[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23874-23880]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Beauprez). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Hoeffel) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, we are here to have another week of the 
Iraq Watch.
  Before I start, I want to add my words of congratulations to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) for his outstanding career and what 
we just witnessed on the floor, a very warm and rare moment of emotion 
and friendship between two colleagues. I wish we had more of those 
moments

[[Page 23875]]

here, but I want to salute the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) for 
his years of service and his dedication to this House.
  A year and a half ago, Mr. Speaker, a number of us started what we 
call Iraq Watch. We began to come to this floor once a week to talk 
about Iraq, to talk about the problems that we saw with our policy 
there, to ask questions and to suggest changes in our national policy. 
Now, a year and a half later, like the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Crane), I will be leaving this House, and yet the questions regarding 
our policy in Iraq remain.
  Things have changed in Iraq over the last year and a half, but some 
of the fundamental problems that were apparent at the beginning of our 
involvement remain today and plague us today and challenge our best 
national interest today.
  A number of us involved in Iraq Watch, some like me who voted for the 
military power that the President sought in October of 2002 and some in 
Iraq Watch who opposed the President's request for military power, all 
of us were alarmed in the spring of 2003 when the fighting actually 
began in Iraq, that the President had used what we thought was such an 
arrogant approach to this challenge, to the diplomacy, to the need to 
move forward with as many allies as possible to confront what was 
surely a murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein.
  We saw an arrogant approach. We saw a go-it-alone foreign policy, 
what many of us thought was a cowboy diplomacy, where we pushed aside 
our allies, where we told our international institutions, such as the 
United Nations and NATO and others, that we did not need their help, 
that we were happy to go alone into the challenge that faced us in 
Iraq. A lot of us were raising questions about that a year and a half 
ago.
  Unfortunately, that approach has not changed. The President talks 
about having the coalition of the willing supporting us in Iraq, but it 
is not the kind of strong international coalition that we truly need to 
share the burdens and share the costs and share the sacrifices that we 
have faced in Iraq and not the kind of strong international coalition 
that his father put together in the early 1990s for the Persian Gulf 
War.
  What the President is now doing since his reelection this November is 
making changes in his Cabinet and promoting loyal members of his staff 
to higher positions and to Cabinet positions in a way that, in my 
judgment, will limit the options brought to the President for his 
consideration; that he will begin to hear just what he wants to hear 
from his Cabinet and top officials; that the advice they give him will 
be the advice they know he already provides to himself; and that he 
has, instead of turning in a second term to an independent and vigorous 
Cabinet of obviously loyal Republicans, which is the President's due, 
instead of building that kind of working relationship, he has decided 
to build an echo chamber, to create a foreign policy advice and support 
system in the State Department and in the CIA and in the National 
Security Adviser that will tell him what he wants to hear.
  Well, what he ought to hear, Mr. Speaker, with due respect to the 
President and with due respect to his victory and the tough decisions 
he has to make every day, what he ought to hear is that he still needs 
international support in Iraq. He still needs to internationalize the 
challenges, the financial challenges, the security challenges, the 
military challenges in Iraq, and he still needs to Iraq-tize Iraq. We 
still need to train up the Iraqis so that they can fight for their own 
future, so they can provide their own security, so that they can be the 
tip of the spear.
  Currently, we are using American forces, brave American forces, 
courageously led, and brave troops to battle the insurgency in Iraq, 
door to door, in Fallujah and other urban settings, and our troops are 
behaving magnificently, performing magnificently.
  But it is my view, and I think shared by my colleagues here in Iraq 
Watch, that we are doing ourselves more harm than good with the reality 
that it is American troops fighting the insurgency, instead of Iraqi 
troops, Arab troops, multinational troops with American support; that 
the fact that we are having to fight door to door, facing the true 
horrors of urban warfare. That we are doing this virtually alone, 
without international help, without very much help from the Iraqis, is 
generating such ill-will in the Muslim world that while Iraq is better 
off with Saddam Hussein out of power and Iraq has some hope of moving 
toward a tolerant and pluralistic society with some version of self-
government, hopefully a flourishing democracy sooner rather than later, 
while Iraq is better off, the way we have gone about this has actually 
done more harm than good to America; that we have created more 
terrorists than we have killed; that we have created more ill-will than 
goodwill in the Muslim world; and that the arrogant and go-it-alone 
policies that we have pursued, the cowboy diplomacy that we pursue to 
this day, has set back the relations between this country and the 
Muslim world, while at the same time we do offer clearly hope to the 
Iraqi people that they can have a flourishing country, free from the 
abuses of the tyrant and murderer Saddam Hussein.
  There is a lot more I would like to say tonight, but I am joined by 
two of the stalwarts of Iraq Watch, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Inslee) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) who have been here 
week after week for a year and a half. So let me turn to the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee) as he was the first on the floor, and I am 
happy to yield to him.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Hoeffel) but not just for this evening.
  The Iraq Watch, which has been trying to bring a responsible voice to 
Iraq policy now for many months, was the brain child of the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), and he really did lead this effort, 
and we are very appreciative of him, and I know his constituents are, 
too.
  I have to tell the gentleman, he has a lot of fans out in the State 
of Washington that I hear about, why can you not can be as good as Mr. 
Hoeffel. I hear that many times.
  But seriously, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) did 
something that does not happen all the time around here. He really led, 
and he led in an important issue to make sure Americans heard a voice 
about Iraq other than just from the White House, and that is important 
we have that debate. This was a creation of his and I think has been 
useful, and I know a lot of people have appreciated it, and I 
appreciate his leadership on that. We look forward to when the 
gentleman is back in public service. So we hope within 2 years, maybe 
even shorter. Who knows?
  But with that, let me turn to the subject here which is a tough one 
tonight. I have to call a mother and father who lost their 19-year-old 
Marine in Fallujah this week tomorrow, and it is very difficult because 
all three of us here this evening voted against this war, and we have 
all had this experience of talking to families. It is very, very 
difficult.
  What I am going to say is, what I know what we all have said, is no 
matter what you think of the policy, these are all good Americans who 
served, and no American has died in vain while serving under the flag 
of the United States. I am going to do my best to make sure parents 
appreciate that. No matter what you think of the policy, they died as 
heroes, and the people who are sitting tonight in Fallujah, that is how 
I think of them, no matter what you think of the policy. I know we all 
share that view.
  It is difficult because it does inspire some anger sometimes I think 
in all of us as to what has happened in Iraq, where a war was started 
based on false assumptions about weapons of mass destruction and false 
assumptions and statements by the White House about Saddam's connection 
to 9/11.
  The trouble I have tonight is that the same type of source of the 
mistake was made unfortunately is being perpetuated by the White House. 
In other words, one would think after the White

[[Page 23876]]

House started a war based on two major falsehoods, that was given to 
him by certain people, that the President would be doubly diligent to 
endeavor to get people who would not perpetuate that same kind of 
mistake, but in fact, what we have seen since the election on November 
2 is sort of like a green light for hubris, a green light to go ahead 
and actually make stronger in the administration the very voices that 
fouled up in giving us bad information about this war and making 
repeated misjudgments about how to perpetuate it.
  Just look at the decisions that have been made in the last week. The 
man who himself admitted responsibility for putting a false statement 
into the State of the Union address, where the President told people 
that Saddam was trying to get uranium to build a nuclear weapon, it was 
a clear falsehood in the State of the Union address, and the man who 
himself admitted being responsible for telling Americans and the world 
that falsehood did not get docked pay, did not get fired. He just got a 
promotion to the National Security Council. So here we have the guy who 
is responsible for a major failure of American information that led to 
a war where 1,200 Americans have died. He gets a promotion. This is a 
perpetuation of this arrogant attitude that has got us into this pickle 
in Iraq.
  What happens to the Defense Secretary who has had running arguments, 
as we know, with the Secretary of State Colin Powell about whether to 
go into this war and how to perpetuate it? Who is the one who leaves? 
It is the guy who, we are told at least, said let us be scrupulous 
about this, and the Secretary of Defense stays, the one who has been in 
charge of this since Abu Ghraib and did not give us accurate 
information, including the U.S. Congress, leading up to this.
  Then what do we see happens at the CIA? Well, here's the capper for 
me. Here we have a man who left this chamber. He is now heading the 
CIA. What is the first thing he does, almost first thing he does? He 
writes a memo to all the CIA employees. I have not seen this memo but 
it is quoted in the paper. It says, he expects all employees that their 
job is to support the administration and its policies in our work and 
as agency employees we do not identify with, identify with, support or 
champion opposition to the administration or its policies.

                              {time}  2130

  He sent a very strong message to CIA employees: what the White House 
wants, it is going to get. And that is language that people understand.
  The last thing this President needs is unanimity from his 
intelligence agencies. He needs debate. He needs to be told some 
information that may not square with his preordained view of the world. 
And, in fact, they are going the wrong way at the CIA and firing people 
who have deigned to give the President information that is different 
from information he believes to be true.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Washington will 
yield just on that point, the last thing this country needs is for our 
intelligence, our CIA to be politicized, to have decisions made, 
conclusions reached that are based on political considerations rather 
than on factual, objective data.
  This memo from a newly appointed CIA director, Mr. Goss, is a blatant 
attempt to politicize our intelligence operations, to politicize the 
CIA. What that will do is place this country at great risk. Because if 
we cannot trust the intelligence to be based on actual fact, actual 
objective data as best we can collect it, but make decisions based on 
political considerations, then that will put the American people at 
risk, and it will put our troops at risk.
  That is absolutely almost unthinkable, that a newly appointed 
director of the CIA would be so insensitive and out of touch that he 
would actually put such a directive into a written memo and have it 
circulated.
  And I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman for his comments, Mr. Speaker, and 
let me continue.
  Later on in the memo, Goss has language that says ``We provide the 
intelligence as we see it and let the facts alone speak to the 
policymaker.'' But when you send a memo to your employees suggesting 
they dare not ever say anything to challenge the President's 
preassumptions, that sentence does not bear out this memo. The message 
was sent and I am sure received by the CIA.
  And I am very disturbed about something I saw last night, a show I 
was watching, and I cannot remember the name of it, but a former CIA 
person who has now left the agency and who was the person in charge of 
the unit searching for Osama bin Laden was on this program. This was 
the gentleman whose professional duty it was, for about 6 years, to 
lead the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In fact, he was so aggressive about 
it, for about 2 years they took him off the job because he was driving 
his superiors nuts because he was raising these red flags about Osama 
bin Laden. After September 11, they put him back on the post because 
they realized he was right about how serious this issue was.
  He has now left the post, but last night he said there was absolutely 
no credible evidence of a substantive link between Osama bin Laden and 
Saddam Hussein. The number one guy in the employment of the Central 
Intelligence Agency last night told Americans there was no link. And 
for a year or more, the President, the Vice President, you name it, was 
running around America trying to create this impression in America's 
mind that there was a link in order to justify this war. That is 
disturbing to me.
  Here is a guy that ought to be in the CIA challenging the White 
House's political decisions. He needs to be on the job rather than spit 
out of the agency like a watermelon seed. That is what they are doing. 
Anyone down there who is challenging the White House orthodoxy is 
getting kicked out.
  This is not a good thing for our future decisions. We have tough 
decisions to make with regard to Iraq. This offensive in Fallujah, 
where heroes died, and they were heroic, but it is not the end of the 
trail. We have some tough, tough decisions.
  I yield back to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel).
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Well, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, and I am very 
concerned about the problems we are seeing at the CIA. The reality is 
that this administration, over the last couple of years, has a very 
sorry record of spinning the information that the CIA has given them. 
So we have got a problem with the CIA intelligence not being as 
accurate as it needs to be for a number of reasons, I guess, listening 
to each other parroting back what other agencies have said. Not enough 
human intelligence agencies in Iraq during the Hussein regime. There 
are a variety of reasons.
  The intelligence that they did produce about weapons of mass 
destruction was incorrect. It was filled with caveats and 
uncertainties. The reports that were being issued to the White House in 
the fall of 2002 said we think he has these weapons, we believe he has 
got these weapons, we have been told he has these weapons. But none of 
that uncertainty was passed on to the Congress or to the American 
people.
  In fact, I was briefed at the White House with 20 of our colleagues, 
a bipartisan group, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on October 
2, 2002, by George Tenet, then Director of the CIA, and Condoleezza 
Rice, then the National Security Adviser to the President, and they 
spoke with complete certainty: we know that Hussein has weapons of mass 
destruction, they said to us. We know how many he has got. We know 
where they are. We know how much those weapons weigh.
  It turns out that 7 or 8 months later, when the reports that George 
Tenet's CIA was giving to him and to Condoleezza Rice in the fall of 
2002 finally became public, or actually became available for rank-and-
file members to review, those reports were filled with caveats, filled 
with uncertainties, filled with hesitance; and yet none of that was 
passed on.
  So I would say to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) that 
there has been spinning at the White House for quite a while. And as my 
colleague

[[Page 23877]]

says, the Deputy National Security Adviser has now been promoted and 
the National Security Adviser is now going to be the Secretary of 
State. I must say, based upon her intentional misleading of the 20 
Members of the Congress who were briefed by her and by George Tenet on 
October 2, 2002, I do not have confidence in Condoleezza Rice. I am 
afraid she is going to tell the President what he wants to hear and 
will not tell the Congress and the American people what we need to hear 
and will not face up to the President when she needs to.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me, 
and as we stand here and talk this evening, there may be those 
listening who wonder why are we talking about the past. I think there 
is a very good reason for us to talk about the past and to remember 
what has happened, because the very people who are responsible for 
having made these erroneous decisions in the past are the same people 
who are in positions of power and even being promoted in the present. 
That means that they will be in a position to make decisions about the 
future.
  Now, many of the decisions that have been made have been deadly 
decisions, and lives have been lost as a result of decisions that were 
based upon false information or distorted or twisted information; quite 
frankly, I believe information that was purposefully manipulated in 
such a way as to try to get the support of the American people for 
carrying out this President's foreign policy.
  I just want to share with my colleagues some human consequences of 
what has happened. About 3 weeks ago, I received nearly 20 letters from 
various members of a family support group. This family support group 
consists of family members whose loved ones are part of a 
transportation reserve unit that has been activated and is now in Iraq. 
And at the time they wrote me, they told me their loved ones were 
around the Fallujah area, which is one of the most dangerous places in 
which to be in Iraq.
  The people who wrote me indicated at the time that they wrote that 
out of this one reserve unit that is headquartered in Cadiz, Ohio, that 
they had lost three of their loved ones. They have since lost a fourth. 
So four soldiers have been lost out of that one reserve unit. It is a 
transportation unit.
  The letters told me that they were getting messages from their loved 
ones, these troops, telling them that they were not being adequately 
supplied with proper life-saving equipment. They were driving around in 
vehicles that were not armed, for example. And we know that if you are 
a member of a transportation unit and you are on patrols and you are 
delivering supplies and so on, one of the great dangers in Iraq is 
driving over these explosives that have been placed in the roadways.
  So out of this one unit, four have already been lost. And these 
letters that I received from the loved ones said to me, when we gave 
our precious soldiers to go fight this war, we trusted our government 
to provide them with every protection possible. Now they are deeply, 
deeply disturbed and concerned that their loved ones are not being 
adequately cared for.
  Now, I believe that part of the problem in the execution of this war 
has been the fact that it was initially based upon these false 
assumptions and this false information. We were told basically this was 
going to be a piece of cake; that we were going to be welcomed as 
heroes; and there was not adequate planning, not adequate preparation. 
It took the Pentagon, it took this administration, this President, 
because he is the Commander in Chief, more than a year to be able to 
say that all of our troops, each of our troops in Iraq was equipped 
with basic body armor. Now, I think that is absolutely shameful.
  I wonder how many of our troops have lost their lives because they 
were not properly equipped, and how many of our troops right tonight, 
as we stand here in the Chamber of the people's House, how many of our 
troops are in danger tonight simply because this administration has 
failed to properly plan and provide them with adequate materials. There 
is a consequence to the kind of behavior that we have been describing. 
There is a consequence when people use false information or distort 
information or make such unrealistic assumptions, and it is absolutely 
tragic.
  In my congressional district, the Sixth Congressional District in 
Ohio, we have lost five soldiers, a 20-year-old, a 21-year-old, and 
three men who were in their late 30s. One of those men left five 
children ages 3 through 12. We are talking here about real 
consequences. We are talking about real people, real families. And 
there are Americans tonight who are worried sick because they have 
loved ones over there fighting this war, and they are doing the very 
best they can under very difficult circumstances, and we honor our 
troops, but that is one of the reasons that we stand here and advocate 
that they be cared for in a way that is befitting a great Nation.
  We should never send one of our soldiers into harm's way without them 
having proper armor and equipment. And tonight I can say, based on what 
I have heard from my constituents and some of the soldiers who are 
currently in the field, we are not doing all that we can to keep them 
as safe as they can possibly be kept.
  I yield back to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio. That is a 
very human account of what is happening in Iraq.
  There is no question that this President knows how to use American 
power, but what I fear is that he is not aware or willing to use the 
totality of American power, which certainly starts with military power 
but is much more than that. We are certainly the strongest military in 
the world, and we need to stay that way. It is a dangerous world. The 
war on terror is going to be a challenge for years to come, and we must 
maintain our military strength. But there is more to American power 
than the military power that we possess, and this President does not 
seem to appreciate or understand or value the totality of our power, 
which includes diplomatic power and economic power, our cultural ties, 
the powers of moral persuasion.
  We are the only superpower left in the world, and I am thankful we 
are. It gives us an opportunity to lead, inspire, cajole, push, 
advocate, and pressure. We have the ability through diplomacy and trade 
and economic ties and cultural ties to bend people to our will, up to a 
point, if we have a good argument and we are right on the facts and it 
is in their interest too. Obviously, every situation is different from 
the prior. But this President does not seem to put any value in the 
totality of American power.
  The military strength we have needs to be maintained and nurtured, 
but it has to be used as a last resort, not a first resort.

                              {time}  2145

  As strong as we are, we cannot be the world's policemen. We cannot 
impose our will through military strength alone, and yet that is the 
circumstance that we face in Iraq. We are trying to do very good things 
there, and we all share the President's goals of creating a pluralistic 
society, a tolerant, democratic society. And yet the unilateral, go-it-
alone, arrogant strategy, the cowboy diplomacy, the failure to admit 
mistakes, the inability to train up the Iraqis for them to do their own 
fighting and provide their own security, and the mistakes that were 
made. The first thing we did was dismiss the Iraqi Army and the border 
patrol, and the second thing was dismiss the Iraqi civil service, and 
there was nobody left to run the country but Americans.
  This President does not seem capable of acknowledging error and 
fixing it. The people he has been promoting in this echo chamber seem 
unwilling or incapable of standing up and saying, Mr. President, you 
have to change these policies.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on what the gentleman 
said on the failure to successfully pursue any international 
involvement.

[[Page 23878]]

  The bad news is that the President's plan is even unraveling with 
those who originally made some commitments to him. I read in the paper 
last week that Hungary has just announced that they will withdraw their 
troops. This was on top of withdrawals, either actual or announced, by 
Spain, 1,300 troops; Poland, 2,400 troops; the Netherlands, 1,400 
troops; Thailand, 450 troops; the Dominican Republic, 322 troops; 
Nicaragua, 115 troops; Honduras, 370 troops; the Philippines, 51 
troops; Norway, 155 troops; and New Zealand, 60. These are relatively 
small numbers, but I think it is a symptom of some bad decisionmaking. 
And the reason we talk about the past is the President is perpetuating 
his decisionmaking that created these conditions. He sees no reason 
ever to change.
  We had a small coalition to start this, and now the small number of 
troops sent to help us are being withdrawn so our people are having to 
bear the burden of the fighting.
  In Fallujah, this long after the fight, we had token Iraqis with us, 
and one of the reasons is the administration did not set up an 
infrastructure for training the Iraqis. Last month, 4 weeks ago, all 
that time since the original invasion, we still had only 40 percent of 
the trainers that the plan called for on day one to train Iraqis 
troops.
  This thing has been botched, and the problem is the President is 
promoting people who are responsible for it, and we are getting deeper. 
One thing that bothers me, the gentleman mentioned the President knows 
how to use power. He should not use it in a way that lets politics 
dictate military decisions. It is pretty clear to any neutral observer 
that is what happened in Fallujah, because this spring we had an 
offensive into Fallujah. It was called off. Everybody knew we were 
going to have to go back in there, and it would seem to me it would 
make prudent sense to go back in there before we give thousands of 
insurgents time to build bunkers, accumulate their communications 
network. What did the President do? It is pretty clear. Not until after 
the election because there is going to be American blood flow.
  One week after the election, all of a sudden we get the attack on 
Fallujah. Thirty-eight Americans die in the attack. It is pretty clear, 
and it is sad to say what happened here. There was a political decision 
to avoid this assault and, as a result, these insurgents had more and 
more time to fortify Fallujah. That was wrong by a Republican, a 
Democrat or anybody, to put our men in harm's way, to allow the enemy 
to consolidate their position, and we had to walk our people into those 
dens of fire.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce what the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is saying. It was very obvious this 
decision and the timetable attached to it was influenced by a political 
clock. The fact is, we telegraphed to the world and the enemy what we 
were going to do. We gave them time to prepare, and we waited until a 
few days after the election and then the decision was made to go in.
  That is a troubling thing to conclude. It really troubles me to think 
that a decision like that that would involve a military operation that 
was going to likely consume American lives would be in any way 
influenced by a political clock, but the evidence seems quite clear 
that is what happened. We had to build up for months and then more 
intensely in the weeks leading up to the election, and the enemy knew 
we were coming in. That gave them an opportunity to be ready for us, to 
have supplies and equipment in place. There was no element of surprise 
in our going into Fallujah. We basically let them know, as soon as the 
election was over, it was going to happen. That truly troubles me. I 
think it should trouble every American.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it troubles me because I am going to call 
some parents tomorrow who lost their 19-year-old son in that battle. I 
am not going to broach this with them. I do not know if the thought has 
crossed their mind, but I cannot reach any other conclusion. What 
possible reason was there to wait 6 months to go into Fallujah except 
the fact that there was an election on November 2, and then do it just 
a few days after the election. What possible reason could there be 
other than the fact of the election schedule?
  We saw how horrendous the fighting was in Fallujah. Some of these 
tunnels were reinforced with steel, and we gave them 6 months to do 
that. People's heads should roll in the administration for that.
  Again, what we hear tonight is the people responsible for that have 
been promoted into higher positions of authority. We are not going in 
the right direction in Iraq.
  Unfortunately, let me note a reality in Iraq, we have to some degree 
obtained some degree of success over Fallujah, but just read what 
happened everywhere else.
  In Samarra, we had a Fallujah-like assault several months ago, and we 
thought we were successful there, but this week the Iraqi police 
stations were raided by the insurgents, and 33 Iraqi soldiers and 
policemen were killed, injured 48.
  In Ramadi, a slew of suicide car bombers wounded 20 U.S. Marines. 
Guerillas raided three police stations, killing 22 officers.
  In Diyala Province, a governor's aide and two members of the 
Provincial Governing Council were killed, and bombs exploded across 
Baghdad at a Catholic Church and against U.S. convoys along the main 
road to the airport.
  We still cannot secure the main road to the airport in Baghdad. We 
still are hiring the people responsible for these debacles and giving 
them promotions. It is wrong.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned the main road 
from Baghdad and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) 
indicated earlier tonight that we have been holding this Iraq Watch 
special order for some period of months now. Those who have listened to 
us before may recall that I have mentioned in the past that I was 
privileged to be in the first delegation of American Congress Members 
who were able to get into Iraq, leave the Baghdad airport and go into 
what is now the Green Zone in May after the initial attack on Baghdad.
  We were there in late May on the day that Ambassador Bremer took the 
reins of control from General Garner. Forgive me for going over some 
past ground, but, unfortunately, what is being cited by the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Strickland) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) tonight 
requires this for a very simple reason.
  When we hear of standing up or creating this Army, creating these 
forces, that was the goal that was stated to us the very first day that 
Ambassador Bremer was there, supposedly based on the work that General 
Garner was supposed to be doing up to that time. And we continue to 
have reports in the presses as if this is something suddenly just 
discovered.
  On that day, we sat at the table with Ambassador Bremer and General 
Garner. I recall very clearly saying to them, we have just been down 
this road from the airport, the international airport in Baghdad here, 
and I said to them. You are going to need 10,000 soldiers just to guard 
that highway. I said. It is a strip of tar going from the airport in 
the middle of a desert into Baghdad. This is not the Big Dig up in 
Boston or entering metropolitan Atlanta. This is not finding your way 
around Philadelphia or New York. This is a strip of tar from another 
big strip of tar where planes land into Baghdad. I said, there are no 
lights. There is no possibility of being able to stop people planting 
mines or coming up with shoulder-held rocket grenade launchers, 
explosive propellants of all kinds.
  And now here we are nearing the end of 2004, and you cannot even go 
on that road today. This is a debacle. This is a disaster. This is 
taking place right now in circumstances in which we are observing 
generals saying to their troops, witnessed by embedded reporters with 
television cameras, drawing the analogy to Hue in Vietnam.
  I am old enough to have been involved in the discussions that took

[[Page 23879]]

place during the 1960s with what we were doing in Vietnam with a half a 
million soldiers and an indigenous Army fighting with the South 
Vietnamese that could fight, that was trained and was equipped. And the 
analogy was Hue in Vietnam. Fallujah is going to be like Hue. Hue was a 
disaster for us. A few more wins like that, and we are completely 
undone.
  What we forget is the actual military activity that took place had 
nothing to do with the war in the sense of whether or not we would be 
successful politically or militarily. The actual circumstances of the 
combat and the capabilities of the soldiers, all of which have been 
cited by us over and over again, that is not the issue. The competency 
of the American soldier is not the issue. The willingness of the 
American soldier to fight or the bravery, the professionalism, that is 
not the issue as such. Whether they are equipped properly, of course, 
that is an issue for us, but the political reality is this is an 
unmitigated disaster. We are setting the foundation and groundwork, if 
you will, for decades, if not centuries, of opposition to us as a 
result of what is going on right now.
  You need only go to look at how it is characterized around the 
country. I was visiting with my mother in Florida, and I have been to 
Massachusetts. I have gone all over the country. The Palm Beach Post, 
the Providence Journal, how is it characterized? Here is what the 
Providence Journal said on Monday, November 15.

                              {time}  2200

  ``The absence of insurgent bodies in Fallujah has remained an 
enduring mystery.'' It is no mystery. This is a guerilla fight.
  In the same paper:
  ``But much of the city lay in smoking ruins. Isolated bands of rebels 
still harassed American and Iraqi soldiers.'' Rebels against what? 
``The military victory appeared to be nearly overshadowed by insurgent 
violence elsewhere, particularly in the northern city of Mosul.''
  Again quoting:
  ``The Governor of Mosul province, saying he had lost faith in local 
security forces, called in thousands of Kurdish militiamen for the 
first time to quell the insurgent uprising there.''
  Today a hearing was held on the staffing requirements, the personnel 
requirements for the Guard and the Reserve, testimony at the Committee 
on Armed Services today. Happy faces, it was characterized to me by a 
Republican Member here tonight, a stalwart member of the committee. And 
I reiterate again with respect to the many times we have appeared on 
the floor, this is not a Republican versus Democratic issue. The 
Committee on Armed Services tries not to operate in that kind of a 
context. We try to operate on the basis of the security interests of 
the United States. One of our colleagues said to us, ``They put on 
happy faces today.'' What the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
has just quoted, what these other two of my colleagues here have been 
quoting is that we are living in a fantasy. I was asked by a former 
Member today, What are you doing over at the Capitol? I said, We're 
organizing our delusions. We are in the midst of organizing our 
delusions.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I would yield with one observation, though, as has 
been stated by our colleagues here tonight. The thing that I most 
regret about coming back this evening is that shortly we will be taking 
leave of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel). He is the 
founder of this opportunity that the rest of us have seized upon week 
after week. He has been the guiding light and the inspiration for this. 
I deeply regret that he will not be here next year because, 
unfortunately, I am afraid we are going to have to be here next year. 
But I can tell him that the fire that he has lit in us and in others 
who have come here will not go out, and we will try to carry on the 
legacy that he has established for us to live up to.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, that is very kind of the gentleman from 
Hawaii, a bit overblown and exaggerated, but very kind of him.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Not a bit.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Next year I am going to be watching. I am going to be 
tuning in. I know my colleagues will be fighting the good fight as they 
have been for the last year and a half.
  I wanted to comment upon your views, that what is virtually a purely 
military approach to our challenge in Iraq is not working, cannot work 
in the face of a guerilla opposition that melts away when we attack en 
masse and comes up and attacks us where we least expect it a few days 
later in another location. It is consistent with my earlier statement 
that as strong as our military is and as strong as we have to keep it, 
we have got to use more than just our military power in our dealings 
with the rest of the world. We have to use the totality of our power, 
which includes diplomatic power, economic power, cultural ties, the 
powers of moral suasion.
  One of the things I wish this President would talk about and I hope 
the next Congress will talk about is the need for economic 
revitalization in the Middle East and in Eurasia. We need a modern day 
Marshall Plan. We need to address the challenges in Iraq and the rest 
of that part of the world not just with a military strategy but we have 
got to give to those young men and women, mostly young men, although 
there are now suicide bombers who are women, who are so desperate, who 
are so hopeless that they would believe it is in their best interests 
to strap a bomb on and kill innocent civilians rather than have some 
hope that they can build a better life, that they can find a job, they 
can improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. We 
have got to address the economic needs. I do not mean by handing out 
money. I mean by making the kinds of investments, along with Western 
Europe and other industrialized societies, the kinds of investments 
that will build some economic strength.
  In the Marshall Plan after World War II, over a period of 4 years we 
invested $13 billion in 14 countries. That in today's dollars would be 
$100 billion over 4 years, $25 billion a year. Our total foreign aid 
now is about $20 billion a year. So if we a little bit more than 
doubled our foreign aid, we could create a similar economic 
revitalization plan as we did so successfully in the late 1940s.
  It is a different challenge. The countries we are trying to help here 
are frankly much worse off than the Western European countries were 
after World War II. Those countries had a labor force that was trained. 
They had been industrial countries. The Afghanistans, all the Stans, 
Iraq, Iran, those are countries with much greater needs. But if we try 
to solve the problems of the world with military solutions only, if we 
try to keep ourselves safe with military solutions only, if we try to 
win the war on terror with only a military response, we will not 
succeed. Our military will perform well, as they always do; but there 
is not a military solution, a purely military solution, to the 
challenges that face us.
  We have got to pay attention to the hopes and aspirations. It is more 
than just the poverty these people face. It is the grinding 
helplessness and hopelessness they must feel. We have got to create a 
sense of opportunity in this part of the world.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In that context, then, you have indicated, yes, a 
Marshall Plan might be in order, but that presumes that the fighting 
has ended. The fighting has not ended. It is nowhere near ending. You 
cannot make an investment in somewhere, where again I will quote, most 
of the city lay in smoking ruins.
  Another quote: ``Tanks and armored vehicles, their turret guns 
blazing in all directions, finished the sweep through the city.'' We 
are destroying everything in our path. And then the only thing that I 
see is that, well, we will be responsible, the United States is going 
to have to be responsible for the rebuilding. Who? Another Halliburton? 
Another series of projects to be laid out? You cannot guarantee that 
the people who are going to do the building will be safe.
  So all of this is a fantasy. It is a delusion, that somehow we are 
going to

[[Page 23880]]

succeed with this. My final point on that is that it is the military 
itself then at that point that will have difficulties because we are 
not going to be able to recruit. Despite the happy face that has been 
put on this, the Reserves are falling behind in their recruitment and 
retention. The Guard is falling behind in their recruitment and 
retention, and those strains and those stresses are going to become 
more apparent in the days and months to come, and the stress and strain 
in the days and months to come will manifest itself in the inability of 
the United States to have the kinds of deployments under the 
circumstances that would be most ideal to maximize the efficiency of 
the Armed Forces.
  It is not that they will not try. It is not that they will not do 
their best. It is not that they will not give their all. It is that we 
will be letting them down in the first place by requiring something of 
them that actually is against the protocols and the standards that we 
have set up in order to have the best possible military capacity.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. If the gentleman will yield, just listening to the 
gentleman, I am reminded of a fact. The fact is this: that the only 
people sacrificing for this war are the soldiers and the people who 
love them. The President is not sacrificing for this war. The corporate 
world is not sacrificing for this war. Those of us who sit in the 
safety of this Chamber, we are not sacrificing for this war. We do not 
have sons and daughters and loved ones in Iraq in harm's way.
  So who is sacrificing? The taxpayer is not sacrificing for this war, 
not the current taxpayer, because the President has decided that the 
cost of this war is just going to be pushed into the future so the 
children and the children yet to be born will bear the burden for 
paying for this war. It is a shame that the President is asking nothing 
of us as a Nation, save the lives and the time, the service of our 
soldiers and the grief and the worry of the people who love them. It is 
just almost beyond belief that we find ourselves where we are tonight.
  Our country was attacked as a result of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban. 
We supported going into Afghanistan, obviously, all of us. Out of 535 
members of the House and Senate, only one voted against the war in 
Afghanistan because it was wholly, totally justified and necessary. And 
then all of a sudden the President and his advisers decided that we 
were going to go to Iraq. No connection with the attack upon this 
country. No weapons of mass destruction. No imminent danger to us. Yet 
we divert resources and intelligence away from Afghanistan, away from 
the search for Osama bin Laden, and here we find ourselves in Iraq and 
we all knew that we were going to win the military battle.
  There is not a country on the face of this Earth or a combination of 
countries on the face of this Earth that can stand up to our military 
and our fighting men and women. We all knew that. And so there is this 
quick, so-called end of combat, and the President got on the aircraft 
carrier, there was that sign up there Mission Accomplished, and look 
what has followed. Thousands of people injured. Well over 1,000 of our 
soldiers are now dead. Iraq has become a haven for terrorists. They are 
coming from throughout the world, gathering in Iraq; and we find 
ourselves bogged down with no plan, continuing death, continuing 
injuries, continuing expense. And we have got an administration who is 
wanting to continue to do the same thing they have been doing for the 
last several months. It is truly alarming, saddening, that our Nation 
finds itself in this situation tonight.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. INSLEE. I just want to say that there is a future in Iraq. The 
one thing we should recognize and we are in it together, Democrats and 
Republicans, whether we voted for this war or not, and we all have 
responsibilities to try to make tough decisions about what to do now. 
Our discussion of the past does not mean to suggest that we can walk 
away in the next 24 hours from Iraq, but I think what we are saying is 
that we need people that we can trust with decision-making in Iraq, 
that we will have a rational, decision-making process that is based on 
the facts rather than just hopes and wishes.
  I remember just even 6, 8 months ago listening to the Vice President 
talking about how things were going so remarkably well in Iraq and we 
had the Mission Accomplished incident. We had Ambassador Bremer telling 
us and Wolfowitz telling us that this entire thing was going to be 
financed with oil revenues from Iraq. He told us, to Congress, I 
remember this very well. He said, ``There won't be a single taxpayer 
dollar associated with this project.'' How many billion are we in it 
now? It is hard to tell.
  As the gentleman from Ohio pointed out, the one thing we know about 
every billion dollars this President has spent, it has been of my 
grandchildren's money. He has not asked any sacrifice of us. Winston 
Churchill said, ``All I have to offer you is blood, sweat, toil and 
tears.'' This President has said, ``Just go shopping.'' That is how he 
has approached this. So we are asking this horrific sacrifice of our 
men and women in Fallujah tonight. But this President wants to keep 
cutting taxes for the wealthiest folks, his friends. That is how he 
handles it. He is the only President in American history who has 
insisted that in the middle of war when our warriors are out there 
risking their lives, he does not want to risk anything except his tax 
cuts, and he will not even risk that.
  He is the only American President who has ever done major tax cuts in 
a war. I would assert that he is in the panoply of those who are the 
most economically and morally irresponsible. This is a moral issue to 
ask our soldiers to go die in Fallujah and go back here in the 
homestead and try to boost his popularity by giving tax breaks to the 
rich.

                              {time}  2215

  That is a moral issue. And there has been a lot of talk about moral 
values in this last election.
  I want to say, I look at that as a violation of the values that I 
hold and I think a majority of my constituents hold. We ought to be in 
this together as Americans, and this President does not want any 
American to be in it except those on the frontline because he does not 
want people to know how costly war is. And it is not cheap. And that is 
a moral failure.
  And if we raise our voices on occasion, it is because there is cause 
for anger here. And there is cause for anger when I hear in the last 
week that this President gives promotions. There is not a guy who has 
lost his extra vacation day in this administration as a result of the 
debacle in Iraq. What kind of message is that to send on personal 
accountability when a guy who told us that it was not going to cost the 
taxpayers a dollar is sitting fat and happy as the Secretary of 
Defense, has never got his hand even slapped, did not even get a memo 
in his personnel file, and his buddy takes over the National Security 
Council and had the President tell us something that was a blatant 
falsehood to start this war? And now we are going to make calls, all 
four of us, to family members who lost people in Fallujah. That is a 
moral insult. It is not just bad public policy.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I 
believe we are out of time this evening.
  Iraq Watch will be back in January, in February and March, as long as 
these challenges continue, as long as there is a need for debate and 
for questions to be asked.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOEFFEL. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, we may be here a few more days than we 
expected, and I for one am quite concerned about what is taking place 
and would be interested in coming back if the time is available to us 
before we leave.
  Mr. HOEFFEL. Excellent. Mr. Speaker, let me just say it has been a 
long time coming, but change is going to come.

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