[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24106-24113]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        IRAQ AND THE MIDDLE EAST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as I said a number of times in the 
past, it remains a tremendous honor to step here on the floor of the 
United States House of Representatives and address you about how this 
dialogue that we have across America is a great big national 
conversation, 300 million people, many of them talking about the very 
subject matter that my colleagues in the previous hour have discussed, 
and that being the issue of the global war on terror.
  Particularly, because of the hearing today, the joint hearing between 
the Armed Services Committee, and it used to be the International 
Relations Committee, and now it's the Foreign Affairs Committee, many 
of our colleagues in the room of the 435 Members of Congress, over 100 
in the room and many others were watching television in offices and in 
gatherings around this Hill. There was a national conversation going on 
and taking place here.
  As we move forward with our discussion, one of the things that 
happens is, as talking members of the 300 million people of America 
carry on their conversation, a consensus forms. As a consensus forms, 
it works that the constituents across the country call up and write 
letters and send e-mails to and stop in and see their Members of 
Congress and their staff.
  As that goes on, if the American people are informed, if they are 
informed honestly and objectively, if they can get there, they can get 
their eyes and their hands and their ears on the facts, the American 
people often come to an appropriate and proper conclusion.
  But it happens to be a fact that nearly every week that we have been 
in session in this 110th Congress, now into September, having gaveled 
in here in January, nearly every week, there has been at least one bill 
on the floor, that was a bill, I believe, sought to undermine our 
efforts in this global war on terror.
  Except for last week, there wasn't one. Yet, the commitment that was 
made on the part of the request to Congress, and on the part of our 
military and the President, was to deliver a report here to Congress by 
September 15,

[[Page 24107]]

on or before September 15, that would be an objective update on the 
operations in Iraq, which I will stipulate again is the most 
centralized, the most contested battleground in this global war on 
terror.
  We all knew this report was coming, and today we received that 
report. That report was delivered here to Congress in written form and 
verbally by General Petraeus and by Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
  Well, it's interesting that when the date of this report became 
something that was published and people were aware of, that's when the 
debate began.
  We started to see an intensity of the different amendments and the 
resolutions that came before Congress. There are no resolution to 
unfund the war and call our troops home, but resolutions to try to do 
that without having to admit that that was the effort. As each one of 
those resolutions came up, by my view, each one of them one way or 
another failed with the American people. The argument was continuing. 
The debate was continuing.
  The people that were invested in, let me say, cut-and-run policy and 
tactics in Iraq, those people thought that they were going to win this 
argument with the American people, before General Petraeus brought his 
report before Congress. That's why those resolutions came to this floor 
every week, in my view, and that's why the media was delivered, message 
after message, that there was a failed effort in Iraq.
  That's also why I and many of my colleagues went to Iraq during that 
period of time. I made my fifth trip over there on the last weekend of 
July with a number of my colleagues in codel Burgess. On that fifth 
trip, it's hard to say, even when you go back to the same place, what 
was different. Because you will see sometimes different people, and you 
get a bit different report.
  But one thing you do is get briefings, internal briefings, classified 
briefings, from our top officers that we have and compare the 
information that comes from General Petraeus and General Odierno and 
Ambassador Crocker and Admiral Fallon. Those people that are at the 
front of this that are in the lead that are calling the shots from the 
highest levels, all the way down through the ranks, when you walk into 
a mess hall and simply say is there anyone here from Iowa, pretty soon 
you have a table full, know their hometowns and know some of the people 
that they are related to and know that there is an instant contact 
there. We compare notes Iowan-to-Iowan and then compare those notes 
with the briefings that we receive from our top officers.
  Close the door and have an intense, classified discussion with 
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, then come back here to this 
Congress and listen to the debate and watch the effort here on the 
other side of the aisle, the effort that I believe was invested in 
defeat. I will say even a significant number are still invested in 
defeat.
  But, yet, they thought they could win the debate and convince the 
American people that the cause was lost in Iraq. They thought they 
could win the debate before General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker 
delivered their report to this Congress that it would be a moot point. 
Whatever it was that General Petraeus might offer today, they wanted to 
have the American people convinced. A majority number of Members of 
Congress were convinced that it was a lost and failed effort in Iraq.
  Well, enough information came out from that part of the world; enough 
Members went over and saw for themselves. Enough Members like myself 
went into al Anbar province that, according to General Petraeus today, 
was politically lost a year ago. It was a hopeless case a year ago.
  As I was there the last of July, every single tribal area in al Anbar 
province, and I would remind the body, that that is one-third, Anbar 
province is one third of the geographical area of Iraq. It represented 
over half the deaths and violence of Iraq. It was the center of al 
Qaeda in Iraq. Ramadi was the center of death for the country.
  Still, every single tribal area in the entire province of that one-
third of Iraq was, a year ago, controlled by al Qaeda. Hamas was 
preaching an anti-U.S., anti-coalition, anti-Iraqi defense force 
message.
  But as I match the maps, as the tribal zones change and the sheikhs, 
the tribal leaders, got together, the they made a commitment to come 
together to kill al Qaeda with coalition forces and with Iraqi defense 
forces. Every single tribal zone, every sheikh in all of al Anbar 
province came over to the coalition side, to the side of freedom, and 
to the side of a free Iraqi people.
  When that happened, there was a dramatic sea change in al Anbar 
province. If you looked at the map of the tribal zones, it was already 
a year ago painted red because that was al Qaeda. Today, every tribal 
zone in al Anbar province is green, meaning they are on our side now, 
they are with us. They said they want to come kill al Qaeda with us. 
That was their message.
  When you see that kind of briefing, and you hear the briefing that 
came from General Petraeus today, but some of this information came out 
piece by piece, week by week, as there was an effort to undermine our 
effort in Iraq, came to a head today. Those who were invested in defeat 
had to make a case today that there was something weak about this 
military effort, something weak about the security effort, that there 
was something disingenuous about the delivery, about the report that 
was delivered today.
  What I saw today was truly two highly intelligent people with worlds 
of experience in the Middle East, Ambassador Crocker and General 
Petraeus.
  As I saw them with their delivery and their presentation and the 
facts that they laid out carefully, completely, objectively, with 
caution about those parts that aren't going so well, brought out before 
we heard the good news about the parts that are going well, this was a 
stellar report that the American people can take to the bank. We don't 
have all the problems solved in Iraq. There is a ways to go, and maybe 
a long ways to go. It's not going to be easy, but it looks far better 
today than the news media has characterized it to be.
  So there is much to be said about this momentous day today, this 
watershed day today, the records that were accumulated from General 
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. As I watched my colleagues listen to 
that delivery and ask their questions and probe, I can only reflect 
that the people that came out of this thing with their integrity intact 
were the ones delivering the report. The ones who were their critics 
were silenced in the end. That's the conclusion that I think an 
objective media will be reporting tomorrow.
  But at this point, I recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Zach 
Wamp.
  Mr. WAMP. It's a privilege and an honor to come back down to the 
floor tonight. I want to talk on two fronts, really. The one is about 
Iraq and the other is the threat of radical Islam, Islamofascism, as 
some people call it; but I think it's important here right on the cusp 
of the sixth anniversary, tomorrow of 9/11, to remind our colleagues 
and our fellow countrymen that we are not only not out of the woods, 
but that these threats are grave. They are grave this week.
  It's easy for everyone in this country to get lulled back into 
complacency or look for the comforts of our living room and shopping 
malls, but we face a huge growing and imminent threat from the terror 
itself here on our homeland.
  We come, as members of the Republican Policy Committee tonight, we 
just left a briefing downstairs from a Lebanese Christian named 
Brigette Gabriel, who wrote a book called ``Why They Hate Us.'' Some 
would ignore her, but, frankly, coming from that world and able to go 
on Internet chat rooms and read Arabic and know what's going on out 
there, we should listen. We should listen very carefully to what's 
happening in the world of radical Islam.

                              {time}  2045

  I think it is very ironic that some of the very people who may have 
said a

[[Page 24108]]

few months ago, ooh, let's embrace the Iraq Study Group's 
recommendations today would say, no, too late. We even heard that today 
from distinguished Democrats, some of them, too late. Too late. Too 
late for what?
  Let me tell you, this is not good news. We're at war. There is no 
good news. But this is positive news from the battlefield. And I think 
it's very ironic that in Anbar, and now spreading from Anbar originally 
out through the tribal groups and the provinces, where we're making 
real progress is among the moderates, which is kind of the Iraq Study 
Group's recommendation, is convert the moderates to allies. Work to get 
them to stand against the radicals; work to get the tribal leaders to 
say, al Qaeda is the enemy and we're now with the Americans and our 
allied forces. That's happening. But I'll bet you some people don't 
want to hear that positive news. That's the reality on the ground. 
That's important.
  I would also say, though, in a macroscale, where some of the Iraq 
Study Group's recommendations can be very instructive today for all of 
us is we need to engage moderate Islam, not just in country, in Iraq, 
but throughout the world, because just the sheer numbers of growth 
within Islam, if you read the demographics, for instance, in Mark 
Steyn's book, ``America Alone'' it's overwhelming; 5 years out, 10 
years out, they swamp us in population. If you think Americans or 
Europeans are growing as a population, we're shrinking. We are 
shrinking. There's fewer and fewer of us every decade and millions and 
millions more Muslims.
  And if the moderates within Islam won't stand against the radicals, 
that's why I reach out to the gentleman from Minnesota here in the 
House. Man, if there are freedom-loving people within Islam, where are 
they? They need to speak out. They need to be aggressive, and more and 
more of them in Iraq are because their relatives have been killed by al 
Qaeda. And once they kill your relative, maybe you're going to speak 
out. But they're intimidated; they're squashed.
  Let me give you an example. Mark Steyn just tells us recently of a 
book that was published called ``Alms for Jihad; Charity and Terrorism 
in the Islamic World.'' A guy named Jay Millard Burr wrote it. Great 
research in Saudi Arabia where all this oil money, and we heard this 
downstairs from Brigette as well, using the Saudi Arabian oil money to 
promote terrorists around the world, period. It's happening. This 
documents, ``Alms for Jihad,'' how they're funneling through charities. 
A man named Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz heads it up. The charity is 
called the Khalid bin Mahfouz or Blessed Relief Foundation. Millions of 
Saudi oil dollars into this charity that funds al Qaeda directly. This 
book exposes the whole thing. So you need to go to Amazon.com or Barnes 
and Noble to get the book. But guess what? You can't get it. It 
vanished. It was bought up, taken out of circulation, financially, they 
took the book off the market.
  Let me tell you, folks, in this country, from Dearborn, Michigan to 
right here in Virginia, Falls Church, Virginia, oil money from the 
wahabis in Saudi Arabia training up young people in this country, under 
a global Shari'ah, Islamic law, bringing them up against America in 
this country today.
  Listen, this, to me, at the sixth anniversary of 9/11, is a call to 
action for Americans who've been lulled into complacency thinking that 
somehow this conflict is about Iraq. If we would just leave Iraq, all 
of our problems go away.
  I'll say to you tonight, Mr. Speaker, this is not about Iraq. Iraq is 
the venue, it's the theater, it's where al Sadr is, it's where the 
Iranians and the Syrians have come, it's where they've recruited, it's 
where the fight is, but it's not about Iraq. It's about us and radical 
Islam at war. That's the theater. But let me tell you, it could just as 
easily be here tomorrow. God forbid it, but it could be just as easily 
here.
  They have virtually taken some parts of Europe in terms of public 
opinion. They've challenged laws of countries and states in their 
courts, challenging Islamic law should take precedence, and that's what 
they would like to see here.
  You may say, oh, he's wild; he's off the reservation. Not true. This 
is the way it is. They're using our very porous borders to come at us. 
And we're not secure. We're ignoring the threat.
  Let me tell you what the Wall Street Journal editorial said last 
week. It said, the world's most political and religious pathologies, 
combine with oil and gas, terrorism and nuclear ambitions. In short, 
unlike yesterday's Vietnam, the greater Middle East, including Turkey, 
is the central strategic arena of the 21st century as Europe was in the 
20th century. This is where three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, 
are joined. He goes on to say, so let's take a moment to think about 
what would happen if the last Black Hawk helicopter took off from 
Baghdad International. And he goes on to talk about Iran's influence in 
Iraq, emboldening Iran.
  Clearly, Ahmadinejad said less than 2 weeks ago he can feel the 
United States in retreat in Iraq, and we've lost our will. And that 
when we leave because they force us out, Iran is prepared to fill the 
vacuum. That's what he said 2 weeks ago. We can ignore it if we want 
to. But let me tell you, a precipitous withdrawal that the left in this 
country is asking for, a forced withdrawal from Iraq today, will lead 
to the most destabilization in the world that we have seen.
  And let me tell you, this threat we face, nobody wants to hear this, 
is greater than the threat of Nazi Germany. And if people say we had no 
business in Iraq, then we had no business storming the beaches of 
Normandy because the Germans didn't attack us. But we knew it was our 
obligation, as the leader of freedom in the world, to go and save 
Europe from Nazi Germany. We did that. We're doing it again, and it's 
uncomfortable.
  As I said in the previous hour, my nephew's over there. Specialist 
Jeffrey Watts is fighting in Iraq for us tonight. I'd love for my 
nephew to come home, but not until we can leave in victory; not until 
we leave an Iraq and a Middle East that's more secure than they were 
yesterday; not until we can assure the American people that Iran is not 
going to rise up and seize control with nuclear weapons in the Middle 
East, unless you want to accept Armageddon.
  I actually know how the story ends. I know the Bible from cover to 
cover, and I'm prepared to go on across that river at any time. But 
I've got to tell you, unless you're willing to just accept those 
ramifications, that's how high the stakes are in Iraq.
  This is not George Bush's war. This is America's fight. We committed 
it together. Some people would like to blame it on others now and not 
accept the responsibility. But this is America's fight against radical 
Islam, and it will go on for years to come, even when Iraq is over. And 
there'll be a time where Iraq is not the central theater. I'm concerned 
we're going to be fighting radical Islam all the days of my life.
  The question is, are we going to stand up, as generations before us 
have, and defend freedom. Are people like my nephew going to be willing 
to go and stand between a real threat in our civilian population, 
because that's what this is. And don't think for a second that it's all 
about Iraq. Some people dressed in pink would have you believe that. 
It's not true. And I'll tell you, what some of them are doing is 
downright un-American, and 50 years ago they'd have run them out of 
here on a rail.
  I'd be happy to yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his 
delivery. And I reflect that General Petraeus' last part of his 
prepared testimony said, in closing, it remains an enormous privilege 
to soldier again in Iraq with America's new Greatest Generation. Our 
country's men and women in uniform have done a magnificent job in the 
most complex and challenging environment imaginable. All Americans 
should be very proud of their sons and daughters serving in Iraq today.
  He also said that he believes that this is perhaps the most 
professional military to ever take to the field. And

[[Page 24109]]

I recall a discussion that we had in Baghdad just about 5 or 6 weeks 
ago, and the statement was made that this is not only the most 
professional but the best military that's ever been put into the field, 
that's ever gone to war.
  And one of the remarks they made, in addition to well-trained and 
brave and dedicated and well-equipped and patriotic and all of those 
adjectives that we use, one of the other ones was and the most 
perceptive. The most perceptive.
  And that caught me off guard, Mr. Speaker. I didn't expect that. But 
I understood what that meant; to have the perception to know the 
difference on when to shoot and when not to shoot, when to be the 
ambassador and when to be the soldier. That's one of the hardest 
things, and sometimes a decision has to be made in a split second. And 
that's what they meant by the most perceptive military to be sent off 
to war.
  And again, much was said today, much will be said about today. But at 
this point, I'd be happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the 
chairman of the Policy Committee from Michigan, Mr. Thaddeus McCotter.
  Mr. McCOTTER. I thank the gentleman from Iowa. I just want to touch 
on some points regarding strategic basis of the surge and some of the 
goals, some of what we've heard today. Your indulgence. Just touch upon 
some of the general themes that our Nation faces in the war for 
freedom.
  Mistakes in the past in Iraq have been rectified under the Petraeus 
plan. As I have said and many here have said on our side of the aisle, 
in the early days of the problems of reconstruction, we believed that 
you could not impose democracy from above in a top-down approach, but 
you could unleash liberty so that it could rise up, much as the 
American Revolution did, to take its own shape as the Iraqi people were 
emancipated from the shackles of Saddam's oppression.
  What General Petraeus is doing, in conjunction with Ambassador 
Crocker, is they are going into the towns, they're going into the 
tribes, they are going into the bedrock of the population of Iraq, and 
with the surge, providing the security to protect these individuals in 
these towns from the collective and systematic terror of the enemy, so 
that average Iraqis can make the local political shift to liberty and 
away from the insurgency. This is being done not simply through the 
utilization of military force. In fact, the success on the ground in 
the local levels and in the provinces and in our cooperation with the 
tribes is built upon and hastened by this political shift among the 
population.
  In any counterinsurgency operation, the critical element is to 
separate the population from the insurgency. This can be reasoned, if 
we look back at some of the statements of the grand guerilla warrior, 
Chairman Mao. When asked about how his guerilla operations and 
insurgencies against the nationalist Chinese would work, he said, our 
people will be as the fishes amongst the water of the people. What you 
have to do is separate the fish from the water. This is why the 
critical testimony I believe we heard today was that every single 
Iraqi, everyone in Anbar Province and elsewhere where we are seeing 
progress is being given the ability to make the free, conscious 
decision to reach for their liberty. They are not being terrorized 
because of the valor of our troops and the plan and the reconstruction 
efforts that are flowing into these areas that show they have a 
transactional benefit in this transformational change. And this is 
hastening the local political shift which I believe undergirds our 
chances for victory in Iraq. This is also what undergirds the good news 
that we had today, at least the welcome news that, because of the local 
shift amongst the population and the improved security that is 
concomitant to it, General Petraeus has proposed a reduction of 4,000 
troops by the end of the year and a reduction of 40,000 troops by July.
  Even if our Nation is so divided that we cannot unite in the cause of 
victory in Iraq, at least let us unite with the welcome news that 4,000 
now and 40,000 of our fellow Americans citizens are going to be 
returning from harm's way to their loved ones.

                              {time}  2100

  To have individuals derive this as a token gesture is to accuse 
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker of what the accusers themselves 
are doing, which is to play politics with the lives of our troops. We 
have seen, despite all evidence, despite what the military's assessment 
has been, repeated calls for the immediate withdrawal of the United 
States forces from Iraq. This would be irresponsible not only to our 
troops in the field but to the people of the region, especially the 
Iraqis themselves, who would be slaughtered.
  When one decides to engage in a strategic withdrawal in the face of 
enemy, military experts generally concur that this is one of the most 
dangerous maneuvers forces in the field can attempt because your 
numbers are getting smaller as the enemy is becoming emboldened and 
encroaching ever closer to you. The wholesale withdrawal on a date 
certain, which is an arbitrary dictate from politicians in Washington, 
for those who believe that this is a proper course of action, I ask 
them to check into how the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan went, and 
they might reach another decision.
  Further, to call this a token gesture not only belittles the 
sacrifices that our troops have made to reduce the security problems in 
these areas and to help get this local political shift, it also 
diminishes and belittles in a callous way the true joy these troops' 
families are going to feel when their loved ones come back.
  To me that is something that is not a token. That is something that 
relieves the painful anxiety of every waking minute these families 
spend wondering if their loved one will come home. I highly doubt that 
the military mothers in my district or throughout America are ever 
going to consider any troop coming home from accomplishing their 
mission as being a token gesture.
  Be that as it may, it is also critical that we understand, in this 
period of time, that ours is the latest generation duty bound to defend 
freedom in its hour of maximum danger. Thus we must ever remember, 
through this crucible of liberty, our course is tough but our cause is 
just.
  The enemy is the sire of tyranny; we are the children of liberty. By 
heinously invading our Nation on September 11, 2001, and killing 3,000 
innocent American souls, the enemy announced we cannot co-exist. In 
consequence, it is clear a world condensed by an Internet cannot endure 
half slave and half free. Yes, many times in the life of our free 
Republic, we have been called upon to face danger and to defeat it, and 
we have always done this and secured it by advancing a simple elemental 
truth that has served us well: to ensure our own liberty, we must 
ensure liberty to the enslaved.
  Thus in this trying time, it is imperative that we demonstrate that 
our devotion to liberty transcends their obsession with death. And 
united amongst ourselves and other free people, with prudence, we can, 
we must, and we will, for the sake of our children and the generations 
of Americans yet unnamed, we will win and we will walk our path, and we 
will widen the cause of human freedom.
  I thank you for allowing me the chance to address you.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan, 
the chairman of the Policy Committee, for the insights he has shared 
with us tonight.
  And we get those insights on a fairly regular basis here, and it is 
quite interesting to track the intellect of Mr. McCotter and causes me 
to reflect upon the constitutional limitations that this Congress has, 
Mr. Speaker. And in spite of the bill after bill, resolution after 
resolution, and policy piece after policy piece that have been brought 
forward here by almost an average of one a week the entire 110th 
Congress, there are only just a few things that we have the 
constitutional authority to do when it comes to war, Mr. Speaker. And 
the first thing that

[[Page 24110]]

Congress can do is raise an army and a navy, and that is 
constitutional, and by implication, an air force. It's clearly a 
constitutional responsibility of the Congress. And the second thing we 
can do is we can declare war, and that is constitutional responsibility 
also that is clearly defined in our Constitution. And the third thing 
we can do is fund the war.
  But there is no provision in this Constitution for micromanaging the 
war. That goes outside the bounds of our constitutional authority. The 
management of the war and, in fact, the micromanagement of the war lies 
within the authority, the constitutionally invested authority, of the 
Commander in Chief. That is why that is drafted in the Constitution in 
that fashion. It gives the authority to the Commander in Chief because 
our Founders went through a difficult Revolutionary War period. They 
were the Continental Congress. They were essentially a confederacy that 
had gathered together because of a common cause. And the Continental 
Congress raised the Continental Army, and the Continental Army was an 
army that was driven by consensus. And they understood the difficulties 
in fighting a war if you had to reach a consensus before you could move 
forward and make a decision.
  They knew you had to have a Commander in Chief, a Commander in Chief 
who could evaluate all the information, gather his officers around him, 
gather the information, and then make a definitive directive to be able 
to give an order to take bold action with intelligence, with military 
action, both offensively and defensively. They understood that. They 
learned some bitter lessons during the Revolutionary War. You can't 
fight a war by consensus. You have got to have a Commander in Chief at 
the top. That's why the Constitution is drafted in the fashion it is, 
and that's why the Constitution prohibits us from micromanaging a war.
  And yet the effort continues, an effort by this Congress, to 
micromanage this war that's going on. I recall the Speaker and the 
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee sitting over there in Syria 
negotiating with a person whom we have declared to be a state sponsor 
of terrorism, and the chairman of that committee announced we have a 
new Democrat foreign policy. Well, I would like to think that when you 
pledge an oath to uphold this Constitution, you also are obligated to 
read it and understand it. And in that are the limitations that say to 
us, Congress, you can raise an army and a navy and by implication an 
air force and you can declare war and you can fund them, but you can't 
micromanage that war and you can't conduct foreign policy. Both of 
those things are forbidden by the Constitution. They are vested in the 
Commander in Chief, our chief executive officer, because we have got to 
speak with one voice and we have got to fight with one effort. It can't 
be a divided effort, and it can't be an effort to undermine our 
military.
  I would be happy to yield to the fast-thinking, slow-talking 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me 
before he yields to the gentleman from New Mexico, because as I join 
this hour Special Order and I am hearing from my colleagues, some of 
the brightest minds and best speakers on our side of the aisle, I don't 
think I could stand to go behind all four of them. So I am happy to 
have the opportunity. But it's awfully tough following my colleagues of 
the likes of the chairman of the Policy Committee and part of our 
leadership.
  But I wanted quickly, Mr. Speaker, to again pay tribute to General 
Petraeus and also Ambassador Ryan Crocker. I just want to point out, in 
regard to Ambassador Crocker, I was reading his bio before they 
testified before our two committees today, the 6\1/2\- to 7-hour 
testimony, physically an ordeal, but Ambassador Ryan Crocker, I think a 
lot of people, Mr. Speaker, don't know his bio, and I don't have time 
to read it all. But suffice to say that in September 2004 President 
Bush conferred on Ambassador Ryan Crocker the personal rank of career 
ambassador, career ambassador, the highest rank in the foreign service. 
This is the character of the man and the men that presented this report 
to us today.
  And, basically, we cut right to the chase, and what they said is, now 
is not the time to quit, and give victory a chance. You can slice it 
and dice it any way you want to, but that is basically what they said 
to the 111 members of those two committees, the House Armed Services 
Committee, the House Committee on Foreign Relations.
  And so I just want to make three points, though, Mr. Speaker, that I 
have thought about and that I have heard in the last couple of weeks on 
reasons that I have heard Members give for wanting to give up and not 
give victory a chance.
  One of them was this business of, well, you know, it has been too 
great a strain and stress on our forces. We don't have enough troops 
back home. What if some other conflagration, war, would break out 
somewhere in the world in the next year, 2 years, 5 years? We don't 
have enough troops. We need to bring them home.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, retired General Jack Keane, the Vice Chairman of 
the United States Army, Vice Chief of Staff, spoke to us last week as 
well, and he also spoke on Saturday morning on Washington Journal. I 
hope some of my colleagues saw that. But what General Keane said, and I 
agree with him so much, is, You mean to tell me that you want to accept 
defeat? You want to lose the war, a war of this magnitude, as the 
gentleman from Tennessee pointed out, and what all is at stake in 
regard to the Middle East in this global war on terror? You want to 
give up that war so that you can bring the troops home and then restock 
and get ready for the next potential conflict and that's a good trade-
off? I don't think so.
  And I want to say another thing, Mr. Speaker, that I have heard a lot 
of people say: We can't afford this war. We cannot afford to spend $750 
billion, almost $1 trillion and counting, on this war because we need 
to rebuild our infrastructure in our country. We need to shore up our 
bridges. Obviously, that was in the news because of the tragic 
occurrence in Minnesota. Or we need more money for Head Start, or we 
need more money for K-12 education, or we need more Pell Grants, or we 
need to have more money for the food stamp program and the farm bill or 
whatever you can come up with.
  Let me tell my colleagues, if you don't spend the money to protect 
the American people, what good do all these other things do us when you 
see what can happen and did 6 years ago today on 9/11 when over 3,000 
were killed and the economic blow to this country was over $2 trillion? 
You talk about destroying some infrastructure. That's what it's all 
about when you let your guard down and you don't stand up and be secure 
in this country.
  And last but not least, I have heard many say, well, you know, our 
troops are coming home injured and many of them are suffering from 
post-traumatic stress disorder or syndrome. That's where you wake up at 
night, having nightmares, and maybe for the rest of your life you can't 
get over the mental trauma that you have gone through in a time of 
difficult war.
  Well, let me tell you something my colleagues, as a physician Member 
of this body. You talk about post-traumatic stress syndrome. You think 
a lot of them are coming back with that now? You think that that is a 
tragedy? Well, you just wait and see the numbers that come back with 
mental illness and post-traumatic stress syndrome and nightmares and a 
life of anxiety when they have to come back knowing that their comrades 
in arms have died in vain, their buddies in the foxhole have been blown 
to smithereens by some improvised explosive device and they have to 
come home a loser. And we are not going to let that happen, and I think 
that is what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were telling us 
today: let's give victory a chance.
  With that I will say, finally, as I conclude, who wins politically? 
Who cares. The American people lose if we lose in Iraq. That is what is 
important. This is not about the next election; this is about giving 
victory a chance.

[[Page 24111]]



                              {time}  2115

  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. And I 
appreciate your passion and the rapidity with which you speak tonight, 
Mr. Gingrey.
  I would be happy to yield as much time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).
  Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. King. I appreciate the work that you're 
doing on this issue on the eve of 9/11.
  It behooves us all to remember exactly what happened. It behooves us 
all to remember the loss of that 1 day, and like my friend from Georgia 
says, over $2 trillion in loss from America's asset base that day, and 
even worse, the 3,000 lives that were lost.
  I went to Iraq on Thursday evening. We left after votes on Thursday, 
flew all night long, and ended up in Iraq on Saturday and Sunday. And 
we spent the night in Baghdad on Saturday night and Sunday visiting 
with the troops and visiting with Iraqis.
  I was struck by the cautious optimism that General Petraeus related 
to us today, a very cautious optimism that the trend lines are 
favorable, that we're seeing some lessening of violence, and that's the 
sort of things that I found there from the troops in the country. I 
wanted to visit with our soldiers one on one. I had the opportunity to 
ride into Baghdad with troops who were going for the first time. I sat 
across from a Captain Serrano from Chicago and was able to talk to her 
about the 2-year-old daughter that waits at home for her. Her husband, 
who is engaged in going through sheriff's training to hopefully work 
for the sheriff's department there. And we're asking the sacrifice of 
young men and women daily to be there and stand in the gap to stand 
between the terrorists and ourselves.
  I have one of my friends who says, I hear America is at war. He said, 
America is not at war, America is at the mall, our military is at war. 
I think if we've made a mistake since 9/11, it's in failing to accept 
our responsibility individually, every single one of us, our 
responsibility to be engaged in this problem, because we are literally 
fighting for the future of freedom throughout the world. The terrorists 
who hate us hate our way of life. They hate our freedoms. They hate the 
films that come out from the West. They think they're corrupting their 
young people. They think that our society is decadent and that we're 
corrupting their cultures, so they simply want to annihilate us. That's 
the difference between a democracy or a republic and the tyrannical 
states of radical jihad that say that we will annihilate the West and 
we will annihilate America and Americans.
  I remember, on this eve of 9/11, President Bush's three goals. It was 
very simple. He said, first of all, if you harbor a terrorist, you are 
a terrorist. But then he said we're going to do three things: We're 
going to uproot the terrorist training camps that exist throughout the 
Arab world. We're going to stop the training and the production of new 
radicals. The second thing he said is we're going to stop the funds 
that flow from supposedly legitimate compassionate organizations when 
actually they're funding terrorists. So we're going to uproot the 
training camps, we're going to stop the funding of terrorists, and 
finally, we're going to take the fight to the terrorists.
  Now, there are many on the left who say that Iraq is not about the 
terrorists. The terrorists are coming in from Syria, they're coming in 
from around the world, they're coming in from Iran. This is the site 
where we are fighting terrorists. Now, maybe it began that way, maybe 
it didn't begin that way, but it's the way it is now. And if we walk 
away from that country, the general consensus is that Iraq will fall 
within days to the terrorists, to the terrorist state of Iran.
  After Iraq falls, we're going to see difficulties in Egypt and 
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar. And pretty soon you can see 
that every one of our friends in the Arab world is at risk. And there 
are people who ask me, well, how could those countries fall? Just 
remember back to 1979 when the shah of Iran was making great progress 
in westernizing that country, and in a matter of days was thrown from 
power, his whole government collapsed. We stood by, President Jimmy 
Carter stood by and did not lift a finger for our friends. And that's 
exactly how the falls will occur at this state.
  The difference is that now we import over 60 percent of our oil, and 
most of it comes from the Middle East. If those countries fall, the 
terrorists have said they're going to cut the supply of oil off to the 
world. They will plunge the world economy into chaos. And that's how 
they're going to create the economic destruction of the United States 
and of the West.
  I went to Israel earlier this year. They said if you leave Iraq, you 
will allow us to fall, because they saw the same scenario that I'm 
repeating, that all of our friends in the Middle East will fall, and 
then ultimately Israel says ``we will fall.'' Now, my personal belief 
is that Israel is our first line of defense against terrorists. They've 
been fighting since their inception against radical jihads in the 
Middle East. They are our first line of defense, and if they fall, what 
calamity and what terrors await for us in this country? There are many 
who say that it's just a fabrication, that it's not true, and yet we 
see the signs all around us.
  As I visited with our troops in Iraq over this past weekend, I 
conveyed one message, that we thank you. We thank you for your service 
and we thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for serving your 
country honorably, and we thank you for serving your country well. As 
the gentleman from Iowa mentioned, this is one of the messages of 
General Petraeus, that this may be the best military the United States 
has ever had.
  I do not believe the terrorists can win. I do believe that there are 
those in this Congress and those in this country who can cause this 
magnificent military to fail. And if they fail, I don't know where the 
hope for humanity comes. I don't see any other country in the world 
willing to fight for freedom and to fight to resist the radical jihad 
that threatens us all; to fight to resist and to fight to retaliate 
from circumstances like 9/11/01.
  So that's what we're doing today is remembering those events 6 years 
ago, remembering what our responses were and what our anger was on that 
evening as we contemplated the events of the day. Both sides, Democrat 
or Republican, in those days were of the same mind, that we need to get 
to the terrorists before they get to us. I'm not sure where we came off 
of the rails and where we've lost so much consensus. It's not good for 
the United States and it's not good for the world because we're still 
in a very difficult circumstance fighting a very difficult battle, one 
that General Petraeus today said is going to be awfully hard.
  It's going to be a long struggle, and it's a struggle that will be up 
and down. He believes our young military men and women are sufficient 
to the task. I do also. So I would yield back to the gentleman from 
Iowa by saying thanks to our troops. I hope that we all keep them in 
our thoughts and prayers.
  God bless you to the troops, and God bless America. I thank the 
gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico, a veteran 
and a C-130 pilot himself, and now a passenger in C-130s over in Iraq, 
year to year picking up firsthand information, veterans, active-duty 
personnel, just this last weekend. That's the level of involvement that 
you see here on the part of a lot of Members of the United States 
Congress, Mr. Speaker.
  One of those other individuals who has had a high level of 
involvement is an individual who led codel Burgess in the last weekend 
of July over to Iraq, a number of stops, Bayji, Balad, Baghdad and 
Ramadi, those places come to mind. And I very much appreciate the 
leadership and the initiative it took to put that together and to lead 
that trip over there.
  I would be happy to yield all but the last 3 or 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess.
  Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and the notation 
made of the exception of the last 3 or 4 minutes, and I will do my best 
to accommodate that.

[[Page 24112]]

  I get asked by a lot of people, why in the world did you make this 
sixth trip to Iraq in July. You knew what was going on there. What did 
you expect to see that was going to be different? But I knew we had 
today's hearing coming up. I knew it was coming down the pike at us 
fairly fast. I knew the news hadn't been good out of the country of 
Iraq for about the 10 months before July. I had been in Iraq in July of 
2006, had thought there was some measure of success that was beginning 
to be felt then, but then we had August, September and October, pretty 
rough months by anyone's estimation. And so I will admit, I was 
significantly pessimistic when we made that trip back in July.
  But I knew we were going to hear from General Petraeus today. And I 
knew that every time I had been to Iraq before I came away learning 
something that I hadn't seen on CNN or even Fox News. There was 
information that can only be available to you by going for yourself and 
looking for yourself, feeling, touching, smelling the situation on the 
ground.
  Now, I get a lot of concern from people when I go back home in the 
district who say, yeah, that's all great what we're doing for Iraq, but 
we don't know that we care that much about the Iraqis. I will tell the 
citizens of this country, it is in America's best interest that we 
succeed. Where we cannot be successful in Iraq, and you've heard other 
people talk about it this evening, let's be honest, it's not a 
political party that loses a car, it's not a Congress that loses a war, 
it's not a President that loses a war, it is a country that loses a 
war.
  And again, I reiterate, it is in America's best interests that we be 
successful because an Iraq that is stable, an Iraq that is able to 
participate in its own security, an Iraq that is able to act as an ally 
or partner for peace in the Middle East, what a difference 20 years 
from now looks like with that scenario compared with an Iraq where we 
leave prematurely, descends into chaos, is enveloped by Iran, Syria, 
Saudi Arabia, you name it. And the chaos that has been evident in Iraq 
in the past suddenly envelopes the entire Middle East, with a country 
like Iran emerging as the victor.
  Now, the surge or the reinforcements that we talked about really 
since January of this year, I think it's probably worthwhile to just 
touch on the timeline that we've been through this year. Remember, it 
was January 26, not that long ago, that General Petraeus was 
unanimously confirmed by the Senate, sent off with a pat on the back 
out the door, and no sooner had the door closed behind him when the 
Senate began sniping and criticizing his activity. He hadn't even 
gotten into the country yet.
  Ambassador Crocker. You heard my friend from Georgia talk about the 
wonderful resume of Ambassador Crocker. Many of us who were here in the 
spring of 2003 remember Ambassador Crocker as one of those stalwarts 
who came at 10:30 every morning and briefed us in the Armed Services 
Committee room, whether we were members of the committee or not, came 
with General McCrystal and briefed us every morning as to what was 
going on on the ground in Iraq. And I was really very grateful to 
Ambassador Crocker for having taken the time to do that so meticulously 
when the active combat phase was going on.
  On May 26, we finally passed the emergency funding and Bush signed it 
into law. Mid-July, we took a trip over to Iraq. Again, I didn't know 
what I was going to see. I was prepared to accept bad news if bad news 
was all we were going to find. But the reality was the city of Ramadi, 
which was absolutely off limits to me in July 2006, that's the first 
place we went. After we landed in Baghdad, we got on the Black Hawk 
helicopter and immediately went to the city of Ramadi, had a briefing 
by the Second Marine Expeditionary Force, had a briefing by Colonel 
Jacobsen there on the ground. After the briefing, instead of just 
shaking hands and parting ways, we went downtown. We went to the 
market. We walked through the market. We talked to children in the 
market. We saw things for sale in the market. We talked to a man who 
was concerned that one of our JDAMs fell on his building. And I will 
tell you, it doesn't do much to drive up a deal if that happens to your 
building.
  But nevertheless, we had a very one-on-one, close-up discussion with 
Iraqis on the street in Ramadi. And a year ago, no one in their right 
mind would have taken a Member of Congress to Ramadi; it was far too 
dangerous.
  Now, you can imagine how gratified I was. We got back. We got a call 
from the White House, and we were invited down to present our findings. 
I even tried to downplay it a little bit; well, there's some good news, 
but we've got to be careful because we've had nothing but bad news out 
of Iraq. And then a week later, two guys from the Brookings 
Institution, a place that I don't normally agree with, two guys from 
the Brookings Institution come up with an op-ed that says, this is a 
war we just might win.
  Throughout all of that, for the last week we have seen the steady 
drumbeat of efforts to undermine the credibility of General Petraeus 
and Ambassador Crocker prior to their hearing today.
  Today, we did have the House hearing, tomorrow there is going to be 
the Senate hearing. Arguably, there was not a whole lot new that was 
discussed because everything had been leaked in the New York Times in 
the weeks leading up to the hearing. And General Petraeus did say that 
he expected there was a possibility he would bring one of the Marine 
units home before the end of September, and that there was reason to be 
optimistic if things continued on this course, there was reason to be 
optimistic that other troops could be brought home early, beginning in 
December, much prior to fulfilling the 15-month rotation that was 
originally posed to them.

                              {time}  2130

  That would be good news. I hope he is correct in that. I hope he is 
successful.
  The data collection that went on leading up to this briefing, always 
for the last year you can pick data points out of the air wherever you 
want to make them. But the discipline to evaluate the trend lines is 
what is so critical. Today we saw those trend lines established and the 
data meticulously collected before those trend lines were established. 
Not all of them showed good news. But a preponderance of them show a 
positive effect that has happened in Iraq since our reinforcements 
arrived.
  None of us can predict what is going to happen beyond the end of this 
year. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, as we sit here tonight on the eve 
of the anniversary of 9/11, I am terribly concerned about what might 
even happen tomorrow. None of us knows what tomorrow holds. Didn't we 
learn that lesson Monday, September 10 in 2001 when it seemed like 
there just wasn't much happening in the world? We have another tape 
from Osama bin Laden. We are told there is another one out there. What 
does all this mean? None of us knows for sure. But I reiterate that we 
are living in a very dangerous time. Now is the time for us not to show 
weakness and retreat from Iraq. Now is the time for us to redouble our 
resolve, make certain that we are successful, and for every one of us 
to give thanks that we have leaders like General Petraeus and Ryan 
Crocker to lead us in this perilous time.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas. Again, I thank 
him for leading a codel over there. That was one of the most meaningful 
that I have been on. I picked up a lot in watching the observations of 
my colleagues and listening to their questions, as well. It is fresh 
information and helped fill in a lot of the blanks we might have had 
going into this hearing that we had today.
  I would, again, be happy to recognize the chairman of the House 
Republican Policy Committee, Mr. Thaddeus McCotter, for the balance of 
the time this evening.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Thank you. The gentleman from New Mexico, the good 
doctor from Texas and other speakers have touched upon a fundamental 
point. I wish to stress what General Petraeus said in terms of what an 
American victory would look like and

[[Page 24113]]

then ask a question of those who would support an immediate withdrawal.
  In his own letter to the troops, General Petraeus said that what we 
need is for the Iraqis to become solely responsible for their own 
security. That means a very small footprint, if at all, of the United 
States in Iraq militarily. Secondly, it will depend upon the local 
reconstruction, reconciliation, and security of the average Iraqi which 
will then drive the national reconciliation. Between those two pillars 
of local reconciliation and security will come a stable and free Iraq 
that no longer creates terrorists, but captures them instead.
  But as we are the children of liberty, as we are a Nation that 
proudly proclaims it is conceived in liberty, that since every human 
being has an unalienable, God-given right to breathe free, to have the 
right to pursue life, liberty and happiness, I ask my fellow Americans 
who support the immediate withdrawal this: If we betray our fundamental 
commitment to liberty to the people of Iraq and watch them be 
slaughtered in the sands, what will we ever be able to offer them again 
to turn them from the enemy and towards us? If we betray our own 
profession of the desire to liberate them, to let them share in their 
God-given rights the same way we have, we will be ideologically 
disarmed in the war for freedom.
  I assure you we will rue the day that we betrayed not only them but 
the inherited legacy that we have received from the greatest 
generations of Americans who preceded us and allowed us to live in the 
majestic America that we know today.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Michigan. He poses a 
question that is a difficult one for those who want to withdraw from 
this operation, the simple cut-and-run version, to answer. It is left 
for those to answer, Mr. Speaker.
  I would point out also that yesterday I did a memorial dedication at 
Charter Oak, Iowa, for all of the military personnel that have come 
from that area since the beginning of the conflicts, since that area 
was settled. It starts with the Mexican-American War, goes to the Civil 
War and on up to today. They placed out in the field there by the 
memorial 4,200 flags representing the lives of the Americans that have 
been sacrificed in this global war on terror in this quest for freedom. 
It also represents 50 million people that live free today that didn't 
at the beginning of this global war on terror.
  I looked back at the dedication and the sacrifice of all of them, and 
I added to that dedication another sacrifice, a sacrifice that we hear 
very little of, and that is those over-5,000 Americans who gave their 
lives during a time of peace during the period between Desert Storm and 
the beginning of this global war on terror, 510 a year, Mr. Speaker.
  I thank you for being recognized. I thank all the speakers here 
tonight that have spoken up for freedom.

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