[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 22804]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            MANY DISAPPOINTED WITH PRESIDENT'S USE OF POWER

  (Mr. SHERMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, now Bremer has told us what went wrong in 
Iraq and why. He said we did not have enough troops and, specifically, 
we did not have enough troops in the days immediately following the 
fall of Saddam. This led to violence and looting immediately after that 
fall and created the sense of lawlessness which is killing our troops 
today.
  The question is, why did we not have enough troops?
  We had a plan worked out by our superb military not only to bring 
200,000 troops from the south, but to bring 60,000 from the north, the 
Fourth Infantry Division, et cetera. When the Turkish parliament 
refused to let those 60,000 troops through Turkey, the President could 
have gone to the U.N. and got the U.N. resolution the Turkish 
parliament required. He could have delayed the invasion until those 
troops could be positioned in the south. He did neither. He was too 
impatient, too foolhardy with the lives of the Americans. He threw away 
the plan, threw away the northern half of the plan and moved on with 
the southern half of the plan.
  Mr. Speaker, no wonder so many of us who voted to empower the 
President are so disappointed in how he used that power.

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