[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 23]
[House]
[Pages 32152-32157]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renzi). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Delahunt) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I am here, and I anticipate being joined 
by several Members, to discuss the issues that the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. Leach) was discussing, the gentleman, who commands great respect 
in this body and one who clearly possesses a profound knowledge of 
international relationships, and at the same time provides a 
perspective and an analysis that should be instructive and informative 
to all Americans. I think he had 23 points. I do not know whether he 
has any additional points he wishes to make, but if he does, I would be 
happy to yield to him.
  It would appear that he does not. But again, let me acknowledge his 
contribution to the debate.
  Myself and my colleagues for some weeks now, I think, on more than 20 
occasions during the course of the time that is reserved after 
legislative business is concluded, the so-called ``special orders'' 
time, have come to the floor and we have labeled this particular 
initiative, the Iraq Watch. And, hopefully, we have had among us a 
conversation that has been both informative for the audience, as well 
as educational for the Members of the House in terms of this issue 
that, clearly, has a huge impact on the American people, both in terms 
of lives and the safety of our military personnel in Iraq, but also 
clearly in terms of our economy.
  It is ironic that it was the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) as I 
said, a very respected member of the Republican Party, who just left 
the floor, who spoke I believe so eloquently, and I daresay that I 
share many of the concerns and would agree with much of what he said. 
But having said that, recently in his home State, Iowa, there was an 
advertisement on behalf of the Bush Presidential Campaign; and I 
understand it was paid for by the Republican National Committee. It was 
titled ``Reality'' and it was a 30-second clip. There were some 
comments by the President, and I understand there were some snippets of 
speeches that the President had made regarding Iraq specifically and 
presumably the war on terrorists.
  There was also an announcer, a voice overlay, if you will, not an 
individual who appeared on the ad, but someone who would comment after 
the snippet of the President was viewed by the audience. And what the 
announcer said caused me to be disturbed, because the announcer said, 
and I am quoting from that snippet, ``Some now are attacking the 
President for attacking the terrorists.''
  The announcer then went on to say that, ``Some called for us to 
retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others.'' And 
then the announcer instructed, ``Call Congress now.''
  I am confused, because during the entire debate, not just regarding 
Iraq, not just regarding Afghanistan, but all of the debate subsequent 
to September 11, I never heard from a single Member on either side of 
the aisle that we should retreat and put our national security in the 
hands of others.

                              {time}  1945

  That simply was untrue. That ad was not misleading; it was an 
untruth.
  Now, have many of us questioned the policy regarding Iraq, regarding 
the war on terror? Well, yes. An unequivocal yes. And as I said, 
ironically, we heard this earlier this evening from the preceding 
speaker, a well-regarded, well-respected, thoughtful member of the 
House Committee on International Relations who happens to be a 
subcommittee chair and one who voted against the resolution authorizing 
military intervention in Iraq. He certainly is not calling for any 
retreat, and neither am I, and neither is any Democrat.
  But, again, I know many of us on both sides of the aisle, Republicans 
and Democrats, are concerned about the competence and what we see as a 
policy that is failing, which will translate not into a retreat but a 
defeat in terms of the war on terror. I understand that that particular 
30-second ad is no longer running. Well, that is good. The questions 
that are being posed to the President and to his administration are not 
just coming from Democrats. The displeasure, the disappointment, the 
criticism, the concern is not coming from Democrats. It is a view that 
is shared by many.
  Now, many Americans, clearly many in this Chamber, remember the 
former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Newt Gingrich. And 
clearly many Americans are familiar with the junior Senator from New 
York, the former First Lady, the wife of the former President, Bill 
Clinton. And all

[[Page 32153]]

of us know that it would be a rare moment where they would agree on 
anything. Well, they happen to agree on the policy of this 
administration when it comes to Iraq, because yesterday it was the 
former House Speaker on a Sunday TV magazine program who stated that 
the Bush administration has gone, and I am quoting Newt Gingrich, ``Off 
the cliff in postwar Iraq, and the White House has to get a grip on 
this.''
  These are not my words; these are the words of the former Speaker of 
the House, the former leader of the Republican Party in this House, Mr. 
Newt Gingrich, that often sat, Mr. Speaker, in the same chair that you 
are now sitting in presiding over this House. Well, on this particular 
occasion, Senator Clinton said she agreed with Mr. Gingrich. She blamed 
the administration for miscalculating and inept planning in Iraq.
  But those two are not alone.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to my good friend and a member of the Iraq 
Watch, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the difficulty here, as the gentleman 
has outlined, is that we are now engaged in what can only be described 
as political hate speech. This is not an unusual circumstance, I am 
sorry to say, in this day and age.
  I have had occasion to pick up a centennial edition, I believe is the 
designation, by the original publishers of George Orwell's ``1984.'' A 
new introduction by Thomas Pinchon. My colleague may recall in 
``1984,'' in Orwell's conception of what was taking place, there is a 
whole new conception of what speech would consist of and what the 
language would be. Ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, hatred is 
love. Everything becomes its own contradiction, its exact opposite. The 
confusion is there.
  Let us read exactly what the advertisement said. We are now 
conducting political policy by virtue of advertising when issues of war 
and peace are concerned. Let me quote it directly: ``Some are now 
attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.'' Who? Some. Who?
  I suppose it is possible, if you look far enough and long enough and 
deep enough, you can find somebody, somewhere, not necessarily even 
within the boundaries of the United States, if we are talking about 
some, who would be attacking the President for attacking the 
terrorists. But I do not think that those of us who are taking this 
issue seriously and trying to engage in a dialogue on this issue can 
find anyone of a serious bent in the House, any of our colleagues, to 
come down and name anyone.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. From either the Republican side or the Democratic side.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That goes without saying. Here on the floor of the 
House of Representatives, anyone, find anyone, who would be able to 
corroborate such an accusation.
  In fact, if one takes into account, and I am looking here at an 
article in the Wall Street Journal, in an opinion article, ``Politics 
and People,'' Albert Hunt, ``What Might Have Been,'' and it concerns 
our good friend and my good friend and fellow Hawaiian, General Eric 
Shinseki, former Chief of the Army, who, as you know, was vilified by 
people in the administration.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And, Mr. Speaker, who happened to be a decorated hero, 
a military hero; someone who fought for his country with great bravery 
and valor. That is the kind of individual that my colleague is talking 
about.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am not only talking about General Shinseki as a 
decorated war hero but as someone who came through the ranks to become 
chief of the Army, and who, in response to a congressional inquiry, 
gave answers, as a soldier should to those who are in charge of the 
country by constitution, gave answers with respect to what would be 
required in Iraq should an attack take place in order to avoid 
encouraging and in fact perhaps even seeing a situation take place in 
which terrorism would expand, rather than be contracted or defeated. 
What General Shinseki indicated was that we were not engaged in a 
serious ``troops to task analysis.''
  That is what this is about. This is not about attacking the President 
about his opposition to terrorism; it is whether or not his political 
policies have resulted in military activity which is in fact not only 
succeeding but increasing the terrorism that exists in the world.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And, Mr. Speaker, the best evidence of that are the 
recent attacks both in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, one of our erstwhile 
allies in the region, who has been supportive of the United States in 
the war on terror, who has been supportive of our natural ally in the 
State of Israel. And what we are beginning to see is the spread of 
terrorism far from just Iraq, but everywhere around the world.
  However, others, again from both parties, have articulated a 
criticism. Chuck Hagel, another veteran, someone who has experienced 
combat in Vietnam, a highly regarded, well-respected Senator, made this 
statement back in September, again on a national TV program. In 
response to the question, ``Did the administration miscalculate the 
difficulty of this war?,'' this is what Senator Hagel said: ``Yes, they 
did miscalculate it. I think they did a miserable job of planning for a 
post-Saddam Iraq. They treated most in the Congress like a nuisance 
when we asked questions.''
  Well, I think it is incumbent upon the President of the United States 
to respond to the questions that the people's representatives in both 
branches of Congress pose, because it is the people of the United 
States that are losing their sons and daughters in Iraq. To date we 
have already appropriated in excess of $165 billion that will be paid 
for by future generations. And what do we see? We see a deteriorating 
situation.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. 
Speaker, we are spending not $87 billion, but as the gentleman 
indicated, upwards of $160 billion just in excess appropriations, or 
rather in additional supplemental appropriations vis-a-vis Iraq. Yet, 
when we bring home troops for rest and recreation purposes, they are 
taken to only three cities, and then they are on their own and they pay 
their own bills. That has not been changed.
  I believe the figure is $55 million approximately that the Congress 
has put forward for transportation in the area of recreation purposes. 
It is not going to be enough. We are not even prepared at this stage to 
have orderly transitions in terms of rest and recreation periods, let 
alone what will now take place with the transfer of troops.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I am aware of the gentleman's expertise in terms of 
issues involving national security. I do not know whether the gentleman 
had an opportunity to read just recently the fact that we are now, for 
the next 6 months, under the benchmark in terms of readiness as far as 
our Army is concerned. And yet we have members of the administration, 
an Under Secretary of State and others, such as Richard Perle, who is 
the former chair of the Defense Policy Board, insinuating that if Syria 
does not get its act together, they might be the next one subject to a 
military intervention by the United States.
  But having said that, I just want to go again back so that those who 
are listening are aware that that ad attacking Congress, and presumably 
Democrats, is just simply untrue.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield for a moment on his 
latter point, I was looking through my notes for a moment, and the 
gentleman indicated Mr. Perle. Would this be the same Mr. Perle, 
quoting from the Financial Times of December 4, that ``the Boeing 
Corporation has taken a $20 million stake in an investment fund run by 
Richard Perle, a top Pentagon adviser, underlining the close links it 
has built to Washington's defense establishment. Boeing said it made 
the investment in Trireme Partners last year as part of a broad 
strategy to invest in companies with promising defense-related 
technologies.'' The Financial Times adds, ``Boeing said it had no 
knowledge that Mr. Perle had advised the company on a controversial

[[Page 32154]]

$18 billion deal to lease refueling aircraft tankers to the U.S. Air 
Force or other Pentagon related matters.''
  Mr. DELAHUNT. This is the same Richard Perle, my friend, who was the 
former chair but then resigned because of concerns about conflict of 
interest.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. As a defense adviser to the Secretary of Defense.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Who, in many respects, was the single most ardent 
supporter of a leading member of the Iraqi Governing Council, whose 
name is Ahmed Chalabi. And I do not know how this happened, but he was 
appointed by the administration to the Iraqi Governing Council without 
any consultation with another of our allies in the region, the 
Government of Jordan.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the gentleman is aware of this, but 
I daresay many who might be watching this are unaware of it, but Mr. 
Chalabi was convicted in Jordan for embezzlement in the amount of 
hundreds of millions of dollars.

                              {time}  2000

  He was sentenced in absentia, and received a sentence of 22 years. He 
is a convicted felon. Again, I do not want to get into issues that I 
think we both agree do not really go to the heart of our policy but 
reflect the failures of the management of the so-called war against 
terror.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the 
reason this has relevance is because these are the people who are 
formulating the policy. These are the people who are making the case 
for the foundations of the political policy that we find our troops 
having to bear the brunt of. That is the whole point here. The question 
is not whether we are against terror, the question is not whether there 
is support for the troops, the question is do we have a political 
policy that is worthy of their sacrifice.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. The question is, I dare say, who is in charge? For me, 
it was an interesting Sunday morning when I listened to the chairman of 
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, again another 
highly-respected Republican with considerable experience in terms of 
foreign relations, along with the senior Democrat on the committee, 
Senator Joe Biden. When Senator Biden made the statement that the 
President should take charge, and Tim Russet, who happened to be the 
moderator, asked whether that was good and necessary advice, Senator 
Lugar, the Republican Senator from the State of Indiana who chairs the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee said yes, it is, it is very 
necessary. I concur with my colleague, the President has to be the 
President, that means the President over the Vice President and other 
Secretaries. Lugar had just had enough of the administration's divided 
voices, especially the Vice President's which he described, when 
referring to the Vice President, ``very, very tough and strident.''
  To put out an ad in Iowa during a Presidential Campaign suggesting it 
was either the Democrats or Congress that wanted to retreat on the war 
on terror, no, that is not the case. None of us want to retreat, we 
want to win, we do not want to lose, and we are looking at defeat right 
now.
  Many that are watching here tonight clearly are familiar with Senator 
McCain who served this country heroically and courageously in Vietnam 
as a pilot, who served for many years as a prisoner of war, and he 
criticized, as reported in USA Today, just about a month ago, McCain 
criticized the Bush Administration conduct of the Iraq war yesterday, 
saying the U.S. should send at least 15,000 more troops, or risk the 
most significant global defeat on the world stage since Vietnam. McCain 
said Bush must be more involved in Iraqi decisionmaking and not be 
influenced by the upcoming Presidential campaign. McCain also 
challenged the Rumsfeld assertion that the 132,000 American troops in 
Iraq can defeat the insurgency in the country. This is again Senator 
McCain's words, ``The simple truth is we do not have sufficient forces 
in Iraq to meet our military objectives.''


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renzi). The Chair would remind all 
Members to refrain from quoting the Senate, including quotations of 
individual Senators.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, clearly this advertisement to which we 
are referring in which the phrase ``some are now attacking the 
President for attacking the terrorists,'' is meant to reestablish a 
link between Iraq, the attack in Iraq and 9/11. That is to say, there 
has been a constant drum-beat attempt by those who advocated this war 
in Iraq that this was somehow an extension or expansion or movement 
toward a more direct attack on terrorism, whereas no link has been 
established between the attack on the Trade Towers and the plane 
crashing in Pennsylvania, no link has been established between that and 
this attack on Iraq.
  To the contrary, there is more than ample evidence to indicate that 
there were policymakers around the President who wanted to have this 
attack on Iraq well before 9/11, and 9/11 became the excuse for them to 
bring this back up, move it into the forefront and, in fact, displace 
the war on terror, the response to the attack on terror.
  That is, in fact, not just what was implied in this ad, but this is 
clearly an attempt on a political basis to try to reestablish that in 
the minds of Americans across the Nation so that this becomes a defense 
of this failed policy in Iraq.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, let us remember for a moment this it was 
practically a unanimous vote with one exception, over 400 Members of 
this House voted to support, the gentleman and I included, to support 
the intervention in Afghanistan because, clearly, there was a haven for 
the terrorists there. There were al Qaeda camps there. There was al 
Qaeda training there. But now let us stop for a moment and examine what 
has happened in Afghanistan. What has happened in Afghanistan, if this 
administration is really serious about the war on terror, we are facing 
a crisis in Afghanistan. They have the responsibility.
  I do not know if the gentleman is aware, but after the overwhelming 
victory by the military in Afghanistan, in the 2003 budget the dollars 
that were appropriated or recommended by the administration for 
reconstruction and support for Afghanistan amounted to nothing, not a 
single dollar.
  Fortunately, this House and this Senate appropriated some $800 
million. But stop for a moment and realize that those that attacked the 
United States on 9/11, al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, those terrorists that 
were clearly posing an imminent and direct threat to Americans 
everywhere, and still do, are multiplying like fishes and loaves, were 
headquartered in Afghanistan and protected by the Taliban regime. It 
has been 2 years, and what is happening in Afghanistan?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think 
we see in the dialogue that has taken place between Secretary Powell 
and our NATO allies, the answer to that question. The NATO allies are 
not going to increase to the degree they have any troops there at all, 
and they do have some in insignificant numbers. The Italians, for 
example, have police officers, and so on, but insignificant numbers. 
They are reluctant at best, if not outright hostile, toward the idea of 
increasing their presence in Iraq for a simple reason, it is the NATO 
forces in Afghanistan that are bearing the brunt of trying to deal with 
the continuing battle that is going on there against terrorism. That 
war on terror was not won in Afghanistan, it is ongoing. It is ongoing 
as we speak. We do not have sufficient forces, let alone intelligence 
there, right now.
  The gentleman may know we now have to deal with the horrifying 
consequences and stories that will be going around based on what 
happened in Afghanistan within the last 36 hours where nine children 
were killed in an attempt to try to take a presumed militant, whatever 
the word is these days that is attached to anybody that we can presume 
to be an enemy.
  We do not have sufficient forces, we do not have sufficient assets, 
we do not have sufficient concentration of intelligence efforts in 
Afghanistan right now because we are diverted in Iraq.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And the American people should know that the Taliban

[[Page 32155]]

and al Qaeda are experiencing a resurgence in the border area of 
Afghanistan with Pakistan. They are coming back. We are on the verge of 
losing the war against terror. We are not retreating, but we are 
finding ourselves on the verge of losing.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, this is precisely the point that we are 
trying to make, and have been trying to make here in Iraq Watch, over 
and over again. By engaging as we are in Iraq right now, we are 
actually undermining our capacity to confront terror, whether in its 
most physically manifest form in Afghanistan or in the recruitment and 
the propaganda that is now sweeping the Islamic world with regard to 
whether or not America is now an enemy that must be fought at all 
costs. We are increasing the number of people who can succumb to that 
kind of message because of what we are doing in Iraq and what we are 
not doing in Afghanistan.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And yet months ago the White House was attempting to 
call Afghanistan a success stories; but they failed to commit the 
necessary resources, and now we have a chaotic and increasingly 
dangerous country where violence is the norm, where the Taliban is 
returning, and one can only see that we are on the verge of repeating 
the same mistake in Iraq. Can Members just imagine in terms of the 
prestige and the influence of the United States, not just in that 
region but all over the Muslim world, as well as the entire globe, what 
would happen in terms of the erosion of our stature.
  There was a very good analytical piece done by a columnist by the 
name of Jake Kaplan, and I want to quote what he said 4 or 5 months 
ago. ``As we reconsider reconstruction plans in Iraq and the 
administration promises to democratize the country, it is worth taking 
a look at our liberalization of Afghanistan. A year later, many of the 
atrocities we thought would stop still continue, and even Bush's allies 
in the Senate on Afghanistan think we have undercommitted to efforts 
that could truly change that country for the better. 'Afghanistan's 
experience does not bode very well for the upcoming one,' said Steven 
Burke of the Center for International Conflict Resolution, who just 
returned from 16 days in Afghanistan in early March. It is a country 
that needs attention and commitment, but there is an inclination to 
withdraw.''
  And there is an ad that says that Congress is retreating? Who are 
these people that are retreating from the war on terror? And yet no 
dollars in the 2003 budget submitted by the administration were 
incorporated into that budget for Afghanistan, and that ad runs? That 
is more than an untruth.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, we may not be financing what is 
necessary for either troop movements or political stability in 
Afghanistan, but I can assure the gentleman, I am sorry to say that 
financing is nonetheless taking place in Afghanistan except it is going 
to be for terror.

                              {time}  2015

  We now have more poppies being grown, more heroin being processed, 
and more trading in heroin than ever before in the history of 
Afghanistan, than ever before in the history of any nation on the face 
of the Earth. I should say any region on the face of the Earth, because 
clearly Afghanistan does not rate the name of nation now in terms of 
commerce and stability and political equilibrium that we associate with 
the term. The only thing that is stable, the only thing that is 
growing, the only thing that is expanding, the only thing that is a 
sure thing in Afghanistan is there is more heroin being traded for more 
money that is going to find its way into the pockets of those who are 
financing terrorism.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And come to the streets and the communities and the 
neighborhoods in this country. There is one statistic the gentleman 
might be interested in. Since our intervention 2 years ago in 
Afghanistan, opium production has increased 19-fold and become the 
major source of the world's heroin. Who is retreating? I want to win, 
and I know you want to win. That opium production will fuel terrorism. 
By the way, President Karzai, whom I believe is a man of great courage, 
it is well known among all the international observers and participants 
in the efforts to assist Afghanistan that he cannot leave Kabul for 
fear of being assassinated. His brother, who represents the government 
in southern Kandahar, which is a province in Afghanistan, was very 
blunt to a reporter. He said recently, ``It's like I am seeing the same 
movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem. What was promised 
to Afghans with the collapse of the Taliban was a new life of hope and 
change. But what was delivered? Nothing. There have been no significant 
changes for the people.'' Hamid Karzai says he does not know what to 
say to people anymore. And who is retreating? Who is allowing terrorism 
to experience a renaissance, if you will, in Afghanistan, after the 
promises were made by this administration?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I think the answer is 
very, very clear. All of our assets, human and otherwise, are being 
concentrated in Iraq, or that area of the world which purports to be 
Iraq. As the gentleman knows, Iraq is a construct of the post-World War 
I colonial powers, particularly Great Britain and France. And so even 
the idea that there is a political construct there that can be referred 
to for elections or anything else is little more than fiction to begin 
with. The plain fact of the matter is that we cannot move forward in 
Afghanistan because the assets that are needed there, particularly 
financial, are being wasted right now in Iraq.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, I do not want those that might be watching us 
this evening having this conversation to think that simply because you 
and I are Democrats that there are not concerns that have been 
expressed by Members in the majority party. There was an article that 
appeared in a magazine that circulates here in Washington particularly 
among Members and those that work on Capitol Hill. This is back several 
weeks ago in Roll Call. The article is entitled, ``As Supplemental 
Heads to Conference, Members Warn of Cautionary Tale in Afghanistan.'' 
Members are using the war-torn nation as an example of what not to do 
in Iraq. ``Remember, Afghanistan was the haven for Osama bin Laden and 
al Qaeda,'' I am quoting now from Representative Jim Kolbe, chair of 
the Appropriations Committee in this body on foreign relations. He said 
there has been some neglect of it. He was referring to the 2-year U.S. 
effort to rebuild Afghanistan after toppling its repressive and 
terrorist-shielding Taliban government.
  Representative Lewis, our colleague from California who chairs the 
appropriations subcommittee on defense, said, ``One really does need to 
understand the challenges we face in Iraq. We should not leave vacuums 
like we did in Afghanistan. A failed state there could be an incubator 
for terrorism again but the resources have not always followed the 
policy.'' Again, there is Senator Lugar.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you where 
we do have a visible presence, where we do meet the criteria that is 
stated and enunciated by Representative Lewis and the good Senator. We 
now have barbed wire villages. Those images are going all around the 
world as we speak. We are now creating our own areas of concentration 
camps and villages complete with identification cards that have to be 
shown to American soldiers so that people, and I say people, I am 
talking women, children, men, entire villages now are being processed 
through barbed wire into their own villages.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It is called winning the hearts and minds of the 
people, I presume.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The parallel, and I am not one to draw analogies to 
Vietnam because I think most of those kinds of comparisons tend to be 
inexact and then you end up in useless kinds of arguments as to 
exactitude, but the parallels are there. You may recall the rather 
infamous phrase associated with our pacification policy in Vietnam. We 
had to destroy the village in order to save it. Now in order to 
stabilize Iraq, we have to take barbed wire

[[Page 32156]]

and surround whole villages with it. So I think the question here is, 
at this stage, what is to be done? How are we to regard the war on 
terror and what the relationship of the attack on Baghdad and the 
subsequent war which followed it, how is that to be handled? How is 
that to be addressed by the United States?
  We are told, and again these cliches and bromides come fast and 
furious, that we should not cut and run. I am going to have to presume, 
I guess, that I know what cutting and running means. It means that you 
stop doing what you are doing and you leave. I do not know whether 
anybody noticed it or not, I certainly noticed, about November 15, that 
is precisely what Mr. Bush and Mr. Bremer concluded, that the United 
States was going to cut and run. That is what we are doing right now. 
The problem is that we are not admitting that that is what we are doing 
and we are sacrificing the Reserves and the Guard and the active duty 
military that is there now and that which will be going there to this 
continued failed policy without admitting what we are doing.
  We are turning over supposedly conveniently, just before the election 
in 2004, turning over, supposedly, the present occupation to a 
government in Iraq. If that is not cutting and running, I do not know 
what is. Are we going to turn over control, such as it might be, to 
some governing entity in Iraq, or are we not? And if we are, what 
constitutes that governing entity, this farce of an advisory group that 
we have there? Shiite clerics? The ill-equipped and untrained police 
forces that we have cobbled together? Or perhaps we are going to turn 
it over to this new paramilitary army made up of armed members of 
various political parties in Iraq. A paramilitary force.
  And we have the gall to turn to the American people and say, ``Well, 
they are preparing to defend themselves.'' They are preparing to cut 
each other's throats. They are preparing to fight one another, not just 
politically but with guns and bullets. The fact of the matter is that 
there is utter and complete political chaos in Iraq that is not being 
addressed by existing military policy of the United States.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And they made the same, and continue to make the same, 
mistake in Afghanistan. After more than 18 months now, only about 7,000 
troops have completed training under British and French and American 
officers. That program has been delayed by desertions and political 
interference from Afghan warlords. At this point in time, it was 
estimated there would be 50 or 60,000 in the Afghan police and in the 
Afghan military. And they expect that they are going to have in June a 
national election. If they have a national election, one can only 
imagine the magnitude of violence that will occur.
  We are losing the war on terror, Mr. President. We are not 
retreating. What we are imploring you to do is to consult with 
Congress. Do not consider Congress as a nuisance. Listen to the Jim 
Leaches, to the Chuck Hagels, to the John McCains, and to others that 
have valuable insights in terms of what war is truly about and, most 
importantly, how to make peace and protect the Americans and our 
national security interests, and tell the RNC to take that ad off, 
because it is a lie. It is not just an untruth.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you what we 
are going to have to do in the meantime, then, to try and protect those 
troops that are already there and to try and find an exit strategy 
worthy of the name that can allow us the opportunity to turn over some 
kind of political capacity in Iraq. There is a bill going forward that 
hopefully will be signed on a bipartisan basis to increase the end 
strength of the armed services, the Army and Marines in particular, and 
I am afraid now we are going to have to include the Air Force. At one 
point I think if we had handled this, we would not have had to add the 
Air Force. Since 1995, I for one and others on the Committee on Armed 
Services and other interested parties have been urging, so this goes 
beyond the present administration.
  We are not trying to draw distinctions there. Since 1995, some of us 
have been urging an increase in the end strength. That is an inside 
baseball term in the Committee on Armed Services for increasing the 
number of troops in the Army and in the Marine Corps, because we could 
see the kinds of deployments that were taking place, whether it was in 
Kosovo, whether it was in Bosnia, in other words, in Eastern Europe, 
whether it was in the Philippines. No matter where it was and no matter 
what the reasons may have been, no matter how one felt about it one way 
or the other, the plain fact of the matter is that there was sufficient 
support to warrant these deployments, and we did not have the troop 
strength available to do it. We do not yet have a reinstitution of the 
draft.
  When people talk about the war on terrorism, most people are watching 
it on television. We are depending on a volunteer force to do that. 
What sacrifices have we made? Some inconvenience in an airport? 
Somebody running, as they did for me yesterday when I flew here, 
running their wands over your shoes? Having you hold your arms out so 
that they can check your watch? Examining your baggage? What kind of 
sacrifice is that? At most it is an inconvenience.
  The only sacrifice that we have made as a population since 9/11 is we 
postponed the Super Bowl one week. An inconvenience. That is the only 
sacrifice that has been made. This is being watched on television. This 
is being observed. We get the little tear in the eye and we get the 
flag being waved around those who are in Walter Reed or in Bethesda 
Hospital right now with grievous wounds. The sacrifice of the troops is 
not the point here. It is the sacrifice of those troops on a 
battlefield of corrupt political policy unworthy of the troops that are 
out there. And I tell you this, we cannot sustain with the existing 
Guard and Reserves that we have in this country the continual 
deployment into Iraq and still meet the necessities that we have 
outlined with respect to Afghanistan. That does not even begin to 
include questions about North Korea or any other place that United 
States troops may or may not be needed in the future as a result of 
some activity, other kinds of terrorist activity in other places around 
the world. We are not prepared. We are not able to engage in 
deployments with respect to terror in the rest of the world because of 
the failure of our policies in Iraq and our failure to understand the 
true nature of what was necessary in Afghanistan.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. DELAHUNT. What is refreshing is within the past 2 or 3 weeks 
there has been some candor on the part of representatives of the 
administration. In a recent story in the Washington Post back on 
November 19, the new U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan made this 
acknowledgment: He gave the administration's bleakest assessment yet of 
security conditions in Afghanistan, saying that a regrouping of the 
Taliban and al Qaeda, increased drug trafficking, and even common 
criminals are hampering Karsai in the transition to democracy. Taliban 
rebels have dramatically stepped up operations in recent months, and 
Khalilzad, who is our Ambassador, said, ``Common criminals and al Qaeda 
followers are increasingly active.''
  Just be honest with the American people. Do not talk about Congress 
not supporting the war on terror or Democrats not supporting the war on 
terror or selected Republicans not supporting the war on terror. Every 
American has an interest in defeating those that would attack this 
country. Do not question motives. Do not question people's patriotism. 
Do not question the effort to create a policy. Many of us including 
myself and the gentleman from Hawaii opposed American intervention in 
Iraq, and I stand by that decision proudly. But now that we are there, 
do not politicize the efforts that are being made to deal with these 
egregious conditions in Iraq and in Afghanistan when this 
administration has made promises to those people and to the American 
people and are not living up to them.
  What I found fascinating was a secret memo, a secret memorandum, that 
was

[[Page 32157]]

authored by the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, who was widely 
known or at least widely believed to be an ardent hawk about military 
intervention; who, along with the Vice President and Under Secretary 
Wolfowitz, told the American people that our military personnel would 
be greeted with flowers and bands and welcomed as liberators. But now 
the reality has set in. And in a secret memorandum, Secretary Rumsfeld 
is expressing concerns about whether we are winning the war on 
terrorism, and he posed two interesting questions in this secret 
memorandum that was leaked so the American people could find out what 
was going on in terms of the administration's honest assessment. ``Are 
we winning or losing the global war on terror?'' was one of the 
questions. And ``Is our current situation such that the harder we work, 
the behinder we get?''
  It is indeed unfortunate that politics would be allowed to play a 
role in decisions where not just America tax dollars of a magnitude 
that will clearly at a point in our future become a drag on our economy 
because we are borrowing those dollars, remember, and the grant we gave 
them, we are not going to get it back. But even more importantly, our 
men and women find themselves at risk in terms of their personal safety 
every day. This is not a place for politics. This is not a place for 
attack ads. And I dare say that if that is the strategy that is being 
designed by the President's political advisor, it will backfire, 
because the American people, they get it. They really get it.
  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ACKERMAN. The acting Secretary of the Army I am afraid has not 
gotten that particular message because in relation to right in my own 
district out in Hawaii, the movement of troops out of the 25th up at 
Schofield Barracks, out into Asia and into Iraq, the movement of Guard 
and Reserve troops, indicated that this was justified on the basis that 
if we did not fight them, presumably whoever these people are, 
terrorists and opposition, military opposition, fight them over there, 
wherever ``there'' is, that we would be fighting them here, that is to 
say, in the United States. The clear link there obviously is that had 
we not attacked Iraq, Iraq would somehow be attacking the United 
States, that somehow we would be the victims of an assault by Iraq or 
the forces of Iraq and presumably by that meaning Saddam Hussein.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, they still cannot find the weapons of mass 
destruction. And, by the way, I do not know if the American people are 
aware of this, but it has cost and will cost the American taxpayer 
simply to look, to secure the experts, secure the expertise, to look 
for these weapons of mass destruction, which by now there is an 
overwhelming consensus that they do not exist and that they never 
existed. It is costing the American taxpayers $1 billion. Just think of 
what $1 billion could do for Hawaii or for Massachusetts. I mean, I 
guess, that is a subject for another night.
  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, precisely my 
point is that it serves little good both to a sensible and reasonable 
and rational dialogue as to what steps we should take now with regard 
to our occupation in Iraq and the continuing military operations in 
Afghanistan, it does little good for us to engage in a dialogue in 
which these kinds of accusations are made or these kinds of 
observations such as I have just outlined: If we do not fight them 
there, we will have to fight them there. This is hardly worthy of the 
Secretary of the Army let alone any high official of the government. It 
is hardly worthy of anybody to say some are attacking the President for 
attacking terrorists. I mean it is stupid on its face to say something 
like that, and it is clearly meant to be provocative and political 
without forming any kind of an enlightenment with respect to the issues 
at hand. What needs to be done, and I think that the Iraq Watch that we 
have been engaged in these past weeks is indicative of this, that what 
needs to be done is to have this kind of dialogue. We do not have the 
hearings. We do not have the dialogue during the regular course of the 
day.
  We are getting ready to recess. The Congress is going out of business 
in the midst of this winter. There will be no recess in the wars. There 
will be no recess in the killing. There will be no recess in the 
wounding. There will be no recess in the political implications. I can 
assure the Members of that. We are reaping a whirlwind of hatred and 
distrust across the world such as we have not faced certainly in my 
memory. The United States has always represented a beacon of hope to 
people. In our worst excesses and in times when there has been the most 
argument, even within the borders of the United States as to what our 
policy should be or should not be, it has always at least had as our 
fundamental base that we were trying to do the right thing by way of 
our cooperation with others, by way of our respect for other people; 
and yet today our whole policy is we are going to do as we please. We 
are going to take up the issues as we see fit, and whether anybody else 
wants to involve themselves with us, that is tough. We do not care. 
That is not a foreign policy. That way lies blindness and defeat for 
this country.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.

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