[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 27484]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       WHAT IS THE PLAN IN IRAQ?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today the President signed the bill 
taking $87 billion to deal with Iraq.
  I will include for the Record an article from the Everett Herald 
entitled, ``Parents Who Protested War Mourn Death of Soldier Son.'' 
This man from my district leaves behind a wife who is pregnant to 
deliver in 1 month and two small girls.
  As we held the memorial service today for the 15 troops that were 
killed on Sunday in Iraq when one of our Chinook helicopters went down, 
I could not help thinking about the memorial service that will be held 
for the person who died last night and the one who died this morning, 
and there will be more and more. The memorial service for Benjamin 
Colgan from my district is down the road yet.
  This morning I spoke about the President's need to present a plan for 
stopping the bloodshed. As far as we know, there is no plan. Our 
experience shows us there was no or little planning about what would 
happen after the military action stopped. They have never stopped 
because there was no plan. Now, apparently we are going to sit in Iraq 
while the President continues to say ``bring 'em on'' until the war on 
terror is won, until Iraq has free enterprise, until Iraq has good 
roads, until Iraq loves Americans. Well, it is not going to happen.
  The war on terror is much like the war on drugs or the war on 
poverty, we have to keep at it, but we are not going to defeat the 
enemy and get a surrender sign on the battleship Missouri. If the 
President says we are going to keep troops in Iraq until the war on 
terror is over, then the President is planning to keep troops in Iraq 
forever.
  Maybe the Iraqis are ingrates or foolish, or maybe they are reacting 
like people have reacted since time immemorial to occupations. Many 
have lamented the way the President squandered the good will of the 
nations of the world after September 11. Now, the President is 
squandering the goodwill of the Iraqi people, most of whom were happy 
to have Saddam Hussein removed.
  I did not, and I still do not, believe that removing a foreign 
dictator is sufficient reason for the United States to invade another 
country. If it were, we would be invading dozens of countries. But the 
fact is that removal of Saddam Hussein was a gain for the Iraqi people 
and the United States for a short time had their gratitude. Now, that 
we have moved from being liberators to occupiers, that gratitude is 
fast drying up.
  Our troops are not safe. Our leaders have gone to such lengths to 
identify nongovernmental groups like the Red Cross and Doctors Without 
Borders that they are not safe either, and they are leaving. The status 
quo is not sustainable. We need to plan what will replace the status 
quo.
  What I fear is that in the absence of a plan, we will stumble down 
the path with a paper Constitution in December and an improvised 
election which will signal our withdrawal, and will leave Iraq in chaos 
because we did not bring the United Nations in to set things up.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, we need a plan. We need to know what the benchmarks are, 
what the goals are, what the test is about when we will leave. I think 
that the President's case for war was shoddy. I think the planning for 
the postwar period was shoddy or perhaps nonexistent. With body bags 
arriving in Dover virtually every day, we cannot afford a shoddy, 
years-long occupation. Americans are targeted in Iraq in a way that 
United Nations blue helmets would not be, in a way that a force from 
countries in the region would not be, in a way that we cannot sustain.
  We have to plan to get out, sooner rather than later. It is the only 
chance for Iraq to have a fresh start, and it is the only chance for a 
lot of young Americans to come back alive. To fail to do this, to lay 
out the plan, what we are going to do and how we are going to get out 
so that the whole world can see, is the only hope of getting the Iraqis 
to stop killing our people. The failure to do that, the stonewalling by 
our President and taking the money we gave him, $87 billion more to 
keep on doing what he is doing, we are in for a long siege.

               [Published on HeraldNet.com, Nov. 5, 2003]

          Parents Who Protested War Mourn Death of Soldier Son


          man was becoming skeptical of u.s. situation in iraq

       Kent.--As a boy, Benjamin Colgan marched with his parents 
     in peace protests.
       Joseph and Pat Colgan, 62 and 60, respectively, whose 
     activism dates from the Vietnam War, were surprised when 
     their son enlisted in the Army. But they continued to support 
     him, even as they opposed the war in Iraq.
       On Monday, their worst fears came true. Colgan, 30, a 
     second lieutenant, the father of two young daughters with a 
     third child due next month, died Saturday when a roadside 
     bomb exploded as he responded to a rocket-propelled grenade 
     attack in Baghdad, the Defense Department said.
       A U.S. flag hung outside the family's home Monday. Funeral 
     arrangements were pending.
       Word came with a knock on the door at the Colgans' home.
       ``I saw the cross on his lapel pin and I said, `No, not my 
     son! Not my son!'' his mother said.
       ``There will be many people experiencing the same thing,'' 
     she added. ``This war, it shouldn't be.''
       Benjamin Colgan was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd 
     Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Armored Division.
       His parents were concerned when he gave a dim appraisal of 
     Baghdad in an e-mail Friday.
       ``What raised a red flag was when he said, `It's getting 
     real old and getting real crazy,' '' his father said.
       As a young child, he had joined his parents on marches to 
     protest nuclear weapons at Naval Submarine Base Bangor. Then, 
     to pay for college, he enlisted in the Army after graduation 
     from Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines in 1991.
       ``That was hard, but you support your children,'' his 
     mother said.
       She and her husband joined protest marches again against 
     the war in Iraq this year.
       They tied a yellow ribbon around the maple in their front 
     yard, a tree they had planted when Benjamin Colgan was born. 
     On Monday, they replaced it with a black ribbon.
       Benjamin Colgan initially planned to become a medic, but 
     joined the Special Forces and then Delta Force, the 
     military's most elite and secretive unit.
       He left to attend officer candidate school, was assigned to 
     the 1st Armored Division in Germany after graduation, and 
     hoped to return to Delta Force after earning his captain's 
     bars, his father said.
       His mother says his death has only strengthened her 
     position against the war.
       ``People keep asking, `Are the Iraqis better off?' '' she 
     said. ``What we have to start asking is, `Are we better off?' 
     And we're not. We're losing our children.''

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