[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     A VIEW OF IRAQ FROM A SOLDIER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this evening I wish to enter into the Record 
the compelling story of one of our soldiers from Iraq.
  This is a soldier who voluntarily joined our Army in February 2002; 
trained as an infantryman at Fort Benning, Georgia; sent to Fort Riley; 
participated in the opening stages of the war, fighting all the way to 
Baghdad where he would remain for the next year and was promoted to the 
rank of sergeant during his service to the United States and was 
honorably discharged. He is 27 years old.
  His writings include this: A view of Iraq from a soldier dated this 
July 2005. He says, ``I am a concerned veteran of the Iraq War. I can 
offer some firsthand experience of the war on Iraq through the eyes of 
a soldier.
  ``My view of the situation in Iraq will differ from what the American 
people are being told by the Bush administration. My opinion on this 
matter comes from what I witnessed in Iraq personally.''
  He talks about members of the Bush administration creating an image 
of wine and roses in terms of the aftermath of the war. And Vice 
President Dick Cheney said American troops would be greeted as 
liberators. But he goes on to say, ``I participated in the invasion, 
stayed in Iraq for a year afterward. What I witnessed was the total 
opposite of what President Bush and his administration stated to the 
American people. The invasion was very confusing,'' this soldier says, 
``and so was the period of time I spent in Iraq afterwards. At first it 
did seem that all the people of Iraq were happy to be rid of Saddam 
Hussein, but that was only for a short period of time.
  ``Shortly after Saddam's regime fell, the Shiite Muslims in Iraq 
conducted a pilgrimage to Karbala, a pilgrimage prohibited by Saddam 
while he was in power. As I witnessed the Shiite pilgrimage, which was 
a new freedom that we provided to them, they used the pilgrimage to 
protest our presence in the country. I watched as they beat themselves 
over the head with sticks until they bled and screamed at us in anger 
to leave their country. Some even carried signs that read, `No Saddam, 
No America.'''
  ``These were people that Saddam oppressed. They were his enemies. To 
me it seemed they hated us more than him. At that moment I knew it was 
going to be a long deployment. I realized that I was not being greeted 
as a liberator. I became overwhelmed with fear because I felt I would 
never be viewed that way by the Iraqi people.
  ``As a soldier this concerned me because if they did not view me as a 
liberator, then what did they view me as? I felt they viewed me as a 
foreign occupier of their land. That led me to believe very early on 
that I was going to have a fight on my hands.
  ``During my year in Iraq I had many altercations with the so-called 
insurgency. I found the insurgency I saw to be quite different from the 
insurgency described to the American people by the Bush administration, 
the media, and the supporters of the war. There is no doubt in my mind 
there are foreigners from other surrounding countries in Iraq. Anyone 
in the Middle East who hates America now has the opportunity to kill 
Americans because there are roughly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
  ``But the bulk of the insurgency I faced was primarily the people of 
Iraq who were attacking us as a reaction to what they felt was an 
occupation of their country. I was engaged actively in urban combat in 
the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad. Many of the people who were 
attacking me were the poor people of Iraq. They were definitely not 
members of al Qaeda, leftover Baath party members, and they were not 
former members of Saddam's regime. They were just your average Iraqi 
civilian who wanted us out of their country.
  ``On October 31, 2003, the people of Abu Ghraib organized a large 
uprising against us. They launched a massive assault on our compound in 
the area. We were attacked with AK-47 machine guns, RPGs and mortars. 
Thousands of people took to the streets to attack us. As the riot 
unfolded before my eyes, I realized these were just the people who 
lived there. There were men, women and children participating. Some of 
the Iraqi protestors were even carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein.
  ``My battalion fought back with everything we had and eventually shut 
down the uprising. So while President Bush speaks of freedom and 
liberation of the Iraqi people, I find his statements are not credible 
after witnessing events such as these.
  ``During the violence that day, I felt so much fear throughout my 
entire body. I remember going home that night and praying to God, 
thanking him I was still alive.
  ``A few months earlier President Bush made the statement `Bring it 
on' when referring to the attacks on Americans by the insurgency. To me 
that felt like a personal invitation to the insurgents to attack me and 
my friends who desperately wanted to make it home alive.
  ``I did my job well in Iraq. My superiors promoted me to the rank of 
sergeant. I was made a rifle team leader and was put in charge of other 
soldiers when we carried out our missions. My time as a team leader in 
Iraq was temporarily interrupted when I was sent to the Green Zone in 
Baghdad to train the Iraqi Army. And I was more than happy to do it 
because we were being told in order for us to get out of Iraq 
completely, the Iraqi military would have to be able to take over all 
security operations.
  ``The training of the Iraqi Army became a huge concern of mine. 
During the time I trained them, their basic training was only one week 
long. We showed them some basic drill and ceremonies such as marching 
and saluting.''
  Mr. Speaker, I will continue this Special Order later this week, and 
I thank this soldier so much for his courage to tell what he personally 
lived in Iraq.

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