[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 89 (Thursday, June 4, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H3906-H3909]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TIME FOR CONGRESS TO AUTHORIZE WAR IN IRAQ AND SYRIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today, along with my colleagues Walter 
Jones of North Carolina and Barbara Lee of California, I introduced 
House Concurrent Resolution 55 in order to force this House and this 
Congress to debate on whether U.S. troops should withdraw from Iraq and 
Syria. We introduced this resolution under the provisions of section 
5(c) of the War Powers Resolution.
  As all of my House colleagues know, last year, the President 
authorized airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on 
August 7. For over 10 months, the United States has been engaged in 
hostilities in Iraq and Syria without debating an authorization for 
this war.
  On February 11 this year, nearly 4 months ago, the President sent to 
Congress the text for an Authorization for Use of Military Force, or an 
AUMF, on combating the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere, yet 
Congress has failed to act on that AUMF, or bring an alternative to the 
House floor, even though we continue to authorize and appropriate the 
money required for sustained military operations in those countries.
  Frankly speaking, Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. This House 
appears to have no problem sending our uniformed men and women into 
harm's way. It appears to have no problem spending billions of dollars 
for the arms, equipment, and air power to carry out these wars. But it 
just can't bring itself to step up to the plate and take responsibility 
for these wars.
  Our servicemen and servicewomen are brave and dedicated. Congress, 
however, is the poster child for cowardice. The leadership of this 
House whines and complains from the sidelines, and all the while it 
shirks its constitutional duties to bring an AUMF to the floor of this 
House, debate it, and vote on it.
  Our resolution, which will come before this House for consideration 
in 15 calendar days, requires the President to withdraw U.S. troops 
from Iraq and Syria within 30 days or no later than the end of this 
year, December 31, 2015. If this House approves this resolution, 
Congress would still have 6 months in which to do the right thing and 
bring an AUMF before the House and the Senate for debate and for 
action. Either Congress needs to live up to its responsibilities and 
authorize this war,

[[Page H3907]]

or by its continuing neglect and indifference, our troops should be 
withdrawn and come home. It is that simple.
  I am deeply, I am deeply troubled by our policy in Iraq and Syria. I 
do not believe it is a clearly defined mission with a beginning, a 
middle, and an end, but rather just more of the same. I am not 
convinced that by enlarging our military footprint, that we will 
somehow end the violence in the region, defeat the Islamic State, or 
address the underlying causes of the unrest. It is a complicated 
situation that requires a complicated and more imaginative response.
  I am also concerned by recent statements by the administration about 
how long we will be engaged in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere fighting the 
Islamic State. Just yesterday, on June 3, General John Allen, the U.S. 
envoy for the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIL, said that this fight 
may take ``a generation or more.'' He was speaking in Doha, Qatar, at 
the U.S.-Islamic World Forum.
  Mr. Speaker, I will insert for the Record a Times of Israel article 
entitled, ``Islamic State Fight May Take `Generation or More'--US 
Envoy.''

                [From the Times of Israel, June 3, 2015]

      Islamic State Fight May Take `Generation or More'--US Envoy

  As key Iraqi province falls to Islamic State, Gen. John Allen says 
        failure to defeat group would `wreak havoc' on humanity

       The Islamic State group is a ``global threat'' which will 
     take a generation or more to defeat, Washington's envoy for 
     the US-led coalition fighting the jihadists said Wednesday.
       Despite ``strategic momentum'' against IS--'' or Daesh as 
     he called it--General John Allen conceded that the fight 
     would continue for several years in a keynote speech to the 
     US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar.
       And he added that if IS was not defeated it could ``wreak 
     havoc on the progress of humanity.''
       ``This will be a long campaign,'' he said.
       ``Defeating Daesh's ideology will likely take a generation 
     or more. But we can and we must rise to this challenge. In an 
     age when we are more interconnected that at any other time in 
     human history, Daesh is a global threat.''
       In a wide-ranging speech, Allen added that IS also poses a 
     new type of threat because of its ``depravity.''
       ``As someone who has spent nearly four decades as a United 
     States marine, I have come closer than many to the reality of 
     inhumanity.
       ``But I have never seen before the kinds of depravity and 
     brutality in this region that ISIL represents and, in fact, 
     that ISIL celebrates,'' he added, using an alternative 
     acronym for IS.
       Allen was speaking the day after attending talks in Paris 
     with ministers from around 20 coalition countries.
       The meeting followed the fall of the city of Ramadi, the 
     capital of Iraq's largest province Anbar, to IS. That loss 
     has been described as the worst defeat for the coalition 
     since it formed nearly a year ago.
       US Pentagon chief Ashton Carter blamed Iraqi forces, saying 
     there was ``an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight,'' 
     in comments that angered Baghdad.
       Iraq on Tuesday pleaded for more global support in the 
     fight against IS.
       The loss of Ramadi in Iraq plus the ancient city of Palmyra 
     in Syria has led some to question the effectiveness of the 
     US-led coalition in recent weeks.
       Allen said the coalition had achieved some gains against 
     the extremists.
       He noted that IS had been defeated in many places in Iraq 
     and that it has ``lost over 25 percent'' of the populated 
     territory it once held in the country.
       Another area of coalition success, Allen claimed, was its 
     ability to disrupt the group's access to finance.
       ``We are sharing information to block their assets to the 
     global financial system. We are uncovering their points of 
     access in the region and abroad for financial support,'' he 
     said.
       He said the coalition had gained valuable intelligence on 
     the organisation's financial enterprises, but admitted that 
     ``Daesh still maintains financial resources''.
       These included extortion, looting, kidnapping for ransom, 
     and human trafficking, said Allen.

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, if we are going to invest a generation or 
more of our blood and our treasure in this war, then shouldn't Congress 
at least debate whether or not to authorize it?
  According to the National Priorities Project, based in Northampton, 
Massachusetts, which is in my congressional district, every single hour 
the taxpayers of the United States are paying $3.42 million for 
military actions against the Islamic State--$3.42 million every hour, 
Mr. Speaker.
  This is on top of the hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on 
the first war in Iraq. And nearly every single penny of this war chest 
was borrowed money, put on the national credit card, provided as so-
called emergency funds that don't have to be accounted for or subject 
to budget caps like all other funds.
  Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that we always seem to have plenty of money 
or the will to borrow all the money it takes to carry out wars? But 
somehow, we never have any money to invest in our schools, our highways 
and water systems, or our children, families, and communities? Every 
day, every single day, this Congress is forced to make tough, serious, 
painful decisions to deprive our domestic economy and priorities of the 
resources they need to succeed. But somehow, there is always money for 
more wars.
  Well, if we are going to continue to spend billions on war, and if we 
are going to continue to tell our Armed Forces that we expect them to 
fight and die in these wars, then it seems to me the least we can do is 
stand up and vote to authorize these wars, or we should end them. We 
owe that to the American people. We owe that to our troops and their 
families. And we owe that to the oath of office that each of us took to 
uphold the Constitution of the United States.
  I want to be clear, Mr. Speaker: I can no longer criticize the 
President, the Pentagon, or the State Department when it comes to 
taking responsibility for this war against the Islamic State in Iraq 
and Syria. I may not agree with the policy, but they have done their 
duty. At every step of the way, beginning on June 16, 2014, the 
President has informed Congress of his actions to send U.S. troops to 
Iraq and Syria and to carry out military operations against the Islamic 
State. And on February 11 of this year, he sent to Congress the draft 
text of an AUMF.
  Mr. Speaker, while I disagree with the policy, the administration has 
done its job. It has kept the Congress informed, and as military 
operations continue to escalate, they sent an AUMF to the Congress for 
action.
  It is this Congress, this House, that has failed and failed miserably 
to carry out its duties. Always complaining from the sidelines, the 
leadership of this House failed to act last year to authorize this war, 
even as it escalated and expanded nearly every month. The Speaker said 
it wasn't the responsibility of the 113th Congress to act, even though 
the war started during its tenure. No, no. Somehow it was the 
responsibility of the next Congress, the 114th Congress.
  Well, the 114th Congress convened on January 6, and it still hasn't 
done a single, solitary thing to authorize the war against the Islamic 
State in Iraq and Syria. The Speaker asserted that Congress couldn't 
act on the war until the President sent an AUMF to Congress. Well, Mr. 
Speaker, the President did just that on February 11, and still the 
leadership of this House has done nothing to authorize the use of 
military force in Iraq and Syria. And now the Speaker is saying he 
wants the President to send Congress another version of the AUMF 
because he doesn't like the first one. Are you kidding me?
  Well, I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't work that way. If the 
leadership of this House doesn't like the original text of the 
President's AUMF, then it is the job of Congress to draft an 
alternative, report that revised AUMF out of the House Foreign Affairs 
Committee, bring it to the floor of the House, and let the Members of 
this House debate and vote on it. That is how it works.
  If you think that the President's AUMF is too weak, then you make it 
stronger. If you think that it is too expansive, then set limits on it. 
If you are opposed to these wars, then vote to bring our troops home. 
That is what we are here to do. That is what we are charged to do under 
the Constitution. And that is why Members of Congress get a paycheck 
from the American people every week--to make the hard decisions, not 
run away from them.
  All I ask, Mr. Speaker, is that the Congress do its job. That is the 
duty of this House and of the majority in charge of this House--to 
simply do its job, to govern, Mr. Speaker. But instead, all we witness 
is dithering and twiddling and complaining and whining and blaming 
others, and the complete and total shirking of responsibility over and 
over and over and over again. Enough, enough.

[[Page H3908]]

  So with great reluctance and frustration, Representative Jones and 
Representative Lee and I introduced House Concurrent Resolution 55. 
Because if this House doesn't have the stomach to carry out its 
constitutional duty to debate and authorize this latest war, then we 
should bring our troops home. If the cowardly Congress can go home each 
night to their families and loved ones, then our brave troops should 
receive that same privilege.
  Doing nothing is easy. And I am sad to say that war has become easy, 
too easy. But the costs in terms of blood and treasure are very, very, 
very high.
  I urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution and demand 
that the leadership of this House bring to the floor of this House an 
AUMF for the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria before 
Congress adjourns on June 26 for the Fourth of July recess.
  Congress needs to debate an AUMF, Mr. Speaker. It needs to do its 
job.
  At this point, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from North 
Carolina, Congressman Walter Jones.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, Mr. McGovern, for 
always being out front on this issue, and I am delighted to join him. 
As he said in many of his comments, the House has a responsibility to 
the men and women in uniform and to the American people.
  I have the privilege to represent Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, 
Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. I have over 70,000 retired 
veterans in the Third District of North Carolina. They are frustrated 
too. They believe sincerely that we must meet our constitutional 
responsibility and have this debate. And as you have said, Mr. 
McGovern, be for it or be against it, but have the debate. That is what 
is absolutely frustrating.
  I joined you and Barbara Lee in a letter to Mr. Boehner in September. 
On August 27 we wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House asking him 
to please allow a debate on reauthorization of our involvement in the 
Middle East. Then on September 25 I wrote by myself to the Speaker of 
the House and asked again for the debate.
  As you have stated, he did say publicly that because of the 
forthcoming election in 2014, that he thought it would be proper to 
have the debate in 2015, which you have already stated.

                              {time}  1315

  In 2015, the Speaker of the House said he was waiting for the 
President to submit the AUMF. As you have stated, the President did 
submit an AUMF, which many of us in both parties for different reasons 
were dissatisfied with, but it was the vehicle with which to go to the 
committee, to have the debate, and then to bring to the floor for a 
debate of the full House.
  I quote frequently down in my district what James Madison said: ``The 
power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, 
is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.''
  He didn't say the executive branch. He said the legislature, we in 
the House and we in the Senate. He didn't say the President. He said 
the legislature. If we don't bring it forward ourselves and if the 
Speaker wants the President to submit the AUMF--which he has already 
done, but now, as you stated, he is asking for another AUMF.
  I do not understand. Our Nation has spent $1.7 trillion or $1.8 
trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. This is the first war in 
Iraq, not the continuation that we are into now. We are spending 
billions and billions of dollars every day. As you say, we have cut 
programs left and right. Even our veterans are concerned about their 
benefits being cut, and many of them did serve in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  I take it upon myself to go to Walter Reed. I will go to my grave 
regretting that I voted to send our kids to Iraq, which was an 
unnecessary war initially, very unnecessary, but we went; 4,000 of our 
kids died, and 30,000 were wounded, and 100,000 Iraqis were killed. 
Anyway, that is history now. I know we can't change history, but, 
hopefully, we can learn from history.
  The people are frustrated. I talk about this down in my district, Mr. 
McGovern. That is why I support this H. Con. Res. 55. I don't know how 
many billions of dollars we are expending in Afghanistan. I know that 
that is a different subject, but I want to make my point.
  The billions of dollars that we are expending in Afghanistan is just 
so ironic that John Sopko, who is the Special Inspector General of 
Afghan Reconstruction, talks about how the waste, fraud, and abuse is 
ongoing. We have had marines from my district who were sent to 
Afghanistan to train the Afghans to be policemen and soldiers, and the 
people they were training turned the guns on them and killed them.
  We are sending our young men and women into these Middle East 
countries and other countries, and we don't have an end to the plan. I 
am not a military person, but I have heard from military leaders. If 
you have a strategy, that means you have an end point to your strategy, 
but we don't have an end point to our strategy. That is why it is so 
important that we bring it up.
  What you are trying to do is to force a debate on an AUMF to get this 
Congress to reengage itself. I am like you, sir. I get tired of funding 
all of these programs. In fact, on FOX today, they were talking about 
the weapons that we have given to the Iraqis, and their army is 
disbanding half the time. The weapons that we have given them--from 
machine guns to Humvees--are now in the hands of ISIS, and we are now 
bombing the equipment that we sent to the Iraqi Army. It does not make 
any sense.
  Just a couple more points, and then I am going to yield back to you 
your time.
  I want to thank you and Barbara Lee--and that is why I joined you--
because I see the frustration of the marines down in Camp Lejeune. They 
have been deployed three, four, five, six, seven times, and they know 
that they might be called upon again, and they will go.
  Just like all of those who serve in our services, they will go back 
and go back and go back; but, as you have said many times and as James 
Madison said, it is our responsibility, not the President's 
responsibility, to initiate these AUMFs.
  I hope that the President will follow with what the Speaker has asked 
him for, which is for a second AUMF. If he sends a second AUMF, then 
there is no excuse that our leadership of the Republican Party has--and 
I am a Republican--to not bring it to the floor.
  Mr. McGovern, I thank you again. I am pleased to have thought to join 
you in this effort. We need to meet our constitutional responsibility. 
I go to Walter Reed. I see the broken bodies, and I see the amputated 
legs.
  I have signed over 11,000 letters to families in this country who 
have lost loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. I want to fulfill my duty 
as a Member of Congress and follow the Constitution and have the 
debates on spending blood and money in these foreign countries.
  Thank you for allowing me to be a small part of this.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank my colleague from North Carolina for 
his eloquent statement and for his passion on this issue and for his 
courage on this issue because I know that it is not easy to stand up 
and raise some of these questions. He has done so consistently, and I 
think the country owes him a debt of gratitude, so I thank the 
gentleman for that.
  I think, as Mr. Jones pointed out, there is a constitutional 
principle at stake here. We have a responsibility when it comes to 
matters of war, and it is a little bit puzzling to me that we have a 
lot of complaining in this Chamber by some in saying that the President 
is not consulting enough with Congress or he is doing too many things 
with executive actions; yet, when it comes to the issue of war, we 
don't want to have anything to do with it. It is just too easy to do 
nothing.
  I know that these issues are uncomfortable--they are complicated; 
they are difficult--but our job is not to run away from an issue if it 
is uncomfortable. We have to deliberate on a lot of issues that are 
important to the American people and to the national security of this 
country.
  I don't think it takes any courage for a Member of Congress to be 
quiet on this issue and cheer the White House on if the military 
operation is going well or criticize it if it is not, but never have to 
take a vote. That is not leadership; that is cowardice. That 
is shirking our responsibility.

  I don't care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. We all, for 
the

[[Page H3909]]

sake of protecting the integrity of this institution, should insist 
that we assume our proper role when it comes to issues of war. War is a 
big deal. It is a big deal--at least it should be a big deal.
  As I said earlier, what bothers me is that, in this Chamber and in 
this city, it has become easy. We don't talk about it. We had a debate 
on the defense authorization bill last week. A number of us tried to 
bring amendments to the floor to kind of force this issue, and we were 
told this is not the place to talk about the war--the defense 
authorization bill, which authorizes a lot of the funding for this war.
  If that is not the place to talk about it, then where is the place to 
talk about it? With every attempt that we have launched to try to force 
a debate on the floor, we have been frustrated. We have been told you 
can't do it. Here we are in June, and we have been at war now for many, 
many months. The time has come for us to stand up and be heard on this 
issue.
  Look, I have great reservations about the White House's policy in 
Iraq and Syria. I don't support much of what the President is doing 
right now. I know his heart is in the right place, but I don't think 
that the ultimate answer here is to expand our military footprint. I 
have reservations.
  Even if you believe that you ought to give the President all of the 
power in the universe to do whatever he wants around the world, you 
still ought to support what Congressman Jones and Congresswoman Lee and 
I are trying to do, and that is to make sure that Congress has a role 
in this, that we authorize whatever action is going to take place from 
this point forward.
  Again, you could vote to expand the President's authority. You could 
vote to limit the President's authority. You could vote to say we don't 
believe the President should have any authority to launch even more 
wars in the Middle East. That is what the debate should be about.
  We should be talking about the specifics of our policy. I mean, is 
there a clearly defined mission here? I don't see it. A clearly defined 
mission has a beginning, a middle, and an end; but we ought to have 
that debate.
  How does this all end? We were told initially, Oh, it won't be that 
long; then it was a few years. Now, it is going to be a generation or 
two. The length of time that we are going to be expected to be engaged 
here gets longer and longer and longer and longer with each passing 
month. Isn't that worth a discussion? Isn't that worth a debate?
  We debate a lot of things on this House floor that I would say are 
pretty trivial. We debate a lot of legislation that we know is going 
nowhere. Why can't we take the time to debate this issue of war? Why 
can't we take the time to do what is right by our servicemen and -
women, who are being put into harm's way, to make sure that we are 
getting it right with regard to Iraq and Syria and the war against the 
Islamic State? Again, I know it is uncomfortable; but so what? We need 
to do our job.
  I will just close by reiterating something that Congressman Jones 
said, and that is that we have a lot of needs here in the United 
States. We can't get a long-term highway bill passed. We have tens of 
millions of fellow citizens in the United States of America, the 
richest country on the planet, who are hungry. We have some schools 
that are in disrepair.
  Quite frankly, our kids deserve a heck of a lot better. We have 
infrastructure needs. I can go right down the list of the things that 
we need to do. We have people who are unemployed, and we have people 
who are homeless. We need more housing for people.
  There are so many things that we have to do, and we are told we can't 
do any of it because we don't have the money; but, when it comes to 
wars that never end or wars that are going to last generations or more, 
we are an ATM machine.
  If the money is not there, we will give you an IOU. We will put it on 
our credit card. People talk about the deficit and the debt; yet we are 
adding all of these billions and trillions of dollars because of these 
wars that are not paid for. No one says anything about that around 
here, but that is one of the biggest contributors to our debt. We ought 
to realize that.
  When we talk about national security, I would just say to my 
colleagues that national security also includes the quality of life for 
people here in this country, whether people have a job, whether people 
have access to a good education, whether people have health care, 
whether people have food, whether they have shelter.
  All of those things are important parts of our national security and 
our national defense. We are neglecting them on a regular basis, but we 
are spending every cent we have on these wars overseas.
  This deserves a debate. Again, we would prefer that an AUMF come 
before the full House under regular order, where the House Foreign 
Affairs Committee would report out a bill, and we would just debate it, 
but we have been patient long enough, and nothing has been forthcoming.
  Here we are in June with still no promise that anything may be 
coming--more excuses. That is why we introduced this privileged 
resolution. We are going to force a debate, and we are going to force a 
vote. We will do it again and again and again and again until this 
Congress lives up to its constitutional responsibilities.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________