[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 21919]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            WAR ON TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 31, 2006, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DINGELL. Madam Speaker, the people have spoken. The election is 
over and they have said to us that they have given us their marching 
orders.
  For 40 months American soldiers have been suffering, working, and 
dying for their country in the Iraq war. Since that day, 2,800 
Americans have been killed. More than 20,000 have been wounded, most in 
gruesome fashion, and we have spent $450 billion when Secretary 
Wolfowitz told us the Congress would pass only $3 billion in 
appropriations to fund this curious exercise.
  According to the National Intelligence Estimate, we have been made 
less safe. The other members of the axis of evil, Iran and North Korea, 
have developed or are developing nuclear weapons. We have forgotten our 
mission in Afghanistan where a democratically elected government is 
slowly losing control of the country.
  The war in Iraq has produced more terrorists. According to the 
National Intelligence Estimate, it has found that the Iraq war has 
created more terrorists and terrorist sympathizers than have been 
destroyed. Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism, 
simply because this administration has made it so.
  Vice President Cheney said the insurgency was on its last throes, and 
more Americans die every month than did when the actual war itself was 
going on. Again, the National Intelligence Estimates said that 
fanatical terrorism has metastasized and spread across the globe.
  At each and every turning point: The toppling of Saddam Hussein's 
statue; the dissolving the Iraqi Army; the creation of the Iraqi 
constitution; the vote for the constitution; the parliamentary 
elections; the capture of Saddam; or the death of Zarqawi, the Bush 
administration has told us victory is at hand.
  Meanwhile, the bloodshed intensifies, hope dims, and more Americans 
come home with terrible wounds or in body bags.
  Madam Speaker, this Nation has to have a plan and it is time that the 
President, whose war this is, come forward with such plan as to how we 
can win. Staying the course has failed. Americans will support what has 
to be done to get us out with honor and dignity and to win. Now the 
President can claim that he has the power to do these things, and 
clearly under the Constitution he does; but the President also has the 
duty to come forward with a plan that can be understood, accepted, 
carried out, implemented and successful for the American people.
  If we are committed to staying in Iraq, the President must face the 
American people and adequately prepare them for the truth: The truth 
that his desires for Iraq will take more soldiers, more money, and cost 
more lives.
  The American people respect and admire leadership and honesty. They 
admired it in Roosevelt, in Truman and in Ronald Reagan. Honesty begins 
with making an honest accounting of the costs and coming forward with a 
truthful statement of where we are and what we must do. If this Nation 
needs more equipment for our soldiers or needs more soldiers over 
there, then we must be told that and the President must face that, and 
we must do what has to be done to see to it that we have the proper 
forces there to prevail.
  This war is being charged to our children and grandchildren. We need 
to examine whether or not it is just and proper for us to do that. We 
must pursue with vigor the diplomatic front. The countries in the area 
must be involved, and certainly little sign of that taking place is 
visible to all of us.
  We have to swallow our pride. Let us talk to everyone, reengage the 
Syrians and the Iranians, in addition to those countries who are our 
allies in the region. And as we approach the fourth year of this war, 
and it must be observed that is longer than we were committed to the 
war in Europe in 1945, Syria and Iran have to be explored as possible 
participants in the solution to the problems which exist there.
  The President must look the American people directly in the eye and 
he must deal honestly with our people. He must provide the generals 
with what they need and not shortchange our troops. We have only one 
option, and that is to either win or to get out.
  Mr. President, your country asks you if Iran is so central to our 
security in the future, why haven't you made it possible to win and why 
have you not provided our military with the assets and the strategy 
that they need to win at the earliest time?
  I was a soldier in World War II. Our purpose then was to win quickly, 
to win strongly, and to do so at the least cost to our people. Victory 
was our goal, and we were committed to it and we worked for it.
  In this world the only thing that will count in this matter is 
success. In this war there has not been strong leadership from the 
White House to achieve our goals. As the President dithers, American 
soldiers are killed and maimed. Let's win or get out.

                          ____________________