[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 19972-19973]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      ENCOURAGING PROGRESS IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, several of my colleagues 
and I journeyed to Baghdad and returned, and I would just like to make 
a few observations. Obviously, this is a very intense time in Iraq as 
the elections approaches, but I had three observations that I think 
were somewhat meaningful.
  Number one, we were tremendously impressed by the morale and the 
attitude of our soldiers. One would say, well, how in the world could 
that be? It is 110, 115 degrees every day, body armor, helmets, very 
difficult work, some danger, considerable distance from family. I guess 
the main reason that we felt we were observing this was there seemed to 
be a very strong sense of mission, a very strong sense of purpose and 
accomplishment.
  One thing that I often heard from the soldiers was this: they said, 
you know,

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it seems like there are two wars over here. There is the one that we 
see on CNN: we see the IEDs, individual explosive devices; we see the 
car bombs; we see the beheadings.
  But the part of the story that we think is meaningful is not being 
told. They said, the thing that we see is that in education, 2,500 
schools have been renovated, 30,000 teachers have been trained, there 
is an 80 percent increase in attendance in schools, and most of that is 
girls who have not been going to school at all under Saddam Hussein. 
Health care, 240 hospitals operating, 1,000 clinics, 90 percent of the 
children are currently vaccinated, and this again is something that had 
not occurred before.
  So health care has improved. Infrastructure is getting better. Water 
supply, power, sewage. It still needs improvement, but it is doing 
better, and of course the provisional government and the June 30 hand-
off. So what they were saying is please make sure the people in the 
United States understand that there is more going on than what many 
times they are hearing about.
  The second thing that I thought was somewhat optimistic is that the 
Iraqis are providing more and more security. The goal is to train 
270,000 Iraqis; 135,000 police; 100,000 Army and National Guard; and 
then 32,000 border guards. Right now we are a little bit more than 
halfway there. We are making excellent progress.
  So in Najef, not long ago, Iraqi troops led the charge and, along 
with Ayatola Sustani, calmed a very dangerous situation. So we see 
progressively more and more operations with Iraqis taking the lead.
  The third thing that I would say that was very encouraging to me is 
that in talking to the Iraqis, they very much want the elections. If 
the Iraqis do not care or if they do not want elections, then obviously 
the whole thing that we are doing is for naught. I talked to an Iraqi 
woman today and I asked her, I said, are the Iraqis willing to line up 
and take the risk on Election Day, and she said, without question we 
will have a tremendous turnout.
  So Prime Minister Allawi told us last week, and this was confirmed on 
our trip, that roughly 15 out of 18 provinces are sufficiently secure 
right now to maintain elections, and the other two or three are coming 
around. Splinter groups who have been primarily terrorist-oriented in 
the past are now becoming politically active. They are beginning to 
realize that if they do not become part of the political process, they 
are going to be left out. So a lot of things are changing very rapidly. 
Iraqi women will tell you this, that they see their future as being 
much brighter. So when there is hope, I think there is a good chance.
  So if we pull out, as many are currently advising, we will tell the 
families of the 1,000 soldiers we have lost that they have died in 
vain, and I do not think we can afford to do that. Secondly, we will 
have broken our promise to the Iraqis. We have told them that we will 
absolutely not do that, and many of them have trusted us. So if we pull 
out now, literally tens of thousands of Iraqis are going to lose their 
lives and will be sacrificed because of our duplicity.
  Thirdly, I think if we show vulnerability as a Nation; and if we show 
that we do not have resolve and that we will not see something through, 
and if terrorists can steer our agenda here, we become more and more 
vulnerable to terrorist activities. So I do not think that we can 
afford to do this.
  So at this point, as I see it, and I think some of those who were on 
the trip would also say that the only viable exit strategy is to win. 
When we say to win, we mean that we will stay the course until the 
Iraqis themselves are able to secure their country and be able to 
govern their country. This is not going to be easy, but we think it is 
doable. We were encouraged by what we saw.

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