[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9418]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             SMART SECURITY

  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, the ink has hardly dried on the latest 
supplemental spending bill for military operations in Iraq, but that 
has not stopped top officials in the Pentagon from starting 
preparations for the next supplemental bill.
  It was reported yesterday that the Pentagon has begun laying the 
groundwork for the next supplemental requests which may come as early 
as this August. The Pentagon will likely request more than $25 billion 
more, but some in Congress have indicated that they will ask for as 
much as $50 billion more.
  The Pentagon which receives over $400 billion annually from the 
United States Treasury acts like 25 or 50 billion is a mere drop in the 
bucket. Likewise, when supplemental requests are doled out in these 
smaller, ha-ha smaller, $50 billion increments, many Members of 
Congress and much of the Nation have absolutely no concept of the true 
cost of the war in Iraq, which at the moment adds up to over $200 
billion. But when you think about the financial strain being felt at 
home like the fact that we are not fully funding the No Child Left 
Behind Act or that we are not paying for adequate health care for our 
returning veterans, it does not take long to realize that $50 billion 
more for Iraq takes a toll on the American people here at home.
  Mr. Speaker, why are we funding a war, especially one that was 
entered into on false pretenses, through repeated supplemental spending 
bills? This method of funding underscores both a fundamental lack of 
planning for the war in Iraq, as well as a hostile contempt for the 
financial strain on the citizens of the United States.
  If the President and his administration had a strategy to peacefully 
resolve this war in Iraq, they would submit to Congress a plan, a plan 
detailing the further U.S. military operations there. This plan would 
indicate how long they expect troops to remain in Iraq and at what 
levels and in what capacity, how much the war will cost, and exactly 
how they plan to finance this burdensome cost. This plan would define 
when and how we are planning to bring our troops home.
  Anything less than a comprehensive strategy is a slap in the face to 
all the hard-working American people in this country whose tax dollars 
are financing this misguided mission. Sadly, I think the real reason 
the administration has failed to provide such a strategy is because 
they apparently have no plan to end the war in Iraq. Americans have a 
right to know where their money is being spent. For instance, why did 
the Army recently award Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of 
Halliburton, with $72 million in bonuses for ``the company's excellent 
performance''?
  Perhaps the definition of excellence has changed since I attended 
school, because in my day excellence meant working hard and achieving 
positive results, not conning the American people out of millions, even 
billions, of dollars while failing to secure Iraq.
  And why have $9 billion in supplemental funds gone unaccounted for? 
How does $9 billion just vanish? Given the administration's poor track 
record for spending American taxpayers' money, why does our Congress 
continually fail to demand accountability for how the supplemental 
funds are being spent?
  Mr. Speaker, there must be a better way than this, because the 
current system is broken. That is why I have developed a SMART Security 
platform for the 21st century. SMART is a Sensible Multi-lateral 
American Response to Terrorism. SMART will help reinvigorate America's 
foreign policy by focusing our spending priorities on conflict 
prevention, international diplomacy, and multi-lateralism.
  Instead of Congress's current open check book policy we have for 
Iraq, SMART Security wisely invests U.S. dollars in development 
funding. It invests in peacekeeping and reconstruction, adequately 
funding these important programs because then that will go a long way 
towards ensuring long-term peace and stability in troubled countries 
and troubled regions.
  If we had invested in SMART Security in the first place, we would not 
have become embroiled in a war that has cost the lives of more than 
1,600 American soldiers and at least 24,000 Iraqi civilians. This 
shameful war has also permanently injured over 25,000 American soldiers 
whose lives will be changed forever. We must focus America's efforts on 
a smarter strategy for our national security instead of continuing our 
shameful policy of preemptive military combat.

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