[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 14308-14314]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gingrey). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, as you know, and our friends know, we 
have been engaged in a conversation for some months now with regard to 
what we have come to term the Iraq Watch; and I was very pleased to 
note that my good friend and esteemed colleague, the chairman of the 
Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Hunter), indicated in the last hour that he and other Members were 
occupying, that they would be pleased at some point, perhaps in the 
future, to work out an opportunity for a dialogue, not necessarily a 
debate, but a conversation among friends with respect to Iraq and its 
implications for the United States, perhaps even combining hours. I do 
not know what the rules are precisely on that, and I do not ask for a 
ruling on that right now, Mr. Speaker; but at some point we hope to be 
able to do that, hopefully for the benefit of the membership and for 
those members of the American public and others that may be tuning in 
to our Special Orders.
  For this evening's opportunity, however, I wanted to begin our 
discussion tonight with some references and observations over the so-
called handover of sovereignty. I think, Mr. Speaker, you might agree 
that with respect to Iraq, and unfortunately not only Iraq, there tends 
to be opportunities for the media in particular to seize on certain 
phrases. They become almost phrases of art. These phrases then 
substitute for a whole panoply of analysis that might otherwise 
usefully take place.
  In this instance, the phrase that I am referring to is the so-called 
``handover of sovereignty.'' Handover of sovereignty, what that means 
is not clear to me at this stage.
  What I did observe during our break was a ceremony which took place 
under very, very strained circumstances. The television news was 
suddenly filled with the ominous music, the drumbeats, the portentous 
rhythms that seem to indicate that something of spectacular import is 
about to happen. Breaking news. Stentorian voices, a sound, and then 
suddenly we are told, well, we are going to go to the handover of 
sovereignty in Iraq. It is to take place in secret. It is to take place 
with a pool reporter there, apparently a pool camera. It is in some 
secret room somewhere in the green zone, presumably, I guess, in one of 
the palaces, or what are referred to as palaces, in Baghdad; and, 
suddenly, there is Ambassador Bremer and some folks there with 
handshakes and pieces of paper passed back and forth. No real idea of 
what it is all about other than smiles and handshakes all around.
  And suddenly sovereignty ostensibly has been transferred or handed 
over. That it took place in secret, that it took place ostensibly to 
prevent terrorist activity from disrupting it probably speaks more 
about what the handover was actually all about and whether or not the 
word ``sovereignty'' might properly apply.
  In both instances, I think not. There was no handover of sovereignty. 
How can there be sovereignty when you do not control your armed forces, 
when the first pronouncements of your ostensibly sovereign government 
involve the possibility of imposing martial law on your own people and 
indications that the governing authority, that is to say the Coalition 
Provisional Authority under Mr. Bremer, still absent him in person, is 
going to be in charge of the military activities, presumably, according 
to this handover of sovereignty

[[Page 14309]]

ceremony, under some kind of group discussion terminology.
  Again, I fail to understand exactly how this ``partnership,'' which 
was referred to between the so-called sovereign Government of Iraq and 
the Government of the United States through its military, is supposed 
to take place.
  It is unclear to me that the questions that I asked of Assistant 
Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz in our Committee on Armed Services 
hearings, unclear to me whether these questions were answered. I simply 
said, ``Who is in charge? Who has the authority?'' And what I got was 
the usual dissembling and allusions to the idea of group discussions 
taking place. I am not quite sure how one responds to military 
situations in the arena of group discussions, but I suppose it is 
possible.
  My own thought at that time was, and I said at that time and repeat 
again tonight, that my perception was that at the turnover of 
sovereignty, at least as best I was able to understand that term, the 
American military would be set adrift on a desert sea and would find 
itself in a situation of being the first responders in an Iraqi crisis 
and that we would be uncertain as to who exactly was issuing the orders 
and under what circumstances they would be obeyed.
  This constitutes, for me, a crisis of another character, a crisis for 
us to answer; and in that context it is clear to me that the handover 
of sovereignty amounts to little more than a propaganda device meant to 
try to distance the political consequences and implications of our 
occupation from the political realities as the election approaches.
  Obviously, people will have to make their own minds up on that score; 
but in relation to that then, among the first pronouncements of this 
sovereign government was that under consideration was a possible policy 
of amnesty and that the amnesty would extend to those people who had 
murdered American troops, those people who had been involved in the 
insurgency that has taken place since the hostilities or major 
hostilities were pronounced at an end, i.e., mission accomplished by 
Mr. Bush some time ago on the infamous aircraft carrier stunt.
  And subsequent to that, obviously this insurgency, again, this is a 
term that has been adopted by the media uncritically, has resulted in 
numerous deaths and woundings. Most members of, certainly, the 
Committee on Armed Services and other Members of the House of 
Representatives and members of the subcommittees of the other body have 
traveled both in their districts and here in Washington and in Germany 
to hospital situations where we have been able to speak with and, 
hopefully, bring some measure of comfort and support to members of the 
military who have been wounded, members of the military and others, 
including civilian employees. But all that has taken place since this 
pronouncement that the war was essentially over, that the major 
activities surrounding the invasion was over; and now we find that this 
sovereign government is contemplating offering amnesty to those people.
  Now, if that is in fact what this has come to, I think the 
implications and consequences are serious indeed. There is no question 
in my mind that there will be some very serious dialogue taking place 
in this Nation if that is what this was all about, the opportunity for 
a government that has come into being solely as a result of the 
activities of the United States of America subsequent to the invasion, 
including and subsequent to the invasion of Iraq; and now we find a 
general amnesty being contemplated.
  That was never discussed, to my knowledge, with any members of the 
Committee on Armed Services. It was never discussed, to my knowledge, 
with members of the subcommittees of Congress generally as to whether 
or not that was something that we could abide. One would think that at 
a minimum this sovereign government in Iraq would have the courtesy, if 
only out of respect for those who have died and those who have been 
wounded on their behalf, to at least engage in some form of a dialogue 
with the United States in regard to that possible amnesty.
  I see my friend from Washington is about to ask for the floor, and I 
would be happy to yield to him.
  Mr. INSLEE. Well, I appreciate this, and I would like to contrast the 
phony, alleged sovereignty in Iraq with the real sovereignty and 
democracy in the United States; and this is a thought I had while 
sitting on the West Lawn of the Capitol watching the fireworks that 
were so spectacular on July 4th over the Washington Monument. And as I 
was looking at the fireworks, I was thinking about some of our work on 
the Iraq Watch, because the thought struck me that the reason we became 
a democracy, and such a strong one, is we had people who were 
rebellious and questioning and demanding against their government.
  We had a bunch of people in the 18th century who were rebellious to 
King George, who abused the trust that this monarch had of his people, 
who was not honest with his people, who was fraudulent with his people, 
that got his people into difficult positions without their consent. And 
the thought struck me that that rebellious, demanding, questioning 
attitude that the patriots had that started this country is the same 
attitude of folks who are questioning this President who has not told 
the truth about the American people that started this war; and we ended 
up a sovereign country because we are demanding.
  And I just note that as a theme tonight of our Iraq Watch that we 
demand the truth from our government, and the truth is that this phony 
allegation of sovereignty in Iraq is what I might call rose petal 
number 512, because this entire Iraq policy has not been based on 
reality. It has been based on a series of rose petals. Number one was 
we were told by Mr. Wolfowitz, rose petals literally would be strewn at 
our feet. Rose petal number two is when we were told that when we just 
caught Uday Hussein, the insurgency would stop. Then we were told when 
the other Hussein brother was caught, the insurgency would stop.
  Rose petal number 300, I think was when they said Saddam was caught, 
the insurgency would collapse. Rose petal number 412 was when they said 
all of these people who are doing violent acts in Iraq, they are just a 
bunch of foreigners, and as soon as we get the foreigners out, it is 
not the Iraqi people who were upset we were running their country, it 
is just these people from Syria.
  Turned out yesterday we found, like, 5 percent of the people in our 
custody are outside of Iraq. The problem we have got is some Iraqis we 
are battling with are another rose petal. And this is the ultimate rose 
petal that this administration is trying to foist on us, the American 
people, that unfortunately is not going to work. We lost three Marines 
today following the ``sovereignty'' rose petal.
  The fact is we have got to face reality in Iraq. This administration 
has never faced reality in Iraq. This administration has consistently 
given us misinformation; and until this administration changes its 
attitude, or the people in the White House change, we are going to be 
in trouble in Iraq.
  You know, look at the situation. We keep hearing about, oh, there is 
nothing but good news in Iraq, about all these rebuilding programs, and 
we have people who are working very hard, people in the military are 
working hard. I am sure some of the people at Halliburton are working 
hard, too. It is too bad they are charging us twice as much for meals 
as they are supposed to be, but I am sure they are working hard.

                              {time}  2115

  But when an assessment was done, I believe by the GAO, they found 
that less than 2 percent, less than 2 percent of the reconstruction 
projects that we voted in October to fund have been done; 140 out of 
2,300 reconstruction projects have been done. Electricity is still not 
working in Baghdad as much as it was for the average person before the 
war.
  Yet we continue to get these rose petals that the administration 
tries to feed us, and it is this type of attitude

[[Page 14310]]

based on falsehood and mysticism that have got us in this problem.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. If the gentleman will yield, I certainly respect and 
agree with the comments of the gentleman from Washington. This 
sovereignty in Iraq does seem like a false sovereignty, when you 
realize the facts on the ground.
  Number one, this new Iraq government has no ability to protect itself 
or its citizens or defend against the violent insurgency. All of the 
security requirements remain on American troops, approaching 140,000 
American troops, and the sad fact is we have yet to stabilize that 
country. We have not been able to contain the insurgency.
  The highest suggested number of people in that insurgency, the 
highest estimate is 10,000, and 10,000 violent insurgents have not been 
controlled, cannot yet be contained by 140,000 brave American troops. 
The reality is we do not have enough troops to stabilize Iraq; we have 
not had enough; we do not have the international troops; and we do not 
have the Arab League troops that we should have.
  This new sovereign government does not seem so sovereign. They are 
also not in control of their own reconstruction. The $20 billion of 
American funds appropriated by this Congress for reconstruction, the 
gentleman is absolutely correct, has not yet been spent, and, when it 
is spent, it will be controlled by the American embassy. This is 
probably the right thing, because it is American dollars, but it is an 
all-American list of contractors, many of them picked with no-bid 
contracts, no-bid awards, like Halliburton, and the so-called sovereign 
government of Iraq will have no control over that money.
  Thirdly, they were talking the other day about delaying elections. 
The White House said no, you are not. We are going to have elections, 
whether you are ready or not, in January of 2005.
  I do not want to see elections delayed either. I would like to see 
them moved up even sooner. But here is this Iraqi sovereign government 
that does not control its own security, does not control the 
reconstruction in Iraq, cannot even decide when to have elections, and 
yet the President wants to continue this fiction that we have 
established a sovereign nation of Iraq.
  It has not happened yet because we do not have security. 
Fundamentally we do not have security. We cannot meet our shared goals. 
I think every member of the Iraq Watch, today and for the last 15 
months we have been doing this, has agreed with the President's goals 
of a stable, peaceful Iraq that is pluralistic and hopefully 
democratic. None of those goals can be reached without security. We 
cannot have reconstruction without security; we cannot have a sovereign 
nation under a new government without security; we cannot have 
elections without security.
  This President has been unable to attract the international troops, 
the NATO troops, the Western European troops, the Arab League nation 
troops, that clearly need to be added to our brave American troops to 
get up to the several hundred thousand troops that Army Chief of Staff 
Shinseki quite rightly said a year and a half ago would be needed.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think 
Secretary Powell, as it was reported in the book just recently released 
by the Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward, my memory of the quote is 
that if you go to Iraq, Mr. President, you own it.
  Well, the truth is, we do own it. I was interested in hearing from 
our colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle, particularly 
the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, when he acknowledged 
that it is really the American soldier that is doing the work today in 
Iraq. Yes, we have allies there, the British obviously have made a 
commitment and there are some Australians, but other than that, there 
are very few substantial commitments to preserving security in Iraq 
today.
  As our colleague the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) just 
noted, we hear from some quarters that everything is fine, and we know 
that is not true. I think it is important that the American people 
understand that we are far past making this a partisan issue. This is 
not about Republicans and Democrats, this is truly about the direction 
of where this country is going, and it is absolutely essential that we 
be clear and honest and forthright with the American people.
  Let me just quote one very famous, highly regarded, well-respected 
traditional conservative, William Buckley. We all know William Buckley. 
He certainly has contributed through the years to discourse, to the 
public discourse on major issues in this country. As we all know, he 
recently resigned, retired, if you will, from the publication that he 
brought forth many years ago. But even a traditional conservative 
Republican like William Buckley expresses amazement about what is 
occurring in terms of the stories and the fantasy that is coming from 
this administration, particularly the White House.
  He recently said that the White House has a dismaying capacity to 
believe their own PR, and until we finally acknowledge what the reality 
on the ground is, we cannot have a debate.
  I am always brought back to that very famous statement by David Kay. 
Now, David Kay, as we all know, and as I am sure many who are listening 
to our conversation tonight are fully aware, was a former United 
Nations inspector, an American, who earned an excellent reputation for 
integrity, for knowledge, during the work done by the United Nations in 
terms of ensuring compliance by the Saddam Hussein regime with a 
variety of United Nations sanctions relative to the weapons of mass 
destruction.
  Prior to the war, he stated that he was convinced, from what he heard 
from the administration, that in fact the Iraqi government possessed 
weapons of mass destruction. He was assigned by this administration, by 
this President, to lead a group to go to Iraq and conduct a survey and 
do a thorough, exhaustive, extensive search for those weapons of mass 
destruction.
  When he came back, he made that famous statement before a Senate 
committee, saying we were all wrong, and here it is depicted on the 
cover of Newsweek Magazine. And as time has gone on, he continues to 
express his concern that we are losing our credibility in the world and 
that our role, our prestige, our claim to moral authority is eroding on 
a daily basis, and he pleads with the administration to come clean.
  So let me just suggest that until that occurs, that until there is 
honesty on the part of this White House and frankness and candor, and 
not just simply press releases and flyovers of Baghdad, we all know 
that our troops are doing a job that reflects well, not only on them, 
their families, but our country, but the truth is too that their morale 
has eroded. And yet we never hear anything from this White House and 
this administration about that reality, about the reality that a survey 
was done by Stars and Stripes, a military magazine, that established 
that 52 percent of Army personnel describe morale as low.
  That is dangerous. Let us respect them for what they do, let us 
acknowledge their heroism, but let us not paint an unrealistic picture, 
or we do the American people and the American military a disservice.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I wanted to yield 
to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Hawaii, and most of all I want to thank the esteemed Members who have 
participated week in and week out in the Iraqi Watch. I think you do a 
service to the country.
  As the gentleman from Massachusetts was saying, our troops have 
performed extraordinary under unbelievable circumstances. I, like many 
of you, have traveled to the Middle East three times, twice to Baghdad 
in the last 9 months. I can recall vividly when Tommy Franks was before 
our committee and I asked him about the policies of preemption and 
unilateralism and how he felt about that. The general paused and looked 
at me and said, ``Well, Congressman, that is above my

[[Page 14311]]

pay grade.'' He says, ``But we have long learned in my service to the 
country that we are able to distinguish between those who wave the flag 
in Washington and those who have to salute it and follow orders.''
  As the Iraqi Watch has done throughout this, commending our troops 
for their valiant effort, but as our leader Nancy Pelosi says, our 
troops in many respects need policies that are worthy of our sacrifice. 
It is clear to me that the Pentagon, the civilian Pentagon's 
ideological reach has exceeded our military grasp and has, as has been 
pointed out here this evening, has placed our men and women in harm's 
way.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), a valued colleague of 
ours, in describing the ongoing turf battle between the Department of 
Defense and the Department of State, concludes that there were plans 
that were separately conceived, poorly coordinated, based on false 
assumptions, poor intelligence and outright lies from Ahmed Chalabi, 
that have placed our men and women in the situation that we find 
ourselves today.
  Because of your nightly efforts, and I assure you, people in my State 
of Connecticut and throughout my district, the First Congressional 
District in Hartford, have heard. I have conducted several forums back 
in my district, and I find them incredibly informative in the sense 
that people want to come out and speak out about this issue, because, 
as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has pointed out, 
this is not a partisan issue. This is about the soul of the country and 
who we are and what direction we plan to go. And it is important, as 
the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) said earlier this evening, 
that we have this open dialogue and debate, a real dialogue with the 
American people, about our future, about our brave men and women, and 
how we intend to proceed now that we find ourselves in this quagmire 
called Iraq, moving forward.
  Yes, it can be acknowledged that it was a good thing to be rid of 
Saddam Hussein.

                              {time}  2130

  But in traveling to the Middle East and talking to Ambassador Jordan 
in Saudi Arabia a year before the outbreak of the war, he warned 
prophetically that if we unilaterally and preemptively strike Saddam 
Hussein, that what we will do is unwittingly, unwittingly accomplish 
what Osama bin Laden failed to do and create a united Islamic jihad 
against the United States. We find that our brave men and women now who 
are over in Iraq are faced with people pouring over the borders 
answering the call to jihad.
  The United States has to proceed in a manner, as the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) pointed out, that allows us to stand up, in 
as timely a fashion as we possibly can, the Iraqi Army, civil defense, 
and police. But as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) also 
points out, if the Iraqi people do not embrace democracy as much as we 
want them to, it is up to them ultimately to embrace this democracy. 
And if our presence there only inhibits that, then there has to be an 
ongoing examination and dialogue of an appropriate exit strategy for us 
that is strategic in its thinking.
  Tactically, the United States and our men and women who wear the 
uniform have performed brilliantly, but we have not strategically had a 
plan that will allow this government to stand up the way all of us want 
to see it happen.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming the time, on that note of 
our analysis of what the domestic questions are that need to be 
answered in Iraq, it is probably appropriate that the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Strickland) comes to us at this time, because if anybody is 
in the heartland of where domestic issues are in the forefront, I would 
say that it is the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), his district 
and his State; and I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Hawaii, my 
friend, for yielding; and I want to thank each of my colleagues for 
talking about this important subject.
  I do come from Ohio, the heartland of our country. I have so many 
veterans in my district, people who are intensely patriotic, people who 
honor our country by service, and they have historically. The people in 
my district are concerned. They are concerned about the continuing 
deaths that are occurring in Iraq. Well over 850 of our American 
soldiers have now lost their lives. Many thousands, 4,000 seriously 
injured, many more injured with less serious situations.
  But the fact is that we just went through the celebration of the 4th 
of July; and throughout my district as I went to parades and festivals 
and celebrations, I talked with a lot of veterans. Many of these guys 
are old World War II guys. They know what war is like. Many of them are 
so deeply troubled by what is happening to our soldiers. The fact that 
we sent them to battle without adequate equipment, the fact that even 
tonight, I would emphasize as we stand here in the safety and security 
of this hallowed hall of the House of Representatives, we have American 
soldiers in Iraq and they are continuing to drive unarmored Humvees 
well after more than a year, certainly, when they should have been 
equipped.
  So as was said earlier, the planning that went into this war was so 
inadequate and inept and, quite frankly, the immaturity of the 
decisionmakers. I am talking about from the Vice President on down to 
Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl and others. They were so 
naive. These folks who were so intent on sending our young men and 
women into battle; had these assumptions that were so inadequate and 
incorrect and, as a result, we sent soldiers to battle without adequate 
equipment, without adequate planning; and it is a tragic result, an 
absolute tragic result. Every precious life that has been lost affects 
families, children, spouses, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, and the 
community that that person has come from.
  It just seems to me that we have an administration that somehow does 
not understand what is happening. Maybe it is because they know of no 
one who is personally involved. It has been pointed out that out of the 
435 Members of the House and 100 Senators, that only one of us, out of 
the 535 of us, only one of us has a son who is an active duty soldier 
engaged in this conflict. So many of us who serve here do not know 
anyone who is a soldier in Iraq or in Afghanistan. We do not know of 
anyone who has lost a son or a daughter. So it seems to be something 
that is removed.
  I would like to say just one thing before I yield to my colleagues, 
and I say this to the parents in my district; and I think the parents 
across this country need to be aware of this. We are now calling up 
soldiers for further duties who have already fulfilled their 
contractual obligation as soldiers, and the reason we are doing that is 
that our military is spread so thin. What would we do if there was an 
episode that resulted in the overthrow of the regime in Saudi Arabia, 
for example? What would we do? We do not have the soldiers we need to 
meet our obligations.
  Many parents who listen to these proceedings here in the Chamber may 
not feel personally involved in this war effort. They may feel like 
that is the President's decision, and we are going to trust the 
President. But if they have children, 14, 15, 16, 17 years of age, they 
should be paying attention, because if this administration continues in 
office and does not change its policies, I think it is inevitable that 
we will have a mandatory military draft.
  Now, I think that is a fact of life. The President may not want to 
admit it. The Secretary of Defense may not want to own up to it. But I 
think the facts are that we cannot continue to meet our military 
obligations without a military draft under the policies that are being 
pursued by this administration.
  So the moms and dads in this country who have children may ought to 
pay attention.
  I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, the evidence that supports that premise is 
the reality that within the past week

[[Page 14312]]

or two there has been a call-up of the so-called ``ready reserve,'' 
almost 6,000. Now, these are men and women who performed for their 
country, who obviously did their active duty, did their active reserve, 
have returned to civilian life, and in some cases for years have been 
civilians, and now, out of the blue, they are back into the active 
military on their way to Iraq.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, because 
just before I came back, let me give my colleagues something so that it 
is not abstract. I will tell my colleagues exactly what I had to deal 
with and what came up while we were away on our holiday.
  My staff representing my delegation was briefed by Major General Lee, 
the adjutant general of the State of Hawaii, on the situation of the 
29th Brigade, Hawaii Army National Guard. The Secretary of Defense and 
the Secretary of the Army approved the alert of the 29th Brigade for 
deployment to Iraq. Earlier indications were, of course, that the 29th 
would be deployed to Afghanistan; but the situation on the ground in 
Iraq now requires additional soldiers from the 120,000 now there, and 
the enhanced 29th Brigade is needed.
  Now, this is happening all across the country; and if anybody thinks 
for a second that the 5,000 or 6,000 that are going to be involved in 
this current recall-up, involuntary call-up is going to solve it, I 
think they are dreaming.
  The 29th is one of the two remaining National Guard brigades not yet 
activated. It will perform reinforcing missions.
  Remember when I indicated here before that when this so-called 
sovereignty occurred, the United States military would be set adrift on 
a desert sea.
  They will perform reinforcing missions, whatever in God's name that 
means. The expected deployment will be 12 months. The brigade will have 
to travel off-island to train up, because the normal training entity, 
the 25th division, of course, is now deployed itself. The brigade may 
go to Fort Bliss, et cetera; expect the deployment to Iraq to take 
place shortly.
  Then what do we have to do? The adjutant general then had to brief 
all of the mayors that once the alert notice was released in 
Washington, we had to then discuss what the impact would be on homeland 
defense and natural disaster impacts back in Hawaii, because the Guard 
normally is going to address those situations. The National Guard is, 
of course, the primary backup to civilian authority. Now we are going 
to have to rely on the Air National Guard since most of the Army 
National Guard is going to be deployed. Now, this is just in Hawaii.
  Now, we can imagine what is taking place elsewhere all around the 
country? Part of our problem area in Hawaii is that the police and fire 
departments are going to be adversely affected because a major portion 
of the Army guard are police officers and firefighters and teachers. So 
there will be about 2,500 soldiers from Hawaii and about 3,500 coming 
from American Samoa, Guam, and California. Now, that is just one 
instance; and that is the reality.
  I want to conclude by saying the impacts on this are considerable, 
because the employers, whether they are public employers or private 
employers, have to take into account the absence of these folks at this 
particular time. What is happening right now is we are denying what the 
realities of the necessities for troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan and 
are masking it over with Guard and Reserve deployments; and we are 
going to have to pay a fearful price for that.
  I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to ask the question 
why we are in this fatal, mortal, disastrous situation in Iraq. Why are 
we in this situation where we are calling up people whose military 
service was essentially over? Why? We have put two of the training 
brigades that act as the enemy at various forts around this country, 
they pose as the enemy, and that is why we have such a well-trained 
Army. We have three of those Army units, and two of them have now been 
sent to Iraq to fight the Iraqi insurgents. We are not training our 
soldiers adequately.
  Why are we in this debacle? I want to suggest it is just a 
continuation of the movie ``South Pacific.'' Those World War II 
veterans remember that there was a song called ``Happy Talk,'' happy, 
happy, happy talk; and that is what this administration has planned a 
war over was happy talk.
  Look at Paul Wolfowitz, the Assistant Secretary of Defense who came 
to us and told us that the American taxpayers would not have to pay a 
dollar for this operation. Remember those predictions?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And that by this time, I say to the gentleman, there 
would be less than 30,000 troops in Iraq.
  Mr. INSLEE. That is right. He said the Iraqi oil is going to pay for 
all of this. Look what he said the other day when he was asked what 
happened. He said, ``I think there was probably too great a willingness 
to believe that once we got to 55 people on the black list, the rest of 
those killers would stop fighting.''
  Talk about rose-colored glasses, where people are committing suicide 
bombings to think that the next day, they were going to join the 
chamber of commerce, when we decided there was a new government in 
town. This was happy talk that is resulting in the deaths of our 
soldiers today and the incapacitation of the greatest military on 
Earth.
  Just to give an example of how bad it is, I will tell my colleagues, 
if I were a soldier holding a 50-caliber on the top of a Humvee, I 
would be proud of the people I serve with; but I would not be very 
proud of the civilian folks who have gotten me in this predicament on 
the streets of Baghdad.
  Look at this answer from General Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff, about the civilians of the intelligence community and the 
lack of intelligence that our soldiers have been given. He was asked 
recently during Senate testimony whether the Iraqi insurgency was being 
coordinated from a central hub, and he responded, ``The intelligence 
community as far as I know will not give you an answer because they 
can't give me an answer.''
  So we have these young men and women posted on streets in Iraq and 
the civilian folks have not given them intelligence to figure out if 
this is even a centrally planned insurgency. This is a huge, 
ineffective, incapable, negligent planning of a war; and we have not 
even started talking about how we got into the war.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. STRICKLAND. Those who listen to these proceedings may rightly ask 
the question, why are we talking about the failures of the past? Why 
are we not talking about what we are going to do in the future?
  I think it is relevant to remind ourselves that the very people who 
made such blunders of judgment, who deceived the American people, who 
promoted this war based on false assumptions, they are the people who 
are still in charge. They are the people who are continuing to make the 
day-to-day decisions which are resulting in these terrible 
miscalculations and terrible blunders. And what is the result? The 
result is we are continuing to lose precious American lives.
  Now, we had a perfunctory turnover supposedly of authority to the 
Iraqis, but every American knows that it is the American soldier that 
is continuing to be the target. It is the American soldier that is 
continuing to provide whatever security exists in that country, and it 
is the blood of the American soldier that is being shed.
  I get a little tired of all of this talk about coalitions. The fact 
is that it is the American soldier that is bearing the burden. It is 
the American taxpayer that is paying the bill, and we need to end that, 
and it is going to continue that way until we have a change in policy.
  Now, the President has got some answers to give us. I mean, the 
American people deserve to know are we going to have the continuation 
of bad judgment, bad decisions that is going to just perpetuated this 
thing for 1, 2, 3, 5, 10

[[Page 14313]]

years. We need to have some answers from the administration.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is absolutely 
right about this. And one of the important reasons that we are talking 
about the mistakes that were made is to make sure that it does not 
happen again. We do not want history to repeat itself.
  I think every member of Iraq Watch would agree that in the age of 
terror that we find ourselves, it may be necessary in the future to use 
our American force preemptively to protect America. The days of the 
armada, of an opposing enemy forming off our harbors or an army 
amassing on our borders, are probably over and we may need to quickly 
use preemptive force in the future. That is the Bush doctrine, 
preemptive use of force, but it has certain requirements that were not 
present this time.
  First, you need accurate intelligence. You need an honest assessment 
of what is happening on the ground and the need for the President to 
level with the American people, and you have to be willing to use that 
force only as a last resort, not on a basis before necessary. We see in 
this case the President exaggerated the existence of weapons of mass 
destruction. He has fabricated a relationship between Hussein, al Qaeda 
and 9/11. He failed to exhaust diplomatic options.
  What would have happened if he had allowed those international arms 
inspectors the extra 3 months they were requesting after their first 2 
months found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? He failed to put 
together a meaningful coalition, as all of us said tonight. Ninety 
percent of the troops in Iraq, 90 percent of the money is American. And 
he has failed to commit enough troops. We have got 140,000 brave 
Americans in Iraq today, but it is not enough to contain this violent, 
deadly insurgency, and they were sent there with inadequate equipment, 
as my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), has been 
telling us for 15 months during Iraq Watch.
  And what confidence do we have that this group of political leaders 
in the White House and the civilian leaders in the Pentagon will not do 
this thing again and again and again? They do not seem to understand 
their mistake. They will not admit their mistakes, and we have got to 
bring this to the attention of the American people.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has 
to his immediate left what amounts to a poster, a picture on the cover 
of Newsweek, ``How Dick Cheney Sold the War'' is the overall title. And 
in that context I would daresay the answer to the gentleman's 
observations and questions are that unless there is a change in the 
leadership that is unlikely to occur. His questions will not be 
answered except in the negative. His observations will continue, 
because that gentleman whose picture appears there again to the left of 
the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is the same gentleman 
whose company and associated companies are the administration, are the 
ones that are in charge of helping to put this infrastructure together, 
that is being defended by the American troops.
  Yet, as a story recently in the Washington Post points out, and I 
read the headline to you, a story about Ariana Cha appearing July 1, 
``Underclass of Workers Created in Iraq, Many Foreign Laborers Receive 
Inferior Pay, Food and Shelter.''
  It may come as a shock not to members of Iraq Watch, but it may come 
as a shock to the American taxpayer and perhaps some of our American 
colleagues that what construction is taking place in Iraq is taking 
place under the auspices of American companies, many of whom receive 
single source contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars, who are 
not even hiring Iraqis, who may be hiring some Americans but are, in 
fact, bringing in wage slaves from the rest of the world and then not 
even paying them, cheating them at the same time. Not only are the 
American taxpayers being cheated by American companies but American 
workers and Iraqi workers are being cheated.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. One of my constituents, a young West Point graduate, 
a gung-ho Army guy, a guy who loves the Army and who would write me 
these e-mails and say, I am so proud of what my soldiers are doing here 
in Iraq. So he is not a disgruntled Army guy. But he tells me that 
Halliburton is importing Filipinos and paying them very little to do 
work that was previously done by the American soldier. So that is an 
example of what the gentleman is saying.
  This company, Halliburton, my goodness, when are we going to face the 
facts? It has been reported, by the way, in an editorial in the 
Columbus, Ohio Dispatch that insiders have now said that Halliburton is 
housing some of their employees in hotels that cost $10,000 per night, 
$10,000 per night, but that is what you can do when you have a cost 
plus contract. There is no incentive to hold down cost. They were 
paying $100 to get a laundry bag of clothing washed, $100 a bag; 
$10,000 a night for a hotel room. And it is the American taxpayer that 
is paying that kind of exceedingly high cost.
  We are being gouged by Halliburton, the company that Vice President 
Dick Cheney was the CEO of. We all know it. The American people know 
it. This company is taking the American taxpayer for a ride. And I 
believe this administrations needs to step up and say, we are going to 
put a stop to it.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I will 
elucidate a bit more on that.
  In the story that I indicated I have that I was referring to, the 
Underclass of Workers Created in Iraq, the opening sentence is, ``The 
war in Iraq has been a windfall for Kellogg Brown Root, Inc., the 
company that has a multi-million dollar contract to provide support 
services for U.S. troops.'' ``KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton 
Corporation,'' came to employ Indian workers, from India, that is to 
say, not Native American workers, ``through 5 levels of subcontractors 
and employment agents. The company, which employs 30,000 workers from 
38 countries in support of the U.S. military, said it had been unaware 
of the workers' concerns until recently.''
  This is the kind of thing, Kellogg Brown, Halliburton, is always 
unaware of, workers problems, because they are too busy having their 
accountants going to work on the excessive profits they are making.
  It brings to mind the work that was done by one Senator Harry Truman 
when, during World War II, he had his committee on a bipartisan basis 
looking into the question of excessive profit-making from World War II. 
This is not something that is invented for this time and place by 
members of the Democratic Party. This is something that was headed up 
by a Democratic Senator, who was in charge in the United States Senate, 
on a bipartisan basis, to see to it that profiteering does not take 
place at the expense of the American soldiers or the expense of the 
American taxpayer.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to note that the 
Democratic minority in this House attempted to add an enhancement of 
the penalties for fraud and abuse and profiteering, and yet the 
majority in this House and in the Senate denied that proposal.
  I would like to conclude, and I will be very brief because I think we 
have got to go back to the initial question I think that was raised by 
the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), how did we get here?
  If we are to believe Richard Clark, who led the anti-terrorism effort 
under both Presidents Clinton and Bush until his retirement 2 years 
into the Bush administration, if we are to believe the highly 
respected, again, Republican conservative, who initiated the term of 
this administration as Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, it was 
one week, one week after the inauguration that there was a meeting of 
the National Security Council and what was discussed there was the need 
for regime change in Iraq. Nothing about terrorism. And again, 6 weeks 
later, according to Paul O'Neill, there was a meeting of the National 
Security Council where it was discussed how the oil

[[Page 14314]]

fields in Iraq were to be divvied up and divided among nations and 
corporations. That is according to Paul O'Neill and that is according 
to Dick Clark.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. There is an important article that was 
written in Harper's Magazine by David Armstrong back just before the 
outbreak of the war. The title of the article was ``Dick Cheney's Song 
for America.'' In there he goes back and talks about the concept for 
this plan being hatched by the then-Secretary of Defense and the two 
Under Secretaries which at the time were Paul Wolfowitz and Richard 
Perle. The goal was to be the lone force in the Middle East. The plan 
that was put forward was a bold one: To go forward and overtake 
Baghdad.
  It was rejected at the time. It was rejected by Colin Powell. It was 
rejected by Bush the elder. It was rejected by the most outspoken 
people against this war back in 2002 in this invasion and that was Jim 
Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Eagleburger.
  So as the gentleman said at the beginning, this is not a partisan 
effort. This is an understanding of the wrong turn the Nation has taken 
with respect to foreign policy. Again, I commend the members of the 
Iraq Watch for their vigilance.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I want to indicate I think we are down to our last 2 
minutes. I would yield to the gentleman from Washington to close.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to note getting back to the war on 
terrorism, where is Osama bin Laden? Where is Osama bin Laden? Why is 
the President not talking about Osama bin Laden, who is free tonight 
threatening our citizens where they live in our neighborhoods?
  We found out last week that this administration is spending five 
times more money tracking people who travel to Cuba than they are 
trying to interdict the money going to Osama bin Laden, who is 
continuing a threat to this country.
  This is one example of this administration taking their eye off the 
ball of the guy who killed almost 3,000 Americans. We are going to 
continue this discussion.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I believe we are down to our last 
minute or so. I do want to indicate to members of Iraq Watch that are 
here tonight that the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services in 
the previous hour indicated that he and perhaps other Members might be 
interested in having a dialogue with us and perhaps even combining 
hours, if that is acceptable under the House rules, perhaps this week 
or as soon as possible. And if it is okay with everybody, I wanted to 
pursue that, and I have indicated to the Speaker as we began the hour 
that that was contemplated and we will try to pursue that with the 
leadership.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. Speaker, I believe we have come to essentially the end of our 
hour.

                          ____________________