[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24497-24503]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           OUT OF IRAQ CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House this evening as one 
of the organizers of the Out of Iraq Caucus to talk about what we have 
done in that caucus, what we are attempting to continue to do, and 
where we feel we are at this point.
  We now have 69 Members who have signed up as part of the Out of Iraq 
Caucus. We have been meeting on a regular basis. We have had invited 
speakers and experts come to our caucus to talk about the war in Iraq, 
to talk about our image in the world as it relates to the war in Iraq, 
to talk about any number of subjects to help us try and guide this 
House and this Nation on this war. We think it is extremely important 
for the Members of Congress to be involved in this way because there 
are so many questions that are being raised by the American public 
about the war in Iraq.
  When we organized this caucus, we did not organize the caucus with 
the conclusion that we had to get out right now. We did not organize 
the caucus with the strategy to adopt an exit strategy or to try and 
force the administration to adopt an exit strategy. We did not organize 
the caucus around the idea that we should stay there for as long as it 
takes to train Iraqi soldiers and then exit.
  We simply organized the Out of Iraq Caucus because we all felt that 
we must get out of Iraq, and we did not try to say when. We did not 
even try to say how. We wanted to bring together the kind of discussion 
that would lead us to adopting the right kind of strategy, to provide 
some leadership to the Congress of the United States and to this 
administration.
  While we have been doing that, over 2,032 U.S. soldiers died while 
serving in Iraq as of November 2. In the month of October, 93 United 
States soldiers died in Iraq. October was the fourth deadliest month 
for U.S. soldiers since the war began on March 29, 2003, and the 
deadliest since January when 106 U.S. soldiers died. The second most 
violent month was November 2004, when Americans battled Sunni Arab 
rebels in Fallujah. The third most violent month was in April 2004, 
when U.S. soldiers fought militiamen loyal to the Shiite cleric in 
Najaf. More than 15,353 U.S. soldiers have been injured while serving 
in Iraq, and we are told there are over 404 amputees.
  The administration has allocated about $357 billion for military 
operations, reconstruction, embassy costs, and various foreign aid 
programs in Iraq and Afghanistan since the September 11 attacks. Of 
that $357 billion, $251 billion of that total has been for Iraq and 
about $82 billion for Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, we are told, despite these casualties, despite these 
amputees, despite what appears to be our inability to get a handle on 
the insurgents and all of these roadside bombings, we are told that we 
are winning this war. As a matter of fact, the President rolled out May 
1, 2003, on an aircraft carrier all decked out in the proper dress to 
accompany his speech and said ``mission accomplished.''
  The American public has trusted that this administration knew what it 
was doing. They gave the administration the benefit of the doubt, even 
when Mr. Rumsfeld was being urged by people much more expert than he 
that we did not have enough troops on the ground in order to win the 
war. He insisted that he knew better what he was doing. He did not 
increase those numbers. The American public sees now that he did not 
know what he was talking about.
  The American public has stayed with this administration despite the 
fact that the President said that we were going to get enough money 
from the oil wells in Iraq to take care of rebuilding the 
infrastructure. That has not happened. The insurgents continue to blow 
up the oil wells. We have gotten no money from the oil in Iraq.
  The American people continue to try and trust the President of the 
United States, but the lack of getting a handle on these insurgents and 
the killing of our soldiers, the lack of getting any profits from the 
oil wells, the lack of being in control and getting a handle on what is 
going on in Iraq is causing

[[Page 24498]]

the American people to move away from support for the President of the 
United States and this war.
  At first, the American public was saying, no, we do not like the way 
this administration has handled this war, but we think perhaps the 
President may be right. Perhaps we need to stay there until we have 
trained enough Iraqi soldiers to wind out of the war.
  But that does not appear to be happening. As a matter of fact, we 
keep getting muddled information about how many Iraqi soldiers have 
been trained. We have been told numbers that we cannot confirm. We have 
been told that it is just a matter of time before we will have trained 
enough of these soldiers to whom we can turn over the operations.
  We have had all of these different military operations. We started 
out with Operation Iraqi Freedom, which was the name of the entire 
Iraqi effort that began in March of 2003. At its height, we had over 
300,000 troops in the region. Currently, we have about 139,000 U.S. 
soldiers in Iraq.
  We had Strike and Awe, which described the initial military action in 
the opening hours and days of the war. We have had Operation River 
Gate, which took place in the al Anbar Province near the Syrian border. 
American forces were trying to retake three towns from al Qaeda 
insurgents.

                              {time}  2130

  Some 2,500 U.S. troops along with Iraqi forces participated in 
Operation River Gate.
  Then we had Operation Iron Fist, similar to Operation River Gate, 
which occurred shortly before Operation River Gate.
  Then we had Operation Lightning launched in early May 2005, to break 
the insurgency. Approximately 40,000 Iraqi troops and 10,000 U.S. 
soldiers were deployed in and around Baghdad.
  Then we had Operation Matador. Operation Matador was launched in the 
first weeks of May 2005, after U.S. intelligence showed insurgents had 
moved into the northern Jazirah Desert after the losses in the cities 
of Fallujah and Ramadi.
  Operation Spear began on June 17, 2005, with 1,000 Marines and Iraqi 
soldiers in western Iraq to hunt for insurgents and foreign fighters. 
Operation Spear took place in the Anbar province. The operation came 
one day after Air Force Brigadier General Don Alston called the Syrian 
border the worst problem in stemming the influx of foreign fighters to 
Iraq. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to 
tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq. Yet we do not 
know whether or not the insurgents are really the Sunnis and al Qaeda 
inside Baghdad, inside Iraq, or really all of the insurgents coming 
from Syria.
  Operation Dagger. About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops, backed 
by fighter jets and tanks, launched a second offensive Saturday against 
insurgents operating in restive Anbar province. That was called 
Operation Dagger. Operation Dagger aims to uncover insurgent training 
camps and weapons caches in the southern part of the Lake Tharthar area 
in central Iraq, 85 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.
  And now, Operation Sword. Operation Sword included about 1,000 U.S. 
Marine soldiers and sailors from Regimental Combat Team-2, as well as 
about 100 Iraqi soldiers. It was the fifth operation launched in late 
spring, early summer 2005, designed to pressure insurgents in the 
country's expansive and restive Anbar province west of Baghdad.
  We are not in control of what is happening with this war that we 
launched because there were supposedly weapons of mass destruction. We 
are losing our soldiers. We are not getting Iraqi soldiers trained. The 
President of the United States said we may be there for the next 10 
years.
  The American people have had enough. I believe that those of us who 
are working in the Out of Iraq Caucus have had enough. It is time for 
us to review what we are doing. It is time for us to call on this 
President to tell the American people when and how we are going to get 
out, and we cannot accept that we will be there until hell freezes over 
if that is what it takes.
  We cannot accept that all of these operations have not worked. We 
cannot accept that we cannot find a way to stop these roadside 
bombings. We cannot accept that we are bleeding the American taxpayer 
dollars with over $1 billion a week being spent in Iraq and over $1 
billion a month being spent in Afghanistan. So we come here tonight to 
challenge the President and this administration.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to my colleagues who have come here 
to discuss this very, very serious matter with us. First, my good 
friend and colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Waters) for her leadership in the Out of Iraq Caucus 
and for her leadership in the effort to achieve peace and to achieve a 
more rational U.S. foreign policy and to do the right thing on behalf 
of our country.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that the war in Iraq was wrong. I believe it 
was a mistake. This was a war based on fiction. There were no weapons 
of mass destruction. There were no ties to al Qaeda. There were no 
nuclear weapons. There was no imminent threat to the United States. And 
with the acquiescence of this Congress, I am sad to say this country 
rushed into a war, a war that has turned out to be a violent quagmire, 
a war with no end.
  Mr. Speaker, we have already spent some $300 billion on this war in 
Iraq. There is no end in sight. We are told that if we are there for 
another 2 years that the figure will be up to $1 trillion.
  Now, think about it. What could we do with hundreds of billions of 
dollars? We could reduce our deficit and reduce the debt. We could 
actually do something very important in helping to insure some of the 
millions of Americans who do not have health insurance in this country. 
We could help to rebuild our schools and provide a first-class 
education to every single young person in this country. We could 
rebuild our infrastructure. Or we can put it toward helping our 
veterans who have fought in the wars over the years, who have given so 
much of themselves, and who are sick and tired of getting nickled and 
dimed by this Congress with budgets that underfund the veterans' 
affairs every single year.
  Mr. Speaker, I personally believe that the policy that we should 
pursue is one that requires the United States to end our involvement in 
Iraq. I have legislation that I have introduced that requires an end to 
the war in Iraq now, not 6 months from now, not a year from now, not at 
some date to be determined by the President. We have given him his 
chance, and he has come back and said that he just wants to stay there 
for the next decade. He does not seem to be mindful of the fact that 
everything that he said about this war has turned out to be false.
  I want this war ended now. I think the majority of people in this 
country want this war ended now. They realize that this huge U.S. 
presence in Iraq right now is not calming the violence. They realize 
that we are now a major part of the problem.
  There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before we got in Iraq. It is not just 
al Qaeda. It is other terrorist organizations, quite frankly, that are 
now sticking their nose in Iraq, trying to get at the United States. It 
is not about the future of Iraq. It is about the United States of 
America.
  Now I believe that the time has come for the President to authorize 
an orderly and safe withdrawal of our troops. The legislation that I 
have introduced calls for that, right now. If it passes today, it would 
begin today. The legislation says that we can support all efforts to 
make sure that our troops have a safe and orderly withdrawal from Iraq. 
It says that we can support reconstruction efforts in Iraq, which I 
think is important. We helped destroy that country. We need to help 
rebuild that country. It says that we can support international forces 
as transitional security in Iraq. If other countries want to provide a 
transitional security force, we should be able to support that. 
Hopefully, some of the neighboring Arab countries will want

[[Page 24499]]

to do that. We should be able to support a U.N. force or a NATO force 
going in.
  But the bottom line is, I think it is clear to anybody who has been 
watching this, that the time has come to demand that no more U.S. 
forces be in Iraq. It is time to end this war.
  Mr. Speaker, now I know that there are some, and I hear it a lot, 
every time those of us try to raise some questions and try to raise 
some dissent, there are those who say, well, you should not do that. It 
is somehow unpatriotic. You are not supporting our troops. You are not 
supporting our country. You are giving comfort to the enemy. I hear 
that all the time when I speak about my opinions on Iraq or when I hear 
others speak in ways that dissent from this current policy. Well, 
nothing could be farther from the truth.
  Let me tell you, it takes absolutely no courage at all for anybody in 
this House or in the United States Senate or in this administration to 
wave the American flag and say, stay the course and send more troops. 
It takes no courage at all. Because it is not us whose lives are on the 
line and, with very few exceptions, it is not our children whose lives 
are on the line. Over 2,000 Americans have lost their lives in a 
conflict that the President of the United States said would be a 
relatively short conflict that would be easily manageable and that 
would not entail these casualties. He was wrong. Two thousand Americans 
have now died, over 2,000 Americans. That is not counting the tens of 
thousands of innocent Iraqis who have lost their lives.
  The President and his administration was wrong on this. We were not 
told the truth. I sat through all of those classified briefings with 
the Secretary of State, with the Secretary of Defense, with all of the 
intelligence agencies that they brought up here to tell us about what 
this war would be if we got into it, and everything they said was 
wrong.
  Now, one of two things explains that fact. One, either our 
intelligence agencies are just so incompetent and so dumb that they got 
everything wrong; or, two, that this intelligence was exaggerated. Now, 
I do not believe that our intelligence agencies are dumb. I do not 
believe our intelligence agencies could get anything that wrong. We 
spend billions of dollars each year in supporting our intelligence 
agencies. I do not think, I do not believe that anybody believes that 
they got it that wrong.
  What I think most people believe is that the intelligence that was 
presented to the Congress and to the United States people was the 
intelligence that this administration thought fit their argument, 
complemented their argument. It was not a balanced picture. It was what 
they wanted to present; and, as a result, there was a rush to war.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to figure out a way now as to how to get out of 
this. It is imperative that we get out of this now. I have been to 
three funerals in the last few months in my own district of young men 
who have lost their lives in this conflict. I have seen their families 
grieve, their friends grieve. I do not want to see any more families 
have to go through that. I want this administration to come clean on 
what the facts are, on what their plans on, and also come clean on the 
intelligence leading into this war.
  I want to say one thing about the Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. 
I will tell you, I was never more proud of him than I was yesterday 
when he finally stood up and showed the commitment and showed the spine 
to ask the tough questions that people all over this country, 
Republican and Democrat alike, have been asking, and that is, what was 
the intelligence that brought us into this war? Was it exaggerated? How 
was it manipulated? How could we have gotten it so wrong?
  I want to tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I think Democrats and 
Republicans alike believe, I am not saying in this Chamber, but I am 
saying throughout the country, believe that if, in fact, there are 
people in this administration who intentionally and deliberately 
exaggerated intelligence and manipulated intelligence to get us into 
this war, then those people should be fired and fired now.
  What you saw was Scooter Libby's indictment is just the tip of the 
iceberg. Quite frankly, the President should fire Karl Rove now. He 
lied to the President of the United States. He lied to the American 
people. He told the President, along with Mr. Libby, that they had no 
knowledge of who leaked Valerie Plame's identity to the press. We now 
know that that is a lie. And the fact that this President sees no 
problem with keeping his top aide on after this man lied about 
something so serious, quite frankly, is very disturbing to this Member 
of Congress.
  These are serious matters. War is a big deal. This is not something 
to be taken lightly. The great English conservative Edmund Burke once 
said, ``A conscientious man would be cautious in how he dealt with 
blood.'' This administration claims to be conservative. Well, they 
should heed Edmund Burke's words. They have been too casual with how 
they have dealt with blood. They have been too casual with how they 
have deployed our troops overseas.
  And the indifference that we see each and every day at press 
briefings by White House spokespeople, by the President; you never hear 
from the Vice President, so I cannot really say much about him. But 
this kind of casual attitude that everything is just great. Let us just 
stay the course. We are doing the right thing. It takes my breath away. 
I do not know if it is that they do not watch TV or they do not read 
the newspapers or they do not talk to those who are on the ground in 
Iraq or those families who have lost loved ones, but the fact of the 
matter is this is a serious matter.
  I think the only way that we are going to see a change in course is 
for Members of Congress to organize, like we are doing here in this Out 
of Iraq Caucus, for people across this country to join in protest, to 
join in dissent, to start writing their Members of Congress and saying, 
we demand that you end this war and end it now. That is the only way we 
are going to see an end to this war. Because I am convinced, watching 
this administration in action, that nothing will change.
  Sadly, I am convinced, by watching the leadership of this Congress 
and how they have behaved during these last few years of this war, with 
this indifference, with this kind of cover-up mentality, to not 
question the administration, to not hold them accountable for anything, 
to not do our job with proper oversight, I am convinced that unless 
Members of Congress are pressured by their constituents, then we will 
not act here as well.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying that I love this country 
more than anything, and nothing disturbs me more than to see us 
involved in a war that we have no business being in. Nothing disturbs 
me more than to see the loss of innocent lives that we see going on 
each and every day.
  I think we are better. I think we can do better. You know, great 
nations sometimes misstep. Sometimes great nations make mistakes. It is 
up to great nations to fix those mistakes. We have made a mistake in 
Iraq. This is not about whether we honor our troops or not. I honor our 
troops. I want to do more for our troops.
  I wish the people on the other side of the aisle would join us in 
demanding more money for our veterans. I am worried about all of those 
men and women coming back from Iraq with post-traumatic stress 
syndrome. I am worried that they are not going to get the health care 
they deserve.
  I am worried that their families are not getting the benefits that 
they need and that they deserve. I am worried about people coming back 
to no jobs. So this is not about our commitment to our troops. We are 
committed to our troops. We honor them. We are in awe of their service. 
They have done what their country has asked.
  This is about whether this policy is right or whether this policy is 
wrong. And if you believe, as many of us do, that this policy is wrong, 
then you need to stand up and you need to be

[[Page 24500]]

counted, and you need to demand that this policy change and change now.
  It is not patriotic to remain silent in the face of policies that you 
object to. That is not patriotism. That is cowardice. And we need to 
stand up, those of us who believe that this war is wrong, and I know 
that there are many who are silent right now who believe as we do that 
this war was wrong. They need to stand up and join with us.
  Enough is enough. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) put it 
eloquently and succinctly. Enough is enough. This war needs to come to 
an end. Not one more dollar, not one more death. This is the time to do 
it.
  We are trying, with this caucus, to energize people on both sides of 
the aisle, this is not a partisan issue, to come together and demand 
that we change our policy. Our country is so much better. We are so 
much better than this. We stand for so much more than what is on 
display in Iraq.
  And I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the White House listens to those of us 
in the United States Congress. Our numbers are growing each and every 
day who disagree with this war. And I hope they are watching these 
public opinion polls and listening to people all across this land who 
are saying they do not want any more war, they do not want any more 
people to die.
  They are tired of being engaged in a war that is dragging our good 
name into the mud. This is not America. We are so much better.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to listen to what we are saying 
tonight, to join with us and hopefully help put this country on a 
better course. With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Waters).
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. McGovern) for his eloquent and very thorough evaluation and 
assessment of what is happening in Iraq. He has been an absolute 
stalwart in trying to help bring this Congress to its senses and this 
administration. And I am so pleased that he was here this evening to 
further share with the American public our very, very deep concerns and 
our very deep feelings.
  The gentleman's call for an end to this war, I think, is right on 
target. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey) to further discuss not only her long-time 
involvement with trying to help frame a direction for this Nation, her 
long-time commitment to challenging this administration, about the way 
that it went into this war, and what has been happening since we have 
been in this war, all the work that she has done, the many nights that 
she has been on the floor, the resolution that she did so well on with 
this Congress.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Out of Iraq 
Caucus, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), in bringing all 
of the voices together in the Congress, because we all have a lot to 
say. And we are all getting to the same conclusion, the conclusion that 
I reached a couple of years ago, actually. We do not need to be in 
Iraq. We are making a mistake. It is a faux war, and we need to bring 
our troops home now.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to share a quote: ``Victory means exit strategy, 
and it is important for the President to explain to us what that exit 
strategy is.'' Those words were not spoken by a Member of Congress, not 
by a prominent opponent of the Iraq war. They were not even spoken by 
this President about this war.
  Those words were spoken in April 1999 about President Clinton's 
military campaign in Kosovo, and they were spoken by a Republican 
Governor named George W. Bush. But what a difference 6\1/2\ years 
makes. It is precisely an exit strategy that is missing from our Iraq 
policy.
  With over 2,000 of our citizens dead, $1 billion of tax dollars being 
spent in Iraq every week, the American people have a right to some 
answers to some important questions like, what exactly defines victory? 
What are the benchmarks of success? What is the long-term plan? What 
does the end game look like? These are the questions that my leader of 
the Iraq Caucus has been asking about tonight.
  We are paying for this war in blood and money. My home district lost 
a 23-year-old soldier less than a month ago. Why does the President 
insult us with empty platitudes about staying the course and staying in 
Iraq as long as it takes?
  Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of traveling to Iraq 1 month ago. I 
went with a few of my colleagues here in the House. The most rewarding, 
the most enlightening part of the trip was simply having dinner and 
talking with the enlisted men and women, particularly those from my 
district, California's 6th Congressional District. It is Marin and 
Sonoma counties just north of the Golden Gate Bridge across the bridge 
from San Francisco.
  These troops are online over there, believe me. They know I am 
against this war. They knew I was. They looked me up before I got 
there. And they immediately asked me, and they had every right to, 
Congresswoman, why are you here? You are against this war. My answer 
was straight. My answer was true. And my answer they believed. Yes, 
indeed, I told them, I am against this war. I have been against this 
war from the very beginning.
  But I want you to know that I support the troops. I have been working 
within this Congress to make sure that you have the equipment you need 
to make sure that you have the health care over there, the best you can 
have; and when you get home, that you will have the benefits that we 
have promised you.
  But in all of that, I remain against this war because I want you to 
come home and I want you to be home with your families. I want you to 
be alive. I want you to be mentally whole, and I also want you to be 
physically whole.
  Mr. Speaker, these young people are the very best America has to 
offer. They are brave. They are intelligent. They are loyal. They are 
loyal to their country, to their mission, and to each other. They are 
profoundly committed to this mission, even those who told me privately 
that they do not support the war or the policy that underlies it.
  They are genuine heroes whose courage and resolve is greater than our 
accolades can begin to convey. We truly have the most capable military 
the world has ever known. So what is the problem? The problem is that 
we do not have leaders in Washington worthy of these fine soldiers. Our 
troops have been failed, failed by their civilian superiors who sent 
them to Iraq on false pretenses, on a poorly defined mission without 
all of the tools they needed, and without a plan to get them out of 
there. If the President will not lead to bring our troops home, then we 
will.
  And that is what the Out of Iraq Caucus is all about. Last month we 
assembled a group of Middle East experts and military strategists to 
explore viable and compassionate exit strategies because the American 
people deserve better than the poor planning that has characterized 
every single phase of this war.
  The extraordinary men and women who I met in Iraq most certainly 
deserve better. They deserve leaders as courageous and honorable as 
they are in return for their unfailing loyalty. They deserve basic 
competence and integrity. I have some suggestions of what the President 
should be doing next in order to bring our troops home immediately.
  Part of what he must do is eat crow. He has to apologize to the rest 
of the international world for going into Iraq in the first place and 
trying to bring them into the war with him.
  He must become a diplomat instead of a warrior because the way he is 
doing it now is not working. He also must reach out to the global 
world. He must ask worldwide for assistance to help Iraq return their 
country to their people.
  He also must work internationally with the United Nations, with NATO, 
with the experts who have been through this before in South Africa and 
in Ireland. He must work with them, help them, give them the room to 
help the Iraqis in their reconstruction and reconciliation. We do not 
know how to do it, obviously. We only know how to cause a war. We need 
to work now on how to end that war and how not to totally leave the 
Iraqi people in a quagmire.

[[Page 24501]]

  But speaking of quagmires, that is what our President has us in. He 
has us in a corner. It is a lose-lose situation. Actually, if we stay 
in Iraq, our troops will continue to be killed and maimed and innocent 
Iraqi civilians will lose their homes and their lives and their 
families.
  If we leave, indeed we will leave Iraq in a bad way. It will be a 
bloody mess until they can figure out how to get their country back 
together. But we can help them put it back together, not militarily, 
but with a non-militaristic presence. Why we are not doing that is 
beyond me. That is how we should have been doing it in the first place.
  So what I would like to suggest is that our President, I do not want 
to suggest it, what I would like to demand is that the President of the 
United States put together a plan to bring our troops home and to bring 
them home immediately.
  I yield to the gentlewoman.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Woolsey) for her commitment, for her hard work, and for her sincere 
desire to provide leadership for this Congress to bring our troops 
home.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. Speaker, you have heard from two of our hardest workers this 
evening about the war in Iraq. You have heard their assessments. You 
have listened to their advice.
  I think it is important for us all to understand that not only have 
we gone into this war under false pretenses, having the American people 
believe that there were weapons of mass destruction when, in fact, 
there are no weapons of mass destruction. We have gone into this war 
with this administration making the American people believe that 
somehow Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks when that 
certainly is not true. And al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden who have been 
determined to be responsible are still not contained, have not been 
apprehended.
  The idea that somehow we must stay in Iraq because it is going to 
make us safer is the kind of argument that the American people just 
will not accept any more. As a matter of fact, I think the American 
people understand we are less safe because we are in Iraq. We are less 
safe because we have created a breeding ground for the training and 
development of these insurgents. We are less safe.
  While the President talks about homeland security, it takes but a 
natural disaster to help Americans know that really we do not have a 
handle on homeland security at all. If, in fact, we can witness what 
happened to us as a result of Katrina, if we understand that not only 
were we not able to handle a disaster despite the fact we have this 
huge bureaucracy of homeland security under FEMA, and with all of that 
people were left stranded without food, without water, still we do not 
have a handle on how to get those people into temporary housing, let 
alone permanent housing.
  So people have to be suspicious about what would happen to us in the 
event of a terrorist attack, and people have to wonder why are we 
putting all of this money and all of this effort into Iraq when the 
folks who were responsible for 9/11 still have not been apprehended.
  People have to wonder what is it about this relationship with Saudi 
Arabia, when we know that the perpetrators of 9/11 were from Saudi 
Arabia, trained in the madrassas of our so-called friends, trained by 
the royal family's money that helped them to learn to hate the United 
States of America, yet we wrap our arms around them, we call them our 
friends. And after the 9/11 attack we went to their aid, and the 
members of that royal family that was in the United States of America, 
we picked them up one by one. We had airplanes dispatched across this 
country. We put them on those airplanes when Americans could not get on 
airplanes. When airplanes were grounded, when the Vice President of the 
United States could not get an airplane, we picked up the Saudis, we 
put them on the airplanes. We protected them, and we got them out of 
here.
  We did not know whether or not they were tied to those that were 
responsible to 9/11. We did not understand how the funding of some of 
the so-called nonprofit operations were really funds that were going 
into terrorist operations. We did not do an investigation. We did 
nothing but pick them up, protect them, and send them on their way. And 
we talk about homeland security. Give me a break.
  We cannot trust that this administration can secure the homeland and 
certainly we are spending the taxpayers dollars, billions of dollars, 
billions of dollars in Iraq when perhaps we do need that money in our 
ports. We need those monies in our airports. We need those monies with 
helping to fund the first responders.
  I have been holding emergency preparedness town halls all over my 
district. What do the first responders tell us? They do not have enough 
money. They do not have enough resources. They do not have the 
communication systems by which in the event of an attack that the 
various first responders can communicate with each other just as they 
did not have it in New Orleans.
  So this effort that has been put forth by this administration is not 
a good one. Not only did they not plan well for the war, they never had 
an exit strategy going in. They never knew how they were going to get 
out. The headiness of Mr. Rumsfeld with his shock and awe campaign that 
led people to believe that somehow we were going to bomb people into 
submission, make people think that somehow we were protecting them from 
terrorism, that we were making this country safer, somehow because of 
the might of the bombs and the sophisticated artillery that somehow we 
were going to make Americans believe everything was all right.
  At the moment the President declared ``mission accomplished,'' the 
insurgents said, now let the war begin. And, guess what? They do not 
have the sophisticated technology that we have. They do not have the 
resources that we have. But you know what? They are wreaking havoc on 
us and our soldiers. They are killing our young people.
  As it was said by some of my colleagues, it is all right to say we 
will be there for as long as it takes. But whose children are we 
talking about? Whose young people are we sending into war, a timeless 
war, when we cannot tell the American people how we are going to get 
out of it, where we never had a plan to get out of it? Whose children 
are dying?
  The American people are fed up with this war. They have trusted this 
President and this administration long enough. Mr. President, it is 
time to bring our soldiers home. It is time to get out of Iraq.
  The President consistently tells the American people that we will 
stand down when the Iraqis are ready to stand up. However, there is 
little evidence that the Iraqis are ready to take over their security 
responsibilities.
  In July, the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), told us that he believed there 
were only about 5,000 trained Iraqis, even though the Bush 
administration claims to have trained 170,000.
  General John P. Abizaid, who leads the U.S. Central Command, told the 
Senate Armed Services Committee in September that a single Iraqi 
battalion was at level one combat readiness, meaning it was capable of 
taking the lead in combat without support from coalition forces.
  During the same testimony, General George W. Casey, Jr., who oversees 
U.S. forces in Iraq, said the number of level one battalions had 
dropped from three to one since June.
  We cannot even get the right information, and that is why the Senate 
Democrats will take the action that they took. They had to go into 
closed session. They had to confront the Republicans in the Senate 
about the so-called investigations, about going on to phase two, to try 
and get information about what happened with our intelligence 
community. What did we know and when did we know it and what did we do 
about it? You cannot hide this information forever.

[[Page 24502]]

  The tactics of this administration, misleading, not giving out all of 
the information, distorting information, will come to an end; and the 
retaliation against those who speak out is being unveiled now in a way 
that is causing the indictments and more to come.
  The fact of the matter is this administration attempted to punish 
Ambassador Wilson by outing his wife, Valerie Plame. These tactics of 
distortion, intimidation, misleading information, rolling out 
Republican relations campaigns, all of this must come to an end. 
Americans cannot stand to be misdirected. Americans can stand no longer 
to be told mistruths. Americans can no longer take from their President 
and this administration that kind of treatment.
  So we stand here tonight to say again and again, enough is enough. We 
have got to bring an end to this war. We have got to redirect our 
resources back to the people of this Nation. The war in Iraq has cost 
us almost $3 billion so far. The funding would provide much-needed 
resources for Americans here at home for the money that we are sending 
in Iraq.
  Let me just give you some idea what could have been provided: Health 
care for 46,458,000,805 people. Health care could have been provided 
for the amount of money that we are spending. 3,545,016,000 elementary 
schoolteachers could have been paid for. 27,93,000,473 Head Start 
places for children. 120,351,991,000 children's health care could have 
been paid for. We could have built 1,841,000,833 affordable housing 
units. We could have built another 24,000,072 new elementary schools. 
On and on. 39,000,665,748 scholarships for university students. 
4,000,000,699 public safety officers or 3,204,000, 265 port container 
inspectors. I could go on and on.
  The American people deserve to have their tax dollars spent not only 
to protect and secure us but to provide universal comprehensive health 
care. It is unconscionable to talk about we are going to be confronted 
with a pandemic but we do not have enough medicine. We do not have 
enough resources. We do not have enough hospitals. We do not know how 
we are going to take care of people in the event of a pandemic. It is 
unconscionable to talk about how in the event of a pandemic so many 
people are going to be at risk, to anticipate that so many people are 
going to die.
  It is unconscionable to talk about you cannot pay for Katrina or Rita 
or any of these disasters that are confronting us unless we go back 
into the budget and reconcile and cut the budget deeper and deeper and 
deeper and do all of this while we continue to give a tax break to the 
richest people in America.
  We are sick and tired of these policies that do not make good sense. 
We are sick and tired of the direction that is keeping us at war while 
we are hurting and undermining the people of this Nation. We are sick 
and tired of public policy that does not make good sense.
  I am pleased that my colleague said this evening at the beginning of 
their discussions, we support our soldiers. Do not forget it was really 
this side of the aisle who forced the issue of protective gear for our 
soldiers when we discovered that, with all of the talk from Mr. 
Rumsfeld about we had enough soldiers and they had everything they 
needed, and we discovered that they were over there with spit and glue, 
literally trying to build protection, literally trying to figure out 
ways by which to stop the bullets. It was this side of the aisle that 
forced getting more money.
  And we will continue to do that because we do respect, we do support 
our soldiers. We love them. That is why we want them home. We want them 
out of harm's way. We cannot tell them why they are there. We cannot 
tell them why they are losing their lives.
  Many of those young men and women went there because they are 
patriotic. They believed their President. They went there because they 
thought they were doing something good for their country, only to 
discover that they were misled, that there are no answers.
  Many of them went there because they were looking for a way out. They 
were looking for ways by which to provide for their families. They were 
jobless in America, in the rural communities, in the inner cities.
  We have not done right by our young men and women. We have not done 
right by them. We have neither provided them with the security and the 
protection that they need to serve in this war, nor have we respected 
their right to have the answers to the questions that they are raising.

                              {time}  2215

  I would like to at this time have a colloquy with my dear friend from 
California who has worked so hard on this issue.
  Do you believe that if we bring our soldiers home that we will be 
taking the kind of action that will not only bring resources back to 
this country that could be spent domestically, but in the final 
analysis, we are taking them out of harm's way because if they stay 
there there will be more and more deaths, and we still will not be able 
to contain what perhaps is going to be a civil war anyway between the 
Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds?
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Congresswoman totally, and 
the American people know that you are right in what you said. This 
Congress, this Pentagon, this administration will eventually catch up 
to the American people who know that we should not be in Iraq in the 
first place and that our staying there will not solve any problems. We 
will lose more troops. They will come home maimed or dead, and we will 
injure more innocent Iraqis and destroy their communities and their 
neighborhoods and their lives; and when we leave, whatever is going to 
happen will happen anyway. In the meantime, our troops will be losing.
  What I would like to ask is, if the President really believes that we 
are ending terrorism by being in Iraq, why in the world has he not 
found Osama bin Laden? Iraq was not an Islamic terrorist country until 
we went in, and now they are.
  I asked the commanders directly, first, who is the enemy? The answer 
was more than once, as a matter of fact, the insurgents are fighting 
the very presence of the United States in Iraq because we do appear as 
occupiers. When I asked the question who are the insurgents, they are 
not coming from across the border. The great majority of the insurgents 
are indeed local. They want us gone because they see us as occupiers.
  We are helping build local insurgents by our presence. Our presence 
needs to be there over time, but not in a militaristic way. Our 
presence needs to be to help the Iraqi people rebuild their 
infrastructure, their economic infrastructure and their physical 
infrastructure that we have so destroyed. If we want the end of 
terrorism, go after the guy that blew up our buildings in New York, go 
after Osama bin Laden.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentlewoman is absolutely 
correct. As a matter of fact, they do not even talk about Osama bin 
Laden anymore.
  I am absolutely outraged that we put money into Pakistan. We think we 
have a friend there, Musharraf; but we know that that border between 
Afghanistan and Pakistan is where we have al Qaeda, is where we have 
terrorists. We believe that is where Osama bin Laden is. I believe that 
he is being protected by those who we are trusting in Pakistan. I 
believe that we are not putting enough time and effort on that border 
where we have not only the terrorists and al Qaeda, but increasingly, 
the Taliban is rising again from the Afghanistan side of all of this.
  So we just have a misdirected administration who has messed up 
everything. They have created a crisis. Our young men and women are 
dying. We are spending American taxpayers' dollars. This money is going 
out of the window. We are not accomplishing anything. We are getting 
ripped off in more ways than one. Halliburton is making all of its 
money. They have been cheating us, and we have slapped them on the 
wrist, and we have let them go.
  We are sick and tired. Enough is enough, and I would like to say to 
the gentlewoman from California, if you have one last word in this 1 
minute or so, please.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, my last word is wake up, catch up with the

[[Page 24503]]

American people. Bring our troops home if you support them.

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