[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
              SMART SECURITY AND THE NONMILITARY APPROACH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, Pope John Paul II has passed away. I talk 
about him tonight because we can learn a lesson from the way he lived 
his life. I did not agree with a lot of what the Pope believed in, but 
I agree with the way he fought against that which he believed was worth 
fighting.
  When Pope John Paul II came into office, the Soviet Union was a 
dominant world power and communism was a dominant ideology. John Paul 
II, who grew up in Poland, knew firsthand the atrocities that were 
often committed in the name of communism. He fought against the evils 
of communism by speaking out and putting international pressures on 
countries like the Soviet Union, Hungary, and Poland. These countries 
understood the threat that they faced in this Pope, one strong-willed 
man, who knew firsthand the perils of the communist system. In 1989, 
the Soviet Union fell, partially as a result of the Pope's actions.
  Then, as now, the world faced a major conflict of ideologies. Instead 
of communism, the major threat to our generation is Islamic extremism 
perpetrated by radical groups like al Qaeda. And then, as now, the Pope 
believed that the proper response was to apply international pressure 
to alleviate a bad situation.
  But instead of applying international pressure and utilizing 
multilateral diplomacy to fight terrorism, the response by the Bush 
administration was to send 150,000 troops into Iraq to ``liberate'' the 
country. Liberate the country from what, exactly? One bad leader named 
Saddam Hussein? Make no mistake: the invasion of a country that never 
posed a threat to the United States, never harbored weapons of mass 
destruction, and never maintained links to groups like al Qaeda is the 
greatest misstep to occur during George W. Bush's Presidency.
  One of the saddest parts about the war in Iraq is the drastic toll it 
has taken on the people of the United States. This war has cost the 
lives of more than 1,500 American soldiers. It has caused nearly 12,000 
to be gravely wounded. The war has also killed tens of thousands of 
innocent Iraqi civilians.
  And the financial cost of the war has been no less burdensome. When 
the Senate approves the latest $81.4 billion supplemental spending 
bill, Congress will have appropriated over $200 billion for the war in 
Iraq in just over 2 years. With no end in sight, President Bush has 
even claimed that the thousands of troops will remain in the country 
for years to come, the total cost of the war could be as much as $800 
billion by the time we finish blundering in the Middle East. How many 
will be dead or wounded by the time this war is done?
  Despite the President's solemn promise to fight terrorism, the Bush 
administration has overwhelmingly concentrated America's resources on 
developing bigger and more expensive weapons at the expense of other 
more suitable security tools which will truly keep Americans safe. If 
our country has any hope of defeating terrorist groups like al Qaeda, 
we need to utilize the most important weapons in our arsenal, not 
bigger and more dangerous guns and bombs, but international diplomacy, 
nonmilitary security, and nonproliferation efforts.
  That is why I have developed a SMART Security Resolution for the 21st 
Century. SMART security is a sensible, multilateral American response 
to terrorism, and it is just what we need to secure America for the 
future. SMART security emphasizes the nonmilitary approach over the 
military approach, considering war as an option only when all other 
alternatives have been totally exhausted.
  If we went to war every time we had a problem with another country's 
leader, there would be nothing left of the United States. Imagine if we 
had bombed the Soviet Union in the 1970s during the Cold War. It would 
have been the start of World War III.
  It is time we left Iraq. This needs to be done sooner, not later; and 
it is time we started relying on the smarter approach. This is the only 
way to resolve the complex while, at the same time, keeping our men and 
women in the military safe. Let us support a smarter approach to the 
21st century, an approach that I call SMART security.

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