[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            CREDIBILITY GAP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burns). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, in concert with the theme that has just 
preceded me in the 1-hour session, I wanted to talk about the 
credibility of our present administration with respect to the war in 
Iraq also.
  A lot of us have chosen in say that we are into a second Vietnam. And 
there are some people who are quite upset that we compared the war in 
Iraq to the war in Vietnam. It is true that the war in Vietnam cost us 
58,000 lives, and so far we have only loss 700 officially in Iraq. But 
should that be the barometer? 58,000 have not died; 58,000 wives, 
mothers, sisters have not yet cried.
  But why wait until that happens? Why not see every human life as 
being sacred? Every life is sacred. The men and women who die on the 
battlefield give us their total, and we ought to appreciate that by not 
jeopardizing it for goals that are questionable.
  This is a war that should never have been. This is a war that does 
not have much to do with fighting terrorism.

                              {time}  1615

  Yes, Saddam Hussein is gone. He is out of office now, and that is a 
great benefit for the world, as well as the people of Iraq, but is the 
price worth it? Are we not paying too great a price just to get rid of 
Saddam Hussein?
  We were never told that was just the objective. We were told it was a 
question of weapons of mass destruction, and it was a question of Iraq 
operating in concert with the al Qaeda terrorists. We were told that 
there were stockpiles of chemical weapons. We were told other reasons 
other than just getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
  Saddam Hussein is gone. The price is too high. We are paying 
financially more than $1 billion a week to keep the war in Iraq going. 
We are building schools in Iraq while we are denying construction funds 
to school districts here in America. We are doing a lot of other things 
in Iraq which drain money away from badly needed programs here, despite 
the fact that Iraq has oil deposits which should be able to pay the 
cost of any rebuilding of Iraq eventually.
  So what do we do at this point? Do not ask us to keep begging our 
troops to remain loyal and steadfast and sacrifice their lives unless 
you have an exit strategy, a reason for it. We do not want to see 
58,000 die.
  Our Vietnam memorial wall is one of the greatest monuments of its 
kind. It does not celebrate one general or a handful who led the war. 
It celebrates and makes us remember every individual who died. All of 
our war memorials in the future should do that. Every individual gave 
their life for their country, for the cause. Regardless of what you 
think of the cause, they, as individuals, are heroes. We do not want 
another memorial wall of heroes unless it is absolutely necessary.
  Vietnam turned out not to be necessary. The domino theory was not 
correct. We lost Vietnam, and we still won the Cold War with the Soviet 
Union. We still won the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We did not go 
on from Vietnam to other areas.
  We have a great affinity and alliance with Communist China right now, 
which baffles me. Why are we so kind to accommodate China and have so 
many business dealings with them if we fought and died in Vietnam to 
keep communism from extending itself across the world?
  So my plea is that let us understand the lessons of Vietnam without 
having first to see 58,000 die. Fifty-eight thousand should not have to 
die for us to understand that we need to work backwards and understand 
that eventually we are going to settle this war in Iraq like we settled 
the complex war in Vietnam.
  There was an argument about what the shape of the table would be. Let 
us look at the same table they used in Vietnam, and let us begin right 
now to negotiate backwards exactly what our terms are going to be and 
how we are going to get out and maintain law and order. And I am in 
favor of maintaining law and order until we do have a strategy and exit 
that can leave the people of Iraq in better shape than we found them.
  Let us do it now. Let us share that plan with Members of Congress. 
Let us share that plan with the public. Let us share power with all of 
the members of the United Nations Security Council and all the members 
of NATO. Let us challenge them to come forward and help us bring it 
into this. We need more troops. Let them come from Russia, let them 
come from China, let them come from France, let them come from Germany, 
but give them the power to help make decisions and exit from Iraq 
before we have 58,000 of our loyal soldiers die.

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