[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18346-18354]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege and the 
honor of addressing you here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives.
  I was listening to the presentation by the 30-Something Group here 
over the last hour, and quite often it redirects the message that I 
intend to come down to this floor to discuss, and of course this 
evening is no different.
  Being a proud and committed member of the Republican Party, and when 
I hear continually the message, rubber-stamp Congress, rubber-stamp 
Congress come out over here, and in the same breath the question, the 
President wants to privatize Social Security.
  I don't know anybody that has advocated for the privatization of 
Social Security. I don't think you can find any seated Member of the 
Republican Congress or the President himself that has said, I want to 
privatize Social Security. So that is a scare tactic that is designed 
to spook people, but it surely is not something that is an objective 
revelation of the truth.

[[Page 18347]]

  The President did, though, invest significant capital in reform of 
Social Security. It was the centerpiece in his second inaugural 
address. And after his second inaugural address, with great optimism 
and enthusiasm, the President went out and invested month after month 
after month in an effort to reform a Social Security program that will 
ultimately collapse, reform it for, not for the senior citizens. There 
was nothing in his proposal for the people who were 55 years old and 
up. There is not a way that we can make the actuarial numbers change 
that.
  We keep our faith and keep our sacred covenant with the senior 
citizens. That is something that is clear throughout everybody in this 
Republican Conference and all the people that are involved in this 
policy that I know of: Keep the faith with the senior citizens.
  I represent perhaps the most senior congressional district in 
America. Iowa has the largest percentage of its population over the age 
of 85 of any of the States in the Union, and in the congressional 
district that I represent, the 32 counties in western Iowa, I have 10 
of the 12 most senior counties in Iowa. So I will argue that I 
represent a higher percentage of seniors perhaps than anyone else in 
the country. And yet they understand that we will keep our sacred 
covenant with the seniors. We will hold those benefits together.
  There was nothing proposed by the President, nothing introduced by 
any member of this Republican Conference that would have reduced by a 
single dime, one single benefit to any senior citizen.
  What was proposed was that a portion of young people's contributions 
to Social Security could go into a personal retirement account, a 
controlled account, the kind of an account that would be an approved 
account that would be the same thing as the Federal Retirement 
Investment Funds that many of us are part of, many Federal employees 
are a part of. In fact, all of them that have the ability to direct 
some of their funds into retirement do invest into that.
  It was a wise and a prudent proposal. It was something that looked 
downrange. We know that Social Security starts to go into the red in 
about 2016, 2017. There is $1.7 trillion in the Social Security trust 
fund. It is only a promise; they are only IOUs in a filing cabinet in 
Parkersburg, West Virginia. That money will have to be paid back out of 
the labor of our children someday.
  But the surplus growth stops in 2017 and it begins to decline until 
about 2042, where it is gone.

                              {time}  2145

  At that point, something has to happen. The President's looking 
downrange. A lot of us have looked downrange. We didn't get to change 
the Social Security program as much as we would have liked to, we 
didn't propose to for our senior citizens, because you simply cannot do 
that because there is not time to grow funds.
  So the proposal was for whom? Mr. Speaker, I will submit the proposal 
that the President burned up so much precious political capital on was 
for the 30-something group, and the 20-something group, and the teen-
something group, and the younger-than-teen-something group, and for all 
generations yet to be born in America to be able to own a part of their 
own future, to be able to invest that and to be able to count on the 
same type of returns we have guaranteed as a sacred covenant to our 
seniors. That is what that is about.
  And that is why it is so ironic that the 30-something group has 
rejected the very thing that is designed for their generation and 
mischaracterized it in a very cynical fashion and called it the 
privatization of Social Security. It is anything but. But it would be 
and it is still the best and only legitimate policy that has been 
offered before this Congress that can bring us out of almost certain 
bankruptcy of Social Security downrange, at a point where it will not 
be a factor to our senior citizens but for the 30-something group who 
have rejected it and decided to scare everyone in America for cynical 
political reasons.
  The statement was also made by the gentleman from Florida that the 
only party that has balanced the budget is the Democratic Party, and 
that was without a single Republican vote. How can a statement like 
that be passed off here on the floor and not be challenged? We know 
when the budget was balanced. It was balanced after and only after 
Republicans took the majority in the United States Congress. And that 
happened in 1994.
  I will say that the young people that came in here in this Congress 
and took over the majority in 1994 were committed, fiscally responsible 
people that came here to make a difference, and they did. They squeezed 
that budget down, Mr. Speaker. They challenged President Clinton, Mr. 
Speaker, and they took this thing down to the point where President 
Clinton refused to allow a continuing resolution that would have kept 
the government operating. The government was shut down not because 
Republicans spent too much money, Mr. Speaker, but because they hadn't 
spent enough money. And so the challenge laid. Government was shut 
down. Who would have to give in?
  Finally, Republicans said, okay, we will give you a little more 
money, Mr. President, if that is what it takes to keep the government 
running, to keep things open, to keep services going to needy people. 
We will keep the government running by giving you some more money. And 
in spite of that, they still balanced the budget. The Republican 
majority in this Congress balanced the budget in spite of President 
Clinton, not because of him. And it sure in the world was not without a 
single Republican vote. It was only with Republican votes.
  I guess I will say that it was with Republican leadership and 
Republican votes and perhaps some on the other side of the aisle did 
vote for that. They might make that argument, so I will just concede 
that point. But it surely wasn't Democrats balancing this, and it 
wasn't without a single Republican vote.
  Again, the allegation: A streamline of rubber stamping. Think about 
that statement. Mr. Speaker, a streamline of rubber stamping. This 
Republican Congress rubber stamping the President? If that had been the 
case, the 30-something group and the rest of America would have had 
Social Security reform. They would have had the kind of program that 
would have allowed the younger generations to take a portion of their 
contributions and invest them so that they could ensure their own 
financial security.
  If it had been a rubber stamp Congress, the President would have 
gotten what he wanted with Social Security reform, and I would have 
loved to have given it to him, because it was a good plan and a good 
proposal. But there wasn't a rubber stamp because there were enough 
Republicans that were, I will say, attacked relentlessly in their 
political campaigns by these kind of scare tactics that intimidated 
them to the point where they backed away from the Social Security 
reform, and we didn't quite have the 218 votes to do the thing that was 
best for America.
  No rubber stamp for the President, because this Congress does think 
for itself. It is 435 independent minds, and it is 230 or 231 
Republicans that absolutely come here with a mission in mind and they 
draw their own conclusions. They represent their districts and they 
represent the people in their districts and their carry their values 
here. We didn't have enough of a consensus. And I am frustrated. I 
would have liked to have rubber stamped that, because I had a chance to 
look at it and it was a good program, but we couldn't do it.
  Then, if this is a rubber stamp Congress, it seems to me that the 
President came before the American people on about January 6 of 2004 
and he made a speech that I will call the guest worker speech, and it 
was a major policy speech on what the President would have liked to 
have seen with immigration. Now, he did speak somewhat to enforcement, 
but I never got the thread in that speech that that was the message at 
all. He wanted a guest worker, temporary worker program. And he said 
without that, we can't enforce the

[[Page 18348]]

law on the rest of the criminals and the drug dealers that are coming 
across the border.
  I don't agree with him on that. I think we have to cut down on that 
huge 4 million annual number of illegals, that huge human haystack 
coming across the border, and we have to seal the border. We have taken 
steps to do that today. But if the President would have had a rubber 
stamp Congress, he would have long ago, when he asked for a guest 
worker program from this Congress, and he went out hustling across this 
country, speaking over and over again of the need for a guest worker 
and temporary worker program, he would have had that. He would have had 
it a long time ago, Mr. Speaker, if this had been a rubber stamp 
Congress.
  So there are three powerful things really wrong with the earlier 
statements. The rubber stamp itself is utterly wrong. We would have had 
Social Security if it had been a rubber stamp Congress and we would 
have had a guest worker program if it was a rubber stamp Congress. It 
was not. And those are probably two of the highest priorities the 
President has brought to this Congress in the 109th Congress, and 
neither one are law today or likely to become law any time soon.
  Let me say also that when I listened to the gentleman from Florida 
say we have to rewrite that cartoon, that is a caricature that comes 
out here on the floor of Congress on a regular basis. He says I also 
have some facts over here. Well, I don't think the word also is going 
to apply, because from what I saw, they were not facts. They were not 
even solid opinions.
  Then another statement that was made by the gentleman from Florida 
was, we don't have health care in America. We don't have health care in 
America? There is nobody in America that doesn't have health care, Mr. 
Speaker. Everyone has access to health care, including the 12 or 22 
million illegals that come into this country and show up at our 
emergency rooms. Everyone has access to health care. No one is denied 
emergency health care.
  Yes, there are people that are uninsured, and maybe more would be 
insured if someone was ever denied health care, but they are not, 
because we are a compassionate Nation and we take care of people in 
this country. We do not slam the door at any clinic or any hospital in 
the emergency room when people need help. We, at a minimum, stabilize 
them and, generally, we provide them with adequate care.
  As a matter of fact, it isn't just people in America that have access 
to health care. It is people that live on our borders who have access 
to free American health care. A case in point would be that several 
months ago I was down on the southern border at Sasabe, Arizona, and 
there at the port of entry station, as I walked in there to talk to 
some of the border patrol officers, and as I was speaking with the 
commander of that shift, we had only spoken for a minute or two when he 
got an emergency call and he said, excuse me, I have to take care of 
this. So he stepped away and made some calls, and when he came back he 
said, well, there has been a knifing on the other side of the border, 
just within a mile or so.
  There is a community on the south side there that comes right up to 
the border. And, yes, it is a smugglers' community, and it swells by 
about 2,000 during the day, and those 2,000 disappear at night and a 
new bunch comes back again. They smuggle drugs through in holes through 
our border. A couple points to the east and a couple points to the west 
of that port of entry that allows legal traffic through, and perhaps 
150 to 180 vehicles a day come through that port of entry at Sasabe, 
Arizona, and the estimate is that two crossings east and two crossings 
west, all four of them have more illegal traffic than there is legal 
traffic going through Sasabe.
  But there, when I stood in Sasabe, Arizona, there was the emergency 
call. The commander of that shift made the calls and found out that 
there had been a fight on the other side of the border, and likely was 
over a drug deal, and that there was a young male individual, say in 
his early 20s, who was knifed over there and the ambulance was coming 
from Mexico into the United States. So our border patrol agent, and 
this being a routine act that happens, as he told me perhaps four times 
a quarter, so 16 times a year. What are the odds I would be standing 
there when that happened? But he made the calls. Routine.
  He called two U.S. ambulances to come to that port of entry to meet 
the Mexican ambulance that was coming across the border, and he called 
the helicopter out of Tucson to come down and pick him up so they could 
life flight that person, of questionable character, who had been knifed 
in a fight that was likely over a drug conflict, life flight him up to 
the University Mercy Hospital at Tucson.
  Well, as I stood there, we talked about that, and the two ambulances 
he had called from the U.S. arrived, I would say shortly after the 
ambulance came in from Mexico. It was about 15 minutes for the 
ambulance from Mexico and perhaps 25 minutes for the ambulances to come 
from the U.S. to that port of entry. The Mexican ambulance was just 
simply a meat wagon. It looked like an ambulance on the outside. On the 
inside there was a gurney and a wounded young male that had been knifed 
underneath the rubs up into the liver. At the time they didn't know if 
he had a punctured lung or not, but he needed oxygen. The U.S. 
ambulances had oxygen; the Mexican ambulance did not. The Mexican 
ambulance had surgical gloves and maybe a touch or two of bandages here 
or there. No medicine, no oxygen, hardly anything to treat him with.
  So the U.S. ambulances came in, they put oxygen on him, stabilized 
his condition, and got him to where he had as much care as they could 
provide. Then the helicopter landed, they loaded him on it and took him 
off to Tucson to the Intensive Care Unit up there. This was a Mexican 
national, wounded in a fight in Mexico, brought into the United States 
for health care through the port of entry, and the word is ``paroled'' 
to the hospital in the United States for the purposes of saving his 
life.
  And the medical people did save his life. And I don't object to that. 
I don't think you can let people die. We do not let them die. We don't 
let them die outside the emergency rooms of our hospitals or our 
clinics. In fact, we bring people into the United States on a 
``parole'' to give them free health care in order to save their life 
because we are a humanitarian nation.
  The statement that we don't have health care in America couldn't be 
more false. Not only do we have health care for everyone in America, we 
have health care for people that are wounded outside of America and 
brought in here when we know there isn't a chance in the world they 
will pay a single dime for that.
  And, by the way, I went to the hospital the next day to visit that 
individual, and I looked at the accounting on the cost, and it was 
roughly $30,000 to fix him up and send him back to his home country. He 
was a rough looking individual, but he looked a lot better the next day 
than he did the night he was knifed in the liver.
  So health care for everybody in America. Health care for people 
outside of America. It is false to say people don't have health care.
  The picture of the handshake between Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki 
and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because they shook hands, somehow the 
implication is, or the 30-something group would have you believe that 
that is some kind of a bond between Iraq and Iran and now they are 
going to conspire against the United States. For what purpose?
  First, I would submit that I have shaken hands with a lot of people, 
and I generally smile when I do that. I would wonder if there is anyone 
that serves in this Congress, out of the 435, that hasn't at some point 
shaken hands with their opponent in their political race. Doesn't mean 
they are your enemy. They are not. They are just your opponent. But we 
shake hands with all kinds of people, and the implication cannot be 
drawn because that two national leaders shook hands that somehow they 
are conspiring. Not at all.

[[Page 18349]]

  What one can presume from that is that they have diplomatic 
relations, Mr. Speaker. And those diplomatic relations, then, can turn 
into something good rather than something bad. From 1980 until 1988, 
the Iranians and the Iraqis fought each other, and over a million 
people were killed in that conflict. I don't think anyone in the world 
wants to see that again. I am glad they are shaking hands. I don't 
expect they are conspiring. In fact, I don't think so because I 
listened to the speech that was given here on the floor of this 
Congress by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
  And the statement was made by the gentleman from Florida that the 
Prime Minister said bad things about Israel here on this floor. So I 
took the trouble to download the speech and read every single word in 
this and looked for any reference to Israel whatsoever, good or bad.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. Speaker, I am going to include this for the Record and challenge 
anyone in America to find a reference to Israel in this speech by Prime 
Minister Maliki. If they can find some oblique reference, I would be 
very interested in what he might have said that could be interpreted by 
the gentleman from Florida as being a bad thing about Israel.
  As I read through the speech, I found some interesting statements 
that should be brought up, rebuttals to the remarks made as the picture 
was held up here tonight.
  One of the statements by Prime Minister Maliki was, speaking of 
September 11, ``Your loss on that day was a loss of all mankind, and 
our loss today is a loss for all free people.''
  He continued, ``And wherever humankind suffers a loss at the hands of 
terrorists, it is a loss of all humanity.'' We are bound in this 
together.
  He continued, ``It is your duty and our duty to defeat this terror. 
Iraq is the front line in this struggle, and history will prove that 
the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain. Iraqis are 
your allies in the war on terror.''
  Do you think Admadinejad might have downloaded the speech? He has to 
be aware of this because this speech was as public as anything that the 
Prime Minister of Iraq has ever done. I am proud of the words he spoke 
here, and he could feel that he meant it.
  He spoke about, history will record the bravery and the humanity, but 
he said the fate of your country and ours is tied. The fate of Iraq and 
that of the United States is tied.
  ``Should democracy be allowed to fail in Iraq and terror permitted to 
triumph, then the war on terror will never be won elsewhere.''
  Mr. Speaker, this statement, made by Prime Minister Maliki here on 
the floor of this Congress not that long ago, July 26, 2006, is a 
seminal statement of this global war on terror and the seminal 
statement of the political campaigns that are going on between now and 
November 7, because the American people need to understand what happens 
if we don't persevere and ultimately succeed with a free country in 
Iraq.
  Prime Minister Maliki's statement: The fate of our country and yours 
is tied; should democracy be allowed to fail in Iraq and terror 
permitted to triumph, then the war on terror will never be won 
elsewhere. Think of the implications of that statement, ``The war on 
terror will never be won elsewhere,'' Mr. Speaker. If we should not 
persevere in Iraq, as many on this side of the aisle would like to do, 
sack up their bats and go home, that is the attitude I pick up, they 
are trying to convince us we cannot prevail.
  In fact, I happened to have read at least significant parts of von 
Clausewitz's book on war. He states that the object of war is to 
destroy the enemy's will and ability to conduct war. The enemy's will 
and ability to conduct war, I reduce that down into the Steve King 
vernacular, which is, a war is over when the losing side realizes they 
have lost.
  There is will and ability as stipulated by von Clausewitz in his book 
on war, and part of the object of war is to destroy their ability 
militarily to conduct war and to destroy their will. When they run out 
of men and material, it breaks their will down.
  But the strength of the will to conduct war is an integral part of 
the strength of a nation. If you can break down that will, it is 
cheaper to break down the will than the military. It is cheaper in 
lives, it is cheaper in treasure. So a very essential part of 
conducting war is to destroy the enemy's will to fight.
  Instead, we have people on the floor of this Congress, Mr. Speaker, 
that continually, every opportunity they get, come down here, and they 
must forget, at least that is the best characterization I can come up 
with, they must forget when they speak here, Mr. Speaker, their words 
are taken down and their words are reflected across through the 
Internet. Their words are transmitted around the world. And the leaders 
of our enemy, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, as well as their 
rank-and-file members, are watching on al-Jazeera. They are watching on 
the Internet. They are watching as these words unfold, and they are 
encouraged by the words of defeat that I hear on the other side of the 
aisle. In the end, it costs American lives.
  But Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq said the war on war will never be 
won elsewhere should we allow ourselves to fail in Iraq.
  Imagine if we deployed troops out of Iraq, pulled them back inside 
this shore, curled America into a fetal position and guarded every 
school, every baseball game and football game, every bus stop and 
hospital, and still watched the attacks come, especially on our women 
and children, turn the United States of America into one huge Israel. 
But no matter where terrorists attack us, we could never launch another 
foreign exposition because politically we could not get it out of this 
Congress because they would point and say, it is another Iraq. Look, we 
lost in Iraq.
  Some of the people on the other side of the aisle went to Iraq and 
surrendered before we liberated them. Now they are redefining what 
failure is and saying, I predicted it.
  We cannot let this country fail, Mr. Speaker. We have a destiny that 
we need to fulfill and that destiny promotes freedom throughout the 
globe and throughout the ages.
  Maliki said in his speech, Iraqis have tasted freedom and we will 
defend it absolutely. He was interrupted with thunderous applause for 
that statement. And he reached out to us and let us know that it is 
radical Islam, not Islam, that is our enemy. He gave us a line from the 
Koran. He said, ``God says in the Koran'', notice he referenced God, 
``surely we have honored all children of Adam.'' The brotherhood of man 
and woman is tied together in the reference to the Koran made by Prime 
Minister Maliki.
  He said, ``I believe these human rights are not an artifact, a 
construct reserved for the few. They are a divine entitlement for 
all.''
  What an American vision. What a statement to make on the floor of 
Congress. It resonates with patriotic Americans. It resonates with all 
people.
  He continued, ``It is on this unwavering belief that we are 
determined to build our nation, a land whose people are free, whose air 
is liberty, and where the rule of law is supreme.''
  He continued and said, ``This is the new Iraq which is emerging from 
the ashes of a dictatorship despite the carnage of extremists, a 
country which represents international conventions and practices 
noninterference in the international affairs of others.''
  Just a portion of this speech, nothing in here about Israel. There is 
plenty in here about freedom and about the aspirations of a newly freed 
people. As I have looked them in the eye over in Iraq in the times that 
I have been there, I have seen that desire to build a country and a 
nation.
  I gave a speech to the Baghdad chamber of commerce on a hot August 
day; and they asked me shortly before we arrived at the hotel in 
Baghdad. It was the hotel that was rocketed while Wolfowitz was there 
some few years ago. And so I said, yes, it fits in my schedule, I will 
do that.
  I walked in the room. The count was 57 Iraqis and members of the 
chamber

[[Page 18350]]

of commerce sitting at their dinner tables. They started to introduce 
me, but time was short. I wanted to know, where is my interpreter.
  They said we don't have an interpreter; this chamber of commerce 
speaks English. I thought that is quite unusual to be in a country like 
Iraq and be able to address a group of people, 57 strong, business 
leaders in Baghdad, and have them all speaking English.
  I gave a speech, and they laughed at the right time and had the right 
reactions. They spoke English. They came up afterwards and surrounded 
me with their business cards and desire and ideas to rebuild Iraq. It 
was encouraging to watch the spirit within them. If they can get the 
oil out of the ground and get the revenue stream coming back into that 
country, they will be a long way along in their recovery.
  The argument that this is a situation when we go alone, repeated over 
and over again; the gentleman from Florida made that statement, we went 
it alone in Iraq. I have been over to Iraq a number of times. I 
remember standing in the headquarters of the Coalition forces in Basra. 
General Dutton of the British army was there. As we stood there and had 
an informal conversation, I began looking at the flags on the shoulders 
of the soldiers. The Coalition troops have the same uniform with their 
flag on the shoulders.
  I took pictures so I could remember which nations were represented, 
and I can remember a few. Great Britain, yes. The Netherlands, yes. 
Romania was there, the Australians were there. The Poles were there. 
The Danes were there. There were probably three or four other countries 
represented just in a random group that were standing around there, the 
Coalition Forces.
  I don't think the gentleman from Florida went to visit the Coalition 
Forces. He visited the American troops and forgot there were thousands 
of troops there that came from other countries and have been in Iraq 
from the beginning and have stayed there. In fact, the Japanese sent 
1,000 troops into Iraq because they understand the value of freedom, 
even though they are a relatively passive nation.
  Then the half a dozen or so generals that disagree with the 
President's policy in Iraq, and the continued argument that the 
President did not listen to his advisers. And now they have these 
retired generals that say, we should have done this or that. The 
President has always listened to his advisers and generals. He 
understands he is not going to call these shots from the Oval Office. 
He is going to say, you are going to have what you need to get this job 
done.
  But six generals, it appeared to me there are a few more, but that is 
the count that I had, they appear to be positioning themselves for some 
future role in politics. If we watch them, I believe we will see one or 
more emerge as at least an adviser to a Presidential candidate, if not 
a Presidential candidate themselves.
  But I will see your six generals and I will raise you 9,000 30-
Somethings. There are 9,000 generals in the United States military, and 
they stand with the commander in chief. So you have a long way to go to 
convince me that just because you find six folks with political 
aspirations, we should alter our entire mission in Iraq to accommodate 
them. They would find something else to be critical of.
  And the most outrageous statement of all from the gentleman from 
Florida, We have a plan in the war in Iraq. His question to Republicans 
was: Where is your plan?
  Well, I think maybe he got that script wrong. I think he probably 
understands that we do have a plan in the war in Iraq. It is the 
commander in chief's plan. I support it. I support moving towards 
freedom for the Iraqi people.
  My question is, 30-Something Democrats, people who think 
``Republican'' is a four-letter word, where is your plan? And I would 
further submit that after 60 minutes of that kind of diatribe, I wonder 
what the suicide rate in America is, Mr. Speaker?
  Actually, I came here to talk about a different subject matter. What 
I want to talk about is the accomplishment that we made here on the 
floor of Congress today; and that is, for a long time the American 
people have understood something that has taken quite awhile to go 
through to this Congress and the White House. That is, we have porous 
borders in America.
  The American people understand when they see people show up in their 
streets, taking jobs in their communities, and when children are coming 
into their schools and they are born in a foreign country and they 
don't have the kind of documents that would demonstrate that they have 
come in through a legal channel, and they start to see 1,000 of them 
show up and take jobs, and in Iowa, for example, it would be in our 
packing plants, there is a real large social movement going on.

                              {time}  2215

  The blastosphere opened up and began to tell America the facts of it 
all, and some of people came down to the floor of the Congress and made 
this case, my good friend Tom Tancredo among those. The people 
understood this immigration issue long before Congress was able to 
react.
  We need to be in a position to lead, not to follow. But this time I 
think we are following the lead of the American people, and I am happy 
to do that, although I would like to be a little more up front.
  But that message came to this floor over and over again, led by Tom 
Tancredo of Colorado, and a number of the rest of us stepped in and 
joined him. We have been carrying that message consistently at heart 
now for a number of years, for me it is 4 years here in this Congress, 
carrying this message.
  I sent out a survey into my congressional district, it will be 2 
years ago last March, and it went to 10,000 households randomly 
selected by a computer, so it would have been Democrats, Independents 
and Republicans scattered across the district in a random location, and 
it was a survey on immigration.
  I knew what I thought. I believe we need to enforce our immigration 
laws, seal our border, force all traffic to ports of entry, and 
birthright citizenship and the anchor babies, shut off the jobs magnet, 
do all those things and a lot of people go back home. I believe a lot 
of people do that. I believe the record is replete with statements to 
that effect and a number of pieces of policy that add to that overall 
philosophy.
  But the immigration survey that I sent out to the number of 10,000 
randomly selected households asked a whole series of questions about 
immigration. That was the only subject matter. The most significant 
question that I asked in that survey was on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 
being the most intense, how intensively do you agree with this 
statement, and then the statement reads, in the survey, that we should 
eliminate all illegal immigration and reduce legal immigration.
  Reducing legal immigration is not something that I have actually 
called for, but, and all illegal immigration, reduce legal immigration, 
and how intensively do you agree with this, with 10 being the most 
intense. Out of 10,000 mailed, we received 1,800 and, I think the 
number was 96 respondents. So a number that approached 19 percent 
returned, which is about 3 times what your average return rate would be 
on that kind of a mailing.
  On that question, we should end all illegal immigration, and reduce 
legal, how intensely do you agree, 82 percent put down 10, 82 percent. 
Some of them must have held their pen like a dagger the way they wrote 
their notes and their comments on the surveys.
  As I went through those and read them through, 82 percent said end 
illegal immigration, all of it; reduce legal. By the time you added the 
7, 8s, 9s to those 10s, 97 percent agreed with that statement, and only 
3 percent had an opinion down on the other side of the scale, only 3 
percent.
  I would submit that if I sent a survey out to the district with a 
random selection like that, and I said Steve King says the sun comes up 
in the east, do you agree or disagree, I do not believe

[[Page 18351]]

I would get a 97 percent agreement out of my congressional district, 
but 97 percent want to have border control, and they want to have 
enforcement. That is what we tried to provide in this Congress, and we 
have made some significant progress.
  Last August 22, I have to back up, it was a year ago last August 22, 
is a little over a year ago, I hosted an immigration summit in Iowa. I 
started out in Des Moines with radio and a lot of print coverage and 
some video coverage on there. I had a host of very good speakers on the 
immigration issue, Tom Tancredo came, my good friend from Arizona and 
powerful leader on the subject, J.D. Hayworth from Arizona; Jim 
Gilchrest was there, who was the original founder of the Minutemen.
  We had other speakers that added on to that, and one was the father 
of a son who was lost in the September 11 attack in New York, Kris 
Eggle, and they spoke about the importance of enforcement of 
immigration laws. But if we had done so, we may be and likely could 
have thwarted the attacks on September 11.
  But what happens to this country if we continue our porous borders. 
On that day I stood up and said, I want to build a fence, I want to put 
a physical barrier on this border, and I want to do it for 2,000 miles. 
For starters I would put a 10 foot high chain link fence, and I would 
top it with barb wire. I said barb wire because I am kind of a farm 
country young guy.
  The press printed it as razor wire. I don't take issue with that, 
probably razor wire makes a little more sense than barb wire. But I 
would put the fence there. I would move it about 100 feet, and I would 
build a concrete wall that I designed and demonstrated on this floor in 
Congress. It is unlikely that I will get an opportunity to demonstrate 
that tonight, but that's the position that I took August 22, 2005.
  I have here with me the clippings from some of the newspapers after 
that. They were not very impressed with that idea. They thought it was 
a kind of radical, reactionary and ineffective proposal. So there are 
about four articles here that have reference to that, and they mostly 
undermine my position and seek to ridicule me for having a, apparently, 
narrow mind and not having thought this through.
  What this they forgot, that I go to the border, I look at the 
circumstances down there. I gather the data, I talk to the Border 
Patrol personnel. I talk to the people that live there. I talk to the 
retired Border Patrol personnel. I see the carnage, I see the litter. I 
go to the national parks and talk to the park rangers there.
  When they have human traffic that is streaming across that border and 
the numbers that they are, and I sit down there on the border, in the 
dark, for hours, utterly quiet, and listen, listen when I can't see, 
but just dim shadows is all that I can see. I can hear vehicles coming 
from the Mexican side of the border, and they stop by a big mesquite 
tree about 150 or so yards out there south of the border. The fence is 
just a fine barb wire fence, the wires are stretched apart in places, 
that is where the illegals go through. They don't fix it back up, as 
one could imagine. They leave it open for others.
  There was a water tank that was there on the Mexican side that is 
there. That was where they can get their last load up of water before 
they start off on 20, 25 miles of desert on the U.S. side to be picked 
up the highway a ways. I sit there and listen, and I hear the vehicles 
come down through the desert.
  On one particular vehicle, I could hear the muffler dragging all the 
way along. They get by that mesquite tree, and they stop and the doors 
open. Then you have to listen, and you can hear the sounds, and it is 
people clearly piling out of the vehicle. You can hear them drop their 
packs on the ground as they get out, and they must be picking them back 
up again.
  You can hear a little bit of talk, a little bit of whisper. Then they 
start off through the mesquite to come out into the border to come into 
the United States.
  You can hear their packs go through the fence and be set on the 
ground on the other side, and sometimes occasionally dropped on the 
ground. You hear them climb through the fence, they pick their packs 
back up. You can see the shadows. You can't quite count them, you can 
see the image of the shadows as they go off and into the desert off 
north, following whatever kind of a beacon they have and may be 
watching, however they guide themselves, to go on into the United 
States.
  Now, this happens across that border on an average night of perhaps 
11,000 people pouring across that border a night, 11,000, to the tune 
of 4 million a year.
  How do I know this, I serve on the Immigration subcommittee. I sit in 
on hearings two, three, four times a week, witnesses that come forth, 
they are both expert on the matter, both pro and con, experts that 
bring real data to us.
  The Border Patrol's information is this, that they stopped, last 
year, 1,188,000 illegal border crossers, 1,188,000. What a huge number. 
Santa Ana's Army was only 6,000 strong, and the Border Patrol stopped 
1,188,000? What a huge universe of people that is. Theoretically at 
least they turned themselves and said go back through there and many of 
them they took down to the turnstile and watched them as they went back 
in Mexico.
  The year before the Border Patrol stopped 1,159,000. So I asked the 
question, of the Border Patrol, and of their representative, what 
percentage of the attempts across the border do you intercept? What 
percentage of success do you have? The answer that I get back 
consistently is 25 to 33 percent.
  When I go down to the border, and I ask the Border Patrol that is 
actually doing the work down there, what percentage are you 
interdicting, and they give me answers like, the most consistent answer 
I got was 10 percent. I don't know if that really is it. One of them 
when I said 25 percent broke up in hysterical laughter. He said, no, 
that number is closer to 3 percent of the drugs and 5 percent of the 
illegals.
  Now, that was an ICE inspector that should know, even if they are 
wrong. Now, if they are right, it is more than 10 million a year. If 
they are wrong, and the testimony of 25 to 33 percent, and this is all 
a guess, admittedly, then it is perhaps 4 million a year coming across 
our southern border.
  Now, how many go back? We don't know the answer to that either. We 
know some go back. We don't know if it is big numbers, as a percentage, 
but we know it will be big numbers because there are 4 million or so 
that do go across. We also know that 65 billion, that is billion with a 
B, dollars worth of illegal drug, come across our southern border every 
year.
  Ninety percent of the illegal drugs in America are coming across our 
southern border. Sometimes they come across in semis, sometimes they 
come across in straight trucks, sometimes they come across in pickup 
trucks.
  In fact, while I was down there, they interdicted a pickup truck that 
had a false bed in it, about 7 inches of false bed. Underneath there, 
there were 18 bags of marijuana, about the size of a cement sack, 
perhaps weighing about 10 pounds each.
  I will submit 180 to 200 pounds of marijuana underneath the false bed 
in the pickup. We took the jaws-of-life and pried it open, went in 
there and pulled those sacks out. The driver, I am going to tell you, I 
believe, was a MS-13 gang member, the most violent gang we have ever 
seen in this hemisphere, the gangs that behead and dismember and do 
other things so atrocious I will not repeat them on the floor of this 
Congress.
  This individual had a MS-13 tattooed on his arm here, he had tattoos 
from his waist to his neck. He had every look about him as an MS-13. He 
was perhaps a decoy, because they get so many interdictions of drugs 
down there, they cannot prosecute them all. So they will send off 
someone who has got a smaller load, 180 to 200 pounds, to be a 
diversion to be able to run the larger load through there, cost of 
doing business.
  Well, if one spends a few hours down on the border at night and 
listens and perhaps would have infrared night vision of some kind that 
they could

[[Page 18352]]

watch, actually watch the people, they would come to the conclusion 
that it isn't the folks that are coming into the United States that 
want to simply get a job working on farms or whatever it is they do to 
improve their lives, just they are coming here for a better life.
  Actually, the position that has been taken by the administration, we 
cannot stop people that want to come into the United States for a 
better life. It is too powerful a force. We have to let them come in 
and legitimize them by giving them some kind of identification.
  But I would submit that we can stop people from coming into the 
United States for a job, for a better life. We must be able to stop 
people from doing that, because the force that drives them isn't nearly 
as powerful as the force that drives people to bring illegal drugs into 
the United States.
  So I am going to say we can stop lettuce pickers and people that want 
to work on farms and factories in plants. We must do that, because if 
we can't do that, we don't have a hope of being able to stop the 
illegal drug smugglers that are coming into the United States.
  So when they come through in a semi, which is more rare now, or 
smuggle through in a straight truck, when there has been a diversion, 
or maybe a pickup load gets through with the marijuana load under the 
bed, when that all happens, large quantities of illegal drugs come into 
the United States.
  But that is not the only way they come in. They also come in on the 
backs of burros, individuals who are sneaking into the United States 
with 50 pounds of marijuana on their back. They might back 15 miles or 
further to get to the United States border to walk across the U.S. 
desert, and then get across that border, as ICE described while I saw 
there, and walk across the United States and walk another 20, 25 miles 
and be picked up along the highway somewhere.
  They toss their marijuana into the truck. Some get into the truck and 
go on and stay in the United States. Some return back to Mexico and get 
another load. Some turn around and walk back, all the way across the 
desert to get another load. That is the kind of thing that is going on.
  With that kind of force on the border, with that kind of push, a push 
of 4 million people a year coming across that border, intercepting 
1,188,000 of them, $65 billion worth of illegal drugs; 90 percent of 
the illegal drugs in America coming across that border, that includes 
the marijuana, the cocaine, the heroin and the methamphetamine, which 
is a big, big problem.
  We have shut down the meth labs essentially in Iowa. That just meant 
that it used to be 85 percent of the meth came from Mexico and Iowa. 
Now it is much closer to 95 or more percent of the methamphetamine 
comes from Mexico because we shot down the meth labs in Iowa.

                              {time}  2230

  But these burreros will haul 50 pounds of marijuana each and they 
will come in groups of say 8 to 10, 10 to 12, up to 50. In fact, there 
is a pack train of them that went up to 100, each with marijuana on 
their back, roughly 50 pounds, carrying that across the desert. And 
they drop litter all over the desert, Mr. Speaker, and invade our 
natural areas.
  In fact here I have here on this stand a picture of a natural area, 
and it is quite interesting. This is a picture of one of four locations 
where the long-nosed bat, an endangered species, inhabits a nest. And 
this is on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona.
  I have met with the National Park Service director, and this location 
is the location where this bat cave, as you see was invaded by 
illegals. This was one of their stopoff points. They could get in there 
and get cool and rest up a little bit for their trek across the desert.
  So as they came into this bat cave, they chased out something like 
1,600 bats that lived in there, and the bats left. We don't know where 
they went to nest, necessarily, at least I don't, but for 2 years there 
wasn't a bat in this cave. So now we are down to three locations where 
these rare, long-nosed bats can live and reproduce.
  So the National Park Service looked at this and said boy, we really 
don't like to build fences around in our refuge, but what are our 
alternatives if we want to save the bats? So they followed a path that 
seemed to work, and that is put this wrought iron fence around here 
that has spikes that lean out, it is about a $75,000 project, Mr. 
Speaker. They built a fence around the bat cave, and when they did 
that, the illegals did not come into the cave any longer and the bats 
came back. The bats have been in there reproducing ever since in 
roughly the same numbers they were before their cave was taken over by 
the continual flow of illegals that are coming across our natural 
refuge.
  So, I would argue to those that say a fence doesn't work, here is a 
perfect example of how a fence worked. At least it kept them out of the 
cave, and now we have a species of bat that is going to be more healthy 
than they would have been otherwise.
  This is just an interesting little thing that I did. I have said that 
the people that vote for amnesty will be branded with a scarlet letter 
A for amnesty. So, Mr. Speaker, by Ajo, Arizona, there is a big letter 
A up there on the mountainside. I took a picture of that. We colored it 
up so it is scarlet. That is the scarlet letter A. That is the brand. 
We don't need amnesty. That is why it has a bar across it. We need to 
have the rule of law. We need to respect the rule of law. That is part 
of America.
  This, Mr. Speaker, is the fence and concrete wall that I designed. 
You can see this portion here, this will be slip-form footing that goes 
down perhaps 5 feet, and it would be 5 feet, and you form a slot in 
there and you can put a trencher in and put this slip form in and pull 
it all in one motion and pour concrete as you go, trench and pour 
concrete. So this gray portion becomes the footing, and you can see 
where the white portion drops down, and that is the slot.
  These are pre-cast concrete panels, Mr. Speaker, and they would be 
about 13\1/2\ feet long. They drop down into this slot, I think that 
says 15 inches, perhaps 18, but we end up with a constructed height of 
12 feet high.
  These precast panels weigh about 9,800 pounds. They come in on 
trucks. You pick them up with a crane, you drop them in that slot. You 
can just pop them in one after the other, just as easily as I have 
demonstrated on this floor how that can be done.
  Once they are put together, you can put a little wire on top. That 
wire is a disincentive for people from climbing over the top. You can 
put sensors on there, vibration sensors. We can put night vision on 
there. We can do all kinds of things to make sure that this wall is not 
breached, Mr. Speaker.
  Walls make sense. Fences make sense. The bat cave is safe from the 
illegals. We can make America safe from the illegals by simply spending 
some of this hard-earned cash. The $8 billion being spent to fund our 
Border Patrol on the southern border, we can make a one-time capital 
investment. It is about $4 million a mile now being spent to control 
our border and we get about 25 percent efficiency.
  If we would spend about $2 million a mile all the way through those 
2,000 miles, we would end up with a far higher percentage of 
efficiency. I believe that number would go over 95 percent, if we 
patrol the border, if we put the sensors on.
  Surely a fence isn't the only solution, but it is a great big, 
wonderful effective tool for our Border Patrol. They could finally 
aspire to get operational control of the border.
  Then, Mr. Speaker, there needs to be a solution for the locations 
where water is going to run across through the gullies. We have these 
solutions in place in many of those locations already. These are H-
beams that are driven in, steel beams that are staggered and welded 
together here on top with a horizontal beam so they can't be spread 
apart. This lets the water through. It will collect the trash and over 
time you have to clean the trash up, but no one can go through there 
except some wildlife can get through, and

[[Page 18353]]

it does work. It is a little more expensive, but we will have to do 
that where the water runs. There are engineering solutions to 
everything we might want to do.
  This, Mr. Speaker, is an example of what is happening to our national 
parks. I am not certain whether this is in Oregon Pipe Cactus National 
Monument or in the Cabeza Prieta. But it doesn't matter. This is 
federally preserved land. This is precious natural resources that we 
want Americans to have access to.
  Look at what we have. Graffiti painted on the stones. Graffiti that 
probably will take years and years and years to ever weather away, if 
it does at all, something that is really very difficult to clean up 
when the paint goes into the pores of the stone.
  Down here is just a small example of the kind of litter that we are 
finding in our national parks. Some of that litter, it is estimated 
that an average illegal will drop about 8 pounds of litter as they 
cross the desert. Eight pounds times 4 million people is a tremendous 
cleanup problem, and it threatens our natural resources, Mr. Speaker. 
It threatens the wildlife.
  In fact, about one-third of Oregon Pipe Cactus National Monument is 
now off limits to the public because the concentration of illegals is 
so intense that the park officers fear for the safety of American 
tourists in our own national parks because they are threatened.
  And that would be the Oregon Pipe Cactus Monument where there officer 
Kris Eggle was killed in a shootout with drug smugglers coming across 
the border. I have been to that location. There is a memorial that is 
there. In his memory and the memory of the other officers who have 
given their lives for security, I am committed to security for this 
border.
  So today, Mr. Speaker, we passed 700 miles of fence off the floor of 
this Congress. This is the third time we have had a good fence vote 
here on the floor, by my recollection. The Senate has had two good 
fence votes over there. They are going to get another one. They are 
going to get this bill. I am happy to call it the King bill, thanks to 
Peter King from New York.
  They are going to get a bill over there, and my advice is to the U.S. 
Senate, chew on that awhile. I expect the voters will chew on you 
awhile. We are going to take this message to the American people and 
say let us continue with this message on enforcement.
  Fences work. There is proof positive that they do. No one says where 
we have built them that we should tear them down. They are essential 
tools. They are a capital investment, they are a one-time investment, 
and, yes, we have to patrol, and, yes, we have to maintain them, but we 
get a great return on that capital investment.
  That means it doesn't take as many Border Patrol officers to secure 
this border. It means that they can be deployed to places where they 
can be more effective. It means that the 4 million people that are 
coming across our border and the $65 billion worth of drugs will have 
to find a way to try to sneak through a port of entry, which many will 
try to do, and we can beef those up and put more resources there, or 
they will go around the ocean and get out there where the Coast Guard 
can do their job, Mr. Speaker, and the Coast Guard has interdiction 
abilities that supersede those, or I will say they are superior to the 
Border Patrol.
  So, I am ready to force all traffic through the ports of entry. I 
think we must do that. I call upon the United States Senate to pass the 
legislation that we passed on the floor here today.
  August 22, 2005, I said build a fence, build a wall, build a barrier. 
114 days later, this Congress passed that legislation as part of a 
larger bill. And I have watched as perhaps the most liberal Member of 
the United States Senate voted to authorize a fence and voted to fund a 
fence.
  This extreme notion that comes from a conservative Member of Congress 
is mainstream, Mr. Speaker. The White House recognizes we need physical 
barriers to assist and that we need to have enforcement at the border.
  We will have that. We will get that done and we are moving quickly. 
It won't all be done by November 7, but a lot of the pieces will be put 
in place by this Republican Congress.
  And I am proud to serve with you all, and I am looking forward to 
being part of this solution. I am looking forward to going down and 
setting some posts myself.

               [From the Washington Post, July 26, 2006]

                Iraqi Prime Minister Addresses Congress

       Al-Maliki (through translator). Thank you. Thank you.
       In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful, 
     Your Excellency, the Speaker of the House, Mr. Vice 
     President, honorable ladies and gentlemen, members of 
     Congress, it is with great pleasure that I am able to take 
     this opportunity to be the first democratically and 
     constitutionally elected prime minister of Iraq to address 
     you, the elected representatives of the American people. And 
     I thank you for affording me this unique chance to speak at 
     this respected assembly.
       Let me begin by thanking the American people, through you, 
     on behalf of the Iraqi people, for supporting our people and 
     ousting dictatorship. Iraq will not forget those who stood 
     with her and who continues to stand with her in times of 
     need.
       Thank you for your continued resolve in helping us fight 
     the terrorists plaguing Iraq, which is a struggle to defend 
     our nation's democracy and our people who aspire to liberty, 
     democracy, human rights and the rule of law. All of those are 
     not Western values; they are universal values for humanity.
       They are as much for me the pinnacle embodiment of my faith 
     and religion, and they are for all free spirits.
       The war on terror is a real war against those who wish to 
     burn out the flame of freedom. And we are in this vanguard 
     for defending the values of humanity.
       I know that some of you here question whether Iraq is part 
     of the war on terror. Let me be very clear: This is a battle 
     between true Islam, for which a person's liberty and rights 
     constitute essential cornerstones, and terrorism, which wraps 
     itself in a fake Islamic cloak; in reality, waging a war on 
     Islam and Muslims and values.
       And spreads hatred between humanity, contrary to what come 
     in our Koran, which says, ``We have created you of male and 
     female and made you tribes and families that you know each 
     other.'' Surely (inaudible) of you in the sight of God is the 
     best concept.
       The truth is that terrorism has no religion, Our faith says 
     that who kills an innocent, as if they have killed all 
     mankind.
       Thousands of lives were tragically lost on September 11th 
     when these impostors of Islam reared their ugly head. 
     Thousands more continue to die in Iraq today at the hands of 
     the same terrorists who show complete disregard for human 
     life.
       Your loss on that day was the loss of all mankind, and our 
     loss today is lost for all free people.
       And wherever humankind suffers a loss at the hands of the 
     terrorists, it is a loss of all of humanity.
       It is your duty and our duty to defeat this terror. Iraq is 
     the front line in this struggle, and history will prove that 
     the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain. 
     Iraqis are your allies in the war on terror.
       History will record their bravery and humanity.
       The fate of our country and yours is tied. Should democracy 
     be allowed to fail in Iraq and terror permitted to triumph, 
     then the war on terror will never be won elsewhere.
       Mr. Speaker, we are building the new Iraq on the foundation 
     of democracy and are erecting it through our belief in the 
     rights of every individual--just as Saddam has destroyed it 
     through his abuse of all those rights--so that future Iraqi 
     generations can live in peace, prosperity and hope.
       Iraqis have tasted freedom and we will defend it 
     absolutely.
       Every human possesses inalienable rights which transcend 
     religion. As it is taken in the International Convention of 
     Human Rights, they transcend religion, race and gender.
       And God says in the Koran, ``and surely we have honored all 
     children of Adam.''
       I believe these human rights are not an artifact construct 
     reserved for the few. They are the divine entitlement for 
     all.
       It is on this unwavering belief that we are determined to 
     build our nation, a land whose people are free, whose air 
     (ph) is liberty, and where the rule of law is supreme.
       This is the new Iraq, which is emerging from the ashes of 
     dictatorship and despite the carnage of extremists, a country 
     which respects international conventions and practices 
     noninterference in the internal affairs of others, relies on 
     dialogue to resolve differences, and strives to develop 
     strong relations with every country that espouses freedom and 
     peace.
       We are working diligently so that Iraq returns to take the 
     position it deserves and it plays a positive role in its 
     regional and international environment as a key, active 
     player in spreading security and stability, to give an 
     example of a positive relationship between countries through 
     denouncement of violence and resorting to constructive 
     dialogue, solving problems between nations and peoples.

[[Page 18354]]

       And we have made progress. And we are correcting the damage 
     inflicted by politics of the previous regime, in particular 
     with our neighbors.
       My presence here is a testament of the new politics of a 
     democratic Iraq.
       Ladies and gentlemen, in a short space of time, Iraq has 
     gone from a dictatorship to a transitional administration, 
     and now to a fully fledged democratic government.
       This has happened despite the best efforts of the 
     terrorists who are bent on either destroying democracy or 
     Iraq, but by the courage of our people who defied the 
     terrorists every time they were called upon to make a choice, 
     by risking their lives for the ballot box. They have stated 
     over and over again, with their ink-stained fingers waving in 
     pride, that they will always make the same choice.
       Over fear . . .
       Protester: Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home 
     now! Iraqis want the troops to leave! Bring them home now!
       Hastert: If our honored guest will suspend for the moment, 
     the chair notes disturbance in the gallery. The sergeant at 
     arms will secure order by removing those engaging in 
     disruption.
       Protester: Bring them home now!
       Hastert: The gentleman may resume.
       Al-Maliki (through translator): Hope over fear; liberty 
     over oppression; dignity over submission; democracy over 
     dictatorship; federalism over a centralist state.
       Let there be no doubt: Today Iraq is a democracy which 
     stands firm because of the sacrifices of its people and the 
     sacrifices of all those who stood with us in this crisis from 
     nations and countries.
       And that's why--thank you--I would like to thank them very 
     much for all their sacrifices.
       Iraqis of all persuasions took part in the unanimously 
     democratic election for the first parliament formed under the 
     country's first permanent constitution after eight decades of 
     temporary constitutions and dictatorship, a constitution 
     written by the elected representatives of the people and 
     ratified by the people.
       Iraqis succeeded in forming a government of national unity 
     based on an elected parliamentary foundation, and includes 
     all of Iraq's religions, ethnicities and political groupings.
       The journey has been perilous, and the future is not 
     guaranteed. Yet many around the world who underestimated the 
     resolve of Iraq's people and were sure that we would never 
     reach this stage. Few believed in us. But you, the American 
     people, did, and we are grateful for this.
       The transformation in Iraq can sometimes be forgotten in 
     the daily, futile violence.
       Since liberation, we have witnessed great accomplishments 
     in politics, the economy and civil society. We have gone from 
     a one-party state, ruled by a small elite, to a multi-party 
     system where politics is the domain of every citizen and 
     parties compete at all levels.
       What used to be a state-controlled media is now completely 
     free and uncensored, something Iraq had never witnessed since 
     its establishment as a modern state and something which 
     remains alien to most of the region.
       What used to be a command economy in Iraq, we are rapidly 
     transforming into a free market economy.
       In the past three years, our GDP per capita has more than 
     doubled. And it is expected that our economy will continue to 
     grow. Standards of living have been raised for most Iraqis as 
     the markets witness an unprecedented level of prosperity. 
     Many individuals are buying products and appliances which 
     they would never have hoped to afford in the past.
       And, in keeping with our economic vision of creating a free 
     market economy, we will be presenting to parliament 
     legislation which will lift current restrictions on foreign 
     companies and investors who wish to come to Iraq.
       While we are making great economic strides, the greatest 
     transformation has been on Iraqi society.
       We have gone from mass graves and torture chambers and 
     chemical weapons to a flourishing--to the rule of law and 
     human rights.
       The human rights and freedoms embodied in the new Iraq and 
     consolidated in the constitution have provided a fertile 
     environment for the ever-growing number of civil society 
     institutions which are increasing in scope and complexity and 
     provide a healthy reflection of what is developing beneath 
     the violence.
       The rights chartered in the constitution will also help 
     consolidate the role of women in public life as equals to 
     men.
       And help them to play a greater role in political life.
       I am proud to say that a quarter of Iraq's Council of 
     Representatives is made up of women, but we still have much 
     to accomplish.
       Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, our nascent democracy 
     faces numerous challenges and impediments, but our resolve is 
     unbreakable and we will overcome them.
       The greatest threat Iraq's people face is terror: terror 
     inflicted by extremists who value no life and who depend on 
     the fear their wanton murder and destruction creates.
       They have poured acid into Iraq's dictatorial wounds and 
     created many of their own.
       Iraq is free, and the terrorists cannot stand this.
       They hope to undermine our democratically elected 
     government through the random killing of civilians. They want 
     to destroy Iraq's future by assassinating our leading 
     scientific, political and community leaders. Above all, they 
     wish to spread fear.
       Do not think that this is an Iraqi problem. This terrorist 
     front is a threat to every free country in the world and 
     their citizens. What is at stake is nothing less than our 
     freedom and liberty.
       Confronting and dealing with this challenge is the 
     responsibility of every liberal democracy that values its 
     freedom. Iraq is the battle that will determine the war. If, 
     in continued partnership, we have the strength of mind and 
     commitment to defeat the terrorists and their ideology in 
     Iraq, they will never be able to recover.
       For the sake of success of the political process, I 
     launched the National Reconciliation Initiative, which aims 
     to draw in groups willing to accept the logic of dialogue and 
     participation. This olive branch has received the backing of 
     Iraq's parliamentary blocs and support further afield from 
     large segments of the population.
       I remain determined to see this initiative succeed.
       But let our enemies not mistake our outstretched hand for 
     forgiveness as a sign of weakness. Whoever chooses violence 
     against the people of Iraq, then the fate that awaits them 
     will be the same that of the terrorist Zarqawi.
       While political and economic efforts are essential, 
     defeating terror in Iraqi relies fundamentally on the 
     building of sound Iraqi force, both in quantity and 
     capability. The completion of Iraq's forces form the 
     necessary basis for the withdrawal of multinational forces. 
     But it's only then, only when Iraq's forces are fully 
     capable, will the job of the multinational forces be 
     complete.
       Our Iraqi forces have accomplished much and have gained a 
     great deal of field experience to eventual1y enable them to 
     triumph over the terrorists and to take over the security 
     portfolio and extend peace through the country.
       The other impediment to Iraq's stability are the armed 
     militias. I have on many occasions stated my determination to 
     disband all militias without exception and re-establish a 
     state monopoly on arms and to guarantee citizens security so 
     that they do not need others to provide it.
       It is imperative that the reconstruction starts now.
       While small sections of central Iraq are unstable, large 
     sections have remained peaceful, but ignored. For far too 
     long, these were most deprived areas of Iraq under the 
     previous regime and have been the most valiant in Iraq's 
     struggle for freedom. We need to make an example out of these 
     stable areas as models for the rest of the country.
       Reconstruction projects in these areas will tackle 
     unemployment, which will weaken the terrorists. They will 
     become prototypes for other, more volatile regions aspire to. 
     Undoubtedly, reconstruction in these areas will fuel economic 
     growth and show what a prosperous, stable, democratic and 
     federal Iraq would look like.
       Members of the Congress, in this effort, we need your help. 
     We need the help of the international community.
       Much of the budget you had allocated for Iraq's 
     reconstruction ended up paying for security firms and foreign 
     companies, whose operating costs were vast. Instead, there 
     needs to be a greater reliance on Iraqis and Iraqi companies, 
     with foreign aid and assistance to help us rebuild Iraq.
       We are rebuilding Iraq on a new, solid foundation: that of 
     liberty, hope and equality. Iraq's democracy is young, but 
     the will of its people is strong. It is because of this 
     spirit and desire to be free that Iraq has taken the 
     opportunity you gave us and we chose democracy.
       We faced tyranny and oppression under the former regime. 
     And we now face a different kind of terror. We did not know 
     then and we will not bow now.

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