[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24257]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE COST OF REBUILDING IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, we heard some amusing speeches 
earlier about the new Washington Waste Watchers, the gentleman from 
Texas and some other Republican over there. I guess that their vision 
does not extend too far.
  First of all, the Republicans control the White House, every agency 
of the Federal Government, the House and the Senate. If there is waste, 
fraud and abuse, well then, they should take care of it. But they are 
too busy asking the American people to borrow $87 billion to build Iraq 
in the vision of the neoconservatives in the White House that put this 
failed policy on us and pursuing this adventure.
  Right here, here it is. The gold-plated guide to war profiteering in 
Iraq, otherwise known as the Coalition Provisional Authority Request to 
Rehabilitate and Reconstruct Iraq. Most of it has nothing to do with 
reconstructing Iraq or war damage that we caused.
  Now, there is an argument that could be made that we should repair 
war damage. But these are things that the Iraqis never had, they have 
not had ever. We are talking about, well, they have 50-year-old steam 
boilers, so we have got to spend $6 billion on their electric grid. 
Guess what? The lights are blinking out here in the eastern United 
States and on my coast a couple of summers ago, the West Coast, because 
we are underinvesting here.
  The President can ask to borrow $6 billion not only to rebuild the 
little bit of damage we did, but to give them a state-of-the-art 
system. The American people will pay for that for 30 years. How much is 
he asking to invest in the United States of America? A big goose egg.
  Yeah, I guess the eye on Waste Watchers on Washington does not go to 
waste watchers in the war profiteering and the rebuilding of Iraq.
  Let us take up a couple of other subjects. $1 billion will be 
borrowed by the American people at the request of the President and 
Republican Congress to train the police in Iraq. Certainly and 
arguably, we should have a trained police force. But it is 
extraordinarily expensive because they say, Well, first off, they have 
to build a facility to train them outside the country. They cannot 
train them in Iraq.
  The French, they offered to train the Iraqi police in Iraq for free. 
But, God forbid, those French, we should accept anything from them. 
They are a lot better at policing, military policing in these sorts of 
situations, have a lot more experience than we do, but we are going to 
hire consultants and pay $1 billion, borrow $1 billion to take the 
Iraqis out of their country to train them.
  Then we have got to arm them. Of course, the U.S. military has 
confiscated hundreds of thousands of weapons, many in the original 
grease and wrappers. But, no, that is not good enough for the Iraqi 
police force. We are going to spend $200 million to buy them brand-new 
weapons. I thought, well, maybe this is good. Maybe it has got a Buy 
America component to it. Maybe we are going to buy from American arms 
manufacturers. No, AK-47s, that is what the Iraqi police want. We have 
confiscated tens of thousands of them, but instead of reissuing the 
ones we have confiscated, we are going to buy them brand-new ones at 
more than list price from our friends, the Chinese.
  This is not waste, fraud, and abuse. No, the Washington Waste 
Watchers over there do not have their eyes set on Iraq and this kind of 
stuff, they are talking about the $100,000 missing over there at the 
Department of Education that might have fed some hungry kids. But, no, 
if it is a huge contract, wasting billions of dollars in Iraq; that is 
just fine. The President asked for it. We have to do this.
  Let us talk about the cement plant in northern Iraq. Our estimators 
looked at it and said $15 million to rebuild that plant. So the Bush 
administration put out a request for proposal for $15 million. The 
Iraqis didn't want to wait. They rebuilt it themselves. Cost: $80,000.
  Now, there is Mr. al-Barak, who is a member of the Ruling Council 
which we named. You would think he would be beholden to us since we put 
him in place. But he has been a little critical of our spending. He 
says, ``You know what? We can do it for 10 cents on the dollar. The 
Americans are wasting incredible amounts of money.''
  We are going to be asked to borrow nearly $20 billion, indebt 
Americans for the next 30 years for waste, fraud, and abuse and war 
profiteering, and the Iraqis say they can do it for 10 cents on the 
dollar.
  There was a contract to feed the Iraqi Ruling Council, which we 
named, which Mr. Bremer put out, no bid, of course. I guess it was from 
Sardi's in New York because to feed 25 people a day, $5,000 a day. The 
Iraqi council was aghast, and Mr. al-Barak said, No, thanks, we can 
feed ourselves for a lot less than $5,000 a day. They think we are 
nuts. They really do.
  Waste, fraud, and abuse, apparently is only when it might benefit 
Americans. But when it can benefit war profiteers and no-bid 
contractors overseas in the gold-plated building, not rebuilding, of 
Iraq, there is a blind eye being turned here.

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