[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3341-3342]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 THE SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN AND 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, as we have listened to debates over the 
last several days, actually last several weeks, there has been a lot of 
rhetoric about how poorly things are going in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 
administration has no plan, et cetera, and along with many other 
Members of Congress, I visited both countries within about the last 5 
or 6 weeks, and it did not seem to me that the information I was 
getting and seeing squared with what we have been hearing.
  In Afghanistan, for instance, the Taliban is out. They were a 
tremendously oppressive regime. Terrorist training camps, and of 
course, Afghanistan was the hotbed of terrorist activity, have been 
shut down. Most of the funding has been dried up. Al Qaeda is on the 
defense, and of course, the democratic loyal jurga formed a 
constitution which I think was a tremendous step toward democracy. 
Women have been given a significant role. Elections have been scheduled 
this summer, and they have a great leader in Karzai, and I think there 
is a great chance he will be elected President.
  All of this has been accomplished with 13,000 coalition troops 
controlling this country, very little loss of life. It has been a 
tremendous military victory and a great victory for those who are 
opponents of terrorism.

                              {time}  1815

  Iraq, of course, is a little behind the time line of Afghanistan, 
because it came several months later; but the infrastructure has been 
restored.
  The water is running, the electricity is on, and 17,000 
reconstruction projects have been completed; 17,000 projects have been 
completed. The schools are open. They have been given significant aid; 
33,000 teachers have received training in just the last few weeks. The 
hospitals and clinics are open. There is much better health care. There 
has been a 6,000 percent increase in health care service expenditures 
in the last few months. The economy is expanding. Shops and businesses 
are springing up. Consumer demand is good. Wages are between 25 and 30 
times higher than they were under Saddam Hussein. So the economy is 
showing real signs of life. One million more cars in this country than 
a year ago. Newspaper and television stations are springing up as well.
  Insurgent attacks on our troops have decreased dramatically. About 
all the attacks we are hearing about lately are on Iraqi citizens, 
mainly because they are the only soft targets that they have left. 
Weapons and ammunition supplies have been destroyed, and an Iraqi army 
of 133,000 is being trained and should be in place by next fall. An 
Iraqi police force is assembled. And all but a handful of Saddam's 
lieutenants have been captured. I think 45 out of 50 have been captured 
and, of course, Saddam Hussein himself.
  A provisional constitution has been drafted and ratified, just today, 
I believe, by the Kurds, the Shiites, and

[[Page 3342]]

the Sunis. This is a tremendous step toward democracy and a tremendous 
accomplishment. So we are on track to see a viable democracy in a 
country that has been a major destabilizing influence in the Middle 
East for the last number of years. We have had no attacks in the U.S. 
since 9/11.
  So again, Mr. Speaker, I would just reiterate the fact that what I 
and many of my colleagues have witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq does 
not seem to square with some of the conversation we have been hearing 
on the political scene in recent months and recent weeks. So we think 
that we have been doing a good job over there.
  The soldiers, the troops that I met, have a tremendous sense of 
mission, a great sense of accomplishment; and I think it is important 
that they get the message that we are solidly behind them and solidly 
behind this effort that is going on.

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