[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18195-18200]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kline). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.


                            Flooding in Ohio

  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I was sitting here listening to my 
colleagues from Florida talking about the disaster that Florida has 
experienced, and I thought about my own experience in Ohio over the 
last 2 or 3 days. Ohio is a long way from Florida, but Ohio has been 
affected, seriously affected by the results of the hurricane, the 
flooding that has occurred in a number of Ohio counties, which has 
absolutely been devastating.
  In Columbiana County, where I was earlier today, one small township, 
it is estimated that they have public damages of between $400,000 and 
$500,000. Many roads have been completely washed out. The day before 
yesterday, I was in another county in my district, Belmont County, a 
little town called Ness, and in that community there were homes that 
were completely destroyed and demolished, homes where people will never 
be able to return to live because they were so terribly damaged. And 
the damage was caused, in large part, by rain that occurred as a result 
of the hurricanes that had come in and through Florida.
  So it is true that we are very sympathetic with the good people of 
Florida who have suffered so deeply. We are happy that help and hope is 
on the way for them. But just this day, I faxed a letter to the White 
House asking the President to act expeditiously on a request for a 
Federal declaration which has been sent to him by Ohio's Governor, Bob 
Taft, asking that these communities in Ohio which have been so 
terribly, terribly affected be also declared a Federal disaster area, 
so that appropriate Federal resources can be made available to them.
  We need FEMA to come in, to provide temporary housing. I spoke just 
the day before yesterday with a lady nearly 80 years old who lived by 
herself,

[[Page 18196]]

whose total monthly income was $655 a month. She also was receiving, I 
think, $70 per month in food stamps. But her home had been literally 
destroyed. Her medicine costs were very high, and she was asking what 
kind of help would be available. And I told her that as soon as the 
offices opened this morning, Monday morning, that I would be on the 
phone to the office of FEMA here in D.C. When I contacted them this 
morning and asked about the request that Governor Taft had submitted 
for one of the counties, for Columbiana County in Ohio, we were told 
that the request was under consideration.
  But the fact is that we can wait no longer. There are people who are 
living in cars. There are children who are being kept in fold-out 
campers. People are without water. We are concerned about the spread of 
disease. The bottom line is people are suffering terribly in Ohio. I 
call upon the administration, the President, to recognize what people 
are going through there.
  The geographic area is much smaller than that which was affected in 
Florida, obviously; but I would contend that there is no one in Florida 
that has suffered any more than some of the people that I represent. 
Because when you have lost all that you have, all of your material 
possessions, when you have no clothing, no personal items, no 
furniture, when your home has been destroyed and you are with nothing, 
you are in desperate circumstances; and those are the circumstances 
that exist across part of Ohio tonight. I am hopeful that by tomorrow I 
will get a positive response from the President and the White House, 
and my hope is the help from the Federal level will be flowing into 
Ohio just as it is flowing into Florida.
  I would also like to note, Mr. Speaker, that even the Red Cross has 
diverted so much of their personnel and their equipment and their 
resources to Florida that I am afraid that many of my constituents will 
fall between the cracks, so to speak, and that their terrible plight 
will not be expeditiously and properly recognized by our Federal 
Government.


                                  Iraq

  Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight, and I will be joined 
later by some of my colleagues, to talk about Iraq and what is 
happening in Iraq. This is an effort that we began literally several 
months ago, myself and some of my colleagues, coming here to the floor 
to talk about the policies that we are pursuing in Iraq and trying to 
point out some of the concerns that we have.
  I would just begin our Iraq Watch tonight by sharing an editorial 
from the Columbus Dispatch, which is the capital city newspaper in 
Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch has been publishing since 1871. They ran an 
editorial this past Saturday in observance of the anniversary of 
September 11. I see my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Delahunt), has joined me. Before I yield to him, I would just like to 
share some thoughts from the Columbus Dispatch because I think they are 
very relevant to our discussions here regarding Iraq.
  The editorial is entitled, ``Remember Everything.'' It begins this 
way: ``Three years ago, 3,000 people were murdered in coordinated 
terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. 
Yet, the man who orchestrated those atrocities remains free. For what 
he did, Osama bin Laden should be dead or in U.S. custody. No evidence 
suggests that he is dead, and he is not in custody. Because he remains 
free, extraordinary security precautions surround today's Ohio State 
football game.'' And, as I said, this is an editorial that appeared 
last Saturday when Ohio State was playing Marshall University.
  So the editorial says: ``These security precautions will surround 
today's Ohio State football game, considered a terrorist target because 
100,000 spectators will be gathered in the heart of a State that is key 
to the Presidential election.''
  The editorial continues: ``Because bin Laden is at liberty, election 
and law enforcement officials nationwide are busy planning extra 
security at polling places on November 2. Because bin Laden has not 
been captured, the Nation's Capital and national monuments, including 
the Statue of Liberty, have been militarized and fortified. The Bush 
administration can claim that bin Laden and his cohorts are on the run, 
but bin Laden and his cohorts plausibly can claim the opposite. All bin 
Laden has to do is point to the armed men and surveillance helicopters 
around Ohio Stadium.''

                              {time}  2200

  How did the destruction of bin Laden slip so far down the Nation's 
to-do list, the Columbus Dispatch asks? Why are the bulk of U.S. 
military and intelligence assets tied up in Iraq, which pose only a 
hypothetical threat, while pursuit of the man who slaughtered thousands 
of Americans on their own soil is on the back burner? Where is the 
anger, asks the Columbus Dispatch? Where is the anger?
  The September 11 victims were not killed by a natural disaster, such 
as a hurricane, which cannot be brought to justice and against which 
rage is futile. They were killed by a man. A man can be made to pay a 
price. Why has he not paid?
  The Columbus Dispatch continues in their editorial. This is the 
question that President Bush should be answering today and tomorrow and 
every day until November 2. And the Columbus Dispatch asks, where is 
Senator John Kerry, who loudly proclaims his determination to strike 
back at any attack on the United States? The attack has occurred. Where 
is his pledge to make apprehension of bin Laden dead or alive job 
number one?
  The Dispatch continues. Would bin Laden's death eliminate terrorism? 
Well, of course not. Quick victory over this kind of nihilism and 
barbarism is impossible, but every day that bin Laden remains free is a 
defeat for justice and for civilization. His continued existence, his 
ability to poison a seemingly impotent world, incites and encourages 
his followers and imitators.
  Now, this is what we have heard from the heartland of America, from 
Columbus, Ohio, from the Columbus Dispatch newspaper, and I would just 
point out that the President told us, Mr. Speaker, at one time soon 
after the September 11 attacks, when bin Laden had been identified as 
the person responsible for attacking our country, the President told us 
he can run but he cannot hide. But the fact is that he ran, and thus 
far he has hidden successfully, and somewhere on God's Earth tonight 
bin Laden is planning the next attack upon our country.
  Tonight, now, I ask my colleagues in this Chamber, why did we divert 
our attention from Afghanistan and from Osama bin Laden and focus on 
Iraq? At the Republican National Convention in New York, they talked a 
lot about September 11. The President gave a 63-minute speech and never 
once did he mention Osama bin Laden. Never once did the President 
mention the man who is responsible for attacking our country and who 
today, tonight, is free planning the next attack. I think the American 
people deserve an answer to that.
  Why, after all of the resources that we have spent, some $200 
billion, the over 1,000 lives that have been lost, the nearly 7,000 
soldiers that have been wounded, why do we not know where bin Laden is 
and why have we not captured him and why have we diverted our attention 
from the effort to find this man? He is the enemy of America. He is the 
one who attacked us, and yet, somehow, his name is not uttered by our 
President anymore, and there seems to be no real attention directed 
toward bringing him to justice.
  Now, the fact is we heard a lot about Saddam Hussein.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can, because the reality is that long before 
September 11, this White House, this President, this Vice President, 
whose picture was on the November 2003 edition of Newsweek, had an 
obsession with Iraq, and I would submit that the best evidence of that 
obsession is revealed in a book by a noted journalist by the name of 
Ron Suskind, who sat down with the former Secretary of Treasury, Paul 
O'Neill,

[[Page 18197]]

and did, if you will, an overview of Secretary O'Neill's experience in 
the Bush-Cheney White House.
  As Secretary O'Neill indicated, he was taken aback by the first 
National Security Council meeting, and he attended those in his 
capacity as the Secretary of Treasury, that was held one week after the 
President was inaugurated, and it quickly turned to the issue of Iraq. 
There were no threats emanating from Iraq. There were no statements 
emanating from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein relative to an 
attack on the United States or any of our allies. In fact, if you 
remember, the Secretary of State himself, Colin Powell, later on some 
time in February described the Iraqi military in terms that turned out 
to be absolutely accurate, they were forthright, they had been 
significantly degraded, but one week after the President was sworn in 
the dominating subject of the first National Security Council meeting 
was Iraq.
  Then subsequently, on February 27, Secretary of the Treasury Paul 
O'Neill relates at another National Security Council meeting that the 
Vice President, this gentleman here, Dick Cheney, had a map spread 
across a conference table where there were discussions about the 
divvying up of oil fields and concessions among private corporations 
and Nations, presumably our allies. That was February 27 of 2001. So 
right from the beginning it was this obsession about Iraq.
  Now I do not know and I am not going to suggest what the motivations 
were, but it was about Iraq from the beginning. I have posed this 
question to individuals in the administration. No one has ever denied 
the accuracy of those anecdotes that were related by the former 
Secretary of Treasury, a person whose integrity is beyond reproach, who 
stated it clearly and unequivocally. So we had this proclivity, this 
propensity, this obsession with Iraq.
  Then, of course, 9/11 came, and the terrorism czar at that time, 
Richard Clarke, made the statement that after listening to the 
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Under Secretary Wolfowitz he was 
aghast because he interpreted their immediate response as an 
opportunity to intervene militarily in Iraq, as opposed to really deal 
with those who not only had visited probably the most horrific act in 
our lifetime upon the United States, and clearly, what we have seen is 
a diversion of attention from those who were the proximate cause of a 
national tragedy that occurred on September 11 of 2001. We diverted all 
of our attention, most of our resources to Iraq, rather than dealing 
with the genuine, accurate war on terror.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. It is almost incomprehensible that the person who was 
responsible for attacking our country, who has claimed responsibility, 
who has boasted in claiming that responsibility is a person who is free 
tonight. He ran and he hid, and the President does not even utter his 
name. It is as though we have forgotten that the real enemy, the real 
architect of the attack upon our country was Osama bin Laden. He has 
been referred to as Osama bin Forgotten, and it is quite sad to me that 
we have not been able to bring to justice the leading terrorist in this 
world.
  As we contemplate a possible terror attack on this country, there has 
been discussions that it may happen before the election, that it may 
happen around the inauguration of the next President. We are not afraid 
that that attack is going to be directed and masterminded by Saddam 
Hussein. He is in jail. We are concerned about al Qaeda. We are 
concerned about the terror network that was established by Osama bin 
Laden. We are concerned about Osama bin Laden and his effect.
  Just this week we heard from our military leaders in Afghanistan that 
they believe Osama bin Laden is actively calling the shots, even today, 
and yet, as I repeat, during the Republican Convention in New York, 
with all of the discussion of September 11, it was as if the person 
responsible for September 11 was unknown. The President did not utter 
his name during a 63-minute speech.
  This is the man that we should be going after. He is the one 
responsible for killing nearly 3,000 of our citizens. He is the one 
that is heading up the al Qaeda terror network. He is free tonight 
somewhere on this Earth. We do not know for sure, but I want to tell my 
colleague I think we would have had this man in custody if we had not 
diverted attention and resources and our intelligence apparatus away 
from the hunting of Osama bin Laden to Iraq.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, when we can focus on Osama 
bin Laden and al Qaeda, but as the President has done, to suggest that 
the world is safer because of our intervention in Iraq is absolutely, 
to quote a very prominent Republican conservative pundit, absurd. It is 
just simply absurd.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Every day, sadly, tragically, we are losing soldiers 
in Iraq. It is almost as if it is no longer news when we lose one or 
two or three or seven at a time. It is almost as if we have become numb 
to that reality. We are up to well over 1,000 now. Senator McCain has 
indicated that he thinks we could be in Iraq for 10 to 20 years.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, and that is a very dangerous scenario, not just 
the observation by Senator McCain but the fact that as time moves on, 
it becomes part of the regular order. Yeah, we lost seven Marines just 
recently in Fallujah. It is on the front page. Over an extended period 
of time it will end up on page 2 and then page 5 and page 7, and 
because not many of us are sharing in the sacrifice tragically we 
become immune to the real costs of this debacle in Iraq.
  It is simply not just costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, but 
it is costing us thousands of American lives and the impact on American 
families. I know that my colleague and I, as we visit our districts, 
meet constituents that have lost loved ones in Iraq, and that on a 
personal level is most painful, but the danger is that we as a people 
collectively put it in another place in our minds, in our experience.

                              {time}  2215

  You know, our policy in Iraq can only be described as a failure. We 
failed. We went to Iraq based on false claims. We failed to find 
weapons of mass destruction. We clearly demonstrated that there was no 
evidence of any operational relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam 
Hussein. That was confirmed by the 9/11 independent commission. The 
administration failed to create broad international support for the 
effort.
  The truth is we are there alone now. Yes, the British are there, even 
though a majority of the British people are opposed to the policy and 
opposed to the war. But other than the British, yes, there are token 
forces there, but we are carrying the brunt.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If I can speak to that issue.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Of course.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. The President frequently says we have this coalition; 
and it is true that there are a number of countries, for one reason or 
another, some of them maybe with very noble reasons, who support us in 
our policy there. But the fact is that we have somewhere around 
135,000, 135,000 American troops there. The next country with the 
largest number of troops is Great Britain; and they have, I believe, 
less than 6,500. Most of the other countries have a few hundred troops.
  It is the American troops that is the target. We are losing the 
lives. We are paying the bill. About $200 billion thus far.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. By the way, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue 
to yield, I find it very interesting that the President and Dick 
Cheney, who according to this headline in Newsweek sold the war to the 
President and within the administration, keep referring to the vote on 
the $87 billion as somehow demonstrating a lack of support by Senator 
Kerry for our troops.
  Does the gentleman remember during the course of that debate that the 
President of the United States threatened to veto the $87 billion?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If we paid for it.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. No, if we insisted that at some time in the future the

[[Page 18198]]

Iraqi government paid back to the United States taxpayer a portion, a 
portion of that $87 billion. The White House insisted on a gift, a 
giveaway, if you will, of American tax dollars, never to be repaid to 
the American people.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If I could reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, during that 
debate on the $87 billion, the vast majority of the people in this 
country, according to public opinion polls, felt that we should provide 
assistance in the form of a grant, a grant that would be paid back to 
our citizens once Iraq was stabilized. And the gentleman is right, the 
President said that if we did that that he would veto the bill.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. The President did not want to make a loan; he wanted to 
make a gift.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. That is right.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And the rest of the world, in terms of their dollars 
representing their taxpayers, insisted on a loan. It is only the United 
States of America that provided a gift, not a loan, but a gift, to the 
interim Iraqi government to begin the process of reconstruction.
  Now, again, I think we all share the view that there is a 
responsibility on the part of the United States to assist. But why a 
gift? Why a giveaway? And the President said that if we made it a loan, 
he would veto it. So, clearly, the Republican majority here managed to 
secure enough votes, both here and in the Senate, to make a gift rather 
than insist on collateral.
  Remember the Under Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, when he 
promised the American people that the cost of the reconstruction of 
Iraq would be paid for with Iraqi resources based on their huge oil 
reserves? Does the gentleman remember that?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Oh, absolutely.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Yet, when the time came, that was a promise that this 
Vice President and this President reneged on.
  It is the American people that are building roads in Iraq, it is the 
American people that are building affordable housing in Iraq, it is the 
American people that are building hospitals in Iraq, it is the American 
people that are building brand-new ports in Iraq, it is the American 
people that are providing practically universal health care coverage in 
Iraq, it is the American people that are funding jobs in Iraq; and they 
are never going to get paid back.
  How about doing that for the American people, President Bush and Vice 
President Cheney?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, as someone said, it does not make sense for us 
to be opening firehouses in Iraq while we are closing firehouses and 
laying off firefighters in this country.
  But the fact is this $87 billion vote is being used in the most 
political way, and there have been accusations that somehow when 
Senator Kerry opposed that, that he was opposing body armor for our 
troops. I would just like to point out something that I have shared 
with my friends here in this Chamber before. The war started in March 
of 2003. We did not have that vote on the $87 billion until months 
after the war started. Our troops were initially sent into battle 
without body armor. And that was a decision made by Secretary Rumsfeld 
and ultimately the responsibility of the President as the Commander in 
Chief. We sent our troops into battle without body armor.
  Now, that is a fact that cannot be disputed. And it took the Pentagon 
one full year, from March of 2003 to March of 2004, to provide me with 
a letter stating that finally, after a full year, our troops had been 
equipped with body armor.
  I questioned how many of our troops were unnecessarily injured or 
wounded or how many lost their lives simply because this administration 
sent them into combat without body armor. That was not a money problem; 
it was a planning problem. And the letters that I received from 
Secretary Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General 
Myers, verified that it was a supply problem. They did not order that 
equipment in a timely manner. Months passed leading up to this war when 
those orders could have been placed. That body armor could have been 
available at the time the war started, but it took 12 full months for 
this administration to make sure that our troops were fully protected 
with body armor.
  And even tonight, now, Mr. Speaker, we have troops in Iraq driving 
around in Humvees that are not armored in a way that will provide them 
at least some protection from these roadside bombs that are maiming and 
killing so many of our soldiers on a daily basis.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It is interesting, and I think it is important that we 
remind ourselves and others that, yes, we are members of the minority 
party. We are Democrats. But this is, in many respects, and it is our 
concerns I am referring to, they are bipartisan in nature.
  I read something just recently where, again going back to the cost of 
the war, that $87 billion that the President keeps referring to that he 
insisted on being a giveaway as opposed to a loan, Bob Barr, who served 
in this House and who was probably one of the most conservative Members 
in this institution, in this branch during his service here, observed 
that in the midst of the war on terror and a $500 billion deficit, Bush 
proposes sending space ships to Mars.
  This really underscores also the folly of what we are doing in terms 
of driving up our own deficits that will burden generations of 
Americans and that are structural in nature, which means that something 
catastrophic is waiting for us unless we address them. And, clearly, we 
have not seen any response from this White House about addressing them.
  But in addition to that, a recent September 10, 2004, article by Doug 
Bandow, who is a senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and served as a 
special assistant to President Reagan and was a visiting Fellow at the 
Heritage Foundation, had this to say: ``Bush's foreign policy record is 
as bad as his domestic scorecard. The administration correctly targeted 
the Taliban in Afghanistan, but quickly neglected that nation, which is 
in danger of falling into chaos. The Taliban is resurgent, violence has 
flared, drug production has burgeoned, and elections have been 
postponed.
  ``Iraq, already in chaos, is no conservative triumph. The endeavor in 
social engineering on a grand scale, a war of choice launched on 
erroneous grounds, has turned into a disastrously expensive neocolonial 
burden. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, contrary to 
administration claims, and no operational relationship with al Qaeda, 
contrary to administration insinuations. U.S. officials bungled the 
operation, misjudging everything from the financial cost to the troop 
requirement. Sadly, the Iraq debacle has undercut the fight against 
terrorism.''
  Let me repeat that: ``Sadly, the Iraq debacle has undercut the fight 
against terrorism.''
  Just recently, by the way, the Institute for Strategic Studies, again 
a conservative think tank, in a recent study warned that the Iraq 
operation has spurred recruiting by smaller terrorist groups around the 
world.
  Now, we talked earlier about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Well, the 
reality is that it is like the parable in the New Testament about the 
fishes and the loaves: they are everywhere. The incidence of terrorism 
in this world has increased dramatically. We saw what happened recently 
and again tragically in Russia.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will allow me to reclaim my time, it 
seems, and I think this is verified by the September 11 Commission, 
that al Qaeda has gone from being an identifiable group to becoming a 
philosophy and an idea and a movement. And the fact is our policies 
have spread terror around the world. We now have Taliban/al Qaeda 
operatives in Iraq. There is no evidence that they were there before we 
invaded that country.
  There are now huge cities in Iraq referred to as ``no-go zones,'' 
where our troops cannot enter those cities. They are under the control 
of al Qaeda and Taliban operatives. Huge geographic areas of Iraq that 
we liberated, supposedly, are now under the control of terrorists, 
terrorists that prior to our

[[Page 18199]]

invasion of Iraq were not in that country. We have created a breeding 
ground for those who hate us.

                              {time}  2230

  We may be there 10 years, 20 years, no one knows. How many more 
deaths are going to result from these failed policies? We have already 
had over a thousand. Ohio lost two soldiers last week, a 19-year-old 
man and a 36-year-old man. How many more?
  Now we stand here and talk about this. Some may wonder why go over 
history, why talk about past failings and past circumstances.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. To learn from them.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Because the same people who have brought us to where 
we are tonight, who have created this debacle that we face in Iraq, the 
same people who have made the decisions which have led to this terrible 
tragedy and loss of life and horrible injuries, these same people want 
to remain in charge of the decisionmaking apparatus of this government. 
I think it is fair to ask: What will they do next? They have acted in 
the most naive manner. The Vice President and others indicated that we 
would be welcomed into Iraq.
  Just yesterday we had helicopters that fired on a group of Iraqis 
that were celebrating around a dysfunctional piece of U.S. military 
equipment. Many of those people laughing and dancing around were 
children. They were children. You could see their pictures, they could 
not have been more than 10 or 12 years of age. What are we doing in 
Iraq, we are creating hatred toward our government. That hatred is 
spreading around the world. That does not make us safer.
  I believe the President has an obligation to stand up and admit 
mistakes, but there is a difference between an irrational pursuit of an 
ideology that is failing. What we need are mature leaders that will act 
upon a rational basis to secure friends around this world and help us 
extricate ourselves from these terrible circumstances.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, we have been joined by the gentleman from 
Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and welcome back to Iraq watch. We noted the 
gentleman's absence last week. And I see the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Inslee) has also joined us, but I want to get back to what I think 
is important, and that is the bipartisan nature of the criticism of 
this administration. It would be misleading to those watching us 
tonight to think this is a partisan diatribe. It is not that. It is a 
genuine concern about the direction of this country.
  And it is echoed by others. Let me give three quotes. Crossfire host 
Tucker Carlson said recently, and I think many Americans have observed 
him on PBS and Crossfire. He said, ``I think it is a total nightmare 
and disaster. I am ashamed that I went against my own instincts in 
supporting it.''
  William Buckley, an icon within the conservative movement said, 
``With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein was not the kind 
of extraterritorial menace that was assumed by the administration 1 
year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation 
we would be in, I would have opposed the war.''
  I think it is important, too, to quote what I thought was a very 
courageous statement by a friend of ours, a former colleague who is 
highly regarded on both sides of the aisle. He was the vice chairman of 
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was a leading 
member of the House Committee on International Relations, and we know 
him well, is Doug Bereuter.
  He sent a letter to his constituents announcing his retirement from 
Congress. He began by saying, it was a mistake to launch the invasion 
of Iraq. He said, ``As a result, our country's reputation around the 
world has never been lower 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 Islamic world.''
  I respect that. More and more we know that our colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle are expressing their concern.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, one observes today the discussions 
taking place in the press by members of the Armed Services with respect 
to whether or not political considerations are involved in whether we 
can attack or not attack, whether we retreat or do not retreat, whether 
we engage in collaborative activity with insurgents with regard to the 
possible upcoming elections, or whether we regard them as criminals to 
be taken and prosecuted, perhaps even shot and killed.
  Those issues do not know a Democratic or a Republican origin. Those 
young soldiers, and some not so young soldiers from the Guard and 
Reserve, are not making distinctions between Republican oratory and 
Democratic accusations with respect to this election. This issue has to 
be decided on November 2. The people of this Nation have to come to a 
conclusion electorally as to whether or not they want the present 
direction to go on or whether they want to move in a new direction.
  I contend and I tell Members this as a member of the Committee on 
Armed Services, a committee on which we do our level best to subsumed 
and submerge our partisan differences, yes, they come forward, I am not 
going to pretend otherwise or be so naive to think that can always 
happen, but the plain fact of the matter is when it comes to our votes, 
we try to figure out what is in the best interests of this Nation and 
what is in the best interests of the Armed Services. The question 
arises publicly now as to whether or not our armed forces have to pay 
first allegiance to political considerations.
  Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, Democrats and Republicans 
voted for the resolution that constantly comes up with respect to 
whether one supports the war or does not support the war. That is no 
longer an issue. The issue is the direction it has taken since the war 
commenced, and that is where I feel we have to make a break. This is 
what has to be decided November 2. We have to make a fundamental 
decision as to whether we are going to let the chaos and the 
destruction taking place today continue, the brunt of that chaos and 
destruction having to be borne by members of the Armed Services.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman said was summed up just 
recently by a senior American diplomat in Baghdad. Obviously he 
insisted on anonymity but this is what he said about actually what is 
happening in Baghdad and Iraq today. ``This idea of a functioning 
democracy here is crazy. We thought there would be a reprieve after 
sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose.'' This is without doubt a 
debacle. This is the chaos the gentleman referred to. And the sad part 
of it is despite opposition to the invasion of Iraq, if there had been 
a coordinated plan, if there had been a relationship between the 
Department of State and Pentagon rather than just simply the domination 
of those within the Department of Defense and excluding those that had 
experience similarly elsewhere in the world, maybe we would not have 
this problem. But we had Wolfowitz, we had Doug Feith, we had Secretary 
Rumsfeld who, according to Richard Clarke and others, pushed out the 
Department of State, would not allow them in at the table to discuss 
the post major combat phase.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to yield to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Inslee) but before I do, I would like to say the 
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) absolutely spoke the truth when 
he said this Nation will make a decision on November 2 regarding 
whether or not they want to tolerate the continuation of our current 
policy or whether or not they think we should change course.
  The President says we either have to stay the course or cut and run. 
Well, I think there is a third possibility and that is to change 
course. The fact is if there are mothers and dads listening to us 
tonight who may feel disconnected from this war, who may feel they have 
no part of it, they do not know anyone who is participating in it, they 
do not know anyone who has lost a life or been seriously injured, but 
if they have

[[Page 18200]]

a child, they should listen because if this administration continues 
its current foreign policy, I believe it will be mandatory that we 
impose a military draft. We cannot maintain our personnel numbers with 
this current foreign policy without imposing a draft. We can no longer 
continue forever to keep our reservists and our national guardsmen on 
active status. We cannot withdraw soldiers from all over this world 
simply because of what is happening in Iraq. So every American should 
be engaged in the same kind of discussion we are having tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk tonight about three 
types of amnesia that I am afraid are infecting the executive branch's 
policy, and those three symptoms of amnesia are makings us less safe.
  This weekend I went to the VFW Post in Redmond, Washington, where a 
group was holding a car wash to raise money to send incidentals, CDs 
and telephones and suntan lotion and the like, to our service personnel 
in Iraq. The thing that was interesting is the people who were there, 
including the wives and sisters and fathers of the people who are 
serving in Iraq, and one woman who lost her son in Iraq who came out to 
the car wash to help her fallen son's former colleagues in Iraq, and 
what was amazing to me, while these people are pulling together, there 
is this kind of amnesia developing to forget the loss and casualties we 
are suffering in Iraq. It is slipping from page 1 to page 3 to page 12 
to outside of our consciousness. Frankly, I think the President could 
do a better job of reminding us of the loss we are suffering in Iraq 
rather than trying to belittle it or say it is a minimal thing.
  I have heard people argue that a thousand people lost in America is 
not that many. I just challenge for them to say that if they had been 
to the car wash and talked to the mother that I did. One person who did 
not have to die in combat is too many.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, the first death was too many, and every 
death that has followed has been too many because for that individual 
and that individual's loved ones, it will absolutely be the most 
devastating experience they will ever endure.

                              {time}  2245

  I do not think we should develop that type of amnesia.
  The second amnesia that I think is very dangerous to us is to some 
degree the executive branch is developing amnesia about who actually 
attacked us, which was al Qaeda. You have talked about this earlier, I 
believe. But we cannot have the Commander in Chief leading us in this 
war to preserve our security and not identify who the enemy was that 
actually attacked us and go a year now without identifying the name of 
the person who is Osama bin Laden that the President refuses to even 
say. That lack of leadership has infected to some degree our efforts to 
track down and cut off al Qaeda.
  Let me give you an example in the real world how that is. I found out 
a week ago that we have more employees in the Department of Treasury 
tracking down American tourists who go to Cuba than we do Treasury 
officials trying to cut off the money going to Osama bin Laden. What 
kind of prioritization is that? Why have we developed amnesia about how 
deadly al Qaeda is?
  Another piece of amnesia. We have loose nukes all over the former 
Soviet Union, all this fissionable material that we know al Qaeda wants 
to get. But we cannot get the cooperation of the executive branch to 
put money into the system we have for vacuuming up those loose nukes 
and keeping them out of the hands of al Qaeda.
  Why has this amnesia happened? It is pretty clear. The executive 
branch took their eye off the ball of Osama bin Laden and put it on 
Iraq. And this amnesia is a more dangerous situation rather than a less 
dangerous one.
  Let me just suggest why I think the President has been successful to 
some degree in conflating Iraq with what happened on September 11. That 
is, that we have all sort of, I think, gone down a little primrose path 
calling this the war on terror. I am not sure that is the right 
nomenclature for us to use for this reason. It is really important to 
realize who your enemy is. Our enemy is a person and a group, not a 
tactic. Terror is a tactic. It is not a country, it is not a group, it 
is not an individual. It is a tactic. Calling this a war on terror 
frankly is a little bit like calling our response to Pearl Harbor a war 
on torpedo planes. Torpedo planes were a tactic. They were not the 
enemy. We need to call this what it is, a war on al Qaeda and a war on 
some fundamentalist Islamic movements that are way out of the 
mainstream of Islamic belief in this world and have perverted that 
faith and taken advantage of it for their nihilistic ends, and that is 
an enemy we need to keep in our sights.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. See, this Vice President has to link the war on terror 
and the war in Iraq. Even though there is no linkage. That has been 
confirmed not by partisans here on the floor but by the independent 
September 11 Commission. Because, if you cannot link the war on terror 
to the invasion of Iraq, then why did we go into Iraq? For political 
purposes, you have to create, you have to morph what occurs and what is 
occurring in Iraq into the overall war on terror, because this is the 
premise that was used by Dick Cheney when he sold the war.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That is the issue that I raised with respect to 
November 2. Let us face it. No matter who you are in this country, a 
vote is going to take place on November 2. That man has to answer and 
his boss, the President of the United States, has to answer for why in 
Afghanistan today there is no governmental entity at all other than 
that which exists under the direct protection of what amounts to a 
praetorian guard of the United States in Kabul. The rest of the country 
is under the sway of warlords and the Taliban is resurging, the Taliban 
is resurging and more opium is being grown, more dope is being sold, 
more financing for the Taliban is taking place than ever before.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But he is probably one of the most skillful political 
minds in the country and just recently he made the statement, if you 
vote for the other candidate you will die. That is basically what he 
said. A vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorists. Nobody accepts that. 
But that is the need to make the link, because he was wrong, he cannot 
admit he was wrong. Do you remember David Kay, who they sent out to 
learn and to find out where the weapons of mass destruction were, came 
in front of a Senate committee and said, we were all wrong. This 
individual, this Vice President, must have blanched because it did not 
suit his world view, his political agenda.
  Mr. INSLEE. There was a very startling occurrence that happened 
yesterday in this regard. Secretary of State Powell said there was no 
link to 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. Yet the Vice President continues in 
this effort.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friends for joining 
me for another hour of Iraq Watch. I look forward to continuing this 
next week.

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