlines with pictures of the general testifying, a plea
from Petraeus in the Washington Post, and ``Petraeus Urges Halt in
Weighing New Cut in Force'' in the New York Times. The Washington
Times, ``Petraeus Warns of Iraq Backslide.'' ``Iraq Troop Levels Left
Open'' in USA Today. But arguably, the newspaper in America that most
closely focuses on the economy and on the financial health of our
Nation is the Wall Street Journal.
This is today's Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ryan. There is absolutely no
headlines, nothing on the front page, any article related to General
Petraeus's testimony. There is a little tiny entry under ``What's
News'' that says ``Petraeus recommended that U.S. troop withdrawals be
halted indefinitely this summer, warning that security gains in Iraq
are fragile.'' I mean, that's the priority that the Wall Street Journal
places on the economy versus the war in Iraq, where every other
article, ``Bush to Expand Help on Mortgages,'' ``Subprime Lenders
Failure Sparks Lawsuit Against Wall Street Banks,'' those are the
things that we should be focusing, like a laser beam, our attention on
because our constituents are suffering.
There are folks that I represent who are having their homes
foreclosed on that in a million years these middle class folks would
never have been in that situation financially if we were not focused
somewhere halfway across the world as opposed to getting our fiscal
house in order here in the United States of America.
And if folks don't believe what we're saying here, let's use the
third-party validators that we always use, Mr. Ryan. I will quote
Robert Reischauer, the former Director of the Congressional Budget
Office, also a respected institution here that is nonpartisan. He said,
contrary to the notion that war spending bolsters the economy, he said
recently that the ``domestic benefits of war spending have been muted
because spending is stimulating economies elsewhere, not the least
being the economies of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.''
I alluded to these numbers earlier, and now I've found them in my
notes, the price of oil and the direct correlation to our involvement
in the Middle East and the skyrocketing cost of oil. The price of oil
has skyrocketed since the Iraq war began. The national average price
per gallon of regular gasoline
[[Page H2139]]
before the start of the Iraq war was $1.73. Today, it's $3.34 cents,
which is an increase of more than 93 percent. And this is predictable.
In March 2003, Sung Won Sohn, then an economist for Wells Fargo Bank,
not exactly a progressive think tank, noted that ``any time there is
conflict in the Middle East, oil prices hit record figures.'' And he
warned that the longer the war lasted, the higher prices would go.
We can't take higher prices for gas than we're facing now. We already
expect this summer for them to go over $4. When is enough going to be
enough?
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, when you look at how many different ways the
Iraq war is like that pressure point that you hit and it has all these
different ramifications all over the country, all over the economy, all
over our society in so many different ways, and this is the one issue
that needs to be addressed if we are going to make any kind of headway
into converting our economy over from manufacturing and basically the
industrial age into a new high-tech economy that everyone benefits from
it.
Now, in Youngstown, Ohio, or in Warren or Akron or Cleveland or the
industrial Midwest or Pittsburgh, Detroit, whatever the case may be, if
the amount of money that was spent already in Iraq, nearly $1 trillion,
was invested into these communities that, for example, have been hurt
by globalization, and the big debate in the Ohio and Texas primary was
NAFTA, NAFTA, NAFTA, and some areas benefited and some areas didn't,
and Texas did this and Ohio did that and whatnot, just think, if all
the communities that were very successful 50 years ago and pumped a lot
of money into this country in steel and rubber and coal and all this
stuff that were hurt by globalization, the investment of $1 trillion
was made into those communities in water lines, sewer lines, roads,
education, community colleges, worker retraining, investments into the
NIH research, investments in alternative energy, figuring out who's
going to make the windmill, figuring out how biodiesel is actually
going to work without having all these different adverse effects,
figuring out who's going to make the solar panels and how we're going
to make these investments, $1 trillion that has been spent in Iraq, and
we have no real signs of success.
{time} 2130
No real signs of success. So this is what we're all factoring in
here: The fact that it's costing us $1 trillion already and projected
to be $3 trillion; the fact that all that money is borrowed; the fact
that our friends on the other side raised the debt limit five times and
borrowed $3 trillion already from Japan, China, and OPEC countries; the
fact that our homeland has suffered because of the Guard and Reserve,
and so we are incapable now of addressing major threats to the United
States; the fact that our army is not at the level it should be, all of
these factor in. The lack of readiness, the money, and then the lost
opportunity.
We are Americans. We think about what can be. We think about the
future. We think about where we want to go, what we want to be, what we
want to do. And we are stuck because we don't have the resources to
make the investments that Americans have always made: canals,
railroads, Internet superhighway, investments in all these research
projects that bounce into the Internet and put men in spaceships and
land them on the moon. That's what Americans do. So let's put ourselves
in a position where we can make these investments so these kids that we
talk about all the time can have a future, have an economy. When you
look at the benefits of NASA and science and technology and math over
the years, how many corporations benefited from all of that, that's
what we're talking about doing. Let's think about the future.
And when you look at this war as missed opportunities with
Afghanistan, national security alone. We have missed opportunities
catching bin Laden, focusing on Afghanistan, focusing on the global war
on terror, these networks. We should have been tripling and quadrupling
our special forces and hiring people who speak Farsi to translate tapes
that we're pulling down from the satellites. All this stuff could have
been done. A missed opportunity. Economically, missed opportunity.
So, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, thank you for coming down to this floor
and claiming our hour tonight, and it's been great to be with you
again. And we're going to keep plugging away here.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We are.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is the pressure point. This is the issue
facing our country, and we are going to keep speaking out on it.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, what I think has been really
interesting is observing the struggle that military leaders underneath
General Petraeus have been going through in trying to be good soldiers
and toe the party line about not being ready to withdraw and for us to
leave those 140,000 troops indefinitely in Iraq, which is the decision
that was clearly made before General Petraeus came to testify this
week. But when they're asked specific questions about the impact on our
troops, the truth comes through in their statements.
General Richard Cody, the Army Vice Chief of Staff: ``Our readiness
is being consumed as fast as we build it . . . lengthy and repeated
deployments with insufficient recovery time have placed incredible
stress on our soldiers and our families.''
And we're not talking about retired commanders or retired military
leaders, who some people might suggest are retired for a reason. We're
talking about the people who are currently fully engaged in our efforts
over there.
Lieutenant General Benjamin Mixon, Commanding General of the U.S.
Army Pacific: ``We are going to have to change our strategy in Iraq to
reduce the numbers of troops and thereby reduce the rotations and
increase the dwell time that we get back here at home.'' That was
January 27.
Lieutenant General Michael Rochelle, Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G1:
`` . . . I should mention that it's clear that the increase in suicide,
as well as other measures that we track very, very closely, are a
reflection of the amount of stress that's on the force.''
And, finally, Brigadier General Michael Linnington, Deputy Commanding
General of the United States Army Infantry Center: ``Money is not the
issue . . . They want an opportunity to catch their breath before
deploying again and to have some control over their futures. They're
tired and their families are tired.''
We have got to reach a point where we focus on the things that we
know we need to focus on, like Afghanistan, for example. We have
shifted. When we went to war in Iraq originally with the stated notion
of pursuing the weapons of mass destruction that supposedly Saddam
Hussein had that he clearly never had, we shifted our attention and our
focus away from Afghanistan, where we clearly were succeeding, where we
clearly had the world community behind us and fully engaged, where we
had the American people's full commitment. And when we did that, when
we shifted our attention away from Afghanistan and focused on Iraq, we
lost tremendous ground in Afghanistan.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen,
said: ``So should we be in a position where more troops are removed
from Iraq, the possibility of sending additional troops to Afghanistan,
where we need them, clearly, certainly it's a possibility. But it's
really going to be based on the availability of troops. We don't have
troops, particularly in Brigade Combat Team size, sitting on the shelf,
ready to go.''
The military is obviously stretched incredibly thin. And when I talk
to constituents and groups of folks, I'll tell you that I represent a
large section of the Jewish community in my State, and I am constantly
being asked by members of the Jewish community leadership, What about
Iran and what if we face an increasing threat from Iran? What are we
going to do then, Debbie?
And my honest answer is, Well, we are spread so thin militarily now
that it would be incredibly difficult for us to continue our efforts in
Iraq, for us to maintain and not lose ground in Afghanistan, and also
pursue the possibility of staving off a significant threat from Iran.
And, again, that's not something that I'm saying. That's something that
is backed up by military leaders.
[[Page H2140]]
I mean it's been 2,399 days, Madam Speaker, since the September 11
attacks, 2,399 days, and Osama bin Laden still remains free. We have
gone backwards in Afghanistan since we left and shifted our focus.
In July of 2007, a de-classified version of a National Intelligence
Estimate on the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland concluded that al
Qaeda in Afghanistan and the border area with Pakistan has regained its
strength over the last few years and has now reached the strength it
had before 9/11.
We have put ourselves in jeopardy. The administration and this
President talks about the war on terror, the supposed war on terror,
and how committed we are to it and how we have to fight terror in every
corner of the world. Well, it is incredibly disturbing that a National
Intelligence Estimate, not a progressive think tank and not the critics
of the administration but our own National Intelligence Estimate on the
terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland, concluded that al Qaeda in
Afghanistan has reached its strength that it had before 9/11. The
Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, testified in
February that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and his government
control just one-third of the country now, Madam Speaker. The remaining
majority is under control of either the Taliban or local tribes.
We have got to make sure that we refocus our energy and our effort on
the priorities of the American people. I know our Democratic
leadership, under the leadership of our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is
focused and determined to move an agenda that is going to improve this
Nation's economy. The economic stimulus package that she was able to
negotiate with Leader Boehner to try to inject some stimulus into this
economy, checks that are going to be coming to Americans very, very
soon, those are the kinds of efforts and energy that we need to be
putting in to deal with the crisis situation that Americans are facing.
Not continue to insist, as the administration does, that they are right
and we are wrong. Not continue to say that we need to keep the same
troop strength that we have where we made absolutely no progress
between now and before the surge. Basically it's almost as if we have
run in place. It's just incredibly frustrating.
So, Madam Speaker, I'm going to end where I began. And that is to
say, the toll that this war has taken on the individual troops who are
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, on their families, on Americans,
where our administration's priorities are not focused on what they
should be, which should be improving our economy and making sure that
we can reduce the deficit and get our fiscal house in order and make
sure that Americans have access to health care and aren't having their
homes foreclosed on and the skyrocketing cost of housing, and the list
just goes on and on. But at the same time, we're taking care of the
needs of the people in Iraq. They have a budget surplus. Their housing
needs are being taken care of. Their children's schooling is being
taken care of. Yet we still have the same 140,000 troops that the
administration has committed to leaving in Iraq, as opposed to trying
to bring these troops home and end this hopeless war that has not made
progress. And at the end of the day, as Mr. Ryan stated, we need to
ensure that the Iraqi troops can stand on their own and that they don't
believe for generations to come that we are going to carry them
throughout history. At some point we have to let them go and stand on
their own, and we have reached that time.
With that, Madam Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity in the 30-
Something Working Group that the Speaker has given us to talk about the
issues that are important to the American people and to our generation
and from our generation's perspectives. We hope that the people who
have heard this presentation tonight will go to the Speaker's Web site
and click on the 30-Something Working Group address. The charts that we
have shown tonight are on that Web site, and they can feel free to e-
mail us and contact us with any questions they have.
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