[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 22650-22651]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                THE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR AND OCCUPATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, a study released by the House 
Committee on the Budget staff concludes that the cost of the Iraq war 
and the Iraq occupation could easily reach $417 billion over the next 
decade. That is $17 billion more than the President has proposed for a 
prescription drug benefit for our seniors. The report says the best-
case scenario would cost taxpayers only $308 billion. Deputy Defense 
Secretary Wolfowitz said recently, ``No one I know of would ever say 
that this war is cheap.''
  That, Mr. Speaker, contradicts what everyone in the Bush 
administration was saying before the war. Budget Director Mitch Daniels 
said Iraq would be ``an affordable endeavor'' that ``will not require 
sustained aid.'' Top White House Economist Glen Hubbard said back then 
before the war, the ``costs of any such intervention would be very 
small.'' And another White House aid, Larry Lindsey, was fired after he 
said it would cost $100 billion to $200 billion.
  The report details how the President's request allocates $157 per 
Iraqi for sewage improvements, while the President's budget has only 
$14 per American for sewer improvements. This is U.S. tax dollars. The 
administration is devoting $38 per Iraqi for hospitals, compared with 
$3.30 per American.
  The President is seeking $5.7 billion to rebuild and expand Iraq's 
electricity generation, transmission and distribution systems, just as 
millions of Americans are regaining power lost due to Hurricane Isabel, 
and Congress continues to deal with the fallout from the August 
blackout in my part of the country and in the Northeast.

[[Page 22651]]

  The President's request would send over 350 times more per person, 
$255 per Iraqi, compared to 71 cents per U.S. citizen on electric power 
rehabilitation.
  The President wants $856 million to upgrade Iraqi airports, seaports, 
railways and communication systems. Another $470 million would go 
towards repairing roads, bridges and houses in Iraq and rehabilitating 
Iraqi government buildings.
  The fine print of the President's request shows how far U.S. 
expenditures are going overseas and how the Bush administration, 
frankly, misled us before the war when he said this could be done on 
the cheap.
  In Iraq, $875 million is earmarked to restore drained marshlands, 
while at home the administration wants to hold wetland conservation 
programs to last year's level at $100 million, one-eighth as much.
  We have a duty, to be sure, to help the people of Iraq and 
Afghanistan as they rebuild their countries, but not at the expense of 
our own. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1738, the Iraqi Parity 
Act, a bill to require the U.S. Government to pay for infrastructure 
and social service needs for the 50 U.S. States in the same amount as 
the amount of relief and reconstruction funds provided to Iraq. State 
and local governments in the United States deserve, at a minimum, the 
same level of Federal involvement to address infrastructure and social 
service shortfalls as the amount of relief and reconstruction funds 
provided to Iraq.
  What I am hearing from my constituents, and I have come to this floor 
day after day reading letters from constituents about their concern 
about our entry into the war and the aftermath of that war and how the 
administration may not have told us everything, it may not have told us 
the truth in how this Congress, this Republican leadership in this 
Congress, has failed and refused to investigate these expenditures and 
failed to and refused to investigate many of the other issues around 
the Iraq war.
  But what I am hearing from my constituents in these letters is the 
U.S. cannot go it alone in Iraq. My constituents are uncomfortable with 
the huge price tag for reconstruction; my constituents do not feel 
their tax dollars should bear the entire burden of reconstruction in 
Iraq; my constituents do not feel our troops should bear the entire 
burden of protecting Iraq; and, most of all, my constituents are 
concerned that the administration is simply not doing enough to ensure 
the safety of our men and women in the Armed Forces.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a serious issue that this Congress needs to 
debate. We need answers. We need the Bush administration to tell us 
what their plans are. How long we are going to be in Iraq? How we are 
going to rebuild that country? How much it is going to cost, and when 
we are going to withdraw from that country?

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