[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21563-21564]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           CONDITIONS IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come tonight and tell you about 
a trip that I took at the end of August to the country of Iraq. I spent 
several days over in Baghdad, Tikrit, Mosul, and Babylon.
  When I got back to this country, Mr. Speaker, I turned on the evening 
news

[[Page 21564]]

at night and heard one of our national anchors talking about the 
situation in Iraq, and I thought for a minute I must have gotten on the 
wrong plane and ended up on the wrong planet, because I did not 
recognize the country he was describing, the country that I just left.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I thought it was important to come address the House 
tonight and to let the House know what in fact is going on in Iraq and 
to let people in on the good news that is happening in that country 
since we liberated it.
  In general, Mr. Speaker, when you get over there and look around, you 
are struck by the fact that life is going on as normal. The markets are 
active. There are cars in the street. In fact, we saw a couple of 
traffic jams, which certainly indicate a return to civil society.
  Mr. Speaker, there are satellite dishes now on the rooftops of many 
of the houses and apartment buildings. I would estimate 25 to 30 
percent of the domiciles have satellite dishes, and just 4 months ago 
those were illegal under Saddam's rule.
  Mr. Speaker, our troops on the ground have done an exemplary job, and 
currently there are approximately 5,000 projects that have been 
completed by the United States military.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. Speaker, the police force, the Iraqi police force is truly a 
success story. This movement has been led by Bernard Kerik who, just 2 
short years ago on 9-11 in New York, was the police commissioner and 
amazed the city with his outstanding leadership during that time of 
crisis and no surprise, he has been able to provide that same 
leadership in Iraq. His mission there was to teach the Iraqis how to 
learn to do police work in a free and democratic society. Previously, 
all of their police work had been based on brutality and corruption. 
Mr. Kerik has turned out over 37,000 Iraqi policemen back in uniform. 
He expects to be able to get 65,000 within the next 6 months.
  Mr. Kerik has gone from zero to 35 precinct stations in Baghdad in a 
mere 14 weeks' time. He told us that given the present state of the 
bureaucracy, it would take him several years to accomplish that. He has 
made dramatic improvements in information technology, in communications 
but, most importantly, his training program stressed police work, 
police procedure, human rights, criminal investigations and, again, not 
the previous framework of brutality and corruption.
  Mr. Speaker, the sad fact of the matter is that the governance in 
Iraq, 30 years of Saddam destroyed all sense of community. There is not 
much of civil society left. But town councils and city councils now 
exist in 90 percent of the towns and villages in Iraq. The new 
governing council that the coalition provisional authority is standing 
up has been drawn from all regions of the country. They are having a 
preparatory convention which will be followed by a constitutional 
convention, which will be followed by elections. No one is absolutely 
sure of the time line, but 12 to 24 months was the impression that we 
were given.
  Mr. Speaker, probably the most searing aspect of my trip to Iraq to 
me as a doctor was my visit to the hospital. We also were privileged to 
go in several of Saddam's palaces and we were struck by the opulence. I 
will tell you the architecture was awful, but the opulence was 
striking. But contrast that, Mr. Speaker, to the large teaching 
hospital in downtown Baghdad, a 1,000-bed hospital where they do not 
even have linoleum on the floor. There are no medical gasses in their 
neonatal intensive care unit. They could not give oxygen to a baby if 
they wanted. Mr. Speaker, the sad fact of the matter is that under 
Saddam, per capita medical expenditure in Iraq was 50 cents per person. 
This has increased 9,000 percent to almost $50 a person under the 
coalition provisional authority.
  Just as striking, a member of the first marine expeditionary force 
told me a story about having gone into a medical library, he is a 
registered nurse, Lieutenant Colonel Keller was his name. He had gone 
into a medical library in Iraq and not one textbook had a copyright 
date later than 1984. Clearly, this is a country that has suffered 
massively as far as its infrastructure is concerned.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to relate to my colleagues the good news. 
I wanted to relate to my colleagues what General Ricardo Sanchez told 
us while we were there. He talked to us about 90 days of progress that 
has been made in the country of Iraq. He pointed out that schools have 
concluded their school year and have conducted testing. They are 
beginning a new school year this month. Mr. Speaker, 90 percent of the 
major cities and towns have functioning town councils, and over 50 
Iraqis are contributing to their own security in their Army independent 
of those who are already in the police force. Their prisons are on the 
verge of reopening. Their judicial system is functioning. Food 
distribution is occurring. There was no humanitarian crisis in Iraq. 
Their hospitals are functioning, below standards, but far better than 
they were before; and, most importantly, 4\1/4\ million children were 
immunized. General Sanchez pointed out, and this is very important, Mr. 
Speaker, all of these things have happened within 90 days in Iraq. None 
of these things had happened within a year after our arrival in Kosovo.

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