[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13581-13582]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            APOLOGIES NEEDED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, it is one of the first lessons we are 
taught as children, how and when to apologize for doing something 
wrong.
  Our capacity for saying I am sorry is part of what makes us a 
functioning and civilized society. My parents always said I should 
apologize for hurting someone. But they never insisted that I apologize 
simply for pointing out when someone else was doing something bad or 
wrong.
  Yet, here in Washington all of the sudden every time a Democrat uses 
strong rhetoric to condemn the policies of the Bush administration, 
there is a relentless pressure from the Republicans for an apology.
  Maybe my memory is failing me, but I just do not recall any apologies 
when opponents of the Iraq war had their patriotism questioned. Now 
with a new poll showing that 63 percent of the American people want the 
troops to come home in the next year, maybe the right wing message 
machine owes an apology to nearly two out of three Americans. The fact 
is their apology demands on Democratic dissenters is just a convenient 
way to change the subject, to avoid any kind of question about the 
merits of the Iraq war and the way it has been managed.
  And why do they want to avoid that discussion? Because the American 
people have completely lost confidence in the administration's Iraq 
policy. Instead of apologizing for words, it is time we started 
demanding apologies for deeds. Where, for example, is the apology for 
the deaths of more than 1,700 Americans? Not only is there no apology; 
Secretary Rumsfeld could not be bothered to personally sign condolence 
letters to their families.
  Where is the apology for sending young men and women to war without 
the proper protective armor on their bodies and their vehicles? Where 
is the apology for pinching pennies on veterans health benefits when 
these brave soldiers return home? Where is the apology for the immoral 
doctrine of this preemptive war? And where is the apology for the gross 
deceptions used to justify it, for the missing weapons of mass 
destruction, for the cooked intelligence, for the phony al Qaeda-Saddam 
link?
  Where is the apology for wasting more than $200 billion of taxpayer 
money on this mistake? Where is the apology for the poor leadership 
that led to torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? 
Where is the apology for committing our troops and our Nation to this 
mission without a post-war plan to secure the peace? And where is the 
apology for the arrogance that squandered international good will 
toward America and damaged our relationships with our closest allies?
  There is something wrong with our moral compass if we have to 
apologize for speaking bluntly. But our leaders can commit the biggest 
foreign policy blunder since Vietnam and get away without apology or 
accountability.
  Actually, an apology would not be enough for everything they have 
done. An apology, after all, is just more

[[Page 13582]]

words. It is time for action. It is time for accountability. It is time 
for a tangible admission that the Iraq war was immorally conceived and 
has been incompetently managed. It is clearly time to end this war and 
bring our troops home.
  Chuck Hagel, the senior Senator from Nebraska, a decorated Vietnam 
hero and a member of the President's party, recently had this to say 
about the war, ``Things aren't getting better. They are getting worse. 
The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like 
they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we are 
losing Iraq.''
  I ask you, are they going to ask Chuck Hagel for an apology? After 
all, he has done the worst possible thing in the eyes of the 
administration: he has told the truth.

                          ____________________