[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 19, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H1571-H1572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, although I rise to honor the 10th 
anniversary of the Iraq war, what I really want to do today is ask: 
Why? Ten years ago, I stood on this floor and said we were entering a 
war under false pretenses. No weapons of mass destruction later, I have 
never been so sad as to be right.
  We took out Saddam Hussein with as much forethought as we gave to 
arming him just a few years earlier. We scooped him out of office and 
thought a new democracy would suddenly flower in its place.

[[Page H1572]]

  Last week, Robert Dreyfuss wrote an article in The Nation that I 
would like to enter into the Congressional Record. He explains that the 
CIA is currently training Syrian rebels, some of whom have Sunni 
fundamentalist ties, at the same time that it is fighting Sunni rebels 
in Iraq. Recently, dozens of Syrian soldiers fled to Iraq, only to be 
killed by Iraqi Sunnis. He asked the question:

       When will the United States learn that it doesn't know 
     enough about the Middle East to go charging in there, 
     seemingly without a clue about what it all means?

  So here we are: 10 years of neoconservative hawks preaching that we 
can franchise American democracy and freedom; 10 years of quicksand 
diplomacy; 10 years of wrong answers, and we still don't know the 
question.
  What has been the cost of all of this? And I don't mean financially. 
Because, yes, we've spent probably a trillion or more on this war, or 
will. Yes, as we speak, we are cutting food assistance to kids in this 
country and funding for R&D that would drive our economy. But we can't 
appropriate a sum of money to fix the real cost of Iraq. We can't pay 
back the lives of 4,486 American men and women who have died there, or 
the roughly 2,000 broken soldiers who came home and took their own 
lives.
  The wounded--physically and mentally. The soldiers who didn't know 
how not to be a soldier. The families living with a hole in their 
hearts, and the families living with someone they no longer recognize. 
Ten years of young men and women leaving their families, living in 
hell, and coming home to unemployment and to homelessness. To a country 
that has forgotten it's at war at all. To a country that seems to think 
a yellow ribbon magnet on their bumper is the only kind of support that 
our troops need.
  And the cost in Iraq? Untold deaths. Let me rephrase that: unknown 
deaths. We can only guess at the destruction that we have left in our 
wake: 115,000 Iraqis? 600,000? You can find a number. What was the 
long-term impact of that on their environment, water, and health. What 
happens when someone lives in constant fear of becoming collateral 
damage?
  Today, Iraq is a sad shadow of a society that once boasted the best 
infrastructure in the region. Instability and violence fester on this 
very day, and now it teeters on the brink of an inevitable civil war.
  This is the legacy of our last 10 years, and I still don't understand 
why. I hope this anniversary will remind us that a whole new generation 
of veterans are waiting to help reintegrate into civilian life. I 
believe it's time to elevate our level of commitment to these veterans.
  I am introducing a bill to create a commission on veterans care to 
investigate what we as a society can do to help our men and women come 
home. I hope it will remind us that no lives, regardless of 
nationality, should be taken lightly. I hope it will remind us as to 
why the next time. And I hope it won't take another war to get that 
answer.

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