[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14306]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             VIOLENCE AND CORRUPTION IN IRAQI POLICE FORCE

  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, for months and months we have been hearing 
from the Bush administration that the training of Iraqi security forces 
is going as planned. America will stand down just as soon as Iraq 
stands up, they said. A milestone which we were assured was just around 
the corner.
  Well, now we know the truth. Not only can they not stand up; they can 
barely crawl. And when they do crawl, all too often they are fighting 
each other or U.S. troops.
  The Los Angeles Times published a shocking report over the weekend 
about the violence and corruption that is permeating the Iraqi police. 
According to the Times, we are talking about ``the rape of female 
prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, 
assassinations of police officers, and participation in insurgent 
bombings . . .
  ``Officers have beaten prisoners to death. They have been involved in 
kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports, 
and passed along vital information to insur-
gents . . . ''
  In one Baghdad neighborhood known as a militia stronghold, police 
tortured detainees with electricity and beatings.
  I hasten to add, Mr. Speaker, that the United States and its military 
have no moral authority to combat such gruesome tactics. Why? Because 
the right to torture prisoners of war, indeed, the exhortation to 
torture them, was the official policy of our government for several 
years.
  Of course, the minimum requirement of a functioning society in Iraq 
will be some kind of trustworthy law enforcement system. But with 
insurgents and militia groups having infiltrated the police, Iraqi 
citizens have absolutely no recourse, no legitimate authority committed 
to their safety and their security.
  Another recent article, this one from the Washington Post, tells of a 
Baghdad resident who dialed the Iraqi equivalent of 911 after a Shiite 
militia, called the Mahdi Army, firebombed a local mosque. The call 
went through to the ministry of interior, which is allied with the 
Shiia and its militias. The dispatcher told the man that he, the 
caller, was a terrorist, said the Mahdi Army was just doing its job, 
and hung up. How is that for freedom on the march?
  Mr. Speaker, rather than bringing stability and rule of law to Iraq, 
it has turned out that we have a chaotic killing field, a hot bed of 
terror over there. The only law that seems to apply is the law of the 
jungle. The streets are controlled by thugs and murderers. The Iraqi 
Government is impotent at best, complicit at worst. They are in a civil 
war.
  The least we can do is remove our soldiers from this inferno. 
Bringing the troops home will not be a panacea for Iraq, but it will 
get Americans out of harm's way while we help facilitate the long, 
arduous process of Iraqi reconstruction and reconciliation.
  Iraq cannot be put back together again as long as we persist with a 
military occupation. Every day that our soldiers are there makes it 
harder, not easier. Every day that the occupation continues, we move 
further away from, not closer to, the kind of democratic society 
President Bush says he wants in Iraq.
  Bring the troops home. It is the right thing to do for America, and 
it may be Iraq's only hope for peace and stability.

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