[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23662-23667]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE REAL STORY OF IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  This recognition is without prejudice to the resumption of 
legislative business.
  Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the vote 
that we as Members of Congress are going to be asked to make in the 
near future and that is a vote we have already heard about tonight and 
that is the $87 billion appropriation to support our men and women in 
uniform and the citizens of Iraq.
  This is a lot of money, there is no question. And there is much 
commentary and maybe even some people would say much rhetoric revolving 
around this issue, but as we decide how to vote as Members of Congress 
and the American people develop an opinion on

[[Page 23663]]

how they feel about their tax dollars being invested in this manner, I 
think it is imperative that we understand the real story of Iraq. I 
think it is imperative that we get beyond the rhetoric and the politics 
because this issue is way too important and has implications for 
generations to come, what the answer to the question about supporting 
the men and women in uniform and the citizens of Iraq with $87 billion 
is going to be.
  I think we have to rely on facts, and the only way that we can 
understand the facts and discover the facts is to go seek them out for 
ourselves. That is why I went to Iraq not too long ago. I returned 
about 3 weeks ago, and I commend other Members of Congress that have 
taken the time and taken the effort to go find out for themselves what 
the real story of Iraq is.
  I have to admit, when I went, I went with apprehension, and I did not 
go with apprehension because I was concerned about my personal safety. 
I went with apprehension because I was concerned that I would find the 
story of hopelessness, of pessimism because I had read the papers and I 
had watched the television, and it did not look like a pretty picture; 
but when I returned home, I had great optimism and I had great hope 
because what we see on TV and what we read in the papers is not the 
real story of Iraq and is not representative of what is actually 
happening on a day-to-day basis in that country.
  When we landed, I really could not believe I was in the same country 
that I had seen on TV and read about in the papers. This was not a 
country in chaos. This was not a country where one felt unsafe and in 
fear for their personal safety. It was a country that was recovering 
from a scar of over 30 years of a brutal regime that its people had to 
live under. Sure, there are challenges that we are going to face and 
there are tragedies that happened, but there is also great hope, and 
there is great optimism because there have already been great 
successes.
  The problem is the good news is not news. When a torture chamber that 
used to house Saddam Hussein's political prisoners gets turned into a 
police academy where tens of thousands of Iraqi police have been 
trained to protect their citizens and protect their country, no cameras 
show up, no reporters show up. When a school reopens, in fact when 
1,000 new schools have been built in Iraq, there is not one reporter; 
and there was not one camera. When the power comes back on, when 
businesses can operate on a consistent basis, when restaurants can 
open, there are no reporters and there are no cameras. When the crop is 
harvested, thousands of acres of wheat, again, there are no reporters 
and no cameras, and businesses are opening every single day; but again, 
it goes unreported. But when there is one tragedy, certainly every 
camera and every reporter in the country is covering that story.
  But for those that have visited Iraq, those that have actually taken 
the time and the effort to go, it cannot go unnoticed because a success 
is so clear and so obvious and so exciting and inspirational that we 
come back and we tell our stories. This is not a partisan issue. This 
is a situation where Republicans and Democrats have come back and told 
the real story of Iraq with great hope and great optimism.
  What we hear tonight, and I am sure we will hear in the future, is a 
lot of comments from people who have not been to Iraq, people who do 
not know the real story and are engaging in rhetoric and politics; and 
I think that is a great, grave danger, not only to our citizens but for 
all of our children and our grandchildren for generations to come.
  We come back and we share stories of why we feel the way we do, and 
that is what we are here to do tonight. I am here with several other 
Members that have traveled to Iraq, and we are going to share our 
stories about why we share so much hope and so much optimism; and I 
would like to share just one story before I turn it over to some of my 
fellow Members.
  I was in Iraq for 3 days, and I would just like to share one day, to 
give my colleagues a sense of what the experience was like.

                              {time}  2030

  The group I was with, we flew into Mosul, a town in the northern part 
of Iraq. When we got out of the plane, it was shocking, because most 
Americans think that Iraq is very much a desert country, all sand. This 
looked like northern Michigan. There were hills. There were trees. It 
was a lush green area.
  As we got out of the plane, I noticed new construction, a building 
that was being built right next to where the troops are; and I asked, 
what is that? One of the local troops said, well, that is a local Iraqi 
entrepreneur. He is building a coffee shop for the troops to serve 
their needs. So here is a local Iraqi entrepreneur that is putting his 
own money into serving our troops and engaging in commerce. Does not 
sounds like a country in chaos to me.
  We went in and got a briefing. We got a briefing of all the successes 
that have already happened in the northern part of Iraq in the Mosul 
area. This is the briefing that we got.
  Now we hear a lot of people say there is no plan for reconstruction, 
that there was never any thought to how we were going to win the peace. 
This is a plan that is not only about what we are going to do, but more 
importantly what has already happened. In this plan are discussions of 
the schools that have been rebuilt, the transportation projects, the 
employment projects, the water projects, and the banking. There is a 
chart of the local elections that have already taken place. Over 200 
local elections have already taken place in Iraq, with representative 
governments in place which represent all of the ethnic groups in their 
localities.
  So we had this briefing of the tremendous successes, and then we went 
into the town of Mosul. During that trip into town we were not in an 
armored vehicle, we had no bulletproof vests on, and we were in the 
center of town with the people of Mosul. What we saw was commerce. We 
saw restaurants. We saw children. We saw everything portraying the 
normalcy of life and never once felt threatened for our safety or 
worried that anything was going to happen, which is what we see 
represented on the nightly TV.
  After our trip downtown, we went back to the airport and we met with 
some of the locally elected officials. We met with the vice mayor of 
Mosul. This was a very impressive gentleman. With him were other 
locally elected officials. They represented the local ethnic 
representation. There were men, and there were women. There was never 
an opportunity under Saddam Hussein's regime to have an opportunity to 
have local representative government.
  Shortly thereafter, we left and we went to Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. 
We flew in helicopters for about an hour; and we basically followed the 
Tigress River down to Tikrit, which is a little further south. From 
horizon to horizon on each side of the river all we saw was wheat. All 
we saw was fertile farmland. In fact, if Iraq had had the opportunity 
to have modern practices and techniques of agriculture and production, 
they have enough potential basically to feed the entire Middle East.
  The most amazing thing to me was that it had been harvested, and it 
had been harvested just a couple of weeks ago. A country in chaos, a 
country that has no potential could never harvest hundreds of thousands 
of acres of wheat and store it effectively and use it for the benefit 
of their people.
  As we approached Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, it was a stark picture. 
In the middle of town is Saddam's palace, 144 buildings in the palace 
compound. Now these are not small little garages. These are all villas 
and palaces. And on one side of two 10-foot walls that had barbed wire 
or guard stations every so often was basically obscene opulence that 
Saddam had built this palace for himself and his family. On the other 
sides of the wall was obscene poverty and pestilence.
  I think that represented exactly how he ran his country. He would 
spend all of the country's resources, the riches that it has, and it 
has many riches in the form of oil and water and agriculture, he spent 
all of those riches on

[[Page 23664]]

himself, on his family, on his palaces and on his weapons. He did not 
spend any money on the people of Iraq. He did not spend any money on 
upgrading their power supply or helping their infrastructure. I think 
that that was a very stark picture. It had been described as Las Vegas 
without the neon.
  As we landed there we had the great opportunity, and this was the 
highlight really of the trip that I was on, at every meal we had the 
opportunity to visit and have a meal with the troops. That night we had 
dinner, and there was a very poignant moment, I thought. Every time we 
had a meal I would ask the troops, what do you want me to tell people 
when I go back home about your stay here?
  There was a young woman soldier that looked at me and she said, you 
know what I want people to know is that I am here serving in harm's way 
in Iraq for the protection of my family and my country back home. 
Because she said, see, if we are successful here in Iraq, Iraq will 
become the model of democracy in the Middle East. It will help bring 
stability to a region that has not seen stability in hundreds if not 
thousands of years. If we are not successful, Iraq will become the home 
of terrorists and murderers and radicals who export violence and murder 
all over the world; and that will put my family and my country at much 
greater risk.
  I have to say I was very impressed with her observations, and I think 
that she really put this whole discussion into context. The $87 billion 
the President is asking for is a lot of money. But when we think about 
the consequences of failure, we have no choice but to succeed. If we 
succeed, we can help bring stability to a region by helping a 
democratic, secular, free government emerge.
  Iraq has every ingredient for success and every opportunity to help 
its people have a bright future. Because the tools of the recruiters of 
the terrorists is hopelessness and oppression. The people that are 
causing problems, their worst nightmare is that we are successful, 
because it will take away every argument they have. It will change 
their world. If we are successful, it will change our world as well 
because we will live in a much more stable world, where people are not 
strapping bombs onto their backs because they see no hope in life.
  If we can help the Iraqi people form a free and democratic government 
that brings hope, that brings economic prosperity, I think that is the 
best investment we can make as an American people. We have a history of 
generosity in this country, and I do not think it is time to stop that 
history. We recognize that $87 billion is a lot of money, but when we 
consider that September 11 cost us $2 trillion, I think it is a wise 
investment.
  Madam Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Burgess), who was on the trip with me; and I know that he has some very 
inspirational stories to tell as well.
  Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Indiana for 
yielding to me.
  So much of what I experienced, of course, when I got back, was 
similar to what the gentleman just related. I can remember sitting down 
to watch the national evening news back in Texas and turning on the 
television and hearing a news anchor that everyone is familiar with. 
His lead story was Iraq, and he started talking again about the 
hopelessness and the quagmire and we are just barely holding on and it 
looks like an operation gone terribly wrong. And I had to ask myself, 
did I get off the wrong plane? Did I perhaps land in a parallel 
dimension? Because I did not recognize the country that he was talking 
about. I did not recognize the country that I had just left hours 
before.
  I think General James Conway in Babylon, the ancient city of Babylon, 
stationed there with the First Marine Expeditionary Force, they were 
one of the first groups into Iraq, his description of what is going on 
in that country is what stuck with me. He described Iraq as a vivid 
success story. He also went on to say that Iraqis are not concerned 
that we are going to stay too long. Madam Speaker, they are most 
concerned that we are going to leave too soon. Apparently, that has 
happened to them before.
  Just as my friend from Indiana pointed out about how normal life was 
in Mosul, even that first day, flying over the city of Baghdad, the 
markets were full. There were cars on the road. Indeed, there were 
traffic jams on the road. There were satellite dishes on the rooftops 
of the apartments and the houses. I do not know the number, but 
probably 25 to 30 percent of the residences had satellite dishes on the 
rooftops. And bear in mind, Madam Speaker, that merely 6 months ago 
possession of a satellite antenna was punishable by 1 year in one of 
Saddam's prisons. Kind of a daunting prospect.
  The schools were open. Agriculture, as my friend from Indiana pointed 
out, was flourishing. And, indeed, flying over those wheat fields north 
of Tikrit, where the harvest had just happened at the end of August, it 
was nothing short of startling. It looked like Kansas below us. Albeit 
the Kansas of 150 years ago, but it looked like Kansas.
  From a military standpoint, the combat phase of Operation Iraqi 
Freedom was prosecuted brilliantly. There is no remaining strategic 
threat. Stabilization is the current goal of our offensive operation: 
to find, contain, and kill those who would harm our troops or innocent 
Iraqi citizens. And, of course, 80 percent of the engagements are 
within the so-called Sunni triangle.
  The police force in Baghdad is nothing short of a miraculous 
transformation. This is a police force that has gone from a mission 
statement that included brutality and contempt and corruption to one 
that emphasizes proper police procedure in a free and democratic 
society. Bernard Kerik, the police commissioner from New York City who 
gave so many of us comfort 2 years ago after the attack of 9/11, was 
working in Iraq when we were there. I believe he has returned to this 
country now, but he has been nothing short of a miracle worker there in 
Baghdad. He has gone from 0 to 35 precincts in 14 weeks time. That is 
14 weeks time he has gone from 0 to 37,000 Iraqi policemen in uniform 
and expects to have 65,000 by next May.
  In health care, we have to put it in the context of no significant 
expenditure in health care for almost 30 years. In fact, Lieutenant 
Colonel Michael Keller, a good Texas boy from Hale Center, Texas, a 
registered nurse who is with the 385th Civil Affairs Brigade, 
Lieutenant Colonel Keller told me he visited the medical school library 
in Baghdad and could not find a textbook that had a copyright date 
later than 1984. Does anyone suppose there have been any improvements 
in the practice of medicine in the last 19 years?
  Pharmaceutical agents that were manufactured in Iraq were useless. 
The bioavailability of those compounds was so variable that even Iraqi 
physicians were frightened to use them. But Saddam had the edict, if it 
is made in Iraq, it is good for Iraqis. In fact, we relied heavily on 
donations from the Kuwaitis after the fall of the Saddam government. 
Again, to put it in perspective, Saddam's per capita medical 
expenditure was 50 cents a person per year. Currently, that is up to 
about $45 per person per year, but they have a long way to go.
  My friend from Indiana did an excellent job of describing the 
opulence of the palaces that were provided for the ruling class in that 
country. No dollar was left unspent. The architecture of those palaces 
was truly horrible, but the site planners and the landscape architects 
had a good deal of skill. Because when Saddam stood in those palaces in 
Tikrit, he did not have to see the poverty on the other sides of the 
wall that was described.
  But, Madam Speaker, what was most searing to me was to put the 
opulence of those palaces next to the poverty of the hospitals; 
hospitals that could not even afford linoleum for their floors; 
hospitals that could not afford to have medical gases piped into their 
neonatal intensive care unit. Do you suppose a premature baby is ever 
going to need oxygen? Unfortunately, at the Al Yarmouk Hospital, if a 
neonatal intensive care case needed oxygen, they would have to find a 
cylinder, if they could.

[[Page 23665]]

  Finally, if I could, let me just reiterate what happened within the 
first 90 days after the fall of the Saddam regime. Schools completed 
their academic year and conducted testing. Over 90 percent of the major 
cities and towns have functioning town councils. Over 60,000 Iraqis are 
contributing to their own security. Not in the police force, this is an 
additional 60,000 that are in their military and are serving as border 
guards. The prisons are on the verge of reopening. The judicial 
additional system is up and functioning. Food distribution, with some 
minor glitches, food distribution was not interrupted at the conclusion 
of the combat phase. Indeed, no humanitarian crisis grew as a result of 
the major combat phase. Hospitals, although below standards, remained 
opened and functional. Four and a quarter million children were 
immunized between May and the end of August.
  I point these things out because General Sanchez told us that all of 
these things happened within 90 days. Contrast that with Kosovo, where 
none of those things were in place a year after the combat phase ended.

                              {time}  2045

  Madam Speaker, let me go back for a minute to the issue of no 
humanitarian crisis occurred in Iraq. What if there had been 15,000 
heat-related deaths in the country of Iraq this summer? Would we have 
taken some negative press for that? Well, no, that humanitarian crisis 
was in France, not in Iraq; and I do not really recall reading a whole 
lot about it in this country.
  Suffice it to say, we are not getting an accurate story or picture on 
what is going on on the ground in Iraq. The only time I remember seeing 
any reporters at all was when we were at the Al Rasheed Hotel in 
Baghdad. They are not going to find the stories that they need to be 
telling in the lobby of the Al Rasheed Hotel.
  Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  I would like to ask a question regarding General Sanchez and the 
outline of the successes which have been achieved, but when I got back 
home, I heard people say there is no plan to help rebuild Iraq. I am 
curious after visiting with General Sanchez and the briefings we were 
given about the plans in place, the successes which have already been 
achieved, is there a plan to help rebuild Iraq?
  Mr. BURGESS. I do not believe this degree of success was achieved in 
the absence of a plan. Of course they have a plan in place, and of 
course they are executing it brilliantly.
  The Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, as General Sanchez 
pointed out to us, they will be developing the pre-constitutional 
convention, then convening the constitutional convention, writing the 
constitution and having elections.
  They outlined a timeline for us of 18 months, give or take 6 months; 
so 1 to 2 years time. That information was given to us the last week of 
August. We have only recently seen those reports in the newspapers here 
in this country, but the story was clearly out there and available.
  General Raymond Odierno in the city of Tikrit, clearly that man has a 
master plan, and that plan is to find, contain, and kill those elements 
within the city of Tikrit who mean harm to our troops and Iraqi 
citizens. I believe the gentleman from Indiana and I sat in the same 
briefing where he described how he isolated a whole peninsula of 
individuals who mean harm to our troops and innocent Iraqi citizens and 
with overwhelming force took that area out in a very brief period of 
time.
  I think we have a workable plan and I think we have a winnable plan 
for winning the peace. Again, it is at this point so critical that we 
not lose heart, that we not lose faith and that we adequately fund what 
is required to bring that country to some measure of peace and 
stability.
  No question about it, lack of fuel and lack of electricity are 
radical issues. In Mosul, it was pointed out to us that dollars are 
ammunition; and right now we cannot afford to starve them of 
ammunition.
  Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Burgess); and I agree 100 percent there appears to be a solid plan in 
place for success which has been executed to a great extent.
  The amazing thing is I have not heard any Member that has been to 
Iraq who disagrees with the gentleman. The only people that disagree 
are the people who have not taken the time and taken the effort to 
understand what the plan is. It sounds more like politics than planning 
to me. As we make this decision, it is so important that we understand 
the real story of Iraq and we base our opinions on facts.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Shuster) to share the story of Iraq.
  Mr. SHUSTER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time and for putting this Special Order together.
  Tonight we need to shine light on the facts, on the truth of what is 
really happening in Iraq today. It is not the real story. It is not the 
whole story. We are getting bits and pieces, and we know that it is 
still a dangerous place, and they are killing American soldiers, and 
that is something that we ought to be concerned about.
  But, as we have talked about here tonight, there are positive things 
happening in Iraq. There are things moving forward. The Iraqi people 
are grateful that we have come to Iraq to liberate them.
  As May 1 came about and we ended major combat operations over there, 
I, as most Americans did, would listen to the nightly news and hear 
stories of death and chaos and mismanagement. And then every week we 
would come to Washington and get a briefing, and the story was 
different. So I decided in May that I had to go over there and see for 
myself what was occurring in Iraq and see with my own eyes because I 
was hearing the administration tell us what they said was happening, 
and then of course the national media would tell a different story.
  The good news is, as we have heard here tonight, when we traveled to 
Iraq, we did see positive things, and I was struck with three things.
  First, I wanted to go over and see what the situation with our troops 
was. I heard morale was low, the troops were unhappy. Much to my 
surprise when we arrived and had the lunches and dinners that the 
gentleman spoke about, which were a highlight of the trip and we were 
able to gain much information from them, I found out that the morale 
was good, it was high. When we think about the dangerous situation they 
were in, 130 degrees plus, living in tents, sand, dealing with all 
those elements, these young men and women had high morale. These young 
warriors talked about how they were proud to be over there liberating 
the Iraqi people and protecting America and our freedoms and freedom 
for people around the world.
  One of the things that I did when I came back, I was asked by several 
soldiers to call their families, and I did that. I can tell Members, as 
impressed as I was with the soldiers I met, it was inspirational to 
hear the parents and the wives when I called them, to hear them talk 
about how proud they were and how much support they were giving their 
son, daughter, husband or wife. It was really inspirational to me. They 
said not only were they supportive and proud of what they were doing, 
we were doing the right thing in Iraq.
  I think it is imperative for the American people to hear the whole 
story so we have that support for our troops, we have that support for 
the effort we are undertaking over there, and that our Commander in 
Chief has that support. Because, without that support, we will not 
succeed. We have to have the American people strongly behind this 
effort, and that is the only way we will see success, if the American 
people support this effort.
  The second thing that I saw while I was over there, and, as I 
mentioned, the national media would feed us a steady diet of death and 
destruction in Iraq and that picture was not the case as we talked here 
tonight about the many, many things that we saw in Iraq. For instance, 
the hospitals, they were not hospitals like we see here in America, but 
they were functioning hospitals. And many if not most of the

[[Page 23666]]

major hospitals in Iraq are up and running today. The schools and 
universities are operating. Secondary schools are ready to take the 
kids on in the fall so they can begin that process, to continue to 
educate the young people of Iraq.
  We talked about the security, the 56,000 trained Iraqis that are out 
there and walking the streets of Baghdad and Mosul protecting the 
borders. That was something to behold. We traveled to the headquarters 
and the training for the Iraqi police force; and we met Ali Kazon, who 
is now the head of the Iraqi police force. He told us the story how in 
1979 he was head of the police academy, and when Saddam Hussein took 
over, he spoke out against Saddam, and he was imprisoned and almost on 
a daily basis for a year he was tortured. And now 20 some years later, 
he is back and ready to take up his role to build a stable and 
democratic Iraq.
  We were told the story just 4 weeks before we arrived in Iraq there 
was an assassination attempt on a gentleman's life. He was shot in the 
leg. He was bandaged up, and 2 days later he was back on the streets 
going after the guys who tried to assassinate him.
  And just 2 weeks after we left Iraq, there was a bombing at police 
headquarters, and it was another attempt on Ali Kazon's life. We were 
told that this man is somebody that the Baathists, the terrorists, want 
to eliminate because he will be a force for good in a free and stable 
Iraq.
  He told us what he told his soldiers or his police as he recruited 
them. He talked about we do not know the Americans, they do not know 
us, but they came here and died to free us, so every day when we take 
to the streets of Iraq we need to honor the Americans for what they 
have done for us, giving us our freedom.
  Madam Speaker, it truly was inspirational to meet someone at the 
founding of a nation. As we talked about, most of the major cities and 
most towns and villages had elected municipal councils, and this 
occurred just 2 weeks after major combat had ended in Iraq. Today, as I 
said, every major city and most towns and villages are directing local 
matters themselves. Iraqis are doing that work.
  The third thing that we saw and something that surprised me, although 
I do not know that I should have been surprised, as someone who has 
studied history all my life, but we focus on Iraq, and it is all about 
the oil and they certainly have tremendous oil reserves, and that is 
going to provide the Iraqi people the wealth to rebuild their country 
and have a stable Iraq in the future. But, as the gentleman from 
Indiana talked about, the agriculture was surprising. I thought Iraq 
was a desert, but it is not. It is brown, and I think a lot of that is 
because of the heat, but they have vast wheat fields. Also, the water 
resources that Iraq has, not only do they have the Tigris and the 
Euphrates Rivers, but they have miles of canals. They are able to 
irrigate much of the Iraqi countryside.
  In the south, with a pick and shovel, they can dig down 10-12 feet 
and hit water because the water table is very shallow. In the north, as 
we flew over vast wheat fields, they were literally digging water wells 
horizontally, going in at an angle down 20-40 feet before they would 
hit water. So Iraq has oil and the ability to feed itself and the 
Middle East, and they have tremendous water resources that any 
successful nation needs to feed its people and take care of its people.
  Finally, the Iraqi people themselves are a robust people; and proof 
of that is they have spent 30 years living under a Stalinist tyranny, 
living under terrible circumstances, but they have survived. Almost 
half the population is literate, so with the resources they have, with 
the personality of the people, what we are doing for them over there, 
giving them the opportunity to live free and to create a democracy, we 
are giving them hope. That is what any nation needs. Giving the people 
hope is going to take them off that path of strapping on a bomb to 
themselves and killing themselves.
  We need to make sure that we are putting enough money into this 
situation. We talked about the $87 billion. It is a lot of money when 
we look at it as $87 billion, but when we look at the losses that 
America suffered after 9/11 and the losses we could face in the future 
if we are not able to help build a stable and democratic Iraq, this is 
something we must do. We cannot fail in this endeavor. We need to move 
forward swiftly to make sure that the Iraqi people can build that 
stable, democratic country.

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. CHOCOLA. I thank the gentleman for his comments. As you 
mentioned, one of the highlights of this experience was the opportunity 
to share a meal with the fine men and women in uniform. We can sit 
here, and we can say how proud we are of them, but until you are 
actually there with them and seeing the tremendous work that they are 
doing, I do not know that we can appreciate their efforts and their 
competence.
  During one of the meals, again I always ask, what do you want me to 
share with people when I go back home? We were in Babylon in this 
historic city where Saddam had built another palace to himself. A young 
soldier who had been very quiet during the meal, he looked up and he 
said, what I want the people at home to know is that the Iraqis that 
are shooting at us and setting off bombs, those aren't the Iraqi people 
I know. The Iraqi people I know are very appreciative that we are here. 
They thank me every day. I go out in the marketplace, and I don't feel 
threatened. That's what I want the people at home to know, is that the 
Iraqi people very much appreciate our efforts.
  Then later, right after that meal, you will remember we went to a 
mass grave site. That was probably one of the most moving experiences 
that I had during the trip, where we visited this mass grave site where 
up to 15,000 people had been murdered, many of them buried alive. They 
told us about how that grave site was discovered and the conditions. Do 
you remember that? Do you want to share that story?
  Mr. SHUSTER. Absolutely. That was one of the best stories that I have 
taken away from Iraq. Not only did we see firsthand the commitment and 
the bravery, the courage of our young men and women, but the decency of 
the American soldier. The story we were told was that when they found 
the mass grave site, the Iraqi people as they do to celebrate or in 
anger when they come together is they shoot their weapons off into the 
air. It is very dangerous because when you shoot a bullet up, it has to 
come down, and when you have several hundred people doing that, there 
were people being killed. The Marines told these folks that were going 
up to the mass grave site that they could not celebrate in that way. 
They were not allowed to shoot guns off into the air, so it was a very 
heated exchange. The Iraqis were angry because they could not do what 
they typically do.
  So they went to the mass grave site, they collected the remains of 
many of their family members, and as they came back into the village, 
they came face to face with a patrol of Marines. It was a tense moment. 
Without somebody from high up, some bureaucrat in Washington or some 
general in the Pentagon or some general in the field, a young sergeant 
decided the best thing to do was to order his men to stand aside, take 
their helmets off and bow their heads to pay respect to the families, 
to the people that had perished and to honor them as they passed.
  I truly look at that, when I think about the American soldier and we 
think of, as I said earlier, how courageous they are, truly, how 
compassionate they are. That is a demonstration of that. It is really a 
touching story. It makes me very, very proud to be an American, to know 
that we not only train fierce warriors, but compassionate soldiers, 
compassionate people.
  Mr. CHOCOLA. Again, I thank the gentleman. I think you are right. I 
think that the secret to our success in Iraq is not just going to be 
firepower or dollars, it is going to be the content of the character of 
the men and women in uniform, and, certainly, we saw that they have 
tremendous character. They

[[Page 23667]]

represent American ideals and values better than we could ever imagine. 
I think we certainly owe them a debt of gratitude for their efforts.
  Mr. SHUSTER. I think it was General Sanchez that said to us that the 
way for us to succeed, to win this, to finally win this, is not going 
to be militarily, it is going to be through the hearts and minds of the 
Iraqi people, helping them to rebuild a country and giving them back 
their country.
  As you mentioned earlier, the thing we do not hear about in the 
media, they say that there is no plan. As you mentioned and showed, one 
of the plans as I recall, we met with General Sanchez who is the head 
of operations in the Iraqi theater. Then we met with four of the five 
division generals, commanders in Iraq. Every time we sat down for a 
briefing with any one of them, they gave us a similar plan.
  Even General Dempsey, who controls Baghdad, that is his area of 
control, he talked about when we were there at the end of August, they 
were already starting to make plans and starting to move toward taking 
our control, our base out of the center of Baghdad and moving it to the 
four corners of Baghdad. That was a month ago. I have not heard about 
that. I have not heard about it in the national media. I have heard 
about it in our briefings, that General Dempsey is starting to make 
those moves, so that we are looking into Baghdad, not looking out. They 
believe that that is going to be a better way for us to help the Iraqi 
people, so we are not sitting in the middle and the Iraqi people then 
can take control of the security of Baghdad.
  So there is a plan. We know that, and we have seen that. That is why 
it is so important tonight for us here and to go back to our districts 
and talk about these plans, to talk about what we saw. I would 
encourage every Member of the House of Representatives, all 435 
Members, to get on a plane, go to Iraq, see what is over there, because 
I think as you have pointed out tonight, they come back and tell a 
different story, or a full story of what is going on in Iraq. I would 
encourage all of the Members of the House to travel there and see it 
firsthand.
  Mr. CHOCOLA. Again, I thank the gentleman. I share in his 
encouragement for all Members possible to go there and see for 
themselves what is happening and share those stories.

                          ____________________