[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23852]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE SITUATION IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Madam Speaker, earlier this evening, one of our 
Republican colleagues, a very fine and thoughtful gentleman, came to 
the well here to lament the fact that the dialogue here, the discussion 
in the House, has become somewhat partisan lately. I have to agree with 
him that that is the case. He also said that earlier, after September 
11, 2001, immediately thereafter, there was a sense of unity and 
purpose here, we were united. There is no question that that also is 
true. There are legitimate reasons for both circumstances.
  After the attack of September 11, of course we were united. We were 
united as a country and the Members in this House were united 
purposefully to deal with the problems associated with that attack.

                              {time}  1715

  The President and the Members of Congress here identified the source 
of that problem. It was al Qaeda network being harbored by the Taliban 
in Afghanistan, and we all united together to make sure that that 
problem was eliminated. Some of us even went to Afghanistan to be with 
our military personnel to show them our support for the efforts there. 
That military action is over. Unfortunately, due to the lack of 
attention of the administration, however, it is rapidly deteriorating.
  But I want to talk more about the situation that exists in Iraq 
because that has become the major focus of our attention, and indeed it 
has taken on a partisan perspective, and there are very good reasons 
for that because we have major differences of opinion. First of all, 
with regard to the rationale for attacking Iraq and, secondly, with 
regard to how the circumstances there are being carried out by this 
administration and especially by the Defense Department under this 
administration.
  Everyone will recall that the President, when he spoke here in this 
House to a joint session of Congress and the American people, said over 
and over and over again directly and indirectly that there were ties 
and relationships between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, between 
Iraq and the al Qaeda network, and that was the reason why we had to go 
to war. Just recently the President has had to admit that that was not 
the case. There was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda 
or Osama bin Laden.
  Then the administration was telling us that they had to go over 
weapons of mass destruction. They knew there were chemical and 
biological weapons there in Iraq, and we had to go in there because 
those weapons were dangerous and they had to be taken care of. We have 
been there now for 5 months. We have found no chemical or biological 
weapons, no trace of any program dealing with nuclear weapons in spite 
of the fact that the President, from the podium here in this House, 
said that he had good solid information that the Iraqis were importing 
enriched uranium from Niger to facilitate the development of their 
nuclear program. All of that has turned out to be false. And so, yes, 
we raised the question why did we go to Iraq? For what purpose are we 
there? Why did we disrupt that country? Why have we created a situation 
of chaos there that has resulted in the death, up to this moment, of 
more than 300 American soldiers and the injury, the wounding, many of 
them very serious, of hundreds more, not to mention the deaths of tens 
of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and others from 
other countries? Yes, we question that.
  Now, we find out other things. For example, we have learned recently 
that there are now, according to General Abizaid, who is the highest-
ranking American military officer in the Persian Gulf, that there are 
650,000 tons of conventional weapons in Iraq, and they are essentially 
unguarded. The administration is running around the country there 
looking for so-called weapons of mass destruction. They have not paid a 
bit of attention to 650,000 tons of conventional weapons, grenades, 
surface-to-air missiles, 500-pound bombs, things of that nature that 
are scattered in places all over that country.
  The destruction of the UN headquarters in Iraq recently, which 
resulted in the death of the highest-ranking United Nations official in 
Iraq, is something that we are all deeply concerned about and lament. 
What caused that? It turns out that under an FBI investigation, they 
found remnants of a Russian-made 500-pound bomb that, in all 
likelihood, came from one of these arsenals that are scattered around 
Iraq unguarded from which the terrorists can get all of the explosives 
and all of the conventional weapons they want, because we are not 
paying sufficient attention to them because we are looking for 
something that the administration has known from the beginning, based 
upon intelligence from the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and 
elsewhere, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
  They have taken us down a blind alley. We see through it. We see the 
falsehood. We see the mendacity. And, of course, we have an obligation, 
a responsibility to speak out against it. That is why the tone has 
turned in this House to a more partisan nature, because the 
administration and the leadership in this House pulled the wool over 
the eyes of the American people and many of the Members of this House 
who voted for that war resolution back last October. And now it is 
evident that they did so under false pretenses. It was a fraud, and we 
need to take action to correct it.

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