[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 24374]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            FUNDING FOR 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, next week the Congress will consider the 
President's request that we borrow $87 billion and indebt the American 
people for the next 30 years to repay that 87 billion borrowed dollars 
on top of the $79 billion that Congress borrowed last April to continue 
the actions in Iraq and build that country. And I say ``build'' because 
the President has asked for $20.3 billion to build Iraq, not rebuild. 
We are not talking about war damage. That is a tiny fraction of the 
cost. This is a guide to the gold-plated construction and war 
profiteering that the administration has put forward for Iraq.
  There is no sum too great. Six billion dollars, not to repair the 
damage to their electrical grid but to update their 1950s and 1960s 
boilers and generators to 2003 standards and all the other 
disinvestments. Six billion dollars the American taxpayers will be 
asked to borrow to give them the state-of-the-art energy grid when 
lights are blinking out in this country and our rates are going up.
  No idea is too tangential. The Bush Administration wishes the Iraqis 
to have wireless Internet. They did not have it before the war. I do 
not think they even had laptops. Maybe a few of the elite did. But they 
are going to have it after the war. They are going to have wireless 
Internet paid for, money borrowed, in the name of the American 
taxpayer.
  And then, finally, nothing is too wasteful when it comes to this 
administration. Mr. Bremer, the pro-consul, signed a contract to feed 
the 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council handpicked by Mr. Bremer 
and the President for a mere $5,000 per day.

                              {time}  1830

  Apparently the food was going to be flown in on an executive jet from 
some exclusive restaurant in Washington, DC or New York. I do not know 
how they could spend $5,000 a day for 25 people. The Iraqi Council 
canceled that and generally said, ``You know, when it comes to 
reconstruction or feeding ourselves or doing all these other things, 
help us do it, and we can do it for 10 cents on the dollar.'' They are 
aghast at what we are wasting.
  The major point is when it comes to this administration, no sum is 
too much when it comes to war profiteering and gold-plated construction 
in Iraq. But it is too easy for them to neglect our troops.
  We find out that 30,000 of our troops lack body armor. They have been 
issued flak vests from the Vietnam era. It will not stop an AK-47 
bullet. It would cost $15 million to equip those troops with vests, but 
the Pentagon, which got $79 billion last spring to equip the troops in 
the war and had a budget of nearly $400 billion last year, said it 
could not find within that budget, $15 million to give our young men 
and women those vests. So now, in order to equip those young men and 
women with the vests they should have had before they went there, they 
are asking for $300 million. What is this? Yes, $15 million worth of 
vests are needed, and the Pentagon said they want a $300 million 
appropriation to do that.
  But it does not stop there. Some of our troops are over there in 
their jungle fatigues. Many of them are driving Humvees that have 
either canvas side curtains or sheet metal doors, which do not do real 
well with AK-47 bullets or rocket-propelled grenades. Now, they finally 
came to the conclusion that we should buy some armored Humvees for 
those troops.
  The boots, the substandard boots they purchased are wearing out. Some 
of the troops are wearing jungle fatigues. We cannot afford those 
desert fatigues for everybody. A $400 billion budget, $79 billion last 
spring, another $79 billion now. Some of those people are going to have 
to go over there in their jungle fatigues, wear that Vietnam era flak 
jacket, drive around in Humvees with canvas side curtains.
  But yesterday the Bush administration decided they are going to get 
this all right and fix it. So they appointed Condoleezza Rice to 
oversee Mr. Bremer, the pro-consul in Iraq, and see if they can do 
these things better in the future.
  I have a suggestion for Pro-Consul Bremer and his overseer, Ms. Rice: 
Why do not they go over there, looking like a target, wearing jungle 
fatigues, and wear a Vietnam era flak jacket and drive a Humvee with 
canvas side curtains, instead of going around in their armor-plated 
Suburbans, surrounded by Bradley Fighting Vehicles with helicopters 
overhead, and they say they have been there and are doing what the 
troops need.
  The troops are not getting what they need, and we are wasting 
billions to rebuild that country.

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