[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2524]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
             MISSED OPPORTUNITIES IN AFGHANISTAN AND BEYOND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Davis of Kentucky). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, President Bush's brief stopover in 
Afghanistan yesterday gives us an opportunity to take stock of the 
progress that has been made there. It also provides an opportunity to 
reflect on what the world might look like today if the United States 
had adopted a wiser foreign and national security policy after the 
terrible attacks on our country on September 11, 2001.
  After that tragic day, the world united behind the United States and 
our determination to destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the 
terrorists responsible for those attacks. We sometimes forget here that 
within days of the attack the United Nation's General Assembly, friends 
and foe alike, unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the attacks 
on the United States. And NATO, for the first time in its history, 
invoked article 5 of the Washington Treaty stating an attack against 
one is an attack against all.
  When the brutal Taliban regime refused to support action against al 
Qaeda, the United States took appropriate military action to force out 
the Taliban and attempt to destroy the al Qaeda terror network. That 
was the right action and had the strong backing of the American people. 
And Afghanistan is a much better place today.
  However, while we succeeded in driving out the Taliban from the 
capital city of Kabul and killed a number of al Qaeda leaders, we have 
not finished the job. Indeed, Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for 
masterminding the 9/11 attacks, is still alive and likely to be 
somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border, less than 100 miles from 
where President Bush stood just yesterday.
  And the continued presence of active Taliban and al Qaeda resistance 
in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border represents a lost 
opportunity. Instead of finishing the job against al Qaeda, the 
President decided instead to attack Iraq, a nation with no weapons of 
mass destruction and a government that was actually an ideological 
adversary of al Qaeda.
  As a result of invading Iraq, the Bush administration squandered a 
huge opportunity to keep both our forces and the international 
community focused on defeating al Qaeda and its brand of radical Islam. 
The goodwill that the United States had developed throughout the world 
in the aftermath of 9/11 evaporated as we switched our focus from the 
enemy that attacked us to one that had not. As a result, our invasion 
of Iraq has fueled radical Islamic and anti-American forces and allowed 
al Qaeda to gain new recruits around the world.
  Today, the United States is tied down in an increasingly volatile 
Iraq, and the man actually responsible for launching the attacks on the 
United States, Osama bin Laden, remains at the top of his terrorist 
network.
  Meanwhile, the United States continues to make mistakes that will 
hamper our ability to put the Taliban and al Qaeda out of business 
permanently. First, the United States is sending the wrong message by 
reducing the number of our forces in Afghanistan. Just yesterday, as 
President Bush was arriving in Afghanistan, the director of the Defense 
Intelligence Agency, General Maples, told Members of this Congress that 
the insurgency in Afghanistan is growing and will increase this spring, 
presenting a greater threat to the central government's expansion of 
authority than at any point since 2001. And the greatest threat of 
Taliban resurgence is in southern Afghanistan, the area from which the 
United States will be withdrawing more than 2,000 troops.
  While we welcome the additional NATO forces in Afghanistan, it would 
be far wiser to use these NATO troops to supplement rather than replace 
the U.S. forces in the region. We should not be sending the wrong 
signal to the Taliban and al Qaeda at this delicate time. We are still 
living with the consequences of neglecting Afghanistan in the past.
  Second, Mr. Speaker, the United States must end the abuse of the 
detainees at the prison at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Recent 
evidence suggests that the abuses that have taken place there are even 
worse than those that occurred at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in 
Baghdad.
  The United States must lead by example. The abuse of prisoners is 
wrong and will only strengthen the hands of al Qaeda and the 
extremists. We cannot credibly demand that others adhere to the rule of 
law if we are flouting international human rights standards. The 
President's stopover in Afghanistan gave him a chance to declare that 
such abuse is unacceptable.
  Like so much else, however, it was another missed opportunity. As a 
result of many missed opportunities since 9/11, the United States is 
less secure than we could be. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are still in 
operation. The Taliban are feeling emboldened. We are bogged down in 
Iraq, and our weakened moral standing around the world has made it more 
difficult for us to influence events and protect our security. Let us 
stop missing opportunities to strengthen our security. We must not 
reduce our commitment to the people of Afghanistan, and we must 
increase our commitment to human rights.
  Mr. Speaker, we can and should do better, much better.

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