[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16161-16167]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   REGARDING NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITIES AND THE REAL WAR ON TERROR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hensarling). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I am joined this evening by a number of 
colleagues interested in the safety of America and Americans, and 
concerned about the future of our military forces. We are speaking this 
evening because we have great reservations about the way America's 
national security policy is being conducted.
  Sixty years ago next month, the American Army was welcomed into Paris 
with cheers and flowers and cries of ``Vive les Americains!'' We had 
fought a dogged and grueling war against the forces of a cruel 
dictator. And from every window and rooftop, a liberated populace 
honored the foreigners who restored their freedom.
  Move forward 60 years to another war, another dictator, another 
country freed. To be sure, many Iraqis welcomed the American invasion 
and, for all the talk of coalition, this was an overwhelmingly American 
force. But those who welcomed our forces found they had to keep their 
voices low lest they become targets of those who rewarded their 
liberators with bombs and bullets.
  We should not accept the appearance of an ungrateful Nation at face 
value. But neither should we idealize the occupation of Iraq.
  It is increasingly clear that at a time when America should have 
focused its might on punishing those who, callously and in defiance of 
any known theology, attacked our country, and eliminating the threat 
they continued to pose, we allowed ourselves, Mr. Speaker, to be 
diverted.
  What we see on TV every night is not the war on terror. The war in 
Iraq; really, now, the peacekeeping mission in Iraq, is costly and 
bloody and largely irrelevant. Was Saddam Hussein unpleasant? Yes. Did 
he bode U.S. ill? Without a doubt. But going to war against Saddam 
Hussein, taking people and resources away from the search for Osama bin 
Laden and the destruction of al Qaeda, is like the football defense 
that goes after the runner while the

[[Page 16162]]

quarterback sneaks the ball across the goal line. We fell for the fake.
  The real war on terror is the war to find and punish those who 
attacked this country and who would do so again. After nearly 3 years, 
their networks have been shattered, their organization has been 
bruised. But destroying such a strong and such a decentralized threat 
is very difficult. Any one man with a weapon of mass destruction is a 
superpower. The best we can do, militarily anyway, is to contain and 
keep the leadership incommunicado or on the run. That is the real war.
  Is America safer with Saddam Hussein out of power? Probably. But is 
America safer because of the Iraq war? No, it is not. Because of the 
way we entered that war and the way in which we have handled the 
aftermath, I believe that we have increased the chances of another 
attack and, sadly, another war. We have incited the anger of millions 
who previously did not much like the United States, but probably would 
have been willing to live and let live. We have become the villain of 
millions of glittering eyes, and we did it to ourselves.
  At the same time, we drove away stalwart friends whose company 
provided us with such strength. By forcing a political showdown on Iraq 
rather than focusing on the real war, the proven threat to all western 
civilization, we made our allies choose between the will of their 
people on the one hand and the relationship with the United States on 
the other, and it was unnecessary.
  After September 11, the leaders of countless nations expressed their 
support to our President. Not one, not one called to gloat or said that 
we deserved what we got. NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time ever 
to come to the collective defense of the United States. They were all 
on our side, in the real war.
  We chose to defy the will of the international community and take it 
upon ourselves to unilaterally enforce sanctions that were not solely 
America's to begin with. The Canadian Mounties cannot come to 
Lexington, Missouri to enforce Missouri law; that is the duty of the 
State of Missouri. Similarly, I do not believe it was right for the 
United States to act to enforce edicts that were not of our creation. 
That is why the United Nations was created. By taking it upon ourselves 
to literally become the world's policeman, we changed the view that 
many of our allies had of us. We became, in their view, not just a 
victim of a vicious attack, but a potential attacker ourselves.
  Let me be candid, Mr. Speaker. I and some of those who will speak 
later voted to give the President the authority to move Saddam Hussein 
out. We did that based on the information at the time, much of which 
has since fallen into question. The former Vice Chief of Staff of the 
Army, General Jack Keane, told the Committee on Armed Services last 
week, ``We were seduced by the Iraqi exiles.''

                              {time}  2145

  But regardless of underlying data, nowhere in our votes did we say to 
go it alone. Never did we say that Iraq should take focus away from the 
real war. At the same time, I twice wrote to the President and pointed 
out that ejecting Saddam is one thing, but we have to plan to manage 
the aftermath. That clearly did not happen.
  The peace has been managed far worse than the war, and it has been 
argued that the United States invasion was justified as an act of self-
defense. Indeed, this administration changed the national security 
policy of our country to assert the right of the United States to 
preemptively attack anywhere we believe there might be a threat to our 
Nation.
  We have debated, and I am sure we will continue to debate, whether 
the policy of preemption is wise or in keeping with American values. 
But this much is clear. In order to preempt, in order to become an 
aggressor, in order to throw the first punch, we had better have clear, 
convincing and accurate intelligence that a real threat exists.
  As we are seeing in the case of Iraq, our intelligence system is not 
yet ready to meet that standard. Until it is, a doctrine of preemption 
puts America in the black hat before the world. Whatever happened to 
the Weinberger doctrine? Whatever happened to the Powell doctrine?
  Mr. Speaker, if a global black eye were the only consequence of our 
Iraqi adventure, it might be manageable. We could live with it. But to 
do that and to take energy and focus from finding the true villains of 
September the 11 and to enter into a war that was not clearly necessary 
and to strain local economies by calling up reserves, National Guard 
and even retired military to serve in that war and to drive a wedge in 
the alliance that kept peace for 60 years and to engage in a bloody and 
costly occupation and to stretch the American military forces to the 
breaking point and ultimately to inflame new generations to hate 
America, with all of that, I cannot see how America is in the end safer 
or better off because of this war.
  The Soviet Union tried to put America in this strategic situation for 
half a century. We did it to ourselves in just a year. On top of that, 
we have created a huge new burden for America's military. I recently 
wrote that we could have forces in Iraq for 50 years. When I asked the 
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz whether we would be in Iraq 
for a good many years, he said this is entirely possible, and he added, 
``I cannot tell you how long that's going to take.''
  I and many who stand with me have tried to be supportive of our 
President and our policies. We stand foresquare with the troops under 
fire and grieve for the families of those who have been lost, who, Mr. 
Speaker, come disproportionately from rural America. We stand with 
them. We cannot stand with the failure to prosecute the real war 
against those who attacked and continue to threaten our country. We do 
not oppose having a strong military, and we do not oppose using it, but 
we do oppose squandering it.
  That is a question of priorities. Over $10 billion just this year on 
missile defense. Is the threat of foreign missiles the most serious one 
facing our country? Remember, this is not a defense against weapons of 
mass destruction. Those can be delivered in many ways. Missile defense 
addresses the delivery system with the highest cost and the lowest 
probability of being used against us. So why is it there that we spend 
the most?
  The administration is devoting hundreds of millions a year to develop 
fighter planes that push the envelope of technology and knowledge, bold 
innovation, the edge, but the true threats to our country from people 
who have no fighter airplanes, have no aircraft carriers and have no 
satellites.
  The war against terror is door to door and manpower-intensive, so 
spending all this money on other items should make us ask, where are 
our priorities?
  Soldiers make the war on terrorism work, more than any doctrine or 
any system. Yet, the most personnel-intensive services, the army and 
the Marine Corps, are last in line for funding from the Defense 
Department. Where are our priorities? Why, Mr. Speaker, are we not 
throwing America's might into the real war?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes).
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and let 
me say, Mr. Speaker, that I associate myself with his comments. As a 
member of Congress, a veteran who has been to Iraq five times and have 
sat many, many times across from our men and women in uniform, as they 
look into our eyes and they show not just their commitment and their 
professionalism but their trust in us to do the right thing, and 
sometimes I wonder if we are not betraying our obligations of doing the 
right thing for them.
  So tonight, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about an issue that is 
vitally important to our country and to the men and women that are 
fighting and defending our freedoms in Iraq, Afghanistan and other 
parts of the world.
  Mr. Speaker, time and again attempts by this House to acquire 
documents related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal have been 
defeated,

[[Page 16163]]

largely on party line votes. During consideration of the intelligence 
authorization bill, I offered an amendment, both in committee markup 
and on the floor of this House, to require the Department of Defense to 
turn over documents related to the handling and the treatment of 
detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, including 
those documents that would come from the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence and documents that had been already asked for, not just by 
our Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence but by other committees 
in this House.
  Both of these attempts, attempts to find answers to the questions 
that all Americans are asking and that all Americans are expecting us 
to answer, have failed, again, largely on party line votes.
  Last Thursday the House Committee on Armed Services met to mark up H. 
Res. 689 and H. Con. Res. 472, two resolutions that are a direct result 
of the prisoner abuse scandal. H. Res. 689 would require the Secretary 
of Defense, the Secretary of the State and the Attorney General to 
transmit to the House information produced in connection with the 
investigations into allegations of abuse against prisoners and 
detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, 
Cuba.
  Unfortunately and disappointingly, the committee ordered that this 
resolution be reported to the House with an adverse recommendation. 
This is the second time in less than two months that the House 
Committee on Armed Services has failed to order the production of 
documents that could assist this committee in understanding and working 
towards a resolution of the prisoner abuse scandal.
  In June the committee adversely reported H. Res. 640, a bill that 
sought documents associated with the investigation by Army Major 
General Antonio Taguba into the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in 
Iraq. I am deeply disappointed in this committee and at the partisan 
politics that are keeping America from learning the truth about what 
happened at Abu Ghraib.
  Instead of supporting this fact-seeking resolution last week, 
Republicans on the House Committee on Armed Services preferred H. Con. 
Res. 472, a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the 
apprehension, detention and interrogation of terrorists are fundamental 
elements in the successful prosecution of the global war on terrorism, 
and that the protection of the lives of the United States citizens at 
home and abroad.
  Fundamentally, this resolution is mired in a lot of partisanship and 
may ultimately hurt our men and women in uniform. I am deeply concerned 
about the unintended consequences that could result from the adoption 
of such a resolution.
  By effectively absolving ourselves from adhering to the Geneva 
Conventions and instead following our own standards of ``humane 
treatment for those in our custody,'' we open the doors for the rest of 
the world to do the same to our own troops.
  In the words of former prisoner of war, the Nation's first ambassador 
to Vietnam and past Congressman Pete Peterson, ``I know what life in a 
foreign prison is like. To a large degree, I credit the Geneva 
Conventions for my survival. While the Vietnamese rarely abided by the 
rules, the international pressure on them to do so forced them to walk 
a fine line that ensured that they not perpetrate the sort of shocking 
abuses at Abu Ghraib.''
  It is imperative, Mr. Speaker, that we live to the same standard that 
we expect other nations to abide by in the horrific event that they 
capture our soldiers. I am disappointed that the Republicans on the 
House Committee on Armed Services would prefer to have this resolution 
passed through our committee in the House rather than a resolution 
seeking the truth about what occurred at Abu Ghraib.
  While we eventually voted to postpone marking up this resolution, the 
committee, however, is scheduled to take it up again this week. I hope 
that before then our colleagues will see the grave dangers that lie in 
insisting on dismissing such behavior and not blaming it just on a 
handful of soldiers but instead recognizing it for what it is, a 
failure of our system and our failure on this committee and in this 
House to do our oversight responsibilities.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand here tonight as a concerned American, a 
concerned Member of Congress, and I join my colleague from Missouri in 
asking our colleagues to do everything that we can to exercise our 
oversight responsibilities. It is the right thing to do. It is what our 
men and women in uniform expect us to do as they sit across the table 
from us in places such as Tikrit, Mosul and other parts of faraway 
lands. They trust us. We cannot fail them.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee 
(Mr. Cooper).
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Missouri, for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that the entire House of Representatives knows 
that our ranking member (Mr. Skelton), who there is not a more 
patriotic individual, there is nobody in this body who is for a 
stronger defense, and I think our ranking member has two of his sons 
serving in the United States military right now. It is just an example 
of the great military tradition in his family. And the ranking member 
as a student of history has very insightful questions that he asks at 
hearings, and his questioning of General Jack Keane the other day was 
just an example of that.
  And I was struck by General Keane's testimony, when he said that if 
we had to put it in graphic terms, the prewar planning in Iraq was 
about like this, more or less a bucket full, a large bucket full, but 
the postwar planning in Iraq was more like this, more like a thimble 
full. And our ranking member has quoted General Keane when he said that 
he felt almost that he had been seduced by the Iraqi expatriates into 
believing that the postwar situation would be easy, friendly, we would 
be greeted as liberators, not as occupiers.
  The two issues that I would like to bring up tonight have to do with 
the troop commitment that Tennessee is making, yet again. We are the 
Volunteer State and the most recent group of reservists and guardsmen 
to be called up. The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, these men and 
women in uniform are leaving family and friends back home for their 
tour of duty. They are proud to serve, but almost 4,000 Tennesseans 
will be involved in this mobilization, and that just reminds me that in 
this next rotation, 43 percent of our troops in Iraq, 43 percent of the 
130,000 men and women in uniform, will not be active duty personnel. 
They will be guardsmen and reservists who are called up to serve their 
country in a faraway land.
  I worry that our Nation is not aware of this terrific OP TEMPO, the 
fact that we have the heaviest OP TEMPO since World War II. A lot of 
folks do not know how to put that into perspective, because they think 
Vietnam was a big war or Korea was a big war; but, yet, due to the 
rotational demands on our troops, they are facing some of the greatest 
strains and stresses on family life and professional life than any 
other men and women who have served in uniform have faced since World 
War II. And the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment from Tennessee is just 
the latest example of that in our State.
  Another issue I wanted to focus on, Mr. Speaker, was the cost of the 
war and honesty in accounting. People have said for a long time that 
truth is the first casualty in war, and I am worried that when it comes 
to honestly and fully disclosing the cost of this war, the 
administration has not been forthcoming. As the gentleman from Missouri 
knows, the administration included no money in this year's budget for 
the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. That is almost too incredible to be 
believed by folks back home. To have a war of this magnitude go on and 
to have the administration put zero dollars in their budget for Iraq or 
Afghanistan is incredible.
  Finally, after Congressional pressure, they have inserted, as the 
gentleman knows, $25 billion in the budget, and I think this week the 
defense appropriations bill will go through and it will become 
effective immediately. It won't wait until the beginning of the next 
fiscal year in October. Because why? Our

[[Page 16164]]

troops need the money now. They are running out of money, and it is the 
least we can do as members of the Committee on Armed Services to fully 
fund our troops, our men and women in uniform, while they are serving 
our Nation abroad.
  That $25 billion will not last for very long. As the gentleman knows, 
the estimates we have got on the committee indicate it might last 
through October, November, December, and then come January of next 
year, the next Congress. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) 
estimates we could be facing $50 billion then, and none of this is 
being disclosed to the American people as it should be. I think we 
should be honest with them and forthright, let them know the nature of 
our commitment overseas and let them know the burden that they bear as 
taxpayers to pay for this, because this is a very serious financial 
issue. These are large dollars involved.

                              {time}  2200

  If you add it all up, the total expenditure of the war so far is in 
the neighborhood of 150 and $200 billion, 150 to $200 billion. This is 
to wage war on a country whose annual defense budget was about $1 
billion. So it is an incredible situation that we are in. And I think 
by being honest and straightforward with our constituents back home, 
being straightforward with the American taxpayer, we will come a lot 
closer to getting through this conflict successfully, to winning and 
bringing our troops back home safely.
  I commend the leadership of our ranking member. He has done a great 
job and has done so for many years on the committee, a true patriot, a 
true leader, a true lover of the American military, and a true 
supporter of our troops. It is an honor to serve with the gentleman, 
and I am proud to be part of this special order.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Cooper).
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton) for his leadership of the House Committee on Armed Services, 
as ranking member, where he commands respect on both sides of the aisle 
and across our military.
  Mr. Speaker, I have 3 unique privileges in this institution. One is 
to represent the people of Long Island's Second Congressional District. 
The second is to serve under the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). 
And the third is to serve under the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton) on the House Committee on Armed Services, a committee which 
has no more profound and fundamental mission than to protect our troops 
and keep them strong so that they can keep our Nation strong.
  How do we do that, Mr. Speaker? How do we keep them strong in order 
to keep our Nation strong? We do it by having right priorities and by 
giving them the best resources. Having the right priorities means that 
we be focussed. We have to have focussed priorities and disciplined 
priorities. And having focus and said disciplined priorities enables us 
to provide the best resources to our troops so that they can combat the 
global war on terror.
  Sadly, Washington has fallen woefully short on those priorities. Let 
me share some examples that come from some of the people that I 
represent. These are real people with real stories.
  I have a policy, Mr. Speaker, that if you have been deployed into any 
dangerous place in the world, if you are a member of our military or 
related to a member of the military, my door is open at all times. You 
can come to my office on Long Island. You can come to my office in 
Washington and I will sit with you and listen to what you have to say.
  I sat with the mother of a young soldier who said to me at a table in 
HopHog, New York. She said, I had to send my son money in Iraq so he 
could afford the best armored vest because he did not have the best 
armored vest. And then I had to send him money so he could afford night 
vision goggled because I believe that my boy deserves the best night 
vision goggles. And my boy had to spend 2 or $300 our of his own pocket 
every month to give the men in his command socks and underwear because 
they could not afford to do that. She said, Do you not think that 
should be your obligation and not my obligation?
  I want to share with you the story of Raheen Tyson Heighter, a 19-
year-old from Bay Shore, enlisted in the Army. He was asked what kind 
of life insurance he wants. That 19-year-old did not believe he needed 
life insurance. Most 19-year-olds do not believe they need life 
insurance. He said, Give me the cheapest that you have. Because all he 
could afford from his net monthly paycheck of about $1,200 was a 
$10,000 life insurance policy. And his pay check was docked about 80 
cents a month for that policy. Well, he did not make it back. He was 
killed in Baghdad.
  His casualty officer called his mother and said, We regret to inform 
you that your son was killed in action and his life insurance policy 
was $10,000, which does not go very far.
  I believe if we are going to send young men into battle, we can 
handle their life insurance premiums, Mr. Speaker. It should not have 
been to come out of Raheen Tyson Heighter's pay check.
  I want to close by sharing a story that I heard from a young woman 
whose husband is in the Reserves and has just been deployed. He has 
been accumulating hundreds of dollars of cell phone calls on his 
personal cell phone which he loans to the men in his command so that 
they can call home because they cannot afford it without any 
reimbursement.
  These families do not complain. They do not come to my office to 
complain. They do come to my office because they are patriots, and they 
believe that we owe them something back. They are seeking fairness. 
They say, if you are going to honor us, honor us not simply with your 
words but in your budgets. Do not simply put lapel pins on your lapels, 
but put us in your budgets and do not balance those budgets on the 
backs of people who are fighting on our fronts.
  Those are our sacred obligations to the men and women that are 
fighting for our freedoms in dangerous parts of the world. There should 
be no Democratic or Republican way to protect our troops. We ought to 
do it because it is the right thing to do. And we ought to quit talking 
about our troops as priorities and spending as if they were our 
priorities.
  It is my privilege to serve under the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton) so we can reach that vital goal. It is my privilege to 
continue to advocate for those in my words who advocate for us with 
their sacrifices.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Israel). Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the 
opportunity. There has been a broad discussion here tonight on a 
variety of issues that we have been dealing with the on the Committee 
on Armed Services. I would like to thank the ranking member for the 
opportunity to share some of these views because we do not always get 
the opportunity in committee. We only usually have 5 minutes or so to 
question some witnesses that we may have before us or to talk about a 
particular issue.
  Among some of the issues that were raised here tonight, I would like 
to shift the debate just a little bit over to Afghanistan. There were 
some of us when the war in Iraq began, where we were wondering, why are 
we going over there when we have obligations already in Afghanistan? 
And we had major obligations in Afghanistan. We had an international 
coalition that we had put together to go into Afghanistan on October 7, 
almost 3 years ago, to make this happen.
  Reason we went into Afghanistan is that the Taliban, the ruling 
government in Afghanistan, was harboring terrorists from al Qaeda. Al 
Qaeda hit us on 9-11. We had every right to go into Afghanistan and try 
to rectify the situation and try to get the terrorists and try to 
destroy the al Qaeda network.

[[Page 16165]]

  One of the problems in Afghanistan has been drug production, opium, 
heroine, poppy, is the main culprit there. And those of us who thought 
it was a bad idea to go into Iraq were saying, well, all the arguments 
that we do not believe they had weapons of mass destruction and we do 
not believe Saddam Hussein had any tie to 9-11 and all these other 
arguments that some of us were making aside, if we are going to be in 
Afghanistan let us be in Afghanistan.
  If we want to try to set a democracy up in the Middle East, let us 
set one up in Afghanistan. We were already there. We invaded the state. 
We had taken control to a certain extent what was going on there.
  We now, today, have 130,000 troops in Iraq. We have 17,000 troops in 
Afghanistan.
  I want to share with the people at home here a picture of Afghanistan 
opium poppy cultivation in 2001. The areas that are producing or 
growing poppy in 2001 are in red. You can see a majority of the country 
is in white. Now I would like to share Afghanistan opium poppy 
cultivation in 2003. Nearly the entire country is producing poppies 
which is now, today, half of the gross domestic product in Afghanistan 
is poppy, $2.3 billion.
  We have a narco-state on our hands in Afghanistan. And what happens 
is that in these outer regions outside of Kabul, which is the capital, 
the drug lords are running the show and they are making $2.3 billion 
worth of money that will eventually make its way back into the hands of 
al Qaeda, which their sole purpose in life is to destroy the United 
States of America, destroy the infidels.
  So the question is, why do we have 130,000 troops in Iraq and only 
17,000 in Afghanistan? We have $2.3 billion worth of poppies being 
grown and sold outside of Afghanistan. When General Myers was before 
our committee several months ago, maybe a month and a half ago, I asked 
General Myers, What are we doing about the poppy? What are we doing 
about the money that is making its way back to al Qaeda?
  General Myers said, Well, we have a little problem this year. The 
harvest came in early. The harvest came in early.
  So we have another year's supply of heroine on the market being sold 
that will eventually make its way back to al Qaeda to fund terrorists 
acts against the United States and the reason is the harvest came in 
early. We only have 17,000 troops there, and the question that I would 
like to ask the people at home across the United States of America, 
what would Afghanistan look like today if we had 130,000 troops there, 
if we spent $200 billion there, and we had the international community 
supporting the effort?
  We would be much closer to having a democracy in the Middle East. I 
believe that we would not have $2.3 billion of drug money going back to 
al Qaeda to help fund acts against the United States. We would probably 
have elections very soon. And we would have the entire national 
community supporting the effort. And we would not be bogged down in the 
situation we are in now in Iraq.
  So, when we look at the production and we look and see this next 
chart, how it has grown from 2001 when the Taliban ruled, they were 
obviously anti-narcotic, and the growth in 2000 and 2003 of opium 
production in Afghanistan. And when we look and see all the reasons 
that we have had for going to Iraq, and now the latest is create a 
democracy in the Middle East, we have spent $200 billion there. I think 
we had an opportunity, we had the commitment, we had the international 
community, we had the resolve to go into Afghanistan and set up this 
Arab democracy that would hopefully lead to the domino effect of 
leading the democracy throughout the Middle East.
  So I want the people at home to know that this is a lack of 
leadership in my mind as to why we are in the position we are in. While 
we are over in Iraq struggling right now, we cannot forget that we also 
broke Afghanistan as we broke Iraq. And if we break Iraq, we have got 
to buy it, and it has cost us $200 billion. We cannot forget we broke 
Afghanistan. And I believe the major threat to this country is the 
money that is being taken out of this country through the drug sales 
and back to al Qaeda to lead the terrorist acts in this country.
  So my point is that I think we have dropped the ball in Afghanistan. 
And I appreciate the letter the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) 
sent to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) last week saying 
that we need to have a full hearing on what is going on in Afghanistan 
and that the American people will not stand for the excuse that the 
harvest came in early as to why we have another $2.3 billion in the 
hands of al Qaeda.
  I thank the gentleman for the opportunity and all his support with 
all the hearings that we have trying to get done in the Committee on 
Armed Services. I thank the other members of the committee, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) who was phenomenal in a 
classified hearing last week. I would like to thank him as well.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I yield 
7 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

                              {time}  2215

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton) for bringing us together this evening. I thank him for 
training his insight on a situation that, as I say, this as somebody 
who did not vote for the resolution in the first place because of my 
apprehension, but I could not have foreseen it being mishandled in a 
way that has produced the situation we face today.
  I salute the gentleman for his leadership, his voice of reason 
throughout my tenure in Congress during some very difficult times. 
Whether it is in the Balkans or it is the Middle East, he has focused 
our attention. He has asked the right questions, and he has done so in 
a way that permits people to get past some of their biases and concerns 
and I think really approach it in an open, honest and forthright 
fashion. I salute the gentleman for that. I appreciate the leadership 
he is providing this evening.
  I listened to the gentleman's appraisal and I could not agree more, 
that, sadly, this administration was not prepared to win the peace, and 
this, as my colleague has pointed out time and again, is not the fault 
of our men and women in uniform, who have performed heroically. They 
have done the task that is assigned to them and more.
  I think it is clear that what we have seen here has been a failure of 
the people at the top, who refused to listen to the men and women in 
uniform in the command structure. They have indeed, as the gentleman 
mentioned, been diverted from the real war in Afghanistan, something 
that the vast majority of people in this chamber were united behind. 
They understood that was the origin of the attack on the United States. 
That is where al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were headquartered. That is 
where we needed to act. Sadly, we did not finish the job. We were 
diverted.
  We have seen stress unprecedented on our National Guard and ready 
Reserve, and I appreciate the gentleman focusing on that. It is 
something that I encounter every week as I go home, hearing from the 
families, from the employers, the news accounts, the meetings we have 
had at home where sometimes there are people that just want to have a 
confidential moment.
  A couple of weeks ago, I had a young man call the office. I was very 
tightly scheduled. He said, ``I'll tell you what. I know you're going 
back to Washington, DC. Can I come and ride to the airport with you? I 
just want to tell you what's in my heart before I go back.''
  It was for me extraordinarily frustrating to hear this young man 
unburden himself. He was back stateside because he had won a special 
commendation. He was back, but he wanted me to know the deep concern 
that the men and women he served with had about what was going on.
  As the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) said, we did it to 
ourselves. Three years ago, the world was united

[[Page 16166]]

behind us. We had specific objectives. There was a sense of unity here 
that could have been mobilized and was not, but I think the question 
that the gentleman is raising for us is not just focusing on what went 
tragically wrong, understanding what is there, but he is focusing our 
attention on where we go from here, how do we do right by these young 
men and women in the field, how do we do right by the people in both 
Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Well, I think, first and foremost, I would like to see us do a better 
job at oversight, and I know the gentleman has done his best as the 
ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services, but there is no 
excuse for our not being able to do a better job of pulling this 
information out, sharing it with our colleagues and the American 
public, and holding people accountable, doing a better job of focusing 
on what is happening to the 5,600, what are we calling them, post-
active duty people who are being brought back to service yet again. The 
strains that have been put on the ready Reserve, more people called up 
than in every previous mobilization from the Cuban missile crisis 
through every decade, every year right up till today, we have had this 
amazing stress.
  What can we do? We can have an honest accounting of the costs and 
consequences, not the budgeting that puts it off till the future. We 
can chase down what happened with that prison abuse scandal and not 
scapegoat a few young men and women who were in a situation, candidly I 
think, over their heads. I would have liked to have thought that they 
would have known better, but by no stretch of the imagination can the 
evidence coming forth lead us to believe that we can resolve this by 
simply coming down on a half dozen, a dozen of these young men and 
women. It goes much further up the chain of command, all the way to the 
top. When we look at what orders have been issued, side-stepping the 
Geneva Convention, detention, it is a failure of responsibility at the 
top. We ought to hold them accountable.
  There is also the focus on the people who are, to a greater extent 
than ever before in wartime in the United States, dealing with 
unaccountable, unelected, no-bid contracts and contractors who are 
doing things that should be the purview of the United States military, 
and had they been done, they would have been done far, far better.
  We can shift much of this activity overseas to the locals, but it is 
insanity when we are paying $10-, $12,000 a month for contractors to 
drive a truck when we have Iraqis, for instance, unemployed, who would 
take that job for a couple hundred dollars a month and put that right 
back into their families.
  Last, but by no means least, it is important that we not forget about 
Afghanistan, and I appreciate my colleague focusing our attention on 
that this evening. Here is a country from which the attack on the 
United States on 9/11 was launched. Here is a country that has been 
abused and damaged for over a quarter century. It is larger than Iraq. 
It is poorer than Iraq. It has a larger population than Iraq. Our 
friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) just pointed out how narco-
terrorism is building and some of those resources are being used 
against us in the war on terror, and yet we are investing less than 
one-tenth of the amount of money in Afghanistan as we are in Iraq, and 
we have a much tinier military footprint, about one-ninth.
  I appreciate the gentleman from Missouri's (Mr. Skelton) leadership, 
his attention and the calm and quiet, thoughtful way he has analyzed 
this issue in a way that I think ought to touch the mind and heart of 
every Member of this chamber. I look forward to working with him in the 
weeks and months ahead to try and recover our momentum, our balance, 
and place our priorities where they belong and do right by the American 
people, the Iraqis, Afghanistan, and win this struggle against terror.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend, the gentleman from 
the State of Oregon.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the gentleman 
from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for bringing this issue before the House 
tonight. This is an issue that I spoke about this morning, and it 
seemed strange to me, as I was coming in here about to ask him for some 
time, to realize that his thinking and the thinking of the people who 
have been speaking are very much where my mind was.
  I think it is probably where the American people actually are 
because, in my view, it is past time for America to have a national 
terrorism policy. The line between countries we call friend and foe is 
blurred. The distinction between peril and safety is just as vague here 
at home. America has too much at stake not to consider a national 
terrorism policy as a work in progress.
  Civil liberties hang in the balance at home. Credibility is 
questioned in countries around the world. Military personnel are 
fighting and dying in one country today, but what about tomorrow? 
America is spending in excess of $150 billion in a country that has 
more to do with errors in judgment than threats of terrorism against 
the United States.
  The patchwork of actions and reactions about terrorism are long on 
rhetoric but stop well short of defining potential threats and 
responses or a philosophy to guide America. Questions need to be asked 
and answered, and that is why what the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton) is doing tonight is so important.
  The acting director of the CIA admits that a good case can be made 
for a new Cabinet-level Secretary to oversee all of the Nation's 
intelligence agencies, but the director thinks some changes in the CIA 
could accomplish just as much.
  Now, in Washington, D.C., turf issues are big issues. Are the remarks 
by the acting director turf or analysis? When it comes to terrorism, 
the old ways of Washington, turf among them, must change.
  The President took America to war in Iraq over alleged ties to 
terrorism, now proven incorrect. We learned just today that eight of 
the 9/11 hijackers passed back and forth through Iran before the 
attacks. We learned the Iranian government instructed border guards to 
let all al Qaeda pass. The CIA says there is no evidence of an official 
connection, but there is tacit approval, at a minimum. The same could 
have been said before Iraq, but that did not stop the President from 
going to war.
  What does this new information mean about Iran? The President says he 
launched a preemptive war in Iraq. Well, will the President launch a 
post-emptive war against Iran? Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. 
Iran is openly developing a nuclear capacity, claimed peaceful at this 
point, but outside the scope of objective knowledge and data. Is Iran 
next for U.S. military action? Why? Why not?
  Given Iraq, would Congress write this President another blank check 
for anywhere else in the world? What about North Korea? There is a 
regime that is as oppressive as Saddam's. There is a country that 
bought weapons technology from our old friend or our new friend and our 
old nemesis Libya. There is a country where weapons are almost 
certainly not theoretical. Are we going into North Korea anytime soon? 
We are pulling our troops back in South Korea from the border. We are 
thinking about moving some of them to Iraq. What does that mean?
  Today, Libya must be in line for, and I am not kidding about it, a 
football game. Mr. Qaddafi may have isolated himself economically for 
years, but he could still watch television. So, today, Qaddafi is 
trying to buy a British sports club, hoping that the English version of 
football will thaw the icy relations.
  Then there is Pakistan. They were not at the top of our list until we 
needed a friendly Nation in the Middle East after the September 11 
attacks. Now, Pakistan is a key ally. We have made them a non-European 
NATO ally. Is that good for Pakistan and the United States? If so, why? 
Is it a good thing for relationships between India and Pakistan and the 
United States? If it is, does this mean that the world is so 
interconnected that the notion of friend or enemy no longer applies?

[[Page 16167]]

  After all, we remember the television networks have shown pictures of 
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld bringing greetings to Saddam Hussein, not 
that many years ago, in the administration of Bush I. He was a bad guy 
then, but Mr. Bush liked him, and I guess that was good enough for 
those days.

                              {time}  2230

  Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago he became a bad guy. We did not like him any 
more, and we all know what happened then. What is the distinction 
between Saddam Hussein in Bush I and in Bush II? He just gassed people 
in his own country in Bush I. America needs a better definition of 
policy than just expediency. American policy today is grounded in 
reaction, not philosophy.
  There has been enough time since the tragedy of 9/11 for the 
President to articulate a terrorism policy for the Nation to debate, 
adopt and defend. All of us gave him some slack right after 9/11. Who 
would not want our President to have the power to deal with what he 
needed to deal with at the moment, but that is a long time ago.
  We see nothing. We do not have a policy, and the headlines can prove 
it. We have a military stretched so thin that the President launched an 
undeclared draft to compel soldiers to return to active military duty. 
If officers did not resign their commission, the service can reach back 
20 years to bring them in.
  The New England Journal of Medicine just carried a study that 1 out 
of 5 people coming home is subject to psychological problems, post-
traumatic stress disorder, depression, and other problems. We are 
suffering casualties. If we think out of 160,000 people, 1 out of 5 
coming home, that is 30,000 people, never mind all of the people who 
have lost an arm or leg. Now we have psychological problems coming home 
as well.
  Does America need a draft? The administration says no, or not until 
at least after the election. They say this ``no'' just after they have 
issued stop-loss orders to prevent soldiers from leaving active duty in 
Iraq. We have an indefinite military commitment in Iraq. But why, if we 
supposedly handed the country over to the Iraqis?
  America lives in perpetual terrorism-alert status. Is there nothing 
to be gained other than a CYA for this policy? Who decided that we 
should be told to be very worried just after America was told not to 
worry any more that we were already worried? They are moving the fear 
back and forth and keeping the American people on edge, and that 
summarizes the administration's recent public statements on terror. It 
also symbolizes the lack of a coherent terrorism policy.
  Today the administration basically says just trust us. Just trust us. 
America's response should be mine from the Reagan administration, 
``Just Say No.'' We did trust, and that is how we got into Iraq. The 
safety and security of America is everyone's business. It should be 
debated in this House before the People's Body. Every district, every 
person in this country is represented on this floor. It should not be 
decided by one man. I think the average American knows that and knows 
what the administration has given us so far is not a policy but wishful 
thinking.
  Mr. Speaker, the President has 105 days to articulate the terror 
policy, what he is really trying to do. If he does not do that, we are 
going to have a new President.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let 
me close by saying at the end of the day we all need to pay tribute to 
those wonderful, wonderful young men and young women in uniform, 
whether they come from Missouri, Washington, Ohio, New York, Florida, 
or all across our country. They are professionals. They know what their 
duty is, and we certainly wish to salute them this evening as well as 
the families that support them and wish well for them and of course 
pray for them.

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