[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 29113-29119]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tancredo). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the

[[Page 29114]]

gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) is recognized for 60 minutes 
as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight with my colleagues to 
resume the Iraq Watch we have been conducting almost every week on the 
floor since sometime last spring. I believe it was April that we 
started speaking every week on the floor about our concerns about our 
policies in Iraq, trying to ask questions, trying to seek answers from 
the administration regarding the policies that we have been pursuing. 
Also, we have been suggesting changes that we would like to see in 
those policies. Of course, a lot has happened in Iraq since last 
spring, since the very impressive and brave work of our military men 
and women, the impressive victory that they won over Saddam Hussein, a 
victory no one thought was in doubt, but everyone was happy to see with 
minimal loss of life. We thought that the military performed with great 
courage and great skill.
  Since that time, of course, it has become clear as the military 
battle was conducted, the planning for and the actual reconstruction 
and security of Iraq has been very poor. We have all been disappointed 
in the difficulties. The continuing casualties have been heartbreaking. 
The inability to get the American-appointed Governing Council to work 
effectively to try to bring the Iraqi society together has been 
disappointing. I think the Bush administration finally understands they 
need to change their plan for the ultimate creation of a new government 
and a representative democracy and hopefully a pluralistic society in 
Iraq.
  Recently the administration has announced a change. They will no 
longer ask that the Governing Council in Iraq be responsible for 
writing a new constitution and holding new elections before America 
gives up authority for the reconstruction and the occupation of Iraq.
  Instead, Mr. Speaker, we are now putting time limits on our 
occupation. We have apparently announced that we will give to the 
Iraqis the responsibility for their reconstruction next summer, 
although the President has been clear, and I agree with the President 
that we must continue to keep our forces there to make sure the tyrants 
and the murderers do not come back if the Iraqi democrats-to-be fail to 
move forward and secure their country.
  The question is what is the best policy for this country? How do we 
best achieve a stable and secure Iraq, which is a goal all of us share? 
How do we best achieve the creation of a pluralistic society? How do we 
best establish a representative government based upon principles of 
self-government and tolerance and cooperation with the rights of women 
protected, with sharing of responsibility between the three great 
ethnic groups in Iraq, the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds? How do we 
best achieve this in the face of a security threat in Iraq where our 
troops are not safe, where the guerilla attacks against our troops 
continue, where there is no Iraqi Army yet ready to step forward to 
provide for its own security, where the Iraqi police are not yet 
capable of providing for security domestically? How do we best proceed?
  Some fear that the President after holding on to power and not 
allowing the Iraqi Governing Council or any other group to have any 
decision-making power, some fear that the President now is moving too 
quickly to give up power to the Iraqis; and I think it is a very 
legitimate question because if we leave too early, if we leave a vacuum 
in any way in Iraq, only bad things can happen, whether Saddam Hussein 
or his followers attempt to come back, whether a new group of lawless 
thugs attempt to take over, whether forces from other countries attempt 
to infiltrate and take over Iraq, none of that would be good. None of 
that would be good for the Western democracies; none of that would 
honor the sacrifices that brave young Americans have made, including 
those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and have died serving their 
country.
  A premature departure from Iraq by this country could lead to a less 
stable country in Iraq. It could lead to a less stable Middle East. It 
could allow Iraq to become a haven for terrorists, which is a process, 
unfortunately, already under way, a haven which did not exist when 
Saddam Hussein was in power. As murderous a tyrant as he was, he 
operated in a secular fashion and did not apparently have relationships 
with the religious fundamentalists and extremists that form al Qaeda 
and other terrorist groups. But now with the instability in Iraq, it 
has become a magnet for those who want to attack Americans and disrupt 
the search for peace in the Middle East.
  It is my view, Mr. Speaker, the way to best achieve our national 
goals in Iraq is to recognize that while this country is uniquely 
capable of winning military victories and facing down tyrants and 
working for the liberation of oppressed people, we are perhaps not best 
suited for nation-building; that we are probably not using our 
resources and our skills to our highest potential when we get bogged 
down in having to administer a country. It is admirable that we are 
willing to pay for the reconstruction or some of the reconstruction of 
a nation, and that is a great and wonderful American tradition of 
rebuilding vanquished foes and those less fortunate. But how do we best 
achieve this stabilized society, representative government and the 
creation of a pluralistic society where tolerance and economic freedom 
and personal liberty can flourish?
  I am here tonight to say that I continue to believe that we should 
turn to our multinational organizations such as the United Nations, 
NATO, and others, to help us with nation-building in Iraq. I would 
point out that the United Nations is perhaps uniquely qualified through 
experience and organization to be responsible for reconstruction and 
nation-building.
  In fact, this is what the United Nations was created to do in 1945. I 
fear that an almost irrational opposition to the notion and the concept 
of the United Nations from some on the other side of the aisle is 
preventing this country from calling upon the United Nations to assume 
this burden. There are many reasons why I would like to see this 
happen. It is not only to get out from under the financial burden of 
reconstructing Iraq on our own. It is partly that; it is also partly to 
share the responsibility for the reconstruction of Iraq. It is to share 
the credibility that is needed, to call upon other nations and 
multilateral organizations like the United Nations to provide the 
stability and take away from the equation some of the animosity that 
has wrongfully built up against America, but nonetheless exists in some 
part of the world.

                              {time}  2145

  Frankly, the United Nations is designed to do this kind of work. It 
is designed to relieve the United States from taking on all of the 
burden of reconstructing a country and building a new Nation. If we 
turn to the United Nations, we will still be the senior partner. We pay 
25 percent of the bills of the United Nations. We will still have 
tremendous influence over what happens, but we would be in a position 
where the responsibility and accountability and the burden of 
reconstruction would be shared with an organization that is created to 
do that very thing.
  Secondly, I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that anyone, the United 
States, the United Nations, or anyone else, will have success in the 
stabilization of Iraq, not the least of which I would include the Iraqi 
Governing Council itself, unless we establish security in Iraq, and 
that has not been done. Again, I think it is asking too much of our 
American military to become a long-term occupying power, to have our 
young men and women serving in what, in parts of Iraq, seems to be, 
literally, a shooting gallery, with 20 or 25 daily attacks on American 
Forces and our Coalition Forces. We are not in a position to have 
secured Iraq. We clearly need more troops to do that. Yet, in my view, 
it should not be America's burden to send more troops.
  So I would say that it is by far the best strategy to turn to NATO, 
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is a military 
organization, to

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provide security in Iraq. NATO, of course, historically never fired a 
shot, was designed as a defensive alliance to keep the world safe from 
any hostility from the Soviet Union. In the conflict in Kosovo, the 
NATO forces were used for the first time out of the traditional 
confines of Europe, or at least on the southern stretches of Europe, 
used for the first time in a proactive way to defeat another tyrant, 
another dictator, Milosevic, in Kosovo. And NATO performed brilliantly 
and was able to liberate that country from the abuses of that dictator 
and has also now moved into Afghanistan to take over some of the 
security functions in that country. I believe that NATO would be the 
appropriate international organization to provide security in Iraq 
while we turn to the United Nations to take primary responsibility for 
the reconstruction of Iraq.
  Now, none of this will happen, Mr. Speaker, none of this will happen 
until the United States is willing to give up some authority in Iraq. 
We cannot continue to call all of the shots in Iraq and expect our 
traditional allies to send troops or money or advice or anything else. 
It is time for us not just to put Iraqis back in charge, because it is 
not yet clear Iraqis are able to be back in charge, particularly, with 
the insecure conditions that exist there; but it is time for us, in 
concert with our traditional allies, in concert with international 
organizations that we created at the end of the Second World War, that 
we established for the very purpose of Nation-building. Nation-building 
was not a phrase then, it is a newer phrase, but the concept is exactly 
why NATO was established, and, particularly, why the United Nations was 
established. It is time for us to use our diplomatic skill to give up 
the necessary authority and responsibility, to share the obligations 
with these two international organizations, so that we can more quickly 
and more effectively and more safely stabilize Iraq, establish a 
pluralistic society, and move them towards self-government.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to my colleague, the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), one of the senior members of the 
House Committee on International Relations and a founding member of 
Iraq Watch, my good friend.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It is good to be 
here with my colleague tonight and share a few observations regarding 
this situation in Iraq. Also, I think at some point in time, I think it 
is necessary to present some information to the American people and to 
those who are listening here tonight relative to what is transpiring in 
Afghanistan.
  I think to sum up what the gentleman said, one only has to look at 
the cover of the November 3 edition of Newsweek magazine, and it is 
entitled, ``Bush's $87 Billion Mess. Waste, Chaos, and Cronyism. The 
Real Cost of Rebuilding Iraq.''
  It has become a matter of concern, as the gentleman well knows, not 
only to Members on this side of the aisle, Democrats, but clearly to 
our colleagues on the Republican side, particularly in the United 
States Senate, because if there is any term that best characterizes 
what is occurring, it is chaos.
  Mr. Speaker, in our previous efforts in terms of Iraq Watch, we 
discussed the lack of post-major combat phase planning. And again, that 
opinion was shared by many, most specifically, the chairman of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar who, in fact, had 
written an article that I thought was very incisive and appeared in the 
Washington Post. But not only do we not have a plan, but the plan seems 
to change almost on a daily basis.
  If my colleagues remember, I think it was, in fact, a colleague of 
ours here in the House, a senior Republican Member of the House 
Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Leach), highly-regarded and well-respected by all Members, who implored 
the President to establish, once and for all, who is in charge of 
whatever plan may or may not exist out there. Initially, Jay Garner, a 
former general, was dispatched to Iraq to work with Iraqis that were 
favorably disposed to the United States to begin the process of 
rebuilding. And, after a relatively short period of time, there was a 
change there. And L. Paul Bremer became, if you will, the viceroy of 
Iraq. Mr. Bremer indicated that his boss to whom he reported directly 
was the Secretary of Defense Mr. Rumsfeld. Yet, several months 
thereafter, there was an announcement from the White House that in fact 
it was the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who was vested 
with the responsibility of coordinating the plan for Iraq. Of course, 
recently we learn that Mr. Bremer, because of the deteriorating 
situation in Iraq, either reached out or was summonsed by the White 
House for a special meeting directly with the President.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that there be one individual 
that can be held accountable, other than the President, for the shaping 
of this policy that means so much to the American people with our sons 
and daughters tragically dying there on an all-too-frequent basis, and 
to the American taxpayers who were asked by this White House to 
appropriate some $87 billion on top of the $79 billion that we have 
already spent in Iraq to create security in Iraq and to rebuild Iraq, 
if you will, to reconstruct Iraq. Many of us on this side of the aisle 
were adamantly opposed, primarily based on the fact that this money was 
not in the form of a loan, but was a gift to Iraq, a nation with 
incredible resources, some of the largest reserves in terms of energy 
anywhere in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia. And hopefully, at 
some time in the not-too-distant future, would clearly be able to repay 
the American taxpayers for the sacrifices that they are making now 
while we are dealing with these burgeoning deficits that will at some 
point in time be a severe drag on our economy.
  But not only do we have a confusion in terms of who is in charge, but 
we have had a series of different plans. It would appear now that the 
most recent plan is what I would describe as the French plan, the plan 
that France suggested would be the most fruitful initiative in terms of 
bringing stability and rebuilding Iraq. I find that rather ironic, 
given our recent rather divisive relationship with France.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman refers to the latest plan as 
the French plan. The New York Times on Sunday, in looking at the plan 
that they characterize as throwing the problem to the Iraqis, called it 
the ``hot potato plan.'' French, hot potato french fries perhaps, 
whatever.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, maybe this was a hot french fries plan; I 
honestly do not know.
  I notice we have been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Strickland), our friend, who is also a member of our Iraq Watch group. 
But I think what is difficult to accept is that what we have now 
achieved is the expenditure of billions of dollars of American 
taxpayers' money. Of course, the White House made note of the fact that 
there were other international donors in a conference in Madrid. But 
what I thought was particularly noticeable in Madrid was that not a 
single donor there, with the exception of the Japanese, provided gifts, 
outright grants like this institution did and like this White House 
did, but no, they decided they would loan the money so that their 
people would be repaid rather than our people who are carrying the 
entire burden.
  But here we are, we have suffered, and let us be very candid and 
frank: We have suffered a loss of prestige all over the world. One only 
has to turn to nightly news shows. Leading the news now are the 
preparations in Great Britain for the visit of our President, President 
Bush who, according to the most recent polls is viewed negatively by 
our ally, the English people, by 60 percent. Sixty percent of the 
English people disapprove of President Bush. Whether one is a Democrat 
or whether one is a Republican, that is painful to us. That is painful 
to us. We do not wish our President to be viewed as negative by our 
ally. And recently during the course of a hearing on the Subcommittee 
on Latin America, data was put forward that 87 percent of our

[[Page 29116]]

neighbors here in this hemisphere disapprove of our President. Again, 
that pains us all.

                              {time}  2200

  That pains us all.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, may I interrupt the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) again?
  There was additional polling information made available over the 
weekend from a European pollster, I do not know the name, saying that a 
majority of citizens in virtually every European country except, I 
believe, Italy, view the United States as the most likely country to 
start a war or to create instability. Now, I reject that view 
completely. We are the peacemakers and we are not the war makers; but I 
wanted to emphasize the gentleman's point that something has gone wrong 
with the way we are viewed by our friends around the world, let alone 
how we are viewed by our enemies. I am not so concerned about how the 
enemies look at us, but when the Western European democracies have a 
negative view of our President and our country, a negative view that I 
do not share, but that they have come to that conclusion, something is 
dramatically wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) 
mind if we bring our colleague into the conversation?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would welcome our friend, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be with you this evening. 
I was asked a few days ago by a reporter in my district why the 
emphasis on what has gone wrong in Iraq. The question was phrased in 
this way: Should you not be concerned about the future and what we do 
next? And my response was this: The same people who are in charge of 
planning for the future are the people who have gotten us to the point 
where we are now. And unless we look at how we got into this situation, 
unless we scrutinize the decision-makers who brought us to this point, 
we cannot have confidence that we are being taken in the right 
direction as far as the future is concerned.
  If I could just say a word about the $87 billion that my friend 
referred to earlier. I think the American people need to know that if 
we were to take the 435 congressional districts in this country, and we 
were to divide $87 billion by the 435 congressional districts, what we 
would come out with is $200 million that could be spent in every 
congressional district in this country for the needs that exist back 
home, for the jobless people, for the children who do not have health 
care, for the older people who do not have prescription drugs.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And, Mr. Speaker, for our veterans.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. For our veterans. And that leads me to the fact that 
we are underfunding veterans health care by $1.8 billion. $1.8 billion. 
We are sending $87 billion to Iraq in addition to what we have already 
spent this year, and we are being so stingy with our veterans that we 
are underfunding their health care by $1.8 billion.
  And the American people need to know that over in the Senate they 
passed an amendment to add an additional $1.3 billion of that $1.8 
billion shortfall. And the very day that amendment passed the Senate, 
the White House put out a statement opposing it. Now, think of that. 
Here we have a President, we have a President who has asked for $87 
billion for Iraq and takes active opposition toward the efforts in this 
Congress to give an additional $1.8 billion to our veterans. I mean, I 
think that is shocking; I think it is something the American people 
would object to. And they need to know about that.
  But I want to talk about one other thing, if I can, in regard to this 
war effort, and it is something that I have talked about and I think 
others have talked about on this floor before. But it is something that 
the American people need to know about. As our soldiers continue to die 
on a daily basis in Iraq, I think Americans have a right to ask for 
answers from the President, from our Secretary of Defense, from the 
Pentagon: Why do all of our troops who are fighting for us this very 
moment in Iraq not have the best protective armor available? When will 
this armor be available to all of our soldiers? Why were soldiers sent 
into battle with these cheap, Vietnam-era flak jackets that are not 
capable of stopping bullets?
  I have asked the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, to provide 
answers as to how many American soldiers have been killed or have been 
seriously wounded in part because they were not adequately protected. 
And I have asked the Secretary to commit that we will not provide this 
protection to foreign troops until every, every American soldier in 
harm's way is so protected.
  Somebody needs to be held accountable for this. We had months to 
prepare for this war, months during which we knew we were likely to be 
sending young Americans into harm's way. And yet we did so without 
giving them this protection. Somebody ought to be held responsible. 
Either the President or Secretary Rumsfeld or some lower-level 
individual apparently made the decision that this was not a priority. 
And I believe American soldiers have lost their lives because of this 
failure to plan, failure to set appropriate priorities. And who is 
going to be helped accountable, and when is the situation going to be 
altered?
  Americans need to know that as we sit in our homes and watch TV, and 
those of us who work in this Chamber are here, we carry out our daily 
lives, that there are young Americans over there in tanks and in 
Humvees and walking patrols that do not have the most basic protection, 
this body armor that is capable of stopping bullets. Why do they not 
have that protection?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Strickland) yield for just a moment.
  I met with families of Reservists and National Guard, military that 
are serving in Iraq currently. They have been trained as a 
transportation unit. They are now serving in a different role that 
exposes them to great danger. They are using their own equipment, 
trucks that have no armor protection, that are open, that leave these 
men and women on the back of what I would call a large pickup vehicle 
as a sitting target. These families were outraged. One actually had to 
go to a military hardware store, presumably, to purchase for their son 
a $900 kevlar suit because the parents simply could not sleep at night. 
And it cost that family $400 to send it via the United States Post 
Office.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. General Myers and others have been widely quoted in 
the press as saying this is not a money problem; it is a supply 
problem. Well, it is a supply problem because this war was under way 
for almost 7 months before the first request came to this Congress for 
resources to provide this protection. But even beyond that, I got a 
call in my office, week before last, from a company that told me they 
had 30,000 of these plates in stock, plates that meet specifications. 
Because they say they also provide them to our Army Rangers.
  I do not know how those responsible can sleep at night. They ought to 
stay up until they solve this problem.
  I just met with a young soldier back in my district who was wounded 
by shrapnel. He told me that he sees no way that this Pentagon 
commitment to have these vests delivered to all of our troops by 
December is going to be possible. He says there are thousands of troops 
over there without this most basic protection.
  Now, how can we trust these people to tell us what is the best course 
of action for the future of this war in Iraq when they have been so 
incompetent and negligent in providing our troops with this most basic 
protection?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And yet, Mr. Speaker, they would criticize those who 
ask those questions and instead put forth, if you will, a PR campaign 
to say what is right in Iraq. But it is time, I believe, to listen to 
the troops who give us insight. We all know, for example, because we 
travel abroad and oftentimes we visit our troops, that these trips are 
very carefully structured so that only those things the civilian 
leadership of the Department of Defense wants us to hear is provided 
us.

[[Page 29117]]

  If I could just indulge my two friends for a moment. Back in mid-
October there was a report in The Washington Post and it is entitled, 
``Many Troops Dissatisfied, Iraq Poll Finds.'' A broad survey of U.S. 
troops in Iraq found that half of those questioned described their 
unit's morale as low and their training as insufficient and said they 
do not plan to reenlist. Now, this was not a poll conducted by The 
Washington Post or the New York Times, or the Los Angeles Times or the 
Boston Globe. It was a poll that was conducted by the Stars and Stripes 
newspaper, a newspaper funded by our Pentagon, our Department of 
Defense.
  The findings, if I can just go on, the findings drawn from 1,900 
questionnaires presented to U.S. servicemembers throughout Iraq 
conflict with statements by military commanders and Bush administration 
officials that portray the deployed troops as highly spirited and 
generally well prepared. Though not obtained through scientific 
methods, the survey results indicate that prolonged tours in Iraq are 
wearing down a significant portion of the U.S. force and threatening to 
provoke a sizable exodus from military service. And yet the paper 
quotes General Sanchez, commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq, saying in 
a September 9 interview for this particular series, ``There is no moral 
problem.''
  Of course, as we know, the Bush administration has launched this 
campaign. But the Stars and Stripes, the military's paper, raised 
questions about what visiting dignitaries, such as us and our other 
colleagues who have visited Iraq, get to see. Let me quote again from 
the Stars and Stripes: ``Many soldiers, including several officers, 
allege that VIP visits from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill are only 
given hand-picked troops to meet with during their tours of Iraq,'' the 
newspaper said in its interview with General Sanchez.
  The phrase ``dog and pony show'' is usually used. Some troops even go 
so far as to say they have been ordered not to talk to VIPs because 
leaders are afraid of what they might say.
  Let me say it is about time for the unvarnished truth to be presented 
to the American people. And that is what we attempt to do during the 
course of this hour, of which we have had many.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if I could just say a word about the 
troops. I spent some time last weekend with two young soldiers from my 
district, both of whom have been wounded, and they have come back for 
medical treatment. They are good, loyal, patriotic soldiers. They are 
going to do their duty. They care about Iraq. They care about the Iraqi 
people. They care about the final outcome in that country. The problem 
is not with our troops. These are wonderful young Americans who are 
simply doing what they are called upon to do. And they are doing it 
well.
  The problem, as I see it, exists with the decision-makers, those who 
sit here in the safety of the offices in Washington D.C. and elsewhere 
and make decisions which affect real lives. I had breakfast in a 
restaurant in Ohio a couple of weekends ago. As I was finishing my 
breakfast, I struck up a conversation with a young woman sitting in a 
booth next to me. She was leaving Ohio as soon as she finished her 
breakfast and driving to Baltimore to meet her husband, who is 
stationed in Africa and who is coming home, who is coming home for a 2-
week leave. And then she told me that she had just gotten her orders 
and she is being deployed to Iraq. The children are going to be taken 
care of by the grandparents.

                              {time}  2215

  I just share that with you to emphasize the fact that we are talking 
about real people, real mothers and dads, real sweethearts, real sons 
and daughters. These are real Americans, and decisions are being made 
to expose them to the most incredible danger.
  The question is, is this war being pursued in a way that is rationale 
and reasonable? I still wish that this President, this administration 
would go to the world community, would seek out the help that we need, 
would internationalize the effort in Iraq, would stop our soldiers 
being the only targets basically.
  We hear talk about a coalition. Let us face it. There are a handful 
basically of coalition forces in Iraq. Most of the young people there 
are being killed and injured and shot at are American troops; and we 
need to internationalize our effort, spread this responsibility and not 
just simply allow our kids, our children for the next, no one knows for 
sure. The most recent estimate I have heard is that at least for 5 
years our troops are likely to be there, and I just do not think the 
American people want this to continue as it is unfolding before our 
eyes. Every day we see it happening.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. The problem is 
not with our troops. It is with the policymakers and our planners here 
in Washington.
  I referred earlier to the New York Times article this Sunday. They 
entitled it ``Iraq Goes Sour.'' And I take issue, actually, with one of 
the claims they make here. They blame the intelligence agencies for the 
failures to understand what was actually happening in Iraq. The 
editorial said, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency we now 
realize had no idea what was going on inside Iraq. They continue, the 
CIA's estimate regarding weapons of mass destruction were basically 
worst-case scenarios of what the Hussein regime might have been up to 
in the interim, in 1998 when inspections were cut off.
  They continue, that was apparently a mistake, if an understandable 
one. The reality I think is different. I think that while the 
intelligence agencies clearly did not get it right, they were telling 
the policymakers last fall before Congress voted on whether or not to 
authorize the war, they were telling the White House that there was 
great uncertainty about what Hussein had and what he did not have. We 
know that now. We did not know it then.
  This past Spring, 6 months after we voted, and after the war was 
fought and won, at least according to the President's proclamation on 
May 1, at least the military's battle was won, if not the guerilla 
battle. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence made 
available to rank and file members 18 or 20 boxes of intelligence 
information, most notably the Defense Intelligence Agency report of 
September 2002. And then the great summary report the national 
intelligence estimate of October of 2002. And I have read the executive 
summaries of those documents. It is very long, and I spent a couple of 
hours reading it. It would take days to read all of those boxes, but 
those summaries which are still classified are replete with 
uncertainties, with the agencies saying, well, we believe he has got 
this. We believe he has got that but we are not sure. He had this 
amount of weapons in the past and we are not quite sure where they are 
today.
  They have made the case, as the Vice President has said, that Hussein 
was trying to do certain things, but they were full of uncertainty. And 
my objection is none of that uncertainty was communicated to Congress 
and to the American people. The President and all of his people, and I 
want to give an example in a second, told us with complete clarity and 
certainty that Hussein had these weapons. We knew where they were. We 
knew how much they weighed. We knew everything about them. We were 
going to get them and we could not trust him for another moment. And it 
is my view that it is not the intelligence agencies that failed, but 
the politicians.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  I cannot agree more. Ironically, in this week's edition of Newsweek 
magazine, there is an article that I would commend to all of our 
colleagues here in the House and to the viewing audience here tonight. 
This is very important to read. As one can see, there is a picture of 
the Vice President on the cover. It is entitled, ``How Dick Cheney Sold 
the War. Why He Fell for Bad Intelligence and Pitched It to the 
President.''
  The Central Intelligence Agency, I daresay, made a solid effort from 
what information now appears to be back in the public domain. I think 
it is safe to

[[Page 29118]]

conclude that key players led by the Vice President, supported by 
Secretary Rumsfeld, and Under Secretary Wolfowitz, and Under Secretary 
Fife, cherry-picked, if you will, those pieces of information that 
buttress their case and made unequivocal statement to the American 
people.
  It is very fascinating when the American people and the United States 
Congress learn that there is a special covert group within the 
Department of Defense. And this is within the civilian leadership, 
called the Office for Special Plans that was running a parallel 
operation in terms of intelligence analysis. It was that group that was 
doing the cherry-picking. It was that group that got us into this war. 
They made unequivocal statements, like Secretary Rumsfeld, that those 
weapons of mass destruction, we know where they are. They are in 
Tikrit, in the west here and in the east here. And, of course, we have 
discovered after expending close to a billion dollars to just simply 
looking for them that they do not exist, much to our embarrassment and 
again our loss of prestige.
  So I think it is important that those who attack the CIA often do it 
in a way that I think reveals their own political agenda. Again, 
demeaning the professionalism of the men and women that serve in the 
CIA is not the way to have a constructive debate about what we ought to 
occur, what we ought to be doing right now.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I would just concur with the gentleman 
that that is a very interesting Newsweek article. I read it a few hours 
ago. It is very disturbing because it does lay out how under the Vice 
President's leadership, this Office of Special Plans collected their 
own information and drew their own conclusions, and then they use those 
conclusions to encourage the kind of action that occurred.
  Now, the fact is that the President has finally admitted quite 
publicly, in spite of the Vice President's statement to the contrary, 
that there is no evidence that Iraq or Saddam Hussein was responsible 
for the attack upon our Nation on September 11, 2001. That is a very 
critical conclusion, I think, for us to have come to. Because given 
that and given the fact that we had weapons inspectors in Iraq and they 
were asking for more time, would not you think that if there is 
uncertainty about exactly what Saddam Hussein has or may have, that 
there is no evidence that he was involved in the direct attack upon our 
country, that we would have approached this situation a little more 
cautiously, a little more thoughtfully, that we would have expended the 
time that the inspectors were asking for.
  If we had done that, it may have been possible. It may have been 
possible.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, this is a situation that is continuing today 
where a conclusion or an opinion or a predisposed policy is searching 
for facts.
  Talking about the CIA, what prompted Paul Bremer to come to 
Washington, DC, was a new top secret CIA report from Iraq that growing 
numbers of Iraqis are concluding that the U.S.-led coalition can be 
defeated and a supporting the insurgents.
  Again, I am quoting from a newspaper report, ``The report paints a 
bleak picture of the political and security situation in Iraq and 
cautions that the U.S.-led drive to rebuild a country as a democracy 
could collapse.''
  The report's bleak tone and Bremer's private endorsement differ 
sharply with the upbeat public assessments that President Bush, his 
chief aids, and even Bremer are giving as part of an aggressive 
publicity campaign aimed at countering rising anxieties over increasing 
U.S. causalities in Iraq. Let us be honest with the American people. 
Remember in Vietnam what, I daresay, forced Lyndon Johnson to reassess 
his plans for reelection, was the fact that there was such a great 
divergence and disparity between the reality that was being presented 
to the American people and the reality on the ground.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, let me introduce our colleague who has been 
waiting patiently. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for putting this 
special order together.
  I think that it is very clear we now know that they wanted to go to 
war immediately after 9/11 in Iraq. They went to Afghanistan really 
because that was more obvious to people at that point, but they were 
clearly planning for a long time and they simply misled us about what 
was there.
  Everybody understands that now. There is no mystery in this country 
or anywhere else in the world. The question is, What are we going to do 
now?
  I picked up the Sunday morning newspaper and last Thursday I came 
back to Washington, DC and went out to MCI Center to a hockey game with 
a bunch of amputees from Walter Reed. The next day I went up there and 
walked through several of the wards. There are two pictures of the 
front page of young men who have been severely injured that I know. I 
have met them. These are young kids who did what their country asked 
them, and we honored them.
  I told them I was there because I wanted to say thank you. But the 
fact is that that is exactly what happened in Vietnam. Young people 
went and died doing exactly what they were asked to do. It is the 
leadership that ought to have to pay the price and they ought to start 
paying it right now.
  We have a President who simply will not get off the fact that he made 
a mistake. He simply went the wrong place. He should never have stopped 
the war on terror. He should have finished what was going on in 
Afghanistan and then perhaps you look later at something, but 
Afghanistan is as bad or worse than it was when we went in there.
  We still have people dying there. One died yesterday from the State 
of Washington. And we continued to allow our young people, men and 
women, now to be killed in a war that makes no sense in the way it is 
being run. And the President will not admit it. The whole world has 
told him that. They told him on the 25th of February, ten million 
people marched in the streets this in this country. The President said, 
It is just a focus group. We are going to war.
  Now, my belief is that we have to figure out how we get out and how 
we, with honor, get out of this thing. It is going to be very difficult 
to do that.

                              {time}  2230

  When they called Bremer back here in the other day, it was simply 
because they said, gee, it is 1 year to the election. How in the heck 
are we going to explain this mess at election time? We have got to end 
it. So we are now, in every decision that will be made, it will be made 
not about what is good for our troops or what is good for the 
Reservists or the Guard people or anybody else, but what is seen to be 
good for the President's reelection campaign.
  I am afraid that unless the Congress raises some noise about this, we 
are going to see more people sacrificed in this process because they 
will not get the international community in. If the President would say 
tomorrow, I want Kofi Annan to take over the reconstruction and Kofi 
Annan to take over the military peacekeeping in the country, we will 
make a contribution as we have but we are not going to run it, things 
would begin to change dramatically.
  This is viewed as an occupation. The actual choice of where do they 
go with their headquarters when they came into Baghdad, they went to 
the palaces that Saddam Hussein had built and they moved in, and they 
said to the people, this is where we belong; we are running the place. 
No Iraqi missed the message.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the good doctor will allow me to 
interject a thought here, the President tries to set this up as a two 
choice paradigm. We either do exactly what we are doing now or, as he 
says, we cut and run, as if there are no other options, but the 
gentleman is describing a third option. There may be a fourth or a 
fifth option. We ought to be looking at the situation, not just simply 
blindly pursuing a course of action that is resulting in more and more 
death.
  Quite frankly, I resent it when the President refers to those of us 
who question his policies as those who want to cut and run. The last 
thing I want to do in Iraq is cut and run. We cannot cut and run, and I 
know not a single

[[Page 29119]]

Democrat who is suggesting that course of action, but that does not 
mean that we endorse his plan because his plan is getting us deeper and 
deeper and deeper into a quagmire. More and more young Americans are 
being killed, and even more are being seriously wounded. We cannot 
allow this situation to continue.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. The hardest part about this is that the American 
people are not being told the truth. If we read the American 
newspapers, they are told there are only 5,000 in al Qaeda over in 
Iraq. If we read the European papers, they say 50,000. We do not see 
any bodies coming back. They have absolutely prohibited the press and 
the media from going out to Dover when the troops come back or to go to 
cemeteries when people are being buried. They are simply blinding the 
American people's eyes. In my view, the American people have to demand 
that they know what is going on, and I think there is really no excuse 
for what they have done except that they have to make the political 
campaign look better.
  This is a mess. Everywhere in the world we look at the press, any 
country in the world we see the press. They have all analyzed the 
President made a big mistake. The French, in fact, were right. If 
people really want to understand what is going on here, go watch the 
movie The Battle of Algiers. The French went through exactly the same 
thing in Algeria. There has not been a country in the 20th century that 
invaded a sovereign country and came out whole. Everybody loses.
  Whether we are talking about Vietnam or we are talking about Algeria 
or we are talking about Lebanon or we are talking about any of those 
countries, the people who invaded always back out with their tail 
between their legs, and that is where we are today. Those kids, we have 
still got them out on the line; hold on, kid; keep fighting; try and 
save yourself. The people behind them are making bad decisions, again 
and again and again. It is a terrifying thing, and I think the American 
people cannot let them be blinded from it. They have to begin to demand 
that they see what the truth is.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  I believe our hour is up. I thank all of my colleagues for taking 
part in Iraq Watch tonight, and we will be back next week.

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