[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3324-3328]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  FISA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Braley of Iowa). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Burgess) is recognized for 55 minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. I thank the Speaker for the recognition.
  It has been an interesting and entertaining hour that we have just 
been through. I came to the floor tonight to talk a little bit about 
the Middle East, but after hearing the comments for the last hour I 
would just remind my friends that the Senate passed a bill that passed 
with a fairly significant majority over in the Senate. And if the 
Senate-passed bill were brought to the floor of the House, we would 
have our FISA legislation reestablished. There are enough Members on 
their side combined with the Members on my side where the bill would 
pass without any difficulty. But it has been the lack of the will of 
the House leadership to bring this very important bill to the House and 
once again establish a modicum of protection for America, because, 
after all, despite all the lofty rhetoric we just heard in the last 
hour, it is not surveillance of American citizens on American soil, it 
is surveillance of individuals who are outside of America, outside the 
shores of America who are communicating with each other. But because of 
the nuances of the telecommunications system, those wires may pass 
through the United States, a server may exist in the United States, and 
therein the problem lies.
  And it is important, because as I talk about the Middle East I am 
going to come back to this issue on the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, because the lack of a functioning Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act is actually hampering some of our 
progress in the Middle East and I think it is important to draw that 
distinction.
  Again, as I said, Mr. Speaker, I just returned a little over a week 
ago from a trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. As a consequence, I 
was also in Kuwait briefly. But it is significant, and probably the 
first time where I have been in those three countries in that short a 
period of time. It is instructive to visit those countries in that 
condensed time period, because you really get a sense of how 
interconnected the successes and/or failures in each of those areas, 
how interconnected those facts are. All of those regions have their 
differences. They are significantly different. But certainly the 
progress in one area helps progress in another, and lack of progress in 
one signals lack of progress in the other. And I certainly saw evidence 
of this in all three places where I visited. And, as the saying goes, a 
picture is worth a thousand words and I do have several pictures that I 
would like to share with the House this evening and I will be doing 
that.
  First, in Afghanistan. The battle in Afghanistan is clearly 
interconnected

[[Page 3325]]

in so many ways with our relationships with our NATO allies. In fact, 
in Afghanistan, probably in early 2004, just as the NATO handover was 
beginning, there was a lot of optimism that our NATO partners were 
engaging in this and NATO is going to function as an alliance. After 9/
11, NATO activated article 5 for the first time in its history: An 
attack on one country was equivalent to an attack on all countries, and 
we would all respond in kind. So America had been attacked, and here in 
early 2004 with the arrival of the German troops, we saw the beginnings 
of the NATO alliance coming and bringing its full weight to bear in 
Afghanistan. Now it hasn't worked out quite the way we had all hoped it 
would have, because some of our NATO allies are somewhat recalcitrant, 
and they really need to begin thinking long term about the stability 
and the impact of stability in the Middle East and how that impacts the 
security of the world at large. It is not just for that one narrow area 
of the world; it is much more widespread.
  Now, no question about it, American, British, Canadian, Dutch, and 
Polish soldiers are doing great work and they are fighting against the 
Taliban in southern Afghanistan. Other areas with other components of 
the NATO alliance, it is not working quite the same way. In many ways 
it is regarded as a humanitarian mission rather than a military 
exercise. But I must stress, this is not a humanitarian mission, it is 
still a military exercise. Until the Taliban and the resurgent elements 
of al Qaeda are repulsed and removed, it will remain a military 
exercise. And the future of NATO depends on how well each of those 
individual countries could work together through this admittedly very 
difficult period. If we act together in strength, if we act as an 
alliance, I don't think there is any doubt that ultimately success will 
come. But if the activity continues to be fractured, the work becomes 
much more difficult; and the results will be fractured, the alliance is 
at risk and, as a consequence, the enemy will be emboldened. That's a 
shame. Because, remember, the Taliban in Afghanistan is not a popular 
insurgency. These are individuals who have been seen as oppressive and 
repressive. When they were thrown off, it was great jubilation by the 
people in Afghanistan, and there is no joy in bringing the Taliban back 
into people's lives. The Taliban does employ military age males more or 
less as day laborers, puts a gun in their hand and gives them a charge 
to do something. But the reality is, if there were other work 
available, these individuals would just as soon be doing other work and 
feeding their families in other ways because, again, the Taliban is not 
a popular insurgency.
  One of the things that of course was stressed a great deal in our 
visit in Afghanistan, our visits with General Rodriguez at the Bagram 
Air Base was all of the activity that takes place along the border. And 
certainly, when we went into Pakistan, those same themes were played 
out again. Not surprisingly, the perspective of the individuals, 
military generals in Afghanistan, was a little bit different from the 
political leaders in Pakistan. Suffice it to say there is a lot of 
activity going on along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and we see 
reports of this in our newspapers from time to time. There has been an 
increase in military activity on our part in some of those areas, and I 
think that is a good thing. I think they have removed some people who 
were continuing to cause great harm in the area. But at the same time, 
as we saw in the trip in Pakistan, it creates some difficulties in 
other areas.
  Now Pakistan had just completed a rather large and historic election 
when we arrived there on February 22. President Musharraf, who had been 
the leader of Afghanistan, was a military general. Of course in 1999 he 
was responsible for a coup and deposed the prime minister, Sharif. 
President Musharraf has pretty much been the single and solitary ruler 
in Pakistan now for the last 7 or 8 years. His party lost a majority of 
seats in the parliament in the last parliamentary election. We did meet 
with President Musharraf. He was quick to point out that he had won his 
election the October before, so it wasn't about him not winning an 
election, it was about the elections in parliament. And Mr. Musharraf I 
think correctly pointed out, as did other leaders that we talked with, 
that the good news out of the election was it certainly was a 
repudiation of the more radical Islamist elements, that there was some 
concern that they were going to gain a greater foothold in the 
Pakistani parliament. And, in fact, the party of Benazir Bhutto, now 
under the hands of her husband, Mr. Zardari, had won the majority of 
seats, the People's Party of Pakistan had won the greatest number of 
seats in parliament and it appeared very likely at the time we were 
there that he would indeed put together a coalition government with Mr. 
Sharif, the former prime minister, and that would then be the ruling 
coalition in Pakistan.
  The fate of Mr. Musharraf was at that time still pretty much in the 
balance. There had been a Senatorial delegation in just a few days 
before we were through who had suggested, I think it was in the 
newspapers phrased as a graceful exit. Mr. Musharraf recognized and 
there was acceptance and recognition that his role of necessity was 
going to change, but at the same time this is an individual who does 
care a great deal about his country and, of course, he has been a good 
ally and friend to the United States. And Mr. Musharraf did feel very 
strongly that he wanted to continue to play a role in the stability of 
his country. Mr. Musharraf's perspective of the border areas, the 
federally administered tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan 
was again a little bit different from General Rodriguez's over in 
Pakistan. From Mr. Musharraf's perspective, they had been pursuing a 
good deal of military options. Not all of those had been successful and 
there was a concern on the part of the Pakistani military whether or 
not they were in fact actually trained and equipped to follow through 
with those missions, and certainly training and equipping the Pakistani 
army is something where the United States may continue to play a role 
for some time, though I would stress that the actual military presence 
in Pakistan is very, very minimal.

                              {time}  2315

  But the federally administered tribal area has become very 
problematic from the standpoint of terrorism. It is where the Taliban 
exists and where the remnants of al Qaeda are hiding out, and there are 
attempts to regroup and retake territory within the country of 
Afghanistan, and clearly it is an area that deserves a great deal of 
attention.
  Mr. Speaker, I did promise to show some pictures. This is a picture 
of myself and Senator Hutchison from Texas meeting with Mr. Zardari. 
This is Benazir Bhutto's widower. We were that day in Pakistan 
discussing the role his coalition government would play in the future.
  At the time we were there, it was not settled who the new prime 
minister would be. Obviously it would be someone who was elected in the 
People's Party of Pakistan because they held the largest number of 
seats in the Parliament. Mr. Zardari is someone I had never met before. 
In our discussions, he said all of the right things and in the right 
way. Obviously, in any situation like this, the follow-through is what 
is critical, so the next several weeks and months are critical for the 
stability of the country of Pakistan.
  But Mr. Zardari was very gracious to have us into his home and meet 
with us. Remember, just a few short weeks before he had undergone a 
fairly wrenching personal episode with the loss of his wife after the 
assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and they appeared to be doing their 
best to recover as a family. And now, given the additional 
responsibilities of the governance of Pakistan, but he did seem to be 
growing into that role, and I will tell you that was reassuring to 
watch that.
  Of course we were not able to meet with Mr. Sharif that day. We did 
meet with President Musharraf on that trip, but we were not able to 
meet with Mr. Sharif. Again, this is an area that will bear close 
scrutiny and watching over

[[Page 3326]]

the next weeks and months because, again, as I will stress, each of 
these areas are so interrelated and so tied together.
  Clearly the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area is one issue, but there 
are other links to other areas where terrorism is problematic that come 
out of that federally administered tribal area. The Spanish have 
discovered recently a link between some of their home-grown terrorists 
and the federally administered tribal area of Pakistan. Likewise, the 
Germans have discovered some terrorist links to Pakistan via Turkey.
  In Britain, several of the terrorist groups within Great Britain can 
be traced to the federally administered tribal area, that border area 
between Afghanistan and Pakistan. So it is clear that terrorist 
activities taking place in that region of Pakistan are having a direct 
and profound effect on the security of European countries and certainly 
our NATO allies.
  The terrorist activity has direct and dire consequences on foreign 
elections. We saw that happen in Spain several years ago when the March 
11 bombings obviously or significantly influenced the outcome of the 
elections in that country. That behavior in turn led to a new 
government that then subsequently withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. 
And subsequently I think the mission was certainly not strengthened by 
that exercise.
  But all in all, I would say it was a very informative trip, and I am 
grateful to President Musharraf and grateful to Mr. Zardari for meeting 
with us on relatively short notice during that trip. And there is no 
question, it was very informative to have that level of discussion.
  I also made my seventh trip into the country of Iraq during that 
congressional delegation. I had last been in July of this past year, 
July of 2007. At that point I wasn't quite sure what I was going to 
find when I returned to Iraq that time. I found the situation to be 
much better than I expected it to be, and I will say that in the 
intervening 6 or 7 months since I was last there, the situation has 
improved even more.
  No question about it, troop morale has always been good. I have never 
seen a problem with troop morale in any of the trips I have taken into 
Iraq. And in this past trip, it was nothing short of spectacular.
  One of the things that was perhaps a little different about this trip 
and something that I really had not been able to do on previous trips 
was venture directly into some of the neighborhoods in and around 
Baghdad. The reason we were able to do that was because of the 
establishment of the joint security stations. These are the areas where 
American troops are embedded with Iraq security forces and Iraqi 
policemen. They are there side by side day in and day out. This was the 
concept that General David Petraeus brought to Iraq a year ago when the 
famous surge or reinforcements were brought into that country. It was a 
strategy not without some risk and certainly many of us were 
justifiably concerned about that.
  I know in my trip into Iraq in July in the C-130 sitting with troops 
as we were going from Kuwait City into Baghdad, several voiced real 
concern that, you know, we are going to be living side by side with the 
Iraqis. If there is an interruption of fuel or material or food, then 
certainly we could be at risk in these situations because no longer 
will we be going back to the base every night. You could sense there 
was some concern.
  The situation has been one that has been enormously successful. And 
as a consequence, the Iraqis have gained a great deal more confidence 
in the American troops that are there and their ability to provide 
security and to react quickly. And Iraqi citizens are coming forward 
with much more information, information about the location of IEDs, 
information about the bomb-making factories, and information about 
people who may be doing things that are harmful to a neighborhood. So 
it has been an overall improvement in the relationship between regular 
Iraqis and the American soldiers and an improvement in our ability to 
gather that all-important intelligence to be able to fight this war in 
the way it should be fought.
  Again, I would stress that it is our men and the Iraqis living side 
by side.
  Here we are just arriving at the joint security station. We are 
getting a briefing there just after arrival. At that point I think they 
were going over the briefing on the number of IED attacks, and there 
was basically a Google Earth map with all of the IED explosions plotted 
out on the map. Red ones were where people were hurt, and blue ones 
where a bomb went off and no one was hurt, and yellow was where the 
bomb was discovered after it went off.
  July and August, those photographs were literally covered with dots 
of one color or another. And then going through month by month, August, 
September, October, the numbers diminished rapidly such that in 
December and January, there were very few dots on the map of any sort 
at all. And certainly you could see in a very graphical fashion the 
effect of having our troops embedded on the ground and living side by 
side with the Iraqis.
  We had seen this in the summer, in the trip in July in the city of 
Ramadi out in Anbar province, and now that has been fairly widely 
reported that there has been the Anbar awakening and the Sunnis who 
previously would have perhaps partnered with al Qaeda to work against 
the Americans had changed allegiance and changed sides and saw now the 
Americans as their helpers and their friends, and the city of Ramadi 
was markedly different in July of 2007 from July of 2006. And as a 
consequence then, this same sort of activity now going on in the area 
of Baghdad that would have been just absolutely impassable 6 months 
before in the month of July, and we were now able to walk around on the 
streets.
  This is within the living quarters that the soldiers have there. The 
Minnesota National Guard had done some refurbishing and furnishing of 
the barracks there. They had tried to make it a little more homey. You 
can see the ubiquitous widescreen television at the top. This is a 
bench that had been fashioned out of some scrap wood that was around. 
And they had done a wonderful job as far as making the living 
conditions as good as could be expected.
  Again, the morale of our soldiers was unlike anything I have ever 
seen. Clearly they understand what they are doing, and clearly they 
understand that they are very close to achieving success. It is 
something that I wish almost every Member of Congress could go over 
there and see in these joint security stations because it really is a 
moving experience.
  As a consequence of these activities, al Qaeda that was so prevalent 
in Anbar province and along the Euphrates River Valley have been 
diminished to a minimum amount. Al Qaeda in Baghdad is significantly 
diminished as well. There are still some problems in the area around 
Sadr City, but with some of these embedded areas moving into that area, 
we will perhaps see some improvement there as well.
  The former Sunni insurgents have turned their back on the insurgency. 
They are cooperating with coalition forces. That cooperation again is 
yielding good intelligence. In fact, in another part of this particular 
base where we were, this police station we were in, we got to see some 
of the surveillance activity as it was going on, and remarkable, 
remarkable efforts by our soldiers, by our men.
  At one point a device had gone off and caused some injuries in the 
marketplace, and one of our young men painstakingly went back through 
the photos and tapes and actually discovered some physical 
characteristics of the individual that looked as if he may have planted 
the device. And then partly by luck but partly by good detective work, 
found that same man in a marketplace later on, brought him in for 
questioning, and certainly we were able to make the case of the 
connection between that individual and the bomb that had gone off.
  One of the great things was that although the detective work was done 
by our soldiers with their equipment, when it came time to apprehend 
this individual, he was actually apprehended by the Iraqi police and 
brought in by the Iraqi police so the citizenry

[[Page 3327]]

could see that their police force was up and running and functioning.
  A good news story all along. But one disturbing note was on further 
study of some of those surveillance photos, apparently this individual 
who had planted the explosive device had actually had his 3-year-old 
daughter carry the device to the area and place it in a trash 
receptacle and that is how the device came to be where it was.
  Clearly we are dealing with a type of evil that most of us don't 
understand and can't understand. But this is the type of individual, 
this is the type of evil that is present in some of these areas, and 
this is the work that our soldiers are doing to combat that.
  Again, this is a police station in inner city Baghdad. Six months ago 
I couldn't have gone there. Certainly 2 years ago there is no way. But 
now the Iraqi police are taking over. People feel safe. They feel safe 
to approach local law enforcement. In fact, when we left the building 
from this police station, out on the street a group of Iraqi men came 
up and was eager to talk with us. One of the soldiers found a 
translator for us, and we engaged in quite a lively conversation. To be 
perfectly honest, it was gratitude that was expressed on the part of 
the Iraqis who were there, gratitude for helping get their neighborhood 
back, and gratitude for helping get their country back. Again, it is 
the type of progress that you almost can't believe if you can't go 
there and see it yourself.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the funny things is if this had been a year ago 
and we were here talking about Iraq, we would be talking about having 
yet another vote to get us out of Iraq. It seemed like every week we 
had that type of vote here on the floor of the House. And we are not 
doing that so much any more. I wonder why. Perhaps because things have 
gotten so much better there.
  The news stories a year ago, day in and day out, a bad news story out 
of Iraq. Well, now you don't see those stories every day. You see odd 
stories like Ahmadinejad from Iran coming in to visit in Iraq, which I 
think is problematic. I wish it hadn't happened. But on the other hand, 
Iraq is a sovereign country and if Prime Minister Maliki wants to meet 
with Ahmadinejad, I guess. In fact, we have a Presidential candidate 
who said he will sit down with his enemies. Maybe Mr. Maliki had been 
listening to that Presidential candidate. I didn't think it was perhaps 
the wisest and best use of his time. After all, Mr. Speaker, a lot of 
the explosively formed projectiles that are so deadly, a lot of the 
IEDs and improvised explosive devices are made with materials that 
clearly come from the country of Iran.

                              {time}  2330

  And that has been problematic for many, many months. And Iran's 
activity as far as continuing some of the disruption in this area, 
Iran's activity, has indeed, I think, been problematic.
  We hear a lot about the lack of political progress, and those talking 
points probably need to be updated. The Iraqi parliament recently 
passed four major pieces of legislation. They passed the de-
Ba'athification reform, they passed an amnesty bill, they passed a 
provisional powers law, and a national budget. No question about it, 
there's still a lot of work to be done and that budget execution is one 
of those things that I watch very carefully because I don't know, you 
know, quite honestly, with the infrastructure that is there with their 
banking system, it's very, very difficult to distribute money to the 
local areas where it is so desperately needed.
  But nevertheless, they are making the efforts. In fact, there are 
four things that the Iraqi parliament did this past year. I don't know 
what our track record is. I think we banned the incandescent light. I 
don't know that we've done much more in the past year, and there's four 
things that they've done.
  One of the biggest changes that I saw last July and one of the things 
that really gave me great optimism, that one day we would have in Iraq 
a stable country that was able to govern itself, provide for its own 
security, provide for its own people and be a partner for peace in the 
Middle East.
  Last summer visiting the city of Ramadi where the local political 
leaders, the local political shift that had gone on in that country; to 
be sure, the central government in Baghdad has some problems and 
they're going to have to work through those problems; they're going to 
have to find solutions to those problems, as any country would. But the 
fact that local leaders, like a county commissioner, like a mayor, like 
a county administrator, these are the guys and ladies on the front 
line. These are the ones the citizens turn to for help when things 
don't work right, when things go wrong. These are the individuals that 
should be the first line of contact. And indeed, in the city of Ramadi 
last summer and then again in this neighborhood, the al Hamandiyah 
neighborhood in Baghdad, the local political shift was very much in 
evidence. The local leaders were stepping up and doing the work that is 
required of local leaders. Still some difficulty getting the funding 
from the central government, but my understanding on this last trip was 
that that had improved even from 6 or 7 months before. Obviously, 
again, that's going to bear watching. And there are lots of areas in 
need of improvement. But all in all, the progress is going in the right 
direction.
  You see that in other things, too. The national electricity hours are 
up. Some small water projects that were so desperately needed have now 
been completed. Some primary health care centers have been constructed 
and more are to open, all signs of progress. That was work you just 
couldn't do a couple of years ago because the security situation just 
would not permit it.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, I remember very well the arguments and 
discussions and debate we had on the floor of this House just a little 
over a year ago in regards to what General Petraeus saw, what General 
Petraeus wanted to do, and giving him the ability, the tools to do that 
job consumed a lot of our discussion a year ago. But I've got to tell 
you, I'm glad we found the right man for the job. I'm glad we gave him 
the tools that he needs. And he certainly seems to be pursuing success 
with all due dispatch.
  It's hard to know what the next steps are. You hear a lot of people 
talk about the troop drawdown that was essentially the surge, and as 
those numbers come back down are we going to come down below that. 
We're going to have to have a wait-and-see period. Obviously, in my 
mind, my opinion, those decisions should not be made by those of us 
here in the House. Those are decisions that should be made by the 
military generals on the ground.
  We did have an opportunity in this trip, as we did last summer, to 
meet with David Petraeus at some length. We met with the general. We 
also met with Ambassador Ryan Crocker, a true patriot who's given now a 
year of his life to be in that country and to provide stability in that 
country. Things have not always gone to his liking, I'm sure, but 
nevertheless, I think he can point to a great deal of success.
  I remember a year ago so clearly, you know, you could take data 
points almost and make whatever kind of case you wanted to make in 
Iraq. And General Petraeus stressed to us a year ago that it would be 
important to look at trend lines over time, that you just simply 
couldn't look at a collection of data points and make a decision.
  When we visited with General Petraeus at the American embassy in 
Iraq, we kind of saw a preview of what he's likely to present to 
Congress when he comes back in March or April to give his interim 
report to Congress. He had a variety of charts up. You could see that 
the trend lines again were all moving in the right direction as far as 
number of attacks, as far as attacks on citizens, attacks on soldiers. 
The trend lines for things like electricity and water were going in the 
right direction, which was up. All in all, the story coming out was 
very positive. At the time we were there, something had just occurred 
which was a point of not some insignificant concern, the activity of 
the Turkish troops on the northern border which had the potential to be 
very destabilizing because, of course, the Kurdish regiments in that 
area

[[Page 3328]]

have been functioning very well, and the fact now that they were being 
faced with some Turkish soldiers who had come across the border to deal 
with some terrorism aspects that they thought were going on along the 
border, clearly that needed to be managed and managed very quickly and 
apparently has been. But it did have the potential to become much more 
serious than it was.
  I stated early on in the hour that there might be a place to draw the 
FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, back into the discussion. 
And certainly that came up during our discussion with the general and 
the ambassador at the American embassy, or at the embassy in Baghdad 
that night.
  Again, remember, we're talking about not surveillance on someone 
who's in Dallas calling someone who's in Washington. We're talking 
about surveillance on someone who is in perhaps one of those federally 
administered tribal areas in Pakistan or someone who's in Afghanistan 
communicating with someone in Iraq, because that method of 
communication may be putting up a Web site. There may be an embedded 
message on a Web site. But because that Web site may be carried on 
wires that go through the United States of America, then suddenly it 
becomes something that is under the jurisdiction, in some people's 
mind, of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. And in order to 
find out who put the Web site up, you'd have to go through the FISA 
Court to get that information. But these Web sites tend to be rather 
ephemeral. They don't stay up that long. But it's problematic because 
you can't know who put up the Web site. You can't know who visited the 
Web site. And if you need to, you can't take it down without going 
through a 72-hour process in the FISA Court.
  A little less than a year ago, when some of our soldiers were 
kidnapped in Iraq, we gave their captors a 10-hour head start because 
of issues with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and having to 
go through the courts to get permission. You can't fight a war that 
way. We're either serious or we're not serious. And I think because of 
the concern that I heard over being able to protect not just our troops 
over there, but protect American citizens here at home, I think this is 
a critical piece of legislation.
  Again, if we would just simply take up the legislation as passed by 
the Senate, passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, there are enough 
Members on my side, there are enough Members on the other side that 
this bill would be passed and America's protection could once again be 
more secure. In the meantime, we're playing a very dangerous, dangerous 
game, not only with our homeland security here in the United States but 
also as it turns out with our soldiers who are doing so much for us 
over in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  We talk about a war on terror, but the reality is we're fighting a 
war against radical Islam. Terror is one of the tactics that's used in 
that fight. I don't think there's any question that we need to keep our 
focus on each of those countries, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, 
certainly redouble our efforts in Afghanistan and really begin thinking 
long term. You know, we hear people who want to have an 8-month time 
line. They want to talk about, between here and November, the election 
day in November.
  The enemy doesn't have a time line that's that short. The enemy has a 
time line that's years, decades or longer. And you almost have to think 
in those terms to be able to satisfactorily prepare and satisfactorily 
protect our country, because if you're just short-term focused on what 
happens between now and election day in November, that's probably not 
going to be sufficient for protecting America. Our enemies are thinking 
in terms of 100 years. Maybe we need to think in terms of 100 years. 
Certainly, our America and our allies have to be able to match and keep 
up with them every step of the way.
  Each of these battles is winnable. There's no question. From a 
tactical and strategic standpoint there is no one who can stand up 
against the United States, so the battles are winnable, but they're not 
yet won.
  Again, success in one conflict means success in the other. Failure in 
one means failure elsewhere. You know, in fact that's not just the 
Middle East. That's in the United States and possibly extending to 
other freedom-loving nations in the world.
  It is not time for us to pull our forces down and just think about 
coming home. We are very close to, again, establishing on the ground in 
the country of Iraq a country that is responsible to its people, 
provides for their benefit and their welfare, is a stable partner for 
peace in the Middle East. Those are worthwhile goals and we need to 
continue to pursue those.
  It is a time that calls for statesmen and not politicians. It does 
require a vision that does encompass a time line that is longer than 
just the next 8 months.
  I can't say it often enough. You're going to have to look to the next 
generation. You can't just focus on the next election because that's 
the wrong perspective to have.
  I want to thank our troops who are working over there day and night 
in our behalf. It is sometimes seemingly thankless work, but again, I 
would stress, well, let me just show you one more picture, Mr. Speaker. 
And although these individuals are dressed in military uniforms, 
they're actually Department of Defense civilians. They work on the mine 
resistant ambush protected vehicle facility near Camp Victory just 
outside of Baghdad. These vehicles, and you can see one in the 
background, a very heavily armored vehicle. They are built to withstand 
the mine blasts and the IED blasts. And you see a group of very, very 
dedicated individuals standing there around that vehicle, very proud of 
the work they do. Most of these individuals, again, the men and women 
are civilians from my home State of Texas, not in my district, but up 
in northeast Texas, the Red River Army depot near Texarkana. In fact, 
most of the people that we see in the picture are very likely 
constituents of my neighbor and good friend Ralph Hall. But again 
clearly proud of the work they are doing. They understand the value 
that they bring, the benefit that they bring to our soldiers by 
providing this type of vehicle. They don't have the best shock 
absorbers in the world, but they are certainly functional and certainly 
are providing a great deal of protection for our troops. I can't say 
enough about the wonderful people that are defending us in all three 
countries. Also in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. We had a brief 
refueling stop in the United Arab Emirates and got to meet with some 
soldiers there, a wonderful group of people who are working their 
hearts out on behalf of their country. The least we can do here in the 
United States Congress is offer them our faithful support until their 
mission is complete.

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