[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17770-17776]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carter). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
is recognized for half the time remaining to midnight, approximately 37 
minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we have come here tonight, my colleagues the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Strickland) and others who may join us, as a part of our continued 
obligation under the Iraq Watch to present a discussion and an honest 
critique of the administration's policy in Iraq. My colleagues and I 
have been engaged in this series of discussions now for several months, 
and we have done this for one simple purpose. We do not intend to allow 
the incredible commitment by our armed services that are now engaged in 
Iraq to be forgotten on the floor of the House of Representatives.
  Too often, people are sent into combat and then forgotten, and what 
the Federal Government did or did not do in sending them into combat is 
given little discussion and little note, but tonight of all nights, we 
think it is appropriate and vital for this chamber to discuss what this 
Federal Government did and did not do to lead us into our current 
predicament in Iraq. It is most appropriate for us to do this because 
tonight we have the very sad duty to report, as now Americans know, 
that we have lost 1,000 American lives in Iraq, a war started by a 
President under the belief and statement that weapons of mass 
destruction threatened the security of the United States.
  Based on that statement made by the President from the chamber 
standing behind me some time ago, over 1,000 Americans have lost their 
lives, and those 1,000 Americans are from 49 States and members of 
every political party. They are short and tall, rural and urban, and 
they all served under the flag of the United States and did their duty 
proudly.
  We, on a bipartisan basis, honor them because, no matter what they 
thought of their commander-in-chief's decision to go to war, they gave 
their highest measure of devotion to their duty, and we honor it, 
everyone in this chamber.
  I would like to also not forget the men and women who tonight are 
rebuilding their shattered bodies from injuries, over 7,000 people, 
many of whom suffered very, very difficult injuries who tonight are 
recovering in our hospitals across America, in the Mideast and in 
Europe. Anyone who has talked

[[Page 17771]]

to those soldiers and seen the incredible courage in their eyes when 
they are sitting there with pins in their legs and arms and missing 
limbs, and you ask them how they are doing and they say I am doing 
fine, sir; and you ask them what their plans are, and they say I want 
to get back to my unit as fast as I can; anyone who has seen those 
young soldiers would be incredibly proud of our people in Iraq.
  But this does not reduce or obligation to hold the Federal Government 
accountable for its numerous mistakes in Iraq. It heightens that 
obligation to blow the whistle on the repeated, continued misjudgments, 
misstatements, incompetence, negligence and carelessness that has led 
to this situation in Iraq, and tonight we are going to discuss them.
  I would like to, if I can, start this discussion with five rosy 
projections that, unfortunately, we have suffered in Iraq as a result 
of this administration's rosy projections. I just want to list these 
quickly.
  Rosy projection number 1: This administration, and in the persons of 
the President, flew out to an aircraft carrier with a jaunty looking 
flight suit, landed on the deck of the carrier, proclaimed mission 
accomplished with a giant banner on the superstructure of that carrier. 
Since the President told us mission accomplished, over 800 Americans 
have died in Iraq. The President's rosy projections were sadly wrong, 
and there is an emptiness in households and families across America as 
a result of that wrong rosy projection.
  Number 2: The President told us that as soon as we could stand up a 
new government, this new government would be embraced with the warmth 
of the Iraqis, with rose petals not only at our feet but at the new 
government's feet, and that this bearing up of support for the Iraqis 
and their new flag would bring peace and milk and honey to Iraq. Since 
this new government has been ``stood up,'' we have had an increase in 
the number of Americans killed in Iraq. Another rosy projection by this 
President that was flat wrong.
  Number 3: The President told us by now we would have a secure Iraq, 
beginning to be capable of having elections. Well, what did we read in 
the newspapers yesterday? The fact is that huge swaths of Iraq under 
this administration's policies have been given over to the Taliban and 
their associates, the militias in Iraq. Fallujah, the place where these 
folks desecrated the body of four contractors, that our proud marines 
went in there to do battle, this administration has given up to a 
militia that essentially is in cahoots with the Taliban and a 
fundamentalist regime, and we have that now called a ``no-go zone.'' 
Same in Ramadi, same in Najaf, same in parts of Sadr City. The fact of 
the matter is the President's policies have ceded huge parts of Iraq to 
what he says is the enemy. Rosy projection number 3, that we have 
essentially given up trying to disarm these militias and kicked the can 
down the road where eventually our military people are going to have to 
encounter these militias are now arming themselves and building 
themselves up in these ``no-go zones.'' Rosy projection number 3 that 
our people are paying for.
  Number 4: The President told us that Iraq would pay for this. You 
recall the projection by Mr. Wolfowitz who came here and said that 
Iraqi oil was going to pay for this. Sad joke on the American 
taxpayers. We are now over $200 billion into it with hundreds of 
billions of dollars to come, with no projection of how long it will be. 
Wildly optimistic, and in fact, we find out that the money we have 
appropriated cannot even be spent because of the lack of planning for 
the post-conventional war situation in Iraq. Because of this 
administration's lack of having a plan for the peace, only 2 percent of 
the money we have appropriated has actually been spent in Iraq of the 
$18 billion. They will get around to spending it, and U.S. taxpayers 
will pay through the nose for it, but the fact that this administration 
had such a rosy projection is going to cost us over hundreds of 
billions of dollars to the American taxpayer. Rosy projection that was 
wrong, number 4.
  Number 5: The President implicitly told us that there would not be 
war profiteering and gouging in Iraq in these hundreds of billions of 
dollars of taxpayer money, but in fact, we found that Halliburton, this 
corporation with incredible ties to this administration, has already 
been subject to millions of dollars of cost overruns which they cannot 
account for, that the Pentagon is now trying to get our money back for. 
In fact, they have talked about withholding 15 percent of further 
payments to Halliburton as a result of this lack of credibility to 
American taxpayer dollars. Rosy projection number 5.
  So we would like to say that this President's projections have been 
accurate, but the sad fact is we stand here tonight with 1,000 
Americans who have given their lives in Iraq. We have a continued tale 
of failed administration policies in Iraq, and this Nation deserves 
accountability for the people who have made these decisions in Iraq, 
which have cost us so dearly in life and treasure.
  In fact, when you look at this entire administration, which has 
bungled this operation so badly, you cannot find a person who has 
essentially been held accountable for their multiple failures. There 
has not been essentially a person who has lost a vacation day or had 
their little perks taken away or their corner office.
  This administration has a response to the American people when they 
are criticized. They simply say you are not an American if you 
criticize this administration. We are here to say it is not only a duty 
to criticize, a right to criticize this administration, it is a duty, 
and we are fulfilling it.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Washington State 
for yielding.
  It is a sad fact that just yesterday we observed the 1,000th death of 
a soldier in Iraq, and that is a tragedy. When you think of what that 
means, not only to the individual lives that have been lost, but when 
you think of the pain and tragedy of the families who are left behind, 
the moms and dads, the children, the loved one's wives, husbands and so 
on, they will have to endure the rest of their lives without their 
loved one.
  I sometimes talk to people about this war, and they seem sort of 
uninvolved. The war seems to be something that is distant to them. They 
know of no one who is currently serving in Iraq. They know of no one 
who has been lost or terribly injured over there, but I say to them, if 
you are a mother or a father and you have a child, a son or a daughter, 
especially a teenage son or a daughter, you had better be paying 
attention to what is happening in terms of this war.
  Senator McCain has said publicly that it is possible this war will 
require our soldiers to be in Iraq for 10 or 20 years, and if the 
administration currently in power and the people who are advising this 
President remain in power and they continue the same kind of foreign 
policy that we currently have, I believe it is inevitable that we will 
have to impose a military draft. So every mom and dad who does not want 
to see their son or daughter sent to fight this war in Iraq ought to be 
paying attention.

                              {time}  2300

  I would just like to take a few moments to share with my colleagues 
here, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), and the gentleman 
from Washington State (Mr. Inslee), and my friend, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). We hear a lot of talk, and there have 
been a lot of political charges about the $87 billion supplemental 
bill. The President recently made the accusation, I believe at his 
speech in New York, implying that when Senator John Kerry voted against 
the $87 billion, he was voting to deprive our troops of body armor, and 
so I would just like to share the truth about the body armor issue.
  I would remind my friends that the war began in March of 2003. March 
of 2003. And at that time, long before there was ever a vote on the $87 
billion,

[[Page 17772]]

in fact 7 or 8 months before that vote occurred, this administration, 
this President, this Secretary of Defense sent our American soldiers 
into Iraq in that initial assault, an invasion of Iraq, without 
protective body armor.
  The body armor that I am talking about is the interceptor vest, the 
body armor that was first available, I believe, in 1998. It is a high-
tech piece of equipment. It is made of Kevlar, with ceramic plates. 
These ceramic plates have the ability to stop an AK-47 round. We knew, 
because they were used in the Afghanistan conflict, which was the war 
on terror, by the way, we knew that they were used in Afghanistan and 
that they protected American lives. The Pentagon has indicated that a 
number of American soldiers were probably saved because they had 
interceptor vests, this body armor.
  When we sent our soldiers into Iraq in March of 2003, thousands of 
them went into that country without this protective body armor. And I 
repeat, this was months before the $87 billion vote on the supplemental 
request.
  Now, last September, in September of 2003, I received a letter from a 
young soldier in Baghdad. He happened to be a West Point graduate, a 
gung-ho Army guy. He said to me in that letter, Congressman, I am so 
proud of what we are trying to do here, of the effort we are making to 
help these people. But he said to me in that letter, Congressman, the 
men that are serving with me are asking me why they do not have this 
body armor for protection, this interceptor vest.
  That was in September of 2003. I wrote Secretary Rumsfeld a letter 
that September, and I asked him how many of our soldiers had been 
killed or unnecessarily wounded because they were not protected with 
body armor. I asked him to commit to us that he would not make this 
protection available to foreign troops until all of our American troops 
were protected, because there were reports in the press that we were 
making these interceptor vests available to some of the foreign troops 
before our troops were equipped. And I asked him if he could give me a 
date certain when all of our troops would have this protection.
  Now, that letter I sent to Secretary Rumsfeld in September of 2003, 
long before the vote on the $87 billion supplemental.
  I received a letter on October 27 from General Myers, the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said that Secretary Rumsfeld had asked 
him to respond to my letter. And in his letter to me, General Myers 
said that they expected that our troops would be equipped with this 
body armor by December of 2003.
  Lo and behold, the very next day, on October 28, I received a letter 
from Secretary Rumsfeld's chief of staff; and in his letter he said it 
would probably be November of 2003. So even Secretary Rumsfeld and 
General Myers were not able to agree on the issue.
  In regard to my question about how many troops had been killed or 
wounded without this protection, I was told in the letter from 
Secretary Rumsfeld that they did not collect that information on the 
battlefield, so he could not answer that question for me. Well, at 
least, I thought, I can believe what Secretary Rumsfeld has said and 
General Myers, that our troops will be protected by November or 
December.
  Lo and behold, before we left this city for the Christmas holidays, I 
am talking about last year, the Pentagon held a briefing; and in that 
briefing a high-level Pentagon spokesperson told us that our troops 
would probably not be equipped with this body armor until January of 
2004.
  Now, I emphasize the war started in March of 2003. Now they are 
saying it is going to be January of 2004 before they are equipped. So I 
wrote a second letter to Secretary Rumsfeld in mid-January of this 
year. I reminded him that he had failed to keep his word regarding 
having our troops protected with this body armor by November, and I 
asked him once again to please step up to the plate, accept 
responsibility, and provide this equipment to our troops.
  Finally, in March of 2004, one entire year after the war started, the 
war started in March of 2003, finally in March of 2004 I get a letter 
from the Pentagon telling me that at that point all of our troops had 
been given this lifesaving protection.
  It was not Senator Kerry that made the decision to send our troops 
into combat without this protection. The responsibility rests with 
George W. Bush, the President; with Secretary Rumsfeld, the Secretary 
of Defense. That is where the responsibility rests. And it troubles me 
that the President would stand before the American people and fail to 
accept responsibility.
  The President talks a lot about accepting personal responsibility, 
and yet he is trying to shift the blame for our troops going without 
this vital equipment, when it was the President and the Secretary of 
Defense that sent our troops into battle. And for those who may listen 
to this discussion and question me, I would just urge all Americans to 
check with the soldiers that are or have been in Iraq. Ask them how 
long they went without this protection. Ask them how many of their 
friends were injured, some of them killed, unfortunately killed because 
they were not adequately protected.
  That is the truth. I have the letters that I sent to Secretary 
Rumsfeld and the letters that I received from him, which I would be 
happy to make available to every Member of this Chamber to verify what 
I have shared with my colleagues this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I was just going to offer an answer on how 
long it was until they got body armor. It was too long. And it is 
unfortunate that the same people that made that mistake are still 
running the show in Iraq and not one of them has been held accountable 
for this foul-up, and we are demanding accountability.
  Mr. Speaker, I will now yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Delahunt).
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
and I just want to follow up on the point the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Strickland) has made, and I welcome my friend, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), as well.
  I found it particularly offensive that the President of the United 
States stood up once more and misled the American people and did not 
accept responsibility. As the gentleman indicated, the body armor issue 
was well-known or should have been well-known to this administration 
prior to the invasion of Iraq. It was clear. It was something that we 
all again repeatedly encouraged, and with the leadership of the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) presumed the matter was being 
attended to, and it was represented to us that it was being attended 
to. It had nothing to do with the $87 billion supplemental budget.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will yield for one moment, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Of course.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. In the letters I received from Secretary Rumsfeld and 
General Myers, there was never a mention of a shortage of money. They 
said there was a shortage of materials, which means that there was a 
failure to plan ahead. We knew months before this war began that we 
would likely need this body armor, and yet the plans were not made.
  The fact is that initially they were not even wanting to give the 
body armor to all the troops. In the letters that I received from 
General Myers, he said that the body armor was initially planned only 
for the troops that were on foot. If a soldier was in a Humvee or in 
some other mechanized vehicle, they were not even issued body armor, 
and there were no plans to issue body armor to these. Only those who 
were foot soldiers, basically, were to be provided with this 
protection.
  Now, as my colleagues know, many of our soldiers that have been so 
terribly injured are injured as a result of being in vehicles and there 
are explosions and other kinds of artillery fire. This body armor could 
have protected many of them.

                              {time}  2310

  I am afraid some were wounded unnecessarily.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, it reminds me of the issue of weapons of

[[Page 17773]]

mass destruction when the Polish Prime Minister at the request of the 
President of the United States made a commitment of Polish troops, 
obviously at some political risk to himself, and when it became clear 
that there were no weapons of mass destruction said publicly, ``We were 
misled.'' What does that do to the credibility of the United States 
when the Prime Minister of Poland, an ally, someone who has made a 
contribution of men and women of his nation in terms of the effort in 
Iraq, the military invasion, makes that statement?
  Again, we have the example of David Kay, appointed by this President, 
who took the charge of this White House, who went to Iraq, who led the 
efforts to determine whether there were weapons of mass destruction, 
who concluded that there were none, and then later and subsequently 
when this White House, this President and this Vice President refused 
to accept unequivocally the conclusion reached by their own appointee 
that there were no weapons of mass destruction, then finally David Kay, 
a hawk on the war, by the way, spoke to the Guardian, an English 
newspaper and said, ``The administration's reluctance to make that 
admission was delaying essential reforms of U.S. intelligence agencies 
and further undermining its credibility at home and abroad.''
  Admit the mistake, Mr. Bush, come clean with the American people, 
accept responsibility rather than shift it because of an election-year 
gambit. That is what that is about.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to note one other thing that the 
administration needs to take responsibility about. The President during 
his speech during the Republican convention, which was quite a show, 
and some of us found Zell Miller mildly entertaining, there was a lot 
of discussion about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and there was one thing 
that I really respected about President Roosevelt, and that is on 
December 8, 1941, after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, President 
Roosevelt did not suggest we bomb China, he focused on the group that 
attacked and killed thousands of Americans, which was the Japanese.
  This President has not followed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's pattern. 
Roosevelt said, let us attack the enemy that has attacked us, which in 
our case was al Qaeda, a fundamentalist Islamic movement that this 
President has spent the last 2 years trying to confuse the American 
people, with some success, in confusing al Qaeda with Iraq, and he has 
done the equivalent of invading China after September 11, and we have 
suffered accordingly.
  It is very important for us not to allow the power of propaganda to 
overwhelm the power of reason, and we cannot allow, with 1,000 
Americans dead in Iraq, America to forget that this President had tried 
to whitewash the situation by calling the war in Iraq as the war on 
terror when there is no credible evidence of connection of Iraq with 
September 11, and the President and Vice President know it, and they 
keep saying it anyway.
  The independent 9/11 Commission reached that conclusion despite the 
fact that the President and Vice President did everything they could to 
thwart the creation of the 9/11 Commission and now accept its 
recommendations enthusiastically.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Hoeffel) who has led the discussion on this subject.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I concur with everything that my colleagues 
have said this evening. For almost a year and a half, those of us 
engaged in Iraq Watch have been coming here raising questions and 
posing alternatives for our failed national policy.
  The bottom line is, as the gentleman just said, we have lost our 
national focus on the real threat, which has been and remains Osama bin 
Laden and al Qaeda. We have allowed the Bush administration with its 
obsession with Saddam Hussein to distract us from what has been the 
real threat and obviously remains the real threat today.
  We know the sordid history of misstatements and failed policies and 
misleading comments by the President and his top advisors. They misled 
us about the weapons of mass destruction. As the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) said, they misled us about a nonexistent 
connection about Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda and 9/11.
  The President misled us about how he would use the military power 
that he asked for in the fall of 2002. He said he would not use it 
until he exhausted diplomatic options. He broke that promise. He said 
he would not use it until he put together an international coalition 
such as his father had done 13 years before. Broke that promise. And he 
gave us a number of commitments to allow the international inspectors 
once back in Iraq to conclude and complete their work, and he did not 
allow them to finish their work before using this power.
  The reality is while it is a good thing for Iraq that Saddam Hussein 
is out of power because he certainly was a murderous tyrant, it has not 
made America safer. This has reduced our status in the world and has 
made the challenges and the risks of the war on terror more difficult 
for America, not easier.
  What really gripes me tonight, in addition to all of the things that 
we have mentioned, is what now seems to be the use of our American 
military in Iraq to suit the dictates of Iraqi domestic politics. We 
have lost 150 brave American soldiers in defeating the Iraqi Army. It 
took us 19 days, and our soldiers did everything we asked them to do 
and fought bravely. We have lost 850 equally brave Americans in what 
has turned out to be the occupation of Iraq, and I think a big reason 
for that is the misuse of our troops.
  Let me quickly quote from a Washington Post article dated August 24, 
2004, with the title ``In Najaf, Iraqi Politics Dictate U.S. Tactics.'' 
The point of this article published a few weeks ago is that Acting 
Prime Minister Allawi is deciding when American troops are used, when 
they are held back as suits his purposes for the domestic Iraqi 
political situation that he faces.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the 
President frequently says, I will not allow our troops to be under the 
control of foreign commanders. Well, that may be technically correct, 
but what the gentleman has pointed out is the fact that our troops are 
serving at the behest of the Interim Iraqi Government. They are being 
told, you cannot go into this city, you can go into this city, you can 
go there, you cannot go there. It troubles me that young men and women 
from my district, from southern and southeastern Ohio, many of them 
have probably never traveled very far from home ever, are now in a 
foreign land, and they are basically serving the needs of the Iraqi 
Interim Government rather than looking out for the international 
interests of this Nation.

                              {time}  2320

  Mr. HOEFFEL. What enrages me is that the American politicians who 
whip themselves up into a foaming rage over the notion that someday, 
somehow, someway American troops might be under foreign generals' 
command in a U.N. peacekeeping force or something of the kind are 
completely silent when something much worse is happening here. Our 
troops today in Iraq are not under foreign generals' command, they are 
under the command of foreign politicians. It is outrageous. Let me read 
from this article and yield back. I do not want to monopolize this 
time. But in this Washington Post article, August 24, 2004, entitled 
``In Najaf, Iraqi Politics Dictate U.S. Tactics,'' at one part it says 
here in the article:
  ``If there is any doubt that the new Iraqi government is calling the 
shots in this country, the supporting evidence is mounting daily in 
Najaf. Here, on the order of interim Prime Minister Allawi, night raids 
bolt forward or are halted, bombs fall from the sky or remain snuggled 
beneath the wings of F-15s, howitzers roar or are silenced, and 
ambitious combined arms operations are meticulously planned and then 
shelved, only to be revived a day later when a shift in the political 
winds has been detected.''
  A quote from Captain Brian Ennesser, intelligence officer for the 
First Cavalry's First Battalion, Fifth

[[Page 17774]]

Regiment: ``This mission is like Normandy. Only instead of the weather, 
we're waiting on the politics.''
  One more quote and I will yield back. Later in the article:
  ``Since the U.S.-led occupation authority transferred power to the 
Iraqis on June 28, the chain of command has kept its structure but 
changed personnel.'' A quote from Major General Peter Chiarelli, who 
commands the First Cavalry: ``It's civilian control of the military. 
That's what our system's all about.'' But the article then says: 
``Except now the civilians are not Americans. They are Iraqis. And we 
are losing brave Americans because they are being put in the middle of 
disputes between Allawi and Sadr. They are being used to push forward 
domestic political agendas for this interim government that is 
interested in holding onto its power.''
  It is my view that we need to refocus on the war on terror and Osama 
bin Laden and redeploy troops that are bogged down there. We have got 
170,000 troops in the Iraqi theater, 140,000 in Iraq, 30,000 in Kuwait, 
peacekeeping, border patrol, police work. We have got one-tenth of that 
number, 17,000, in Pakistan and Afghanistan doing everything we ask 
them to do, working bravely around the clock but clearly not enough of 
a focus to get bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda.
  We have lost our focus. We need to get our troops out of the midst of 
this domestic strife in Iraq and get them back to bases. We cannot 
abandon Iraq, but we do not have to be in daily patrol between these 
warring factions trying to feather their own nests and pursue their own 
domestic agendas. We can make sure that the country does not fall 
without having our troops in daily combat because of the inability of 
this administration to focus on what is really challenging this 
country, which is the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan posed by 
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carter). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
is recognized for the remainder of the hour, approximately 23 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. The point the gentleman has made is the cost that we have 
suffered in addition to this horrendous loss of life is that the real 
war on terrorism has been injured by the war in Iraq, and I want to 
talk about some of the ways that has happened.
  Symptom number one of a failed war on terrorism: you do not finish 
the job against the enemy that attacked you, and we have not finished 
the job in Afghanistan which is the source of the attack of September 
11. September 11 came from a group trained in the camps of Afghanistan; 
and we appropriately, on a bipartisan basis, started a war in 
Afghanistan because it was necessary, but now it is, in a way, 
abandoned by this administration because this administration has not 
given what we need in Afghanistan to finish the job, to build up a 
meaningful stable government in Afghanistan. The very place that 
attacked us has been put on the back burner.
  Senator Graham the other day disclosed that a year before the Iraq 
war started, General Franks or one of the generals told him that they 
had started to move Predators that were being used in the hunt for 
Osama bin Laden to get ready for the attack on Iraq. So we took our 
resources against, if I can use the 1941 example, out of the war on 
Japan and attacked Beijing.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I just want to point out that the person who was 
responsible for the attack on this country was Osama bin Laden. He has 
taken credit for that. He has boasted to the international community, 
to the world, that he was responsible for the attack upon our country. 
The President stood right at that podium and he said, Osama bin Laden 
can run, but he cannot hide. Well, he ran and thus far he has hidden. 
Osama bin Laden is somewhere free on the face of this Earth tonight 
planning the next attack upon our country. So the person who was 
responsible for attacking us has gone free and we have diverted our 
resources to Iraq, costing 1,000 of our soldiers' lives, 6 or 7,000, I 
guess nearly 7,000 injured now. And Osama bin Laden is a free man 
tonight.
  Mr. INSLEE. I would like to add, Osama bin Laden is not only free 
physically, he is free apparently from the interest of the President of 
the United States who has not mentioned his name, as far as I can tell, 
for about a year. The man that he promised us he would get dead or 
alive, this President does not even allow his name to pass his lips 
because it may distract some of the attention from Iraq. That is way 
too free for my tastes.
  I want to mention one other thing about why we have not been as 
successful with al Qaeda as we should have been. Obviously, cutting off 
the money of al Qaeda is extremely important. If you can kill the money 
trail, you can dry up some of their attacks on us. We found out we have 
more inspectors and investigators with the Department of the Treasury 
tracking American tourists who go to Cuba than we do tracking the money 
going to al Qaeda. We are spending over $200 billion a year in Iraq, 
but we cannot fund enough people to find Osama bin Laden and really cut 
off his money. We are more interested in Cuba and Iraq. That is a 
distortion.
  One other thing I want to mention. We have a tremendous threat in 
this country, and the President is right about one thing, that there is 
a real threat against this country. One of those threats is there are 
20,000, in a sense, loose nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union 
that are not in secure locations tonight, that some terrorists could 
get ahold of. But what have we done to try to increase our rate of 
locking up that fissionable material so al Qaeda cannot get ahold of it 
since September 11? What has this administration done? Essentially 
nothing to improve our efforts to try to lock up that fissionable 
material. They have not increased their appropriation, as far as I 
know, a dime to get rid of this material that al Qaeda, we know, is 
interested in using to attack us. Why not? They are spending $200 
billion in Iraq to chase weapons of mass destruction that there were 
zero weapons of mass destruction, zero nuclear weapons in Iraq. We know 
there are 20,000 nuclear weapons that are running around the former 
Soviet Union, some of which were locked up in a chicken shed with a 
little lock on it you could break with bicycle lock busters, literally; 
and this administration will not put more money into that effort to 
lock up those loose nukes. This is a misprioritization.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I appreciate this conversation tonight. I think what is 
interesting is that while we speak about Osama bin Laden, we have to be 
very clear that because of the delay that has occurred and the 
diversion of effort and resources into securing Afghanistan and 
nurturing democratic institutions, not only has Osama bin Laden, who is 
obviously a symbol to those who share his world view but has encouraged 
new groups, al Qaeda has morphed into a number of groups, some of which 
have names, some of which do not have names, and that terrorism is 
spreading throughout the world as we speak today. If the President is 
suggesting that the invasion of Iraq somehow served as a deterrence to 
these terrorists, he is absolutely wrong.
  It is interesting to read that in terms of the efficacy of Iraq, of 
the invasion of Iraq, an NBC news analysis that was reported September 
2 of this year showed that of the roughly 2,900 terrorist-related 
deaths since the 9/11 attacks on our homeland, 58 percent of them, in 
excess of 1,700, have occurred this year.

                              {time}  2330

  This year. So terrorism is burgeoning. We identified the wrong enemy, 
and now we are playing catch-up, and the world is more dangerous.
  And I would like to just to conclude with a quote from someone whom 
we all respect who has served this country well, a good Member of 
Congress, the Vice Chair of the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence of this branch, a conservative Republican from Nebraska 
who retired recently to assume a new position of some stature in terms 
of foreign affairs, by the name of Doug Bereuter. He wrote a letter to 
his constituents because he recognized

[[Page 17775]]

what we have been talking about, and this is what he said: ``It was a 
mistake to launch'' the invasion of Iraq. ``Our country's reputation 
around the world has never been lower.'' In other words, our 
credibility is suffering. ``And our alliances are weakened. Now we are 
immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick 
way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future 
problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world.''
  That is from Doug Bereuter, a good Member, someone who made 
substantial contributions to the debate and discourse in this House, 
who is a Republican with excellent conservative credentials.
  This is nonpartisan. It should not be a partisan issue. This is about 
identifying the right enemy and taking the necessary action to defeat 
those who would harm the United States.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Inslee). It has always been clear that we need to internationalize the 
challenge in Iraq, and we need to ``Iraqatize'' the challenge in Iraq. 
We need international support from what is happening. I do not believe 
this President can do it. But from the first day we should have been 
returning to the United Nations to do the reconstruction. We should 
have turned to NATO and the Arab League nations for security. Those 
countries are a lot closer to Iraq than we are and have a much bigger 
stake than we do in a stable Iraq. But we have not done that. We have 
done the occupation of Iraq with 90 percent of the troops being 
American and 90 percent of the money being American, and we have not 
yet stabilized that country.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, our occupation in Iraq is being 
characterized by ineffectiveness, by incompetence. If one just reads 
the daily newspaper and sees comments and admissions by the Secretary 
of Defense Mr. Rumsfeld and the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
General Myers, the number of cities in Iraq that are no longer under 
the control of the Interim Iraqi Government and American occupation 
forces grows on a daily basis. Fallujah, Ramadi, Baquba, Samarra, 
Najaf, Karbala, and perhaps soon a significant section of Baghdad are 
no longer under the control of the Interim Iraqi Government. The Baath 
Party is experiencing a resurgence, President Bush, except Saddam 
Hussein is no longer the head of it.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Inslee) would yield, what we have here is a situation where we have 
lost 1,000 of our troops, nearly 7,000 injuries, $200 billion has been 
spent, and we are in effect giving over Iraq to the bad guys. The 
President is not willing to admit it, but when we have huge cities and 
large geographic areas in Iraq where American soldiers cannot even 
enter, it seems to me that we are capitulating, that we are giving in 
and giving over this country that we have shed blood to try to 
liberate.
  I would just like to say something, though. I know our time is nearly 
coming to an end. We have talked about several things here. What we 
have talked about I think can be characterized as miscalculation. That 
is the word the President used. He said he miscalculated. He 
miscalculated, and 1,000 soldiers have died. He miscalculated, and 
almost 7,000 soldiers have been injured. He miscalculated; over $200 
billion of the taxpayers' resources have been spent there.
  But this is what I would like to just emphasize in my closing 
remarks. The only people sacrificing really for this war are the 
soldiers who are fighting and risking their lives and the families back 
here at home who love them and who worry about them. They are the only 
ones sacrificing. None of us here in this Chamber are sacrificing, or 
over in the Senate Chamber, or down there at the White House. We do not 
have sons and daughters fighting this war. I think there may be two 
Members out of the 535 Members of the House and Senate with a child 
that is an Active-Duty soldier, and I do not know how many at the White 
House. I doubt if there are many, if any at all. And yet it is easy, it 
is easy, under those circumstances to talk tough, to say we will pay 
any price.
  We are not paying a price. We are not even paying for this war. The 
cost of this war is being passed on to the children and the 
grandchildren that will follow us. They are the ones being asked to pay 
the cost of this war. What did the President asked us to do to 
sacrifice for this war? He told us to go shopping. He told us to go 
shopping. Where is the sacrifice other than those who are at this very 
moment risking their lives for us, the moms and dads who are grieving 
and will grieve for the rest of their lives over the loss of their son 
or daughter, the husbands and the wives and the children who will live 
out the rest of their lives without their loved one because of the 
miscalculation of this administration and their unwillingness to even 
recognize what they have done?
  That is what bothers me. We all should be sacrificing and sharing in 
the sacrifice, but we are not being asked to do so. Go out and live our 
life. Go shopping, go to the ballgames, spend money, do what we want to 
do, and let someone else's kid fight this war for the Iraqi Interim 
Government. That is totally unacceptable.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would point out since the Republicans 
wanted to show respect for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Roosevelt in the 
throes of World War II did not say, let us all enjoy a tax cut. He 
said, let us tighten our belts, grow victory gardens, buy Liberty 
Bonds, and get this job done. But this President is not willing to ask 
Americans to make those sacrifices for reasons that we have to ask 
ourselves why, but he will not do it.
  And when we talk about the people whose lives are on the line in 
Iraq, there is a draft already going on in that country. There is a 
silent draft, and that silent draft is if one was in military service 
at any time in the last 2 years or 20 years by the sum of what they 
count, they are potentially going to haul them back in and send them to 
Baghdad, and that is what they are doing. There is a silent draft going 
on right now, and it is unfair to the families who had their lives 
disrupted, who thought their military service was over. And thousands 
of Americans are getting dragged off of their jobs and away from their 
families this month because of the poor planning that went on.

                              {time}  2340

  I want to mention, just talking about the future if I can, as Laurel 
and Hardy said, you know, this is a fine mess that we are in. But the 
question is, what do we do now? Because we are in it, and we are in it 
together. Republicans are in it, Democrats are in it, urban and rural, 
we are all in this mess together, so what are we going to do?
  Let me suggest that there are some things we need when it comes to a 
leader of America right now to find a way to solve the problem in Iraq. 
I would suggest there are three things we need in a leader right now, 
in a President right now.
  Number one, we need a President who can have the respect and good 
working relationship with the rest of the world, to try to get the rest 
of the world to pitch in and help in Iraq. We need someone who has not 
burned his bridges with friends or potential allies, someone who has 
not offended the rest of the world, someone who has not ended up 
getting a 90 percent disapproval rating with some of our purported 
allies on our policy in Iraq, someone who can really lead a world 
alliance. We have to ask whether we have a President who is capable of 
that right now.
  The second thing we need is we need a President who is willing to 
fire the boobs and incompetents who have made ridiculous decisions that 
have cost thousands of American lives and injuries. We need somebody 
who is willing to clear the decks of the individuals who ought to be 
held accountable for the lack of body armor, the

[[Page 17776]]

lack of armor, the poor planning, the decision now to let these 
militias go out and breed where our people are going to suffer 
eventually when we have to face them. These people need to go. We need 
a President who is not great friends with these people and who will not 
fire them. I have to seriously question whether we have a leader right 
now in the White House who is capable of that.
  The third thing we need is we need a President who is basically 
willing to take a fresh approach in Iraq. We need a new strategy in 
Iraq. We need someone who is truly willing to break with the past, try 
new approaches, talk to different people, hire different staff, get new 
intelligence and get new strategies in Iraq.
  Unfortunately, this President has a quality of refusing to change, no 
matter what the evidence is. The evidence be darned, he is going to 
continue the route he chose.
  That is not good enough right now for America. We need better and we 
need a fresh approach. This country needs to ask whether we have a 
leader in the White House who is capable of adopting a fresh approach 
in Iraq. That is a serious question Americans will be asking this 
November, and I hope it is something they chew on.
  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel).
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. Clearly we 
share the President's goals of creating a stable Iraq that can choose 
its own government. But the policies that he has chosen and the 
rigidity in which he has implemented those policies and the inability 
to change course when the policies are failing are clearly leading us 
to a disaster in Iraq, where our troops are in the middle of the 
domestic political striving of competing ethnic and religious 
interests, unable to stabilize the country because we are doing it 
alone, because we do not have the international support that we need, 
nor have we trained up the Iraqis that we fired from the Iraqi army and 
fired from the Iraqi border patrol. We have not trained up Iraqis to do 
the police work and the peacekeeping that they ought to be doing for 
themselves.
  The President continues to act with arrogance, with a cowboy 
diplomacy and an unwillingness to admit error, compounded by the 
outrages expressed on the campaign trail, the intentional efforts to 
mislead Americans, trying to connect 9/11 with Hussein, which is a 
bogus connection, and with the Vice President saying the other day, 
outrageously, that if the voters make the wrong choice on November 2, 
that will lead to more acts of terror against this country.
  I do not know that I have ever heard a more outrageous or reckless 
statement made by any leader of this country, unless it would be the 
President's statement himself in the summer of 2003 that they should 
``bring it on,'' and 800 Americans have died since the President said 
that.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, what 
the Vice President should do, he should reveal those statistics that I 
reported to you earlier about the increase in the incidents of 
terrorists' acts all over the world that are directly related to the 
failed policies of this administration.
  To my left there is a photo of the President with an individual by 
the name of Ahmed Chalabi, who is the source of much of the faulty 
intelligence that the administration was looking for to base its case 
on for the American people.
  Now we have the FBI investigating the Pentagon, the office of one 
Douglas Fife, to determine whether Mr. Chalabi received information 
that was passed on to Iran, to Iran, about our policy initiatives and 
considerations relative to Iran.
  Here we have the President of the United States with an individual 
which reports indicate, I am not reaching a conclusion, but which 
reports indicate was a spy or a double agent for Iran. This same 
gentleman was in this Chamber during the State of the Union address by 
this President last January and sat up directly behind the First Lady.
  Now, I have to tell you, to follow up on the gentleman from 
Washington's point, I would think that anyone who was involved or 
connected or listened to Mr. Chalabi, who, by the way, was a convicted 
felon in Jordan for embezzlement of some $300 million from a bank in 
Jordan and had to flee Jordan, anyone who listened to that individual 
should have been fired a long time ago. What an embarrassment to this 
administration, what an embarrassment to the United States.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will yield for a moment, I remember 
being in the Chamber that night of the State of the Union address and 
looking up there and seeing Mr. Chalabi. I believe Mr. Chalabi was 
fairly close to Vice President Dick Cheney.
  Now, the accusations are, as the gentleman says, and they are 
credible accusations, yet to be proven but under investigation, that 
Mr. Chalabi got information from a member of this administration, from 
the Pentagon, took that information and shared it with Iran. Iran, this 
country that we all now recognize is developing nuclear weapons, 
probably a much greater threat to this country directly than Iraq ever 
was, and it is under investigation that this man took information and 
shared it with Iran. If that proves to be true, that is a terribly, 
terribly serious thing that has happened.

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