[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13363-13369]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gerlach). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we come tonight again, the group that is 
styled the Iraq Watch, or a group of my colleagues and myself who are 
committed to continue to bring accountability to this administration's 
policies in Iraq, to fulfill Congress' oversight responsibility to not 
allow administration mistakes in Iraq to go unheeded and have no 
accountability for them; and we are here tonight, and I expect the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and others will join me in 
this discussion.
  We have been doing this now for several months; and tonight, as on 
many nights, I have great sadness walking over here to speak this 
evening. Just as I was leaving my apartment, I saw on the news that we 
have lost two more great American warriors in the service of their 
country in Iraq, and I do not know who these gallant Americans were. I 
do not know where they are from. I do not know what happened to end 
their lives in Iraq, but I do know this: those two proud and honorable 
Americans deserved a President of the United States who told the truth 
to the American people before he started this war that resulted in the 
tragedy of these two people losing their lives.
  I know that this Congress has a solemn obligation to hold this 
administration accountable if, in fact, it is true that this 
administration did not tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but 
the truth to the American people before this war started; and tonight, 
if we seem a bit angry about this situation, it is because on our minds 
and on our hearts are the death of these two American soldiers and 
those who have gone before and those who will come after.
  Our duty, as we see it tonight, is to discuss the manifold failure of 
this administration to, one, tell the truth in Iraq; and, two, to 
pursue a policy that would reduce the danger to our service personnel 
serving in Iraq, and our discussion will proceed on those lines.
  Now, let me start, if I can, on this fundamental question: Did the 
President of the United States of America fully level with the American 
people before he started this war? That is the question. If the answer 
is no, we think that is one of the greatest assaults to democracy that 
could possibly happen.
  There are many things that can go wrong in a democracy, but I would 
assert that the most serious affront to democratic principles of a 
representative government is for the elected leadership to start a war 
based on false information. Nothing, nothing can be a more serious 
breach of the solemn obligations when one takes the oath of office than 
to start a war based on falsehood, and we are here tonight to answer 
the question of whether or not that occurred.
  So let me start at the beginning of the Iraq war. The President of 
the

[[Page 13364]]

United States asserted that America should start this war in Iraq based 
on two fundamental pillars, and his entire rationale for this war was 
based on these two pillars. He was successful in convincing a large 
majority of the American people that those two pillars were both 
factual, and those two pillars were these two:
  Number one, the President asserted that Iraq possessed wholesale 
amounts of weapons of mass destruction which presented a threat to the 
United States of America and our personal and our family's security. He 
told the American people that time after time after time. This 
statement was false. This fundamental pillar of this war was false.
  This President told us and stood right behind me and told the 
American people that we had information, the British had information 
that, in fact, Iraq had obtained yellow cake to extract uranium from it 
to build a nuclear weapon. That statement was false; and most 
importantly, the White House knew it was false. The White House had 
been told it was false. The White House had sent an emissary to Africa 
to check the accuracy of this statement, and Ambassador Joe Wilson who 
served proudly, who the first President Bush described as a hero during 
the first Persian Gulf War, came back and told the White House this 
statement was false. Two soldiers died today in Iraq based on a 
falsehood that was given to the American people that the White House 
knew was false. This pillar did not stand.
  The President of the United States told us that Iraq had drones that 
could fly across the Atlantic, apparently, and spray Americans with 
biological and chemical weapons, and this scared the living pants off 
people in America who heard this, as it should have, and as the White 
House knew that it would. Unfortunately, now that reports are peeled 
away, we have found out that even our own Air Force told the White 
House this statement was false; that they were kind of balsam wood 
things meant to take pictures of troop movements and the like.
  So the first pillar upon which the President of the United States 
sent soldiers to their death was false. So let us examine the second 
pillar, if I can, for a moment, and then I will yield to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).
  The second pillar upon which the President's scaffolding of falsehood 
was built was a clear assertion that led to a significant majority, 
seven out of 10 Americans, to believe that Iraq was associated, was 
behind the attack on this country of September 11, and the President 
was successful, again, in creating this impression. He was successful 
in convincing seven out of 10 Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind 
these heinous, vile, indeed evil, attacks on America of 9/11. But it 
was not true. It was not true.
  Now, we know it was not true because a bipartisan commission has come 
back and stated categorically there is no credible evidence; and I want 
to read the quote to make sure I get it right: ``We have no credible 
evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the 
United States.''
  Yet, seven out of 10 Americans were convinced by this White House 
that Saddam Hussein was behind these attacks on America. Where did 
Americans get that misimpression? Did they get it from Dan Rather? Did 
they get it from the New York Times? Did they get it from the Shopping 
Channel? No. They got it from the President of the United States, who 
led these people to believe that Iraq was behind this attack and that 
these folks were in an alliance with Iraq who attacked us.
  Let us look at what the President said. The President is saying, 
well, no, I did not really mean to say that. Golly gee, I did not mean 
to suggest or lead anybody to believe that Saddam was evil enough to 
have attacked us actually or that he was an ally. I just sort of 
suggested they talked to one another at some period of time. Well, look 
at what the President said in fact.
  In fact, the President, while he was on the deck of the aircraft 
carrier Abraham Lincoln, declaring the mission accomplished, several 
hundred dead Americans ago, he said the defeated Hussein was ``an ally 
of al Qaeda.'' An ally of al Qaeda. Is the President now to have us 
believe that he said that Saddam was an ally of al Qaeda, but he did 
not mean to suggest they actually helped each other? Is that what he 
expects us to believe? That is very difficult to swallow.
  The Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that al 
Qaeda was operating inside of Iraq, inside of Iraq. It turns out we 
find out ``inside of Iraq'' means they were in the Kurdish-controlled 
area that was inside our no fly zone. Now, are we supposed to know 
that?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield.
  Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, can I interrupt, because I think that is 
very important because that has been an assertion that I think is 
extremely misleading to the American people.
  My colleague referenced the no fly zone; yet I imagine that there are 
many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and a number of 
Americans that are watching this conversation tonight that we are 
having and if you hear it without understanding some of the nuances, 
you hear al Qaeda was in Iraq, but as that famous radio commentator, I 
think his name was Paul Harvey, said, there is another half of that 
story.
  Yes, there was a group that had some nebulous link to al Qaeda, and 
they were in Iraq; but they were not in Iraq in the part that Saddam 
Hussein had sway over. They were not in the part of Iraq where Saddam 
Hussein had influence. They were not in the part of Iraq that Saddam 
Hussein had any control. They were in the part of Iraq, as my colleague 
mentioned, in the so-called Kurdish area up in these mountains.
  There was a group of some 200 or 300, and they were not directly 
linked to al Qaeda; but, yes, they were a terrorist group and one that 
we should not in any way countenance. They were a threat, if you will, 
to people of goodwill all over this world; but they were not a part or 
had any relationship, collaborative or otherwise, with Saddam Hussein.

                              {time}  2215

  And yet again and again, this White House continues to talk about al 
Qaeda and Iraq, but what they do not say is that it was a group that 
was in Iraq that was outside of the influence of Saddam Hussein. It was 
in, as indicated, in the so-called no-fly zone. Saddam Hussein did not 
dare enter that zone.
  Mr. INSLEE. And yet the President of the United States just left out 
that little fact that they were in the part of Iraq that Saddam did not 
control when he discussed this issue.
  Now, this omission has led many people to be very concerned, even 
those who have supported President Bush. I note this editorial in the 
Dallas Morning News of June 22, 2004. This is a newspaper that 
supported President Bush's election. In fact, they noted that in this 
editorial, and they have listened to the administration's response to 
the 9/11 Commission. They have listened to this sort of excuse-making 
that has come out of the White House to try to excuse this. But look 
what the Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that has supported President 
Bush, said.
  It said, ``U.S. troops have found no Iraqi weapons of mass 
destruction, and the 9/11 panel says there was no working partnership 
between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. President Bush presented both WMD 
and the al Qaeda-Hussein link as reasons for striking Iraq before it 
attacks us.
  ``The President has a credibility gap here, and he needs to address 
it right away. Vice President Dick Cheney tried but failed miserably. 
He said, in effect, `we know more than you and you better trust us.'''
  And then, I might have to subscribe to the Dallas Morning News, 
because I think in the next paragraph they hit the nail on the head. 
``The country did just that when we went to the war in Iraq, but things 
aren't working as promised. The administration needs to respond with 
specifics, not like members of a secret society with keys to the 
kingdom.''

[[Page 13365]]

  But the unfortunate truth is there really is nothing the 
administration can now say to excuse the fact that they gave us false 
information to start the war.
  Let me note just one other quote. Vice President Cheney, who is now 
saying we did not really intend to imply that there was a working 
relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq, we did not mean to say that, 
but what did Vice President Cheney say before the war started? He said 
on Meet the Press that by attacking Iraq, ``We will have struck a major 
blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base 
of the terrorists who had us under assault now for years, but most 
especially on 9/11.''
  Now, obviously the vice president was trying to create an impression 
that we were going to be striking back at the people who struck us on 
September 11. That is the obvious implication of his language. I do not 
think he was simply trying to point out that Iraq is in the Middle 
East. I do not think it was a geographic lesson he was trying to give 
us. He was trying to build support for a war that was based on two huge 
falsehoods, one falsehood about weapons of mass destruction and another 
about this alleged working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
  Now, there are connections between Iraq and al Qaeda. They both have 
``Q'' in their names, but the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no 
working relationship between these two groups.
  Let me mention one thing, and I will yield to the gentleman from 
Ohio. In fact, what the 9/11 Commission, again, a bipartisan 
commission, chaired by the former New Jersey governor, Republican 
governor, bipartisan group, what they concluded was that years back, 
back in 1994, Osama bin Laden had, in fact, asked Iraq for help but had 
been rejected.
  Now, that may be a contact, but it is not a basis for a war, and it 
is most unfortunate now that even today this White House will not come 
clean about their manifest falsehoods that they gave us. And until they 
do, we will be here blowing the whistle on these falsehoods.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I would just say to my friend from Washington State, 
why is this important? And the American people may be asking why we 
stand here and talk about the decisions in the past that led to this 
war, and I would just simply say it is important, because we have lost 
somewhere in the vicinity of 850 precious American lives. We have well 
over 4,000 precious American soldiers who have been terribly wounded. 
Many of them have lost their arms and their legs and their sight, and 
they have been damaged for the rest of their lives. That is why it is 
important.
  And it is important, because the same people, the same people who 
took us into this war based, as was said, on false assumptions and 
false premises are the same people who are still in charge and who are 
making decisions for what is happening right now and want to be in 
power to make decisions about what happens next year and the year after 
that and the year after that. That is why it is important for the 
American people to understand what has happened, because we need a 
change of leadership.
  Before I yield to my friend from Massachusetts, just let me say this. 
There may be people who observe this debate and feel somehow 
disconnected from this war. They may have no one fighting in Iraq that 
they love or are related to or even know, but if they have got 
children, if there are parents watching who have 13, 14, 15, 17-year-
old sons and daughters, they ought to pay attention to this debate, 
because we have stretched our military so thin, and that is why we are 
extending the months of service for our National Guardspersons and our 
Reserve persons.
  We do not have the capacity, in my judgment, to really respond to 
something if it happens in Iran, or in North Korea. What are we going 
to do? I will tell you what we are going to do if this administration 
gets another term. We are going to have to impose a military draft. If 
we impose a military draft, the next time there are not going to be the 
exceptions that many of us had available to us in years past. There 
will not be exceptions for educational studies, I do not believe, 
something that I took advantage of and that Vice President Dick Cheney 
took advantage of.
  So the parents in this country need to be watching this debate. If 
they have got children and they do not want their sons and daughters to 
be subject to a military draft, then they ought to be involved and 
engaged in what is happening in the United States of America today, 
because our military is stretched thin. We do need more troops in Iraq, 
as General Shinseki warned us many, many months ago, before he was 
pushed aside and mocked, and quite frankly, made fun of and ridiculed 
by the Vice President and others in this administration.
  That is why I have constituents, we all have constituents, who have 
been pulled from their communities, separated from their families, sent 
to Iraq, expecting to be there for a limited, set period of months. And 
now what are they being told? They are being told, we have got a stop 
loss policy in place. You cannot even leave to return home or to leave 
the service when your contractual obligation is up, because we simply 
do not have a sufficient number of men and women in our Armed Forces. 
That is the sad truth that we face as we debate this tonight.
  Mr. INSLEE. Let me suggest, and the gentleman brings up a very 
important point, it has been called a stop loss order, but it really is 
a start the draft order. This is a silent draft. These people are being 
drafted into service they did not sign up for. They signed up for a 
definite term and they are now being drafted. They happen to be in Iraq 
right now, but we are already seeing the implications of the policy as 
the gentleman has addressed. It comes back and again the Dallas Morning 
News called it the Iraq Trust Gap, this is the President and his neocon 
colleagues who were telling us that this war would be simple, we would 
be welcomed with rose petals, our people would be home in a reasonable 
period of time, it would not stress our military, we only needed 
100,000 troops, there would not be massive looting after we had this 
amount, there would not be casualties after a period of time, the 
mission was accomplished back in May 2003.
  All of these things are appropriately creating a trust gap not only 
for the President, but for the United States.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I want to read another paragraph or two from the 
Dallas Morning News. This is no left-wing newspaper. This is the Dallas 
Morning News, a major newspaper in the President's home State. They 
said at the beginning of their editorial:

       A time comes in most administrations when supporters tell 
     the President he has a problem. Bob Dole told Ronald Reagan 
     that he should worry about the deficit. Tip O'Neill told 
     Jimmy Carter that he had better improve his icy relationship 
     with Capitol Hill. And George W. Bush told his father that 
     White House chief of staff John Sununu needed to go.
       The supporters find themselves like skunks at the garden 
     party. They back the President but see a problem. And they 
     decide to speak out.
       We find ourselves in that position with President Bush and 
     the war in Iraq. We supported the President when he ran for 
     office. We backed the war in Iraq. But now we wonder, what 
     happened?''

  What happened is this, that the American people and this Congress 
were given information that was false and we were encouraged to believe 
something that was not true. There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein, 
as bad as he was, as evil and despicable as he was, had anything to do 
with the attack upon the United States of America. And the American 
people needed to know that before our sons and daughters were sent to 
war in Iraq. It is true that Osama bin Laden was responsible. It is 
true the Taliban were responsible. That is why every Member of this 
Chamber, save one, supported our decision to go to war in Afghanistan.
  We supported the overthrow of the Taliban. Many of us have been 
calling for months for an increased effort to find, apprehend or kill 
Osama bin Laden. He was the one who orchestrated the attack upon this 
country, and tonight he is roaming free somewhere on the face of this 
earth planning the next attack. Can we imagine

[[Page 13366]]

that if we had taken the resources and put the effort into finding 
Osama bin Laden that we have invested in Iraq, do any of us believe 
that we would not have found this man and have put him out of business?
  I think it is beyond question that if we had put the resources into 
finding Osama bin Laden and fighting al Qaeda, we would not be worrying 
tonight about what that man may be planning in terms of the next attack 
upon our Nation. But we did not do that. We diverted resources to Iraq 
and consequently the real enemy, the real threat to our country, is 
roaming free this very night.
  Mr. INSLEE. I have got to add just one more thing before I go to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts. Another thing the administration did in 
not finding Osama bin Laden, in not cutting off the head of al Qaeda, I 
got a letter today, because I was trying to investigate, I asked the 
Department of Treasury, is it true that the administration 2 days after 
September 11, allowed a chartered jet airplane to fly around America 
picking up Osama bin Laden's relatives and flying them out of the 
country before they were fully interrogated and debriefed about the 
potential relationship with Osama and al Qaeda and over 100 Saudi 
citizens where now we know the attack emanated from? They answered, 
yes, that is true. Our administration, when no one else could fly in 
America, people were stranded here, had to drive across America to get 
home from Washington, D.C., but while you had to drive home from 
Washington, D.C., the President of the United States, the 
administration, told all the Saudi Arabians, we will let you fly, 
without even talking to the CIA or the Department of Treasury to find 
out if they were associated with this.
  They said, indeed, that was true. I asked them, why is that? They 
frankly could not give me an answer. That is just one problem we have 
got.
  I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I would like to submit that the real danger here is 
because of this diversion which is a military intervention, a war on 
Iraq that it subverts, detracts from the real war that threatens the 
American people.

                              {time}  2230

  The war by fundamental Islamist terrorists that, because of our 
intervention in Iraq, are every day spawning new groups and new 
terrorists. The policy of this administration in terms of the so-called 
war on terror is creating, I would submit, a situation where if it 
continues, yes, we have won the war in Iraq, but we will lose the war 
on terror. It is very important that the American people, those that 
are watching our conversation here tonight, understand that there is a 
profound distinction between this adventure in Iraq for reasons that at 
some point in time we should really get into: Why did we end up going 
to Iraq? Well, we know this from people within the administration, far 
in advance of September 11, the day of our national tragedy, plans for 
war against Iraq were being designed.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, former Governor Kean, the Chair of the 
9/11 Commission, a Republican, a highly respected Republican ex-
Governor, has said, and he said it over the weekend, I heard him, that 
there were many more reasons to believe there was a connection between 
al Qaeda and Iran.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Why did we not go into Iran? Why?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, that is a question that needs to be 
explored. And, quite frankly, now we know that Iran apparently is going 
to pursue their nuclear capabilities. And what are we going to do about 
it? What are we going to do about it? With 135,000 troops bogged down 
in Iraq, how can we pose a credible threat to Iran to try to get them 
not to pursue nuclear capabilities?
  I think we have overextended ourselves, we are exhausting our troops, 
and we are putting ourselves in great jeopardy as a Nation. And our 
national security is in jeopardy, I believe, because we have 
overextended ourselves; we have miscalculated in Iraq. And we will find 
ourselves hard pressed to meet a threat anywhere else on Earth if we 
were in need of a significant number of troops anywhere else. And I 
think that is a serious problem that this entire Chamber should be 
addressing.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to attempt to answer 
the question why we are in Iraq rather than Iran, and the answer is 
because we have an administration who is willing to follow their 
ideology rather than the evidence. They are willing to say things as 
long as it is consistent with their ideological beliefs even if it is 
inconsistent with the facts as given to them by our intelligence 
agents.
  Let me give an example. The Vice President now for 2 years has just 
kept spouting this statement that the reason we should invade Iraq is 
because there was a meeting, one of the reasons, because there was a 
meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence person in 
Prague.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, Mohammed Atta, by the way, for those who 
are watching us, was the leader of the 19 hijackers that were 
responsible for our national day of tragedy.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, so he has been saying this over and over 
again in city and town and ``Meet the Press'' and who knows where else. 
And what did the bipartisan commission conclude about this key of his 
whole argument that Saddam Hussein had a working alliance with al 
Qaeda? They concluded: ``We have examined the allegation that Atta met 
with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague on April 9. Based on the 
evidence available, including investigations by Czech and U.S. 
authorities, plus detainee reporting, we do not believe that such a 
meeting'' occurred.
  So despite the best intelligence of the United States of America, the 
Vice President is willing to continue to spout something that is false, 
according to our best intelligence, in order to back up this 
ideological fixation of invading Iraq. That is why we are in this war, 
because we have an administration willing to do that.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, let me say this, if I may. Some people 
think if you repeat something often enough even if it is not true, 
people will come to believe that it is true.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It is called the big lie theory.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. The big lie theory. And the fact is that this is 
being repeated over and over and over in the face of evidence of this 
bipartisan commission that it is simply not true. Why would a member of 
this administration continue to say something to the American people 
that is not true?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if I can interrupt, and we are joined by 
the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
  We all remember, of course, that it was again this White House that 
assigned a former United Nations inspector to go and search for the 
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. His name is David Kay. He is 
universally described as someone of great integrity, of great 
expertise. He does his job, and he comes back and he claims that we 
were all wrong. That is months ago. This particular cover of Newsweek 
is dated February of this year. We were all wrong. There were no 
weapons of mass destruction. There were no links to al Qaeda and Saddam 
Hussein. And yet he is befuddled and disturbed by the fact that this 
President and this Vice President will not own up to the fact. He was 
interviewed by a British newspaper, and his recommendation to President 
Bush and particularly Vice President Cheney, because if there is anyone 
who has pushed this particular adventure, it is the Vice President of 
the United States, Richard Cheney. Let us just put it out here tonight. 
And I am quoting him, assigned by this White House, presumably a 
Republican, a hawk on the war, he says, ``It is about confronting and 
coming clean with the American people, not just slipping a phrase into 
the State of the Union speech. He should say we were mistaken and I am 
determined to find out why.'' And they will not let go. They will not 
let go.

[[Page 13367]]


  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. 
Abercrombie).
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I think the hearing that we had in the 
Committee on Armed Services today makes clear that they have moved from 
that position to the point that it does not matter. That is essentially 
the point that Mr. Wolfowitz was taking today, the Deputy Secretary of 
Defense, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, who is one of the individuals that has 
been cited here and has been involved in the decisionmaking based on 
this false intelligence.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman let me say a word 
about Mr. Wolfowitz, since he brought up his name? He is, in fact, one 
of the architects of this war, as we know. He is the Deputy Secretary 
of Defense. And I was appalled a few weeks ago when he was asked how 
many American soldiers we had lost in Iraq, and this man who pursued 
this war and who is the Deputy Secretary of Defense did not know. He 
implied that there may be about 500 who had been killed. At that time 
there had been 721. Every morning when Mr. Wolfowitz wakes up, he ought 
to be thinking about the soldiers who have been lost over there. And I 
am sorry I interrupted my friend.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure the good gentleman from 
Hawaii can share some wisdom.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, it is not interference at all, believe 
me, because this is complementary to what has been said. I can tell the 
gentleman on April 20 of this year, he is thinking about an army. Here 
is what he said to the Committee on Armed Services, Mr. Wolfowitz said, 
on April 20: ``There is no question it would be nice right now to have 
a larger army.'' These are the same people that were claiming, and 
reclaimed again today, that General Shinseki was wrong. He did not 
mention General Shinseki, but he went out of his way to make sure that 
everybody understood that we did not need a greater Armed Forces even 
though he said so; it would be nice to have a larger Army but absent 
that, after all, we can on the 200,000 security forces that he says are 
now in place.
  I have his testimony here before me, a written statement given today 
before the Committee on Armed Services in which he indicates on Page 3 
that we are going to be full partners with the Iraqis. This has to do 
with the sovereignty issue, that they are going to take the lead, he 
says elsewhere, that they have 200,000 Iraqis in a security force that 
is a ``work in progress,'' an interesting way of looking at it, that 
according to the Prime Minister, as related by Mr. Wolfowitz, they are 
ready to take charge on July 1. There has been enormous progress.
  So I asked him today, well, is there an end in sight? And there is no 
end in sight. It is schizophrenic. I pointed that out to him today. On 
the one hand, everything is fine, everything is working according to 
plan, maybe a little bit behind schedule, but nonetheless working its 
way right along; and on the other hand, we are going to have to be 
there forever as some kind of partner. I asked partners, I understand 
the word ``partner'' and the phrase ``full partner.'' What does it mean 
in terms of who is in charge in relation to these young and men as well 
as some older members of the Guard and Reserves who are being killed 
and wounded? Who is in charge? I cannot get from General Pace, I cannot 
get from Secretary Wolfowitz, who is in charge. Who makes the 
decisions? They are talking about a partnership on all levels, 
regional, national, and local; a unity of command; a consensus on the 
way ahead. And it is supposed to be working out of what are called 
joint operating centers. How these joint operating centers are supposed 
to make any decisions regionally or locally or nationally is beyond me.
  What is clear from the testimony today is all the discussion that has 
been taking place about the reasons for going to this war have been 
entirely set aside; and now apparently what the mission of the United 
States is, is to act as some kind of backup force, according to them: 
``U.S. forces are there to help out. They are backup.'' That is the 
motto, a backup force for whatever is to take place now to achieve some 
kind of nation-building. That is now what our mission is all about. It 
has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. It has nothing to 
do with anything else that was used as a reference point for why we are 
going to war, an immediate threat to the United States in terms of 
weapons of mass destruction, some kind of military connection to 
terrorist organizations that are an immediate threat to the United 
States.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, when are they going to go and fight the 
war on terror and absolutely defeat terrorism?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I will answer the gentleman; but 
according to Mr. Wolfowitz today, terror is now being defined as the 
insurgency in Iraq. If there was not anything before, we have now 
created it as a result of the actions that we took based on this false 
information.
  So now the situation has been redefined. The war on terror has been 
redefined to be the activities of what are termed killers and 
terrorists and all kinds of anecdotal references as to what that means. 
We have to go no further than what happened today, an assassination in 
Mosul of the head of a law school and her husband being beheaded, 
killed with her and beheaded; another American soldier dying; roadside 
bombings, all the rest of these kinds of activities taking place so 
that what was going to happen, in my judgment, on July 1 is that the 
American military will be set adrift in a desert sea with no compass, 
with no direction, with nothing except to provide backup under this 
full partnership in these so-called joint operating centers to make 
decisions about what we are going to do with the military in Iraq. I 
was unable to determine today from Mr. Wolfowitz exactly what the role 
of the Guard and Reserve forces and what the deployment schedule are 
going to be.

                              {time}  2245

  I asked, is there an end in sight? I got Korea, 50 years. I got 
Germany as an answer. I got Bosnia as an answer. I said, if that is the 
case, if you are going to cite Bosnia, which he does over and over 
again, in Bosnia there has been a steady drawdown of troops. Times and 
schedules are announced. Troops have been drawn down. If we are talking 
about Korea or Germany, none of the conditions prevail in South Korea 
or Germany that prevail in Iraq today. So, the analogies are at best 
totally inaccurate and have nothing to do with what is taking place 
today in Iraq.
  The question remains, if the reasons for going to war have now proven 
to be at best inadequate, and, at worst, false and misleading, and 
deliberately so in order to fulfill whatever ideological agenda was 
then in place in the Bush administration, the fact is now that the 
mission of the United States military is to somehow provide a backdrop, 
a foundation or background to this increasingly apparent civil war that 
is now underway in Iraq.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman will yield, can I ask a very brief 
question? What did he say about the terrorist cells that now exist in 
Iran, in Syria, in Pakistan, in Sudan, in Indonesia, and I could list a 
long litany of other terrorist cells that are a threat to the United 
States? What did he say, if anything; or is he just simply focused on 
Iraq?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Because the question arose in several contexts, 
including questions and observations made by the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and others on the Republican side of the 
committee. We try very hard in that committee to work together as 
Americans to try to come to these conclusions. The gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) raised the issue of Iran. Other issues were 
raised with regard to Iran and Syria with the border police.
  The best that I can discern out of all of this is that somehow this 
war was to prevent this from taking place, that is to say, the 
increased terrorist activities to the degree it can be associated with 
reference to Syria or Iran, but I was unable to get out of his answers 
anything that would indicate how could we deal with it.

[[Page 13368]]


  Mr. DELAHUNT. Have the terrorists left Iran and Syria and Sudan? What 
is he saying?
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me make a 
suggestion. There might be a reason the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. 
Abercrombie) might have trouble understanding Mr. Wolfowitz.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I do not have trouble understanding him.
  Mr. INSLEE. Or accepting his explanation, is I suspect the gentleman 
from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) does not share Mr. Wolfowitz's belief 
that it does not matter that this war was started, based and started on 
a falsehood. I suspect the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) 
agrees with me that when you look in the eyes of a young widow, as I 
have, who lost their husband as a result of this multitude of 
falsehoods by this administration, it matters a whole heck of a lot. 
And this administration is now trying to demean and belittle the fact 
that they started a war based on falsehood, and they think that 
Americans are just going to forget it, and somehow we are supposed to 
forget the incompetence, the rank incompetence, the multitude of 
tactical, logistical, strategic mistakes they made time after time, of 
total ignorance about the cultural situation in Iraq, about the looting 
we knew was going to happen, and somehow we are supposed to forgive and 
forget that.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you exactly 
what Mr. Wolfowitz thinks on that subject. In the New York Times 
Magazine, interviewed by Bill Keller in September of 2002, a year after 
the 9/11 activity, I will tell you exactly what he said.
  ``There is an awful lot we don't know, an awful lot we may never 
know, and we have got to think differently about standards of proof 
here. In fact, there is no way you can prove that something is going to 
happen 3 years from now or 6 years from now. But these people have made 
absolutely clear what their intentions are, and we know a lot about 
their capabilities. Intentions and capabilities are the way you think 
about warfare. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the way you think 
about law enforcement. And I think we are much closer to being in a 
state of war than being in a judicial proceeding.''
  That should give you a very brief summary of the answer that would be 
forthcoming to the questions you just raised, namely, it does not 
matter.
  Mr. INSLEE. Reclaiming my time, I may note that the people who are 
responsible for the mistake of not putting enough troops in Iraq to 
quell the looting that was sure to occur, the people who made the 
mistakes about assessing the threat level posed by Iraq, the people who 
did not provide body armor to our soldiers when they went to war 
without adequate flak jackets, the people who sent our soldiers into 
the streets of Baghdad in canvas-lined Humvees instead of armored 
personnel carriers, who ignored the fact that we were going to need to 
protect our soldiers against these improvised explosive devices, the 
people who have made all of these mistakes are still the people in 
charge of our policy in Iraq. Not one person in the civilian hierarchy 
of the Bush administration who is responsible for these massive foul-
ups that have cost hundreds of lives has lost their job or a day's 
vacation as a result of these foul-ups.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will yield, I think the reason they 
have not lost their jobs is because these decisions were made at the 
very highest levels of this administration. I do not think we can blame 
the lowly bureaucrats. I think the people in the highest positions of 
decision making in this administration are responsible. So, are they 
going to fire themselves? Probably not.
  Mr. INSLEE. Of course, I am referring to the Secretary of Defense, 
who is the primary architect for this, and Mr. Wolfowitz, who is an 
architect of this. These are the decisionmakers that should be held 
accountable for these foul-ups. I hope the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Strickland) agrees with me.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, I agree.
  Now, if I can just make an observation: I think the American people 
would accept from this administration, from the President, a statement 
that things have not gone just the way they hoped they would go; that 
perhaps mistakes have been made.
  What I think the American people will not accept is a continuation of 
a failed policy that grows out of an unwillingness or an inability to 
accept responsibility for mistakes, to admit those mistakes, and to 
change course.
  Quite frankly, I believe it takes strength and courage to admit a 
mistake. What I see from this administration is a stubbornness and an 
arrogance that is unwilling to admit even one mistake.
  My friend mentions sending our troops into Iraq without body armor. 
The war started in March of 2003. It was March 2004, March of this 
year, before all of our troops were provided with body armor. I ask, 
how many troops were unnecessarily wounded and how many lost their 
lives simply because of the incompetence of those at the Pentagon who 
sent them into battle without this protection?
  Right tonight, as the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), my friend the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and myself stand here in this Chamber, 
there are soldiers driving around in Baghdad and in other cities in 
Iraq who are using Humvees that are not armored Humvees, and many of 
them are being injured by driving over roadside bombs, and, because 
those Humvees are not armored, they are being seriously wounded and in 
some cases losing their lives. Somebody ought to be held accountable 
for that.
  If we are going to send our troops into battle, the very least we can 
do as a government is to make sure that everything we can do to give 
them adequate equipment and proper protection is done. For us not to do 
that is shameful.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That goes back to the issue of competence, and that is 
where, in addition to the issue of credibility, this administration, 
this White House, has failed miserably.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Can the gentleman yield, so I can tell him what Mr. 
Wolfowitz would respond, or how he responded today to the questions the 
gentleman is raising, and particularly what Mr. Inslee has cited in 
detail. I quote from page 8 of his written statement given to the 
Committee on Armed Services today.
  ``Although the reconstruction plans first envisioned in the summer of 
2002 and submitted by the Coalition Provisional Authority to Congress 
last July have undergone substantial changes, it has been the 
coalition's ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances that has 
brought us now to the transfer of sovereignty and the beginning of 
representative government in Iraq.''
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman will yield, can the gentleman tell me 
and tell those that might be watching our conversation tonight, what 
has been the cost, not in terms of the lives of our children, but what 
has been the cost to the American taxpayers for this adventure?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The commitment is upwards of $150 billion. That does 
not include the taxes that are now being imposed, and I use that with 
quotation marks around it because that is how it is characterized, 
within the military itself.
  The existing military budget is being taxed, money extracted from it 
for operational purposes. The capacity to expend construction funds of 
$18 billion-plus are committed, but are not necessarily expended just 
yet. The plain fact is we are talking between $150 billion and $200 
billion.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Already to date it has cost the American taxpayers $200 
billion to build roads in Iraq, to provide Iraqis with good health 
care, to clean up their environment and to stimulate their economy.
  Mr. INSLEE. Reclaiming my time, there is an element of this 
expenditure that is grossly wrong, and that is the most polite sense I 
can say it. The General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan group that 
basically looks at the financial system of the country, concludes

[[Page 13369]]

that the United States misspent, meaning this administration, misspent 
at least $1 billion in Iraq in the Iraq war to date, and that was as of 
June 16. They made reference to multiple cases of the Halliburton 
Corporation misspending millions of dollars of taxpayer money.
  Let me give you one very small example of how Halliburton Corporation 
misspent taxpayer money. Halliburton, of course, is the company that 
got a sole source provider bid; a company that the vice president just 
recently has been CEO of, they did not send it out to bid to any other 
corporations, gave a special deal to Halliburton, and look what 
Halliburton did with your money.
  Before the war, a Kuwaiti firm had the contract to provide meals to 
troops at four bases in Kuwait. Just before the fighting started, and 
this is from the General Accounting Office, not some leftist group 
saying this, just before the fighting started, the Pentagon turned the 
job over to Halliburton subsidiary KBR, Kellogg Brown and Root. As part 
of the switch, the costs went up from $3 a meal to $5 a meal, for the 
cost, from $3 to $5.
  So, here is just one small example that happened thousands of times 
where the American taxpayers got gouged $1 billion, much of which went 
to the Halliburton company on a sole source contract.
  If this does not smell like a mackerel in the moonlight, I do not 
know what does.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will yield further, can I say 
something? I know our time is coming to an end, but the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) talked about building roads and bridges 
and hospitals and schools in Iraq, neglecting our own domestic needs. 
If I can quickly share an example of how this administration seems to 
prefer Iraqis over Americans.
  As we all have heard, Secretary Rumsfeld wants to compensate the 
Iraqi prisoners who were abused in the Abu Ghraib prison. I do not have 
any problem with that. But I do have a problem with this: Seventeen 
American POWs that were tortured in that same prison, they were 
tortured with electricity, they were threatened with castration, they 
were threatened with suicide, their bones were broken, they went to 
court and sued Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime and a court gave 
them compensation. This administration appealed that decision, fought 
the American POWs, and a newspaper in my region read like this. They 
said it was the United States of America and Saddam Hussein versus 
American POWs, and the United States and Saddam Hussein won.
  What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If Secretary 
Rumsfeld wants to compensate the Iraqi prisoners, the American ex-POWs 
deserve equal compensation.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, we know, we know what the commander of the 
VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a highly-esteemed organization 
serving veterans in this country, had to say about this 
administration's submission of a veterans budget to the United States 
Congress. That commander called it a sham and a fraud. So this is not 
inconsistent.
  If I could just leave my colleagues with one question. We have talked 
about we could not find the weapons of mass destruction. We cannot find 
the links, if you will, of the collaborative relationship between 
Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
  Has anyone looked for the plans that were crafted by Saddam Hussein 
that indicated that he was prepared to attack the United States?
  Mr. INSLEE. Well, yes. In fact, we have spent millions of dollars of 
taxpayers' money looking for that, but they apparently do not exist.
  Now, let me suggest one thing that the President of the United States 
could have done to help his fellow Americans when we made a decision 
whether or not to go to war. He could have leveled with the American 
people. He could have told the American people that to the best of our 
knowledge there is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein was 
responsible for the heinous, evil attack on America of September 11. He 
has talked to the American people probably six times a day for the last 
2 years, and this President has never said that. This is wrong. We 
intend to maintain accountability for this administration.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for joining me tonight for 
the Iraq Watch, which will continue on other nights.

                          ____________________