[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26005-26006]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        FOREIGN POLICY CONCERNS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) and the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Edwards) and the good work they have done. I have come to the 
House floor night after night since July sharing concerns about the 
treatment of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, concerns about the 
basis of our Iraq policy, concerns about the $87 billion we are 
spending in Iraq, in addition to the $1 billion a week we have already 
been spending; about the corruption and the ineptness of the Bush 
administration and their all-too-often focusing more on the private 
contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel than they have on the safety 
of our armed services and our troops.

                              {time}  2100

  And as a result, Mr. Speaker, I have shared these from my 
constituents night after night since July about these issues. I would 
like to do that again this evening.
  Paula from Akron, Ohio, writes, ``We need to be concerned with our 
troubled economy at home. This country doesn't have $87 billion to send 
overseas when we have an education system that is in shambles and 
millions out of work.''
  Cory of Copley, Ohio, writes, ``Please do not give the administration 
another blank check so they can continue their oil wars. Tell them to 
pull out of Iraq and let the U.N. take control. The administration has 
lied to the country. Please do your part in returning our country to 
the people.''
  I think Cory was talking about some of the statements from some of 
the top leaders in this country about weapons of mass destruction and 
other issues which have proven to be not true.
  Karen of Broadview Heights writes, ``We have been way too patient 
with men who clearly do not know what they are doing and who do not 
care how much of the taxpayers' money they spend to do it.''
  Michael of Strongsville writes, ``I think it is either irresponsible 
or insane, or perhaps both, to have huge tax cuts at the same time we 
are spending huge amounts for war.'' What Michael is referring to is 
that this Congress and the President have passed a tax cut where the 
average millionaire gets a $93,000 tax cut while half of the people in 
my State got literally zero dollars in a tax cut. ``I hope our 
legislative branch of government,'' Michael writes, ``deliberates long 
and hard before coughing up another $87 billion.''
  Colette of Strongsville writes, ``To give them $73 billion more to 
continue

[[Page 26006]]

their real aim, contracts for Halliburton, Bechtel, and others in 
corporate America, would be a crime against the people in the United 
States who now reel with economic deterioration at home. It is time to 
hold those accountable who led us into such a dark place in our 
Nation's history.'' What Colette is talking about, Mr. Speaker, is that 
we spend a billion a week today, before the $87 billion appropriation, 
a billion dollars a week in Iraq today.
  The President has by and large privatized the military in the sense 
that one-third of that billion now goes to private contractors, 
Halliburton, Bechtel, other major companies, all of those companies are 
major contributors to the President, to his campaign. The President has 
raised almost $100 million already. Much of it comes from these 
companies.
  I would add too that Halliburton, the company where Vice President 
Cheney, before Governor Bush tapped him as his running mate, Vice 
President Cheney was CEO of this company. He still is receiving $13,000 
a month from Halliburton while Halliburton is getting, literally, 
hundreds of millions of dollars in unbid contracts.
  So what we see, Mr. Speaker, and what Colette obviously is upset 
about, is we are privatizing, in many ways, much of the military, $300 
million a week going to these private companies in unbid contracts, and 
those companies are still paying, in one case, the Vice President of 
the United States $13,000 a month.
  Sandy of Hinckley, Ohio, writes, ``It is of extreme importance for 
the future of this country to hold President Bush accountable. We lost 
a great deal in human life and money for claims that even President 
Bush cannot now and does not now defend.''
  Vera of Strongsville writes, ``I want my tax dollars rebuilding us, 
not Iraq or any other country. $87 billion would go a long way here in 
the United States. Secretary Rumsfeld and his team need to be replaced 
with some honest and caring people who will tell the truth and do the 
best things for the Iraqi people and will bring our troops home 
safely.''
  Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago when the $87 billion was approved 
by this body, I had an amendment that required that all U.S. companies 
which relocated their headquarters to an offshore tax haven would be 
ineligible for any government contracts. In other words, if a company 
moved offshore to avoid taxes, they could no longer get any government 
contracts to do work in Iraq.
  Unfortunately, the Bush administration opposed that amendment. The 
Republican leadership in this House would not even allow that amendment 
to be offered. That is what I mean, and what many of these letter 
writers mean, when they talk about the corruption and the incompetence 
of the Bush administration and the failure of the Bush administration 
to provide safe drinking water and body armor and other things for our 
troops to protect them and supply them in a faraway land.

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