[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 45 (Tuesday, March 23, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H2244]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           LEARNING THE SMART LESSON FROM THE IRAQ ELECTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, as the drama was building towards this 
body's passage of health care reform this week, many of us may have 
forgotten that Friday was the seventh anniversary of the invasion of 
Iraq. It has been 7 years since we were assured that Americans would be 
greeted as liberators from the moment they touched down in Baghdad; 7 
years since we were told democracy in Iraq would blossom naturally, 
like spring flowers; and 7 years later, with more than 4,300 Americans 
having been killed and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars wasted. 
The truth remains: the simple act of self-governance is still a life-
threatening proposition in Iraq.
  To be sure, in the recent parliamentary elections many Iraqis once 
again showed enormous courage by going to the polls amidst violence and 
unrest. The problem is that it is hard to call a democratic election a 
success when citizens are taking their lives into their hands just to 
exercise their most basic democratic right.
  Despite the resolve of so many Iraqi citizens, the fact is that voter 
turnout declined from the last national election in the year 2005.
  The New York Times described the atmosphere as one of a country under 
siege, noting that, and I quote, ``Iraqis prepared for the election the 
way that Americans do when battening down for a hurricane.'' Not 
exactly the festival of civic pride we normally associate with an 
election day.
  As it is, even before Iraqis voted, this election was marred by 
chaos, disputed candidacies, corruption, arrests, even assassinations. 
Jon Stewart on the ``Comedy Channel'' joked that to call this election 
a success with just a ``few'' candidates assassinated is setting the 
bar pretty low.
  What is really unsettling, Madam Speaker, is that there was a pretty 
aggressive propaganda campaign to convince us here in the United States 
that election-related violence wasn't really all that bad. In public, 
top military brass told us not to worry our ``pretty little heads,'' 
that there were hardly any incidents at all. They dismissed journalists 
who had witnessed the carnage.
  But then someone leaked to the news media the real story, the 
military's internal numbers: 37 people killed as part of 136 attacks in 
conjunction with the elections.

  And the disputed outcome of the elections could mean that the worst 
is yet to come. With no clear winner, and with accusations of fraud and 
vote-rigging being thrown around, we could see an aggravation of ethnic 
rifts in Iraq, some of the worst sectarian violence in Iraq to come 
since the inconclusive 2005 elections.
  Complicating matters is the electoral strength shown by the followers 
of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, because the Sadrists despise the 
American occupation, have a history of violent nationalism, and enjoy 
ties to Iran.
  I can't help but wonder if we had implemented the principles of what 
I call ``SMART security'' a long time ago, maybe it wouldn't be so 
dangerous just to cast a ballot in Iraq. If we had deployed fewer 
soldiers and more democracy-building experts; if we had fired fewer 
guns and had emphasized greater diplomacy and reconciliation, then 
maybe Iraq could have a genuinely peaceful and successful election.
  We cannot learn the wrong lesson from the violence surrounding the 
Iraqi election. We cannot delay the planned redeployment of our combat 
troops out of Iraq.

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