[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 995-1002]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to myself as much time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker and Members, I am here on the floor this evening along 
with some of my other colleagues who have been working for almost 4 
years to bring to the attention of this House the mistakes, the errors, 
the misdirection of the President of the United States as relates to 
the war in Iraq. We have Members on this floor this evening, many of my 
colleagues, who have not only spoken time and time again about what is 
going on in Iraq, but they have spoken in their districts and around 
the country, helping people to understand that there are some of us 
here in the Congress of the United States who do not support this war.
  We support our troops. They are there because they have been told by 
the President of the United States that they should volunteer to serve 
because our country was at risk. But we have been trying to help people 
to understand what is happening, what is not happening.
  Last night the President addressed the Nation with a new plan that he 
called a ``new way forward.'' Now, Mr. Speaker and Members, the 
President of the United States has come up with a lot of proposals 
since this debacle in Iraq. What he announced last night has been tried 
before, and he has failed at almost everything that he has attempted.
  Now the President is talking about sending 21,000 troops to Iraq. 
Where are they going to come from? Whose family is going to have to 
make the sacrifice? Who are these young people who continue to 
volunteer and are told that they are going to be serving for a certain 
period of time only to be stopped from going home when they thought 
they would be going home? Under the President's plan, troops will have 
shorter amounts of time between deployments and longer deployments to 
Iraq. The length of Army deployments will be increased from 12 months 
to 15 months. Marine deployments will be increased to 12 months from 7 
months. So where are these troops going to come from?
  The President had announced that the Iraqi Government had committed 
to a series of benchmarks, including another 8,000 Iraqi troops and 
policemen in Baghdad. So what if they have committed to a series of 
benchmarks? So what if they don't meet them? Then what? What do we do? 
The President did not say if they fail on the first benchmark that we 
are going to get out of there.

                              {time}  1700

  No. He just simply one more time said to the American people: Trust 
me. And I don't think that many of us are willing to continue to trust 
that the President of the United States has a vision for where he is 
going with all of this.
  The President also said that they were going to force passage of long 
delayed legislation to share all revenues among Iraq's sects and ethnic 
groups. Now, we have heard this oil story before. If you can recall, 
when the President first went into Iraq, they said they were going to 
get the revenues from the oil; it would help pay for the cost of the 
war, and it would pay for the reconstruction of Iraq after we have torn 
it up. And then, of course, the President asked that the American 
people support him in getting $10 billion for jobs and reconstruction 
in Iraq.
  Well, now that the oil revenues are not forthcoming, this is a 
President who has spent, spent, spent, created a deficit. This is a 
President that refuses to support many of the domestic programs that 
many of us would like to see. We would like to see more affordable 
housing. We would like to see better schools. We would like to see 
comprehensive universal health care. But we cannot get the support of 
the President of the United States for these domestic needs. But he 
tells us, now that he has messed up, led us into war under false 
pretenses, that we are now to pay for it, and there is no oil revenue 
there to do it. Well, I think that my friends are going to join me in 
helping to unfold what has taken place.
  At this time I would like to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank and congratulate the 
gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, and her partner from 
California for the great work that they have done here.
  Ladies and gentlemen, I call your attention in this discussion 
tonight to what happened on Page 1 of the New York Times. And I read 
this to you for your consideration:
  ``Inviting a Battle on Capitol Hill. In making the effort to step up 
the American military presence in Iraq, President Bush invites an epic 
clash with the Democrats who run Capitol Hill, whose leader promised to 
force a vote on his plan. While Congress cannot force a change in the 
White House plan, Mr. Bush's initiative shows that he is ignoring the 
results of the November elections, rejecting the central thrust of the 
bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and flouting some of the advice of his own 
generals.
  ``The move is in essence a calculated gamble that no matter how much 
hue and cry his new strategy may provoke, in the end the American 
people will give Mr. Bush more time to turn around the war in Iraq.''
  Well, ladies and gentlemen, my suggestion is that, after last night's 
performance, he is not going to be given more time by the American 
people and that, from a popularity rating at an all time low of 26, my 
prediction is that he will have fallen even lower as a result of last 
night's performance.
  So I think that this is quickly turning into the President's war. 
There are those on all sides around him, including within the 
Republican Party, Members that will not go along any further. We have 
run out of steam. We have run out of illogic. We have looked through 
the exaggerations. So I conclude my remarks by just letting you hear 
about the editorial in the New York Times:
  ``We have argued that the United States has a moral obligation to 
stay in Iraq as long as there is a chance to mitigate the damage that a 
quick withdrawal might cause.'' This is the editorial. ``We have called 
for an effort to secure Baghdad, but as part of the sort of 
comprehensive political solution utterly lacking in Mr. Bush's speech. 
This war has reached the point that merely prolonging it could make a 
bad ending even worse. Without a real plan to bring it to a close, 
there is no point in talking about jobs programs and

[[Page 996]]

military offenses. There is nothing ahead but even greater disaster in 
Iraq.'' This is the media talking now.
  It is time that the Executive branch recognize that the majority of 
the American people, most of the Congress, the media itself are all 
telling him that President Bush's private war is not going to go 
anywhere, and to deliberately refuse to accept the decision and 
determination of the American people on November 7 means that he is now 
stepping beyond the democratic process.
  Madam leader, Ms. Waters, I thank you so much for yielding.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, 
Representative Kucinich.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congresswoman Waters and 
all of the members of the Out of Iraq Caucus for keeping the awareness 
in this Congress on the need for America to take a new direction in the 
world because we are not just speaking about opposition to a war which 
should be opposed as illegal, but we are talking about the need for 
America to take a new role in the world, one where our country does not 
engage in preemption or unilateralism or first strike, one where 
America cooperates with the world community on matters of international 
security.
  Remember, before 9/11, the felicity that America was held with in so 
many parts of the world. Remember, right after 9/11, how the world 
community opened its heart to the United States.
  But over at the White House, just off the Oval Office, at a meeting 
of the National Security Council, Donald Rumsfeld and people in the 
administration were plotting the attack on Iraq the day after 9/11.
  Yesterday the President mentioned 9/11 again. How many times does he 
have to mention 9/11 when he talks about Iraq? Why does he keep 
mentioning 9/11 when he talks about Iraq? Iraq had nothing to do with 
9/11. This is the big lie. And it is this big lie that the whole policy 
is based on. The Bible says, that which is crooked cannot be made 
straight. That becomes prophecy when you are talking about Iraq because 
everything about what the President is doing in Iraq is crooked.
  Let us look at his speech last night. Why did he spend so much time 
talking about Iran? Let us think about this. We know that in the last 
year, this administration has taken steps to try to move within the 
soft circumference of war against Iran. Our Air Force selecting bombing 
targets, moving in place 24 bunker busters with nuclear tips into the 
region. Last night talking about moving an aircraft carrier into the 
region, talking about Patriot missiles into the region, rattling sabers 
for war. He appears to be setting the stage for a wider war in the 
region. He has blamed Iran for attacks on America. He is saying that he 
is going to disrupt Iran. He is going to add this aircraft carrier. 
Isn't one war enough for this President? Isn't one misguided war enough 
for this President?
  You know, it is time that the media and the Congress, as Mr. Conyers 
pointed out, started to pay attention to what this President is saying 
and to what he does. It is imperative that Congress exercise its 
constitutional responsibility. And I think we are finally starting to 
see that. I think we are seeing people on both sides of the aisle 
realizing that there is a threat to our very democracy here; that our 
country is in peril by a Commander in Chief who has run amuck; who is 
without control; who stands by while Lebanon is basically annihilated 
south of the Litani River and actually, we found out later, was 
encouraging it; who is letting a civil war grow and fester in Iraq 
because he is going to send more troops and pour them into it. Or, 
Members of Congress, is the talk about a 21,000 troop increase in Iraq 
for the purposes of dealing with problems in Baghdad? Is that just a 
pretext? Since very few things are on the level with this 
administration, will some of those troops instead be sent to the border 
with Iran to provoke a conflict?
  These are questions we have to be asking because nothing this 
administration has said has been the truth. They don't have the 
capacity to tell a straight story to the American people, and they have 
spun the people of this country so much that people have become 
disoriented, but they are finally waking up, and they woke up in 
November. You want to talk about a surge? There was a surge in 
November. There was a surge to the voting booth, and that surge 
accomplished a new Congress. And the issue was Iraq, and our leadership 
told us that before the election. Three issues, they said, will guide 
this election: Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. And so was created a new Congress. And 
so it is imperative that Congress step up to its obligation.
  We have to say that we are not going to give this President any more 
money for the war, but we have to use the money that is in the pipeline 
right now to bring the troops home and, Mr. Speaker, to set in motion a 
process, because we understand; we don't want to abandon the people of 
Iraq. But we know that the only way that we can get our troops out is 
to establish an international process, and we are not going to 
establish an international process until such time that we give up the 
occupation, that we remove our troops and close our bases because that 
is what is fueling the insurgency. So we can turn this around.
  But this President and administration, which has such a talent for 
war, is determined to wreak chaos throughout the region. That is what 
they want. More chaos, more war, more control, as America moves towards 
fascism. Let's call it what it is. We are losing our democracy here. 
What do we stand for? What are those troops out there for? They believe 
in this country. They love this country. And if we love this country 
and the troops, we have to bring them home. But, instead, we have got 
an administration that is prepared to do something else because, in 
Iraq, his new plan is a plan for more door-to-door fighting. It is a 
plan for more war, more civilian casualties, more troop deaths, more 
wasted money, more destabilization in the region and more separation 
from the world community. This President wants to send more troops to 
Baghdad in the middle of a civil war. This President wants to continue 
a war that everyone knows in Iraq the situation cannot be won 
militarily.
  Does anyone in this administration have any sense at all? Does anyone 
in this administration have any heart, that we can send our troops into 
this miasma and cause not only their deaths but the deaths of innocent 
civilians when the President talks about taking the restrictions off 
our troops? What does that mean? Is that licensing wholesale slaughter 
of civilians and then a counter reaction which results in our troops 
getting slaughtered? This whole thing is wrong. This is not what 
America should be about. And everyone knows that.
  And yet the President last night had the nerve to talk about the 
Iraqi oil again. He can never talk about Iraq without talking about 
oil. They want to privatize Iraq's oil. Big surprise. Our troops were 
sent into Iraq. What was the first thing the administration had them 
do? Go to the oil ministry. They didn't have them go to protect 
antiquity, protect children. No. Protect oil. Do you know the Baker 
Report pointed out that 500,000 barrels of oil are being stolen every 
day? With 140,000 to 150,000 American troops there, how in the world 
can we have all that oil being stolen? How can that happen?

                              {time}  1715

  Do you know what the market value of that oil is? If you run the 
numbers, about $62.25 a barrel. That is over $11 billion worth of oil a 
year stolen. The patrimony of Iraq is just being stolen.
  How are we going to have peace if the U.S. is sitting on top of oil, 
talking about privatizing the oil for the President and all of his 
buddies in the oil industry? We are going to have peace in that region? 
Those people are going to step back and let that happen? No way.
  That is why we have to get out of Iraq, end the occupation, bring our 
troops home, close the bases and give the Iraqi people control of their 
oil once again and begin a process of reconciliation.
  We need to create a new context where the international community

[[Page 997]]

helps us, because we are on our way out of there. The international 
community is not going to help the United States as long as we are 
occupiers.
  You know, Mr. Speaker, this President wants to expand the war and the 
American people should be very concerned because it is not just the 
sons and daughters who are over there, but it is more who will be sent 
through an expansion of the war. It is the jeopardy of an escalation.
  Have we not learned anything from the experience in Vietnam? Have we 
not learned that this march of folly we are on has been duplicated in 
the past? Have we not learned that the attempt to use raw military 
power is doomed to failure in a world that is interdependent and 
interconnected? Don't we know that we have a capacity to evolve? Isn't 
the American Revolution really a series of evolutions of our upward 
march into something better than we are? Aren't we prepared to take 
that? I think we are.
  I think the American people know it is time for us to take this new 
direction, to reconnect and reunite with the world community. And we 
will begin that when this Congress takes a stand and says no more money 
for war; when this Congress takes a stand and says use the money that 
is there to bring the troops home; when this Congress takes a stand and 
says close those bases, don't privatize the oil. When we become 
actually a co-equal branch of government, which was the intention of 
our Founders in drawing up the Constitution and in ratifying the 
Constitution of the United States.
  That is what America was always supposed to be about, not about an 
imperial Presidency. We rejected kings. We rejected autocracy when this 
country was founded. We didn't come through this long constitutional 
experience to the administration of George Bush just to turn our back 
on everything America is about, turn our back on what our real purpose 
as a Nation is. It is about taking care of our people.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like to thank 
the gentleman for all of the hours he has put into this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I thank 
Congresswoman Maxine Waters from California for bringing us together 
here and for her great leadership in the Out of Iraq Caucus. And I also 
thank Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio for his great intellect and 
great passion. It is a joy to serve with all of you.
  I made more formal remarks earlier this evening on the subject of the 
President's proposal to escalate the number of troops in Iraq. But I 
wanted to spend a couple of minutes this evening reemphasizing the 
broader region and how U.S. policy is really impacting a growing anti-
Americanism not just inside Iraq, but in many other countries, and how 
the United States is serving to create destabilization inside nations 
that is very, very dangerous for those countries, yet we play an 
immense role in that.
  We see what has happened in Iraq. That is kind of the prism that we 
are looking through now, and we see the Sunni and Shia pitted against 
each other, and Christians fleeing across the border by the hundreds of 
thousands, thinking they have no more home inside Iraq. We have done a 
lot of damage in that country.
  And then we look at what is happening inside nations like Bahrain. In 
recent parliamentary elections, we saw that almost a dozen, 20 
parliamentarians were elected from very, very anti-American postures. 
And, of course, our Fifth Fleet is ported in Bahrain. Were it not 
ported there, I doubt that the Government of Bahrain would hold.
  We look at what is happening in Pakistan and in the provinces of 
Pakistan. And in every single one of those provinces, the most anti-
American candidates are being elected to and rising within the 
political structure of those countries.
  We think about what just happened at the Horn of Africa, and we look 
at Ethiopia and the arms that the United States is providing and the 
soldiers that have entered into Somalia and our gunships shelling off 
of the coast into Somalia itself and the conflict that is brewing 
between Ethiopia and Somalia.
  And you begin looking at what is happening in the general region. It 
isn't just Iraq. That is kind of a place where we need to keep our eye, 
but we need to open our eyes to what is happening across the region.
  Inside of Lebanon, a country that I remain very close to because of 
the constituency that I represent, and the struggles we have had during 
our tenure here in the Congress to try to help Lebanon to be a leader 
in terms of signing the peace agreement with Israel and remaining a 
major center for education, for trade, for business, for diplomacy in 
that part of the world, and the United States standing back and 
allowing Lebanon to be shelled around its entire perimeter, and a most 
unfortunate war between Lebanon and Israel, and we saw the Bush 
administration sit back.
  And then we watch these demonstrations in the streets of Beirut. I 
mean, a million people from Hezbollah demonstrating against the United 
States. And then of course the Government of Lebanon, Prime Minister 
Siniora's government trying to hold on, trying to maintain a posture 
where all sects are able to participate.
  But if you look at what is happening across the region in almost 
every single country, there is this destabilization.
  In the Palestinian Authority where we thought during the Clinton 
administration we were making some progress, of course difficult, of 
course painstaking. Yet we see Hamas clashing in so many countries. 
What we have is destabilization rather than a movement toward 
reconciliation.
  The policies of the Bush administration almost seem to result in 
destabilization in many, many countries in that region of the world.
  In Afghanistan, we know that our work is cut out for us. Afghanistan 
in many ways is a capital without a country, and we are seeing the loss 
of more life from soldiers from the international community that are 
attempting to assist us to try to bring some functioning nation-state 
in place in Afghanistan.
  I mention these issues because the President of the United States 
doesn't. He acts like they are not there. And the rising anti-
Americanism that we see across the broader region is very, very 
dangerous. It is dangerous not perhaps so much for my generation, but 
for our children and grandchildren that will follow us. There are 1 
billion people who subscribe to Islam in this world, and we have to not 
alienate every single one of them. We have to help them reconcile their 
internal differences, their tribal tendencies, their tendencies to talk 
across one another rather than with one another.
  I would like to thank my colleague for allowing me a few minutes this 
evening. I could speak about the oil imperative and my deep, deep 
concerns about what is happening not just inside Iraq but with the 
powerful, powerful involvement of global oil companies in letting their 
power be felt in what happens in this capital and with the likely 
placements of pipelines across the regions that I am talking about and 
who are likely to be winners and losers in those efforts. There isn't 
time to do that tonight.
  Without question, the United States, when people ask what can we do 
at home, what we should be doing here at home is becoming energy 
independent within a decade. No question. No blinks, no hesitation, no 
doubts. Not by 2025, within one decade, because that would help free 
America from the bondage that we are held to from all of the 
dictatorships from whom we are importing oil. And those dictatorships 
are extremely important for the American to understand.
  If you really look at where terrorism sprouts from, where did the 
majority of the 9/11 terrorists come from: Saudi Arabia. Why would they 
hit the United States? What might that have to do with? Where did they 
come from in Saudi Arabia, and what were they trying to do?
  They were trying to get us out of Saudi Arabia. And you know what, 
they succeeded in doing that. We moved our forces out.

[[Page 998]]

  They are about the task of cleansing, in their view, their part of 
the world from those who control those important oil resources. The 
United States shouldn't be joined at the hip to oil dictatorships. The 
American people are beginning to understand who really controls rising 
oil and gasoline prices in this country, and the importance of us 
becoming energy independent here at home.
  We need to focus the American people on what is happening across a 
broad region of the world that is extremely dangerous to us long term 
as the Bush policies are so narrowly focused and really 
counterproductive long term.
  Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentlewoman for all of the good work she 
does.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Ms. Waters for her 
leadership on the Out of Iraq Caucus and for her words here today. I 
want to thank all of my colleagues for participating in this Special 
Order this evening.
  We are all here because we love this country, and we are all here 
because we are outraged by the Bush policy in Iraq. We believe our 
country is much better than what is on display in Iraq today. We want 
to change the policies of this country to make our country better, to 
make it reflect what this country really is all about, the finest and 
the best traditions of the United States of America.
  Mr. Speaker, on November 7, George Bush lost the election. The 
American people made it very clear that they wanted a change in 
direction in Iraq. That election was about Iraq, and the American 
people all across this country made it clear that they want a change in 
direction.
  Last night the President of the United States gave a speech, and he 
made it clear that he doesn't care what the people of this country 
believe. He is ignoring the message and the statement of the mid-term 
elections.
  You know, I had hoped, notwithstanding all of the media hype leading 
up to the President's speech last night, I was hoping maybe, just maybe 
he was going to do the right thing. That instead of announcing tens of 
thousands of more American troops in Iraq, that he was going to 
announce that he was going to withdraw tens of thousands of American 
troops from Iraq and begin the U.S. withdrawal and begin the end of the 
U.S. occupation of Iraq. He did not do that.
  So what do you do, Mr. Speaker? What do you do when you have a 
President of the United States who ignores the advice of his generals 
and military leaders who all told him that an escalation of U.S. forces 
was a bad idea? What do you do, Mr. Speaker, when you have a President 
of the United States who ignores the work of the bipartisan Iraq Study 
Group?
  The group's report by all accounts says our policy in Iraq has been a 
failure, and it suggested that we find a way out. What do you do when 
you have a President of the United States who ignores that? What do you 
do when you have a President of the United States who ignores the will 
of the American people, who ignores the election last November 7? What 
do you, Mr. Speaker?
  Well, all of us here have expressed our concern and our outrage over 
this policy, most of us since before the war again. But what do you do 
now? We can give more speeches, which we have been doing. We are 
sending more letters and issuing more press releases.
  But, Mr. Speaker, when you have a President of the United States who 
is behaving as arrogantly as this President is with regard to this war, 
then Congress must take action. Congress must condition funding. 
Congress must withhold funding. Congress must cut funding if that is 
what it takes to end this war.
  Now, there are those who say if you do that, you are going to 
shortchange our troops. I hear that from the Bush administration and 
from some colleagues here in this Congress. Let me tell you what 
shortchanges our troops is when we keep them in harm's way in a war 
that makes no sense, when we have them serve as referees in a civil 
war, when we put more and more of our troops, when we escalate our 
involvement in this war. That shortchanges our troops.
  The fact of the matter is this administration has been shortchanging 
our troops for a long, long time, Mr. Speaker. When wounded veterans 
come back, when people come back from this war with post-traumatic 
stress syndrome and they can't get the care that they need, that 
shortchanges our troops.
  I don't think it shortchanges our troops to reunite our soldiers with 
their families and their loved ones back in the safety of this country. 
That doesn't shortchange our troops. That actually is what our troops 
deserve.
  I think we need to understand that all this rhetoric, the constant 
invocation of 9/11, the constant admonitions that somehow we are not 
being true to our troops if we talk about cutting aid, withholding 
funds, stopping funding for this war because this President won't deal 
with us, we need to put that rhetoric aside.

                              {time}  1730

  This President will not listen to the American people. Put the 
rhetoric aside. We have to do what is right.
  Let me tell you one final thing, Mr. Speaker. All of us who serve in 
this Congress do not have to wake up in harm's way. We are not on the 
front lines in Iraq. I would like to have an amendment introduced some 
day to a bill that says all these people who want to go to war all the 
time, they should be the ones who lead the charge. Let those who are up 
here constantly calling for ``stay the course'' and ``let's continue 
the current policy,'' let them go and fight.
  The time has come to end this war. That is what the American people 
want, and this Congress has the guts to do it. I thank the gentlewoman.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Welch of Vermont). The Chair would 
remind Members that remarks in debate must avoid personalities toward 
the President.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, first let me thank the gentlelady from 
California (Ms. Waters), for organizing this special order tonight, but 
also for her leadership in the Out of Iraq Caucus, which is growing 
each and every day.
  I think most Members now, whether they supported or opposed the 
authorization to use force, understand now that we must get out of 
Iraq. So I want to thank Congresswoman Waters and all of the members 
for continuing to beat the drum on behalf of the American people.
  Last night, President Bush went on prime time television to present 
to the Nation the results really of what I call his ``listening tour'' 
on what to do about Iraq. Four years into this war, the President has 
suddenly taken an interest in listening, but he is certainly not 
hearing the American people.
  A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted after the President made 
his case for escalation found that 61 percent of Americans oppose 
sending more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, with 52 percent 
saying that they strongly oppose the plan. Just 36 percent said that 
they backed the President's new proposal, and a majority of Americans 
said Bush's plan for our troops will make no difference whether the war 
can be won or lost.
  The American people oppose this escalation. Members of Congress 
oppose this escalation. The President's own military advisers oppose 
this escalation. But in spite of this opposition, in spite of his 
claims to have been listening, the President went before the American 
people last night and basically just asked us to trust him, and said, 
who cares about what the American people think or believe?
  Well, I have a question for the President: Why, after the weapons of 
mass destruction that never existed; after the connections with al 
Qaeda that proved to be made up, with Iraq; after declaring ``mission 
accomplished'' and turning so many corners that made us, quite frankly, 
totally dizzy; why, given his track record, would we trust his judgment 
now?

[[Page 999]]

  Last night, the President said, ``Where mistakes have been made, the 
responsibility lies with me.'' Let me tell you, twisting the 
intelligence to rush this Nation into an unnecessary war was a mistake 
whose cost we have not yet begun to measure, not only in terms of lives 
and treasure but also in terms of our Nation's security.
  I agree with the President that the responsibility does indeed lie 
with him, so he needs to rectify this mistake and bring our troops home 
and bring them home now.
  It is clear that the President, quite frankly, has lost touch with 
reality. Iraq has become the defining issue of his presidency, and he 
is more interested in trying to save what remains of this horrible 
legacy than he is in proposing anything that resembles a solution to 
the mess that his administration has made in Iraq.
  The President has proposed an escalation of the war in Iraq at 
precisely the time, the exact time, when the American people are 
calling for us to bring this war to an end. He is like the man who 
finds himself stuck in a hole and decides the best way out is to keep 
digging.
  The question the Congress and the American people must now ask is, 
how many people should die so that the President can avoid admitting he 
has staked his Presidency and legacy on an unnecessary war whose 
implementation his administration has really botched at every single 
turn? How many have to die so that the President can save face?
  The President talked about increasing funds for job creation in Iraq, 
which would be a wonderful idea, quite frankly, since we bombed the 
heck out of that country. However, his administration has a miserable 
track record. Just look at it on reconstruction and the former 
Republican Congress's unwillingness to conduct oversight over the 
waste, fraud and abuse and war profiteering, $10 billion-plus so far 
that is just being discussed, and we know it is more than $10 billion 
that has been stolen in the name of rebuilding Iraq.
  So without a fix to this broken system, the President's proposed 
reconstruction funds are really just throwing more good money after 
bad, and the taxpayers certainly don't deserve this. This is, quite 
frankly, a cynical idea, with his policies the way they are now.
  The President says that pursuing his failed policies in Iraq is 
critical to fighting global terrorism. But let me ask you, is spending 
$2 billion a week to referee a civil war in Iraq the best way we can 
spend our money in fighting global terrorism? Let's not forget, the 9/
11 Commission pointed out there was no connection, I mean no 
connection, between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda prior to this war. 
Today, Iraq is a terrorist recruiting ground as a direct result, mind 
you, a direct result of this unnecessary war, and the longer we stay 
there, the worse it gets.
  How much money should be spent propping up a failed policy in Iraq so 
that the President can kick the can and hand off responsibilities for 
his failed policy, quite frankly, this is what I think he is trying to 
do, to the next occupant of the Oval Office?
  Finally, let me just say, in October, the President was asked if he 
would rule out military bases, permanent military bases, and his 
refusal to say yes, which he refused to say, really did fuel the 
mistrust of the Iraqi public and strengthen the insurgency.
  So, Madam Chairman, I want to thank you again for your voice and for 
maintaining the 70-plus members of the Out of Iraq Caucus. This is a 
civil war. It is an occupation which should end, and the best way that 
we support our troops is to bring our troops home.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlelady for all 
of the hard work she does on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from 
California for her leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, before we can even consider sending more of our young 
men and women into harm's way, we must first determine what our mission 
is in Iraq. Only then will it be possible to intelligently discuss the 
number of troops necessary to meet that mission. But 4 years after 
going to war in Iraq, the administration has yet to clearly articulate 
a mission. Without a mission and a strategy with a credible chance of 
success, we should not even be discussing an increase in troop levels.
  Mr. Speaker, before we respond to the President's call for an 
escalation of the war in Iraq, we must first put his speech in the 
context of the history of the war in Iraq. We need to begin with a 
discussion of what the current 130,000 troops are doing in Iraq now 
before we can discuss what 20,000 additional troops might do.
  The original reasons which were provided as the rationale for going 
to war, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi leaders were 
connected with the 9/11 attacks, and that Iraq posed an imminent threat 
to the United States, all turned out not to be true.
  We have found no weapons of mass destruction, and we know that Iraqi 
leaders were not connected with the 9/11 attacks. And we were told 
before the invasion into Iraq that, in the opinion of the CIA, Iraq 
posed no imminent terrorist threat to the United States. In fact, a 
letter from the Director of the CIA to the Chair of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, dated October 7, 2002, specifically stated that 
the CIA believed that Iraq and Saddam Hussein did not pose a terrorist 
threat to the United States and would not be expected to pose such a 
threat unless we attacked Iraq.
  Last night, the President once again attempted to associate our 
presence in Iraq with the so-called war on terrorism. The truth is that 
our presence in Iraq has actually increased our risk to terrorism. 
Furthermore, the term ``war on terrorism'' is a rhetorical term without 
any relationship to reality. ``Terrorism'' is not an enemy; it is a 
tactic. The enemy is al Qaeda. We attacked Afghanistan because al Qaeda 
was there.
  But after the initial reasons turned out to be false, we have been 
subjected to a series of excuses for being in Iraq, such as the need to 
capture Saddam Hussein, the need to capture al-Zarqawi and the need to 
establish a democracy.
  Well, Saddam Hussein was in jail for almost 2 years before he was 
recently hanged. Al-Zarqawi was killed over 6 months ago, and Iraq held 
Democratic elections over a year ago. Yet we remain in Iraq, with no 
apparent end in sight. And here we are talking about increasing, not 
decreasing, troop levels.
  So what are we doing in Iraq? Why did we go in? What do we expect to 
accomplish? And what will our strategy be for getting out? After we 
receive truthful answers to these questions, we can intelligently 
discuss appropriate troop levels.
  Last night, the President said he was laying out a new mission for 
Iraq, thereby clearly acknowledging that whatever the old mission was, 
it wasn't working. But there is still no clearly defined end goal and 
clearly defined explanation of how failure or success can be measured. 
So we remain where we were before the speech, which is on an unclear, 
undefined path, while continuing to put more troops in harm's way.
  If our mission is to stabilize Baghdad, military experts have already 
said that an additional 20,000 troops is woefully insufficient, so 
sending these troops will not accomplish that goal. And what happens if 
Iraq fails to meet its responsibilities, or Baghdad remains unstable 
and the price is more American deaths? Will we send even more troops? 
Or will we just cut and run?
  And how will we know the new initiative will work? Before our 
invasion into Iraq, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld predicted that the war 
would last, and I quote, ``six days, six weeks. I doubt 6 months.'' It 
has been almost 4 years, and we are still in Iraq with no end in sight.
  At the outset of the war, the administration advised the House Budget 
Committee that it expected the cost of the war to be so minuscule that 
it advised the committee not to include the cost of the war in the 
Federal budget,

[[Page 1000]]

and the administration official who suggested that the cost of the war 
might exceed $100 billion was fired.
  To date, the cost of the war to the United States is over $375 
billion, with no end in sight. Over 3,000 courageous Americans have 
already lost their lives. How many more will die if this new strategy 
falls as far from the predicted result as the original time and cost 
estimates? We need to be honest in clearly stating the likelihood that 
this initiative might fail.
  Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, as far as developing a new mission and 
strategy, it is imperative that we ask where these additional troops 
will come from. Many will have to come from the National Guard and 
Reserve, and the escalation will mean longer and multiple deployments. 
But our troops already in Iraq have served for above-average 
deployments, and many have already completed multiple tours. Other 
troops may be redeployed from other assignments. So we must ask what 
moving these troops will mean to our global national security. We 
cannot assess the wisdom of an escalation without first answering these 
critical questions.
  We need to develop a coherent plan for Iraq, and that can only begin 
with truthfully acknowledging our situation there. Unfortunately, all 
we have gotten from this administration is essentially ``Don't worry, 
be happy. Success is around the corner. And if you don't believe that, 
then you are not patriotic.''
  Last November, the American people sent a powerful message that they 
wanted a real change in Iraq, not more of the same. This Congress needs 
to hold substantive hearings on why we entered Iraq in the first place, 
what the present situation is, what we can now expect to accomplish and 
what the strategy is to accomplish it, and only then can we 
intelligently discuss the troop levels necessary to accomplish that 
goal.
  It is absurd to discuss troop levels first before we have answers to 
these critical questions. The American people and our courageous men 
and women on the front lines deserve a clear, articulated and sensible 
approach to ending the war in Iraq. Starting with an escalation of 
military forces is a step in the wrong direction.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Watson).

                              {time}  1745

  Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Representative Waters, for allowing us 
this opportunity to express our feelings towards the escalation of the 
war, the war of choice, in Iraq.
  I am adamantly against this expansion. I see it as another 
provocation. I see Iraq now being the spawning ground that attracts all 
those who hate America to come and kill Americans.
  The President is asking for 21,500 more troops to go on the killing 
fields. We don't even know who the enemy is. We use the name 
insurgents. We don't even know the President's definition for victory. 
How do you measure victory?
  I remember the day that a great many Members stood up saluting the 
fact that Iraq had a democratic election. Apparently, there is no faith 
in those that were elected to administer the country of Iraq because 
they are talking about America losing the war.
  We were told by Rumsfeld that 368,000 Iraqis had been trained. Where 
are they? Do they run away in the heat of battle? There is a lot of 
mystery surrounding this whole debacle called the ``war against 
terrorism'' in Iraq.
  I thought we were looking for Osama bin Laden. All of a sudden we 
switched over to a nation of 28 million people, to Saddam Hussein, who 
didn't like Osama bin Laden.
  I really feel that we were misdirected, misguided and, really, bottom 
line, lied to. And I don't know if you knew this, but while the 
President was making his presentation last night on a new direction 
forward, U.S. forces entered the Iranian consulate in Iraq's Kurdish-
dominated north and seized computers, documents, and other items. It 
was also reported that five staff members were taken into custody. This 
is during the time that the President was making his speech.
  Now, what I fear is that when the President said the axis of evil, 
Iran and North Korea, one down, the second one to come, and the third 
one very soon.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish to end with giving you this piece of information. 
What does that state? I understand right now that the United States has 
worked with the Iraqi Government to have a law where they will contract 
out their oil for the next 30 years and 75 percent of the proceeds will 
go to the contractors. Seventy-five percent. It is the major rip-off of 
all time.
  Was that the real reason why we invaded without provocation into 
Iraq?
  Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentlewoman from California, and I now yield 
to the gentlewoman from Ohio, Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the gentlewoman 
from California for her leadership in overseeing this Out of Iraq task 
force. Clearly, the work that this task force has done had an impact on 
the elections of 2006 and continues to have an impact as we go down the 
line.
  I want to be very brief. Last night, I went home and I turned on the 
President's speech; and as a good American, I wanted him to convince me 
that there was reason to send 21,000 young men and women back into 
Iraq. See, as a young Congresswoman, this is my 8th year, I have 
attended five funerals: a young man 19, another young man 28, another 
young man 28, another one 40-something, and another one in his 30s.
  And I sat there and I looked into the faces of those mothers, 
fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, spouses and children; and it 
was hard for me to come up with words to explain to them why their 
family members had died.
  We can talk about how they paid the ultimate price; but I wanted to 
say to them, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to let their deaths 
be just another number in this 2,000, 3,000 young men and women we have 
lost. So I waited last night for President Bush to tell me something, 
give me an indication, say, Stephanie, this is why we need to send 
21,000 more people; and I never got it. I never, ever got it. So it is 
hard for me to explain to my constituency that we ought to send 21,000 
more people.
  So I come to the floor once again this evening to say to Ms. Waters 
and all the rest of my colleagues in the Out of Iraq conference, it is 
the same old song with a different meaning. Same beat, same old song 
over and over again. It is time to come out of Iraq.
  Ms. WATERS. Thank you very, very much.
  I now yield to one of our new Members of Congress, a gentleman who 
comes with a great background and who has hit the floor running, 
Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota.
  Mr. ELLISON. I thank the gentlewoman from California for allowing me 
to participate in the Out of Iraq Caucus. I do formally request 
membership in such caucus at this moment and anxiously await being a 
full-fledged member of the Out of Iraq Caucus.
  Mr. Speaker and Members, I rise today really in the mindset of this 
coming weekend, which is Martin Luther King's birthday celebration. 
Martin Luther King, we all know, was a valiant defender of civil and 
human rights, also stood up strongly for the poor, but in this day and 
time must be recognized as one of the clearest voices for peace that 
this country has ever known.
  As I stand before you asking this country to join this Out of Iraq 
Caucus of the Congress, the whole United States should rise up, one and 
all, and join the caucus. And I just want to mention that it is 
important now to remember that those voices of peace, of which Martin 
Luther King was a key voice, need to be listened to, need our 
attention.
  Today, it is important to point out, as we walk toward the Martin 
Luther King holiday, that it was he who spoke up for peace, and he 
didn't do it in a way that was easy. Martin Luther King was arrested 
over 30 times as he was talking about peace. In 1967, and it is 
important to remember this, in 1967 he gave a speech in which he said 
that silence could continue no more. And

[[Page 1001]]

then on April 4 of 1967, 1 year before his death, he said that we have 
got to get out of Vietnam.
  And he didn't just say that Vietnam was the issue. He said Vietnam 
was critical, and Vietnam was what he was talking about at that time, 
but he actually projected a greater vision than just Vietnam. He talked 
about a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's 
tribe, race, class, and nation. In fact, what he talked about was a 
generosity of spirit, a politics of spirit in which we all could live 
in peace with each other.
  We need to say, no escalation, get out of Iraq now, but America needs 
to adopt as its guiding principle, America needs to say the thing that 
guides us the most is peace. It is not living in superiority to the 
nations of the world, but living in brotherhood and sisterhood with the 
nations of the world. We need to talk about a peace of generosity, a 
peace of inclusion, and a peace that will allow us to look our 
constituents in the face and say we will not send your brothers, your 
sisters, your children, your parents into a war zone to be one of 
20,000 more targets.
  We are going to stand up with courage, just like Martin Luther King 
did. We will withstand the criticism of those detractors who just don't 
get it. We will stand with the people who need peace, which is our 
constituents, and with the soldiers. Today, my colleagues, we are 
actually protecting our soldiers, as they protect us, by calling for no 
escalation. Withdraw from Iraq. Peace now.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank you very much. I know this is a 
Special Order that has drawn the interest of Members from vast regions 
around America.
  The important thing is we are Americans, that we want what is best 
for America, and that is why the Congress created the Baker Commission, 
not for it to be partisan but for it to be bipartisan, for it to have 
experts from around the Nation. To my great disappointment, the 
President stood up, ignored the Congress, the people, the experts, the 
military experts, and the wisdom that would indicate that it is time 
now to redeploy our troops.
  This is a Martin Luther King moment. His birthday will be celebrated 
this coming Monday. Martin Luther King was courageous enough, as my 
colleague from Minnesota just said, to have the courage to go against 
the Vietnam War, realizing it was better to have peace over war and 
life over death.
  The President laid out last night an Iraqi-dependent policy for 
America. They have, in essence, called upon the American people to 
depend upon this failed government to be the source of our strategy in 
Baghdad. We now will send some 20,000-plus troops to engage in a nine-
district process of dragging people out of their homes on the premise 
of utilizing Iraqi soldiers and security forces. My question to the 
President is: Why did we not do this before?
  Let me say in closing that I want a peaceful solution. I did not vote 
for the war, but I believe in our military. I believe in America and 
democracy. Bring the allies to the table in the region, have a 
political diplomacy, and have our troops backup the Iraqis. We cannot 
have a foreign policy dependent upon Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to speak on the most critical 
issue facing our country, the war in Iraq. This misguided, mismanaged, 
and costly debacle was preemptively launched by President Bush in March 
2003 despite the opposition of me and 125 other members of the House. 
To date, the war in Iraq has lasted longer than America's involvement 
in World War II, the greatest conflict in all of human history.
  The Second World War ended in complete and total victory for the 
United States and its allies. But then again, in that conflict America 
was led by a great Commander-in-Chief who had a plan to win the war and 
secure the peace, listened to his generals, and sent troops in 
sufficient numbers and sufficiently trained and equipped to do the job.
  Mr. Speaker, I say with sadness that we have not that same quality of 
leadership throughout the conduct of the Iraq War. The results, not 
surprisingly, have been disastrous. To date, the war in Iraq has 
claimed the lives of 3,015 brave servicemen and women (115 in December 
and 13 in the first 9 days of this month). More than 22,000 Americans 
have been wounded, many suffering the most horrific injuries. American 
taxpayers have paid nearly $400 billion to sustain this misadventure.
  Based on media reports, tonight President Bush will not be offering 
any new strategy for success in Iraq, just an increase in force levels 
of 20,000 American troops. This reported plan will not provide lasting 
security for Iraqis. It is not what the American people have asked for, 
nor what the American military needs. It will impose excessive and 
unwarranted burdens on military personnel and their families.
  Mr. Speaker, the architects of the fiasco in Iraq would have us 
believe that ``surging'' at least 20,000 more soldiers into Baghdad and 
nearby Anbar province is a change in military strategy that America 
must embrace or face future terrorist attacks on American soil. Nothing 
could be further from the truth, as we learned last year when the 
``surge'' idea first surfaced among neoconservatives.
  Mr. Speaker, the troop surge the President will announce tonight is 
not new and, judging from history, will not work. It will only succeed 
in putting more American troops in harm's way for no good reason and 
without any strategic advantage. The armed forces of the United States 
are not to be used to respond to 911 calls from governments like Iraq's 
that have done all they can to take responsibility for the security of 
their country and safety of their own people. The United States cannot 
do for Iraq what Iraqis are not willing to do for themselves.
  Troop surges have been tried several times in the past. The success 
of these surges has, to put it charitably, been underwhelming. Let's 
briefly review the record:


          1. Operation Together Forward, (June-October 2006):

  In June the Bush administration announced a new plan for securing 
Baghdad by increasing the presence of Iraqi Security Forces. That plan 
failed, so in July the White House announced that additional American 
troops would be sent into Baghdad. By October, a U.S. military 
spokesman, Gen. William Caldwell, acknowledged that the operation and 
troop increase was a failure and had ``not met our overall expectations 
of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence.'' [CNN, 12/19/06. 
Washington Post, 7/26/06. Brookings Institution, 12/21/06.]


 2. Elections and Constitutional Referendum (September-December 2005):

  In the fall of 2005 the Bush administration increased troop levels by 
22,000, making a total of 160,000 American troops in Iraq around the 
constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections. While the 
elections went off without major violence these escalations had little 
long-term impact on quelling sectarian violence or attacks on American 
troops. [Brookings Institution, 12/21/06. www.icasualties.org]


  3. Constitutional Elections and Fallujah (November 2004-March 2005):

  As part of an effort to improve counterinsurgency operations after 
the Fallujah offensive in November 2004 and to increase security before 
the January 2005 constitutional elections U.S. forces were increased by 
12,000 to 150,000. Again there was no long-term security impact. 
[Brookings Institution, 12/21/06. New York Times, 12/2/04.]


         4. Massive Troop Rotations (December 2003-April 2004):

  As part of a massive rotation of 250,000 troops in the winter and 
spring of 2004, troop levels in Iraq were raised from 122,000 to 
137,000.
  Yet, the increase did nothing to prevent Muqtada al-Sadr's Najaf 
uprising and April of 2004 was the second deadliest month for American 
forces.[Brookings Institution, 12/21/06. www.icasualties.org. USA 
Today, 3/4/04]
  Mr. Speaker, stemming the chaos in Iraq, however, requires more than 
opposition to military escalation. It requires us to make hard choices. 
Our domestic national security, in fact, rests on redeploying our 
military forces from Iraq in order to build a more secure Middle East 
and continue to fight against global terrorist networks elsewhere in 
the world. Strategic redeployment of our armed forces in order to 
rebuild our nation's fighting capabilities and renew our critical fight 
in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al-Qaeda is not just an 
alternative strategy. It's a strategic imperative.
  Mr. Speaker, it is past time for a new direction that can lead to 
success in Iraq. We cannot wait any longer. Too many Americans and 
Iraqis are dying who could otherwise be saved.
  I believe the time has come to debate, adopt, and implement the 
Murtha Plan for

[[Page 1002]]

strategic redeployment. I am not talking about ``immediate 
withdrawal,'' ``cutting and running,'' or surrendering to terrorists, 
as the architects of the failed Administration Iraq policy like to 
claim. And I certainly am not talking about staying in Iraq forever or 
the foreseeable future.
  I am talking about a strategic redeployment of troops that: Reduces 
U.S. troops in Iraq to 60,000 within six months, and to zero by the end 
of 2007, while redeploying troops to Afghanistan, Kuwait, and the 
Persian Gulf. Engages in diplomacy to resolve the conflict within Iraq 
by convening a Geneva Peace Conference modeled on the Dayton Accords. 
Establishes a Gulf Security initiative to deal with the aftermath of 
U.S. redeployment from Iraq and the growing nuclear capabilities of 
Iran. Puts Iraq's reconstruction back on track with targeted 
international funds. Counters extremist Islamic ideology around the 
globe through long-term efforts to support the creation of democratic 
institutions and press freedoms.
  As the Center for American Progress documents in its last quarterly 
report (October 24, 2006), the benefits of strategic redeployment are 
significant: Restore the strength of U.S. ground troops. Exercise a 
strategic shift to meet global threats from Islamic extremists. Prevent 
U.S. troops from being caught in the middle of a civil war in Iraq. 
Avert mass sectarian and ethnic cleansing in Iraq. Provide time for 
Iraq's elected leaders to strike a power-sharing agreement. Empower 
Iraq's security forces to take control. Get Iraqis fighting to end the 
occupation to lay down their arms. Motivate the U.N., global, and 
regional powers to become more involved in Iraq. Give the U.S. the 
moral, political, and military power to deal with Iran's attempt to 
develop nuclear weapons. Prevent an outbreak of isolationism in the 
United States.
  Mr. Speaker, rather than surging militarily for the third time in a 
year, the president should surge diplomatically. A further military 
escalation would simply mean repeating a failed strategy. A diplomatic 
surge would involve appointing an individual with the stature of a 
former secretary of state, such as Colin Powell or Madeleine Albright, 
as a special envoy. This person would be charged with getting all six 
of Iraq's neighbors--Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and 
Kuwait--involved more constructively in stabilizing Iraq. These 
countries are already involved in a bilateral, self-interested and 
disorganized way.
  While their interests and ours are not identical, none of these 
countries wants to live with an Iraq that, after our redeployment, 
becomes a failed state or a humanitarian catastrophe that could become 
a haven for terrorists or a hemorrhage of millions more refugees 
streaming into their countries.
  The high-profile envoy would also address the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict, the role of Hezbollah and Syria in Lebanon, and Iran's rising 
influence in the region. The aim would not be necessarily to solve 
these problems, but to prevent them from getting worse and to show the 
Arab and Muslim world that we share their concerns about the problems 
in this region.
  Mr. Speaker, the President's plan has not worked. Doing the same 
thing over and over and expecting a different result is, as we all 
know, a definition of insanity. It is time to try something new. It is 
time for change. It is time for a new direction.

                          ____________________