[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5579-5585]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Madam Speaker, and good job on my 
name pronunciation. I have a hard time with it too.
  Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to begin the 30-Something 
Working Group's special order hour tonight. Speaker Pelosi has given us 
the privilege to come to the floor night after night to talk about the 
issues that are important to the American people, from our generation's 
perspective. And it is something that we have appreciated for a number 
of years because we've had an opportunity to engage the next generation 
of Americans, who clearly are yearning for their government to be 
responsive to them, to have their confidence in their government 
restored.
  And tonight what we want to focus on, particularly because General 
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker came to Capitol Hill this week to talk 
about the so-called progress, or lack thereof, which is a better 
expression, in the war in Iraq, we felt it was important to highlight 
tonight the absolute cost of the war in Iraq and the toll that it is 
taking on, not just our military troops, but their families and on 
America as a whole.
  And I think there is no more telling statement that could be made 
than the one that was made by General Petraeus himself in response to 
Senator Evan Bayh's question, or comment, that there was much ambiguity 
in Iraq. And General Petraeus conceded that point.
  General Petraeus stated this week, in fact I believe it was today, 
that in Iraq we haven't turned any corners; we haven't seen any lights 
at the end of

[[Page 5580]]

the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the 
refrigerator, he said, referencing President Bush and former Vietnam-
era General William Westmoreland's famous phrases.
  It is clear that we have made virtually no progress, and that the 
only things that we are celebrating at this point is that there has 
been a reduction in violence. I wonder what that has brought us. What 
has that brought Americans?
  Well, let's go through what the so-called progress in Iraq that was 
described by General Petraeus today and this week, what that's brought 
us.
  We spend about $339 million in Iraq every single day, Madam Speaker. 
$339 million. And I'd like to go through the actual monetary costs of 
the war in a little bit. But let me just talk about what $339 million 
would get us and the investments that we could make in America, 
domestically, in the event that we were not hopelessly mired in this 
war in Iraq.
  $339 million would get us 2,060 more Border Patrol agents that could 
be hired to protect our borders for a year.
  18,000 more students could receive Pell Grants to help them attend 
college for a year with $339 million.
  48,000 homeless veterans could be provided with a place to live for a 
year.
  317,000 more children could receive every recommended vaccination for 
a year.
  955,000 families could get help with their energy bills through the 
Low Income Home Energy Assistance program, that's the LIHEAP program, 
for a year.
  Nearly 480,000 women, infants and children could receive nutritional 
help with the WIC program for a year.
  2.6 million Americans without adequate health insurance could have 
access to medical and dental care at community health centers for a 
year for $339 million.
  More than 100 local communities could make improvements to their 
drinking water with help from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund for 
a year.
  I could continue on and on, Madam Speaker, listing all the important 
investments that we could and should be making, were we not spending 
$339 million in Iraq every day.
  Now, let me just make that comparison again. I'm talking $339 million 
that we're spending in Iraq every day, and the list I just went through 
details what $339 million would buy for a year.
  Now, I went home to my district a couple of weeks ago when we went 
into recess and talked to my constituents, had a lot of interaction 
with them. And you know, what was amazing was how top of mind the 
economy is.
  We're less than a week from the April 15 tax deadline, and I'm sure 
that there are folks out there tonight that are sitting and doing their 
taxes while trying to figure out how they're going to write that check 
when they're done, and wondering how they're going to take their child 
to the doctor if they don't have health insurance, wondering how 
they're going to make sure that they can put food on the table and fill 
their gas tank, because now that gas is over $3 a gallon, really over 
$3.30 a gallon, it boggles the mind of my constituents and I know the 
constituents of virtually every Member, no matter what party we 
represent, that we are actually still, 5 years later, in Iraq, with an 
administration that just doesn't seem to get it; that doesn't seem to 
be willing to recognize that it is time to bring our troops home; that 
we have taken too great a toll.
  The question that my constituents and that Americans are asking is, 
how much is too much? At what point do we say the cost is too great?
  I think you have to take a look at the toll that this is taking on 
military families. If we're not going to say that the investments we 
can't make because we're spending so much money in Iraq are worth the 
cost, then let's look at what the military leadership is saying about 
the toll that this war is taking on our troops.
  An Army study of mental health, and this is from an article a couple 
of days ago, April 6 in the New York Times, an Army study of mental 
health showed that 27 percent of noncommissioned officers, a critically 
important group, on their third or fourth tour, exhibited symptoms 
commonly referred to as post-traumatic stress disorders. That figure is 
far higher than the roughly 12 percent who exhibit those symptoms after 
one tour, and the 18\1/2\ percent who develop the disorders after a 
second deployment, according to the study which was conducted by the 
Army Surgeon General's mental health advisory team.
  So we're not talking about organizations conducting studies examining 
the mental health of our troops that are outside the military process. 
We're talking about military organizations that are saying that the 
strain on our troops mentally has really reached a breaking point.
  We have combat troops that have been sent to Iraq for a third and 
fourth time, where more than one in four, more than one in four, show 
signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official 
Army survey of soldiers' mental health. There is an increasing alarm 
about the mental health of our troops and, at some point, something has 
to give.
  Again, when do we say enough is enough? When do we say that we have 
to make sure that we can focus on the needs here in the United States 
of America?
  We are struggling with an economy that is at its breaking point. Yet, 
the economy in Iraq seems to be thriving. The Iraqi government is 
actually dealing with a budget surplus, and we are facing a deficit. 
There's something wrong with that picture, Madam Speaker.
  Let me just, I really want to turn, I think people should be given a 
really clear picture about the monetary cost that we are dealing with 
when it comes to this war, this ongoing and continuous war in Iraq.
  This is from our nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report, 
the Cost of Iraq War Rising. Here's the breakdown of what we're 
spending in Iraq per year, per month, per week, per day, per hour, per 
minute and per second.
  If you take a look at the number per year, the amount per year that 
we are spending in Iraq, we're spending $123.6 billion per year.
  Now, that's a hard number to maybe get your mind around. Billions and 
millions of dollars are very big numbers that most people aren't 
dealing with every day in their daily life.
  So let's go down to the monthly expenditure that we're making here. 
That amounts to $10.3 billion.
  But if we want to drill down a little bit further and deal with the 
weekly and daily expenditures, weekly, we're spending $2,376,923,077. 
Per day we're spending almost $339 million, as I described a few 
minutes ago.
  But hourly, this is really the number, Madam Speaker, that I think 
will hit home with virtually all Americans. We are spending, hourly, in 
Iraq, and this is, again, third-party validator, the nonpartisan 
Congressional Research Service report on the cost of the Iraq war and 
its rising cost. Per hour we are spending $14,109,589 in Iraq.
  I don't think it's necessary for me to go down to the minute and the 
second. I think the point is well made. $14 million an hour. I mean, 
that is just unbelievable.

                              {time}  2100

  How many is too much? When do we say that the toll that this is 
taking on our troops is just beyond our capacity? Since the start of 
the war in Iraq, we have had 4,013 brave American men and women in 
uniform that have been killed. We have an estimated almost 30,000 
servicemembers that have been wounded in Iraq, and as of March 1, more 
than 31,300 have been treated for noncombat injuries and illness.
  According, again, to the Army's own mental health advisory team, 
soldiers who are on their second, third, and fourth deployments report 
low morale, more mental health problems, and more stress-related work 
problems.
  Now, Madam Speaker, these numbers right here really sent chills down 
my spine. An estimated three-quarters of a million troops have been 
discharged since the war in Iraq began, many of

[[Page 5581]]

whom have had compromised mental and physical health. An estimated 
260,000 have been treated at veterans' health facilities, nearly 
100,000 have been diagnosed as having mental health conditions, and an 
additional 200,000 have received some level of care from walk-in 
facilities. That is just unbelievable.
  I can tell you that I have been to Walter Reed Army Medical Center to 
visit our wounded troops that have come back from Iraq. I've told this 
story during the 30-Something Working Group in the past. I will tell it 
again because really, as a mom with young kids, it was so disturbing to 
me.
  I walked into this young soldier's room to talk to him about his 
injury and to talk to him about what he went through, and his wife and 
his 6-year-old little boy were in there with him. And I had a nice 
chance to chat with the little boy. He was very exuberant and excited. 
It was really a lovely conversation. He was so excited. His dad had 
just come back from his third tour in Iraq, each of a year. Now 
remember, this little boy was 6 years old, and the father was telling 
me he had a stress-related mental health injury, and the father was 
telling me about how he was supposed to be finished with his tour in 
August, was still hoping to go back, by the way, which is amazing 
because these troops that represent the United States of America are 
just absolutely so committed and so patriotic, and really, I just so 
admire their bravery.
  But what the little boy said when I had a chance to talk to him, he 
said he was so excited, my daddy is coming home after August. And when 
he said that, it occurred to me that this little boy being 6 and his 
father having been through three 1-year deployments in Iraq, this 
father had missed half of his son's life. Half of his son's life. That 
just was mind-boggling to me being a mom of 8-year-old twins and a 4-
year-old. I just can't even imagine. I have children close to that age, 
and I can't imagine having missed half their life. I mean, that just 
takes a toll on families. It takes a toll on marriage.
  Madam Speaker, even the time that myself and other parents serving in 
Congress here are away from our families, I know the toll that it takes 
on my husband when I'm here just working in Washington and not with him 
and leaving my kids with him to make sure that he gets them bathed and 
gets their dinner and the homework is done and all of the things that 
have to be done on a daily basis with families. It takes a toll that I 
am here and not with him to help him do that.
  Add the stress of your family member being thousands of miles across 
the world in a war zone, in a war situation, not knowing whether 
they're going to ever come back, the not knowing when they're going to 
come back because the military keeps extending these tours of duty, 
keeps sending them back, does not give them enough rest in between the 
tours of duty. The Army, over the last several years, has extended the 
rest, extended the tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months, Madam 
Speaker, so now we are beyond a year for deployments. And General 
Petraeus said we may be able, by the end of the summer to pull back the 
length of the deployments from 15 months to 12 months, but we're still 
going to be at 140,000 troops once we draw down the amount of the 
surge. That means there is no difference, Madam Speaker, between where 
we are now and where we were before the start of the surge. How do you 
call that progress?
  Someone is using a different dictionary than I am if that's progress. 
I mean, the dictionary that I use to define ``progress'' says that we 
see improvement, that the quality of life improves, that there's a 
light at the end of the tunnel, which General Petraeus clearly said we 
do not see right now.
  I want to just quote, and in the 30-Something Working Group, we try 
to use third-party validators. So it is not just our words that we use 
to demonstrate the statements that we are making; we try to back up our 
words with evidence.
  So let me talk about the cost to military families from military 
leaders' perspective.
  General George Casey said recently on March 26 in the Wall Street 
Journal that 15-month-long deployments are impacting on their families, 
it's impacting on their mental health. We just can't keep going at the 
rate that we're going.
  General Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff: Our readiness is 
being consumed as fast as we build it. Lengthy and repeated deployments 
with insufficient recovery time have placed incredible stress on our 
soldiers and our families, testing the resolve of our all-volunteer 
force like never before.
  Let's go down to what retired Admiral William Fallon, the former 
commander of the U.S. Central Command said: I will certainly tell you 
that I think our troops are in need of a change in the deployment 
cycle. We've had too many, from my experience, of several of our key 
segments of the troop population, senior NCOs, mid- to junior officers, 
on multiple rotations. He said, I look at my commanders, and some of 
them have logged more months in Iraq in the last decade than they have 
at home by a significant amount.
  Can you imagine? More months in Iraq over the last 10 years than they 
have at home. Imagine the cost, the toll that that takes on their 
families. Let us go beyond the toll on families.
  It is pretty clear that we have had a dramatic increase in the cost 
of fuel and the cost of a barrel of oil just during our time in the 
last 5 years in the Middle East. We have gone from gas prices being a 
little more than $1, about $1.26 or so, to now gas prices being well 
over $3.30 and expected this summer to reach $4 or more.
  I can tell you that I am a minivan mom, Madam Speaker, and I 
regularly drive my kids around our community and car pool with the best 
of them. The last time I filled up my tank, which was last week, it 
cost $65. Now, the last time I talked about how much it cost me to fill 
up my tank, and Mr. Ryan remembers this, I really feel like this is 30-
Something redux. I mean, really. It's deja vu all over again. You could 
roll back the tape to 2, 3 years ago when we were talking about the 
cost of the war in Iraq and the impact, and we are basically saying the 
exact same thing. It is just unbelievable.
  But the last time I talked on the floor, spoke on the floor about how 
much it cost me to fill up my minivan, it was about $55. And that's 
really only been about a year since the last time we talked about the 
impact of oil prices. And what the leaders that look and examine this 
information have said is that any time we have extended involvement in 
the Middle East, you see a dramatic rise in oil prices that coincide 
with that.
  The price of gas and the price of oil, in this environment and in 
this economy, is just devastating to American families.
  So you have extensions of impact and extensions of costs beyond just 
the toll that it takes on the troops themselves, the toll that it takes 
on their families. There's a toll on America. There's a toll on 
society. I mean, it's so disconcerting and it's so disheartening to 
listen to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who seem to 
just be in utter denial. I mean, they just keep saying the same thing 
over and over.
  And we've been talking about the cost of this war, and I'm so glad to 
be joined by my good friend, Congressman Tim Ryan from the great State 
of Ohio who I have shared many an opportunity to speak on the floor 
about the things that Americans care about in the 30-Something Working 
Group.
  It's just shocking that the administration is continuing to expect 
more of the same and to have there be more of the same and to expect a 
different result. There really is, and I would be happy to yield to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. As we've gone through this debate for years and 
years and years, as you said, we've been on the floor talking about 
this for a long time; and you start to hear these arguments, the same 
ones over and over and over regardless of what the facts are on the 
ground.
  And the issue, I think, that has become most apparent, and some say 
the surge was a success. Some say, well, maybe it wasn't. Some say 
there hasn't been any political success. Some say

[[Page 5582]]

there has been some. I think this has kind of gotten boiled down to one 
point. Some people are saying we need to stay. And you know what? 
Maybe, maybe if we accept that argument, maybe they're right. Maybe we 
should stay. But they're only going to stay at the expense of the 
future of this country. We will bankrupt this country if we continue to 
stay in Iraq.
  And when you look at all of the great powers over time, they get too 
extended, too far out, too far out ahead of themselves; and what we are 
saying here is there is a reality on the ground that we need to deal 
with in order to address the issues that are facing the United States 
of America. This is about making sure that we are a strong country. If 
we are not a strong country, we are of no good to anybody else.
  And the point that we are trying to make and that the Speaker is 
trying to make and the Democrats in the Senate are trying to make and 
like-minded Republicans are trying to make is that we can't sacrifice 
the United States of America for Iraq.
  Now, we do bear some responsibility because we went in, but you can't 
continue to say that we are going to borrow, because we don't have this 
money. We are borrowing it all. $3 trillion is what the projections are 
now for the cost for Iraq when you factor in vets coming back and 
health care and what not. $3 trillion? We are going to borrow it from 
China and Japan and OPEC countries to fund a war that we are not having 
any political progress at all?
  The sides are not reconciling. They're not moving forward in the 
political process. That's a problem.
  So, even if you say we need to stay, you need to then be willing to 
spend enormous amounts of money, United States dollars, over the course 
of the next several decades and, as some people have said, over the 
course of the next hundred years.
  And what we are trying to say is, we've got problems here at home 
that we need to deal with. We've got an energy crisis. We've got a 
health care issue that needs to be dealt with. Growing inequality. We 
can't afford to spend $3 trillion on this war.
  Now, I don't think that's unreasonable because the strength of the 
country is at stake, and all we have to do is look around. We don't 
have this money. And this isn't just us. Joseph Stiglitz, Noble Peace 
Prize economist, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no 
such thing as a free war. The Iraq adventure has severely weakened the 
U.S. economy whose woes go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can't 
spend $3 trillion, yes, $3 trillion, on a failed war abroad and not 
feel the pain at home.
  This is a political reality that we have to deal with in the United 
States of America. And we are making difficult decisions. No one is 
saying yank the rug out. We are saying have a responsible, planned exit 
in which this country and the soldiers that we have trained and the 
close to $1 trillion that we have spent already, that investment, allow 
these people to take over their country.
  I think there's a little bit of a misperception that there is not 
going to be, like we are going to be able to just leave Iraq, whenever 
it is, tomorrow or 10 years from now; and if we do it right, that there 
is not going to be any conflict, we will just kind of sneak out and 
everything will just harmoniously arrange itself.
  And I think we need to realize that whether we get out 6 months from 
now or a year from now or 8, 10 years from now, there's going to be 
conflict. You have got groups of people that have hated each other for 
thousands of years. And there is not going to be any real polite 
settlement of this dispute.

                              {time}  2115

  And so we need to realize that. And by realizing that, I think it 
helps us get to the point where we say, well, maybe we need to just get 
out now because this dust-up is going to happen anyway.
  And when you look at what happened the other day with the Iraqi 
offensive onto this militia group and then a thousand Iraqi soldiers 
left and abandoned the mission, would they have left if we weren't 
there? That's a question I think we need to ask, would they have left? 
But they know we're there. This is part of the problem.
  We're creating a welfare state. These people are in a state of 
dependency upon the United States, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And if we 
continue to be there all the time, we're never going to leave, we're 
always going to be here for you. You know, you see all the time, this 
is the equivalent of a 35-year-old person still living at home with 
their parents. They get into a state of dependency, and they can never 
be responsible.
  And I understand all the dynamics. I didn't want to go into this war 
in the first place, I was against it from the beginning, so we've got 
some responsibility to bear. But haven't we made the investment? And we 
know at some point they've got to step up and make their own way here. 
So I think a lot of us are just saying, let's just do it.
  I yield to my friend.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Exactly. A lot of us are saying, it's time, 
that it is time to begin the drawdown, to begin to bring our troops 
home.
  Many of us that believe it is time to begin the troop withdrawal, 
we're not talking about precipitous withdrawal. Our friends on the 
other side of the aisle like to, you know, they're really excellent at 
using strong language and scare tactics. And it's always interesting to 
listen to them try to exaggerate beyond all reasonable proportion what 
it is we're saying instead of actually listening to what we're saying. 
It would be nice if they would also listen to their own constituents 
because I have a feeling that they're not hearing anything different 
than what we're hearing when we go home, particularly when they are 
staring down the following facts:
  Nearly 1.7 million U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq and 
Afghanistan since September 2001; 1.7 million U.S. troops. That's 1.7 
million different individuals. More than 599,000 have been deployed 
more than once. More than 782,000 servicemembers, Mr. Ryan, have been 
deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan that are parents with one or more 
children. Forty percent have been deployed more than once. Nearly 
35,000 troops have been separated from their children for four or more 
deployments. And Mr. Ryan, I talked a little bit about that 6-year-old 
boy that I met when I went to Walter Reed whose dad had missed half his 
life. And I also talked about the toll that those separations from 
their families take on the parent who is gone, but particularly on the 
parent who is home, holding the fort down, making sure that they can 
move their children's lives and their lives forward by themselves and 
the stress that that brings on a family and on a marriage. The 
statistics that we know about say that, according to the Center for 
American Progress, 20 percent of marriages of deployed troops are 
headed for a divorce right now based on a survey done by the Center for 
American Progress. According to a report, again by the Army's Mental 
Health Advisory Team, work-related problems due to stress, mental 
health problems and marital separations generally increase with each 
subsequent month of the deployment. So the length of these deployments 
is taking its toll on families.
  An estimated 2,100 troops tried to commit suicide or injure 
themselves last year, which is up from 350 in 2002. That's an 
astronomical jump. I mean, we've got the facts right under our noses. 
When do we say that we care about these troops as people, not as 
fighters, not as defenders of America, but as people? And when do we 
recognize that there is a limit to their ability to hold down their 
lives and to be able to return to a quality of life that they had 
before they left? The insensitivity is mind boggling, and the refusal 
of this administration to recognize that there is a cost and a toll 
that is being taken on these families, on the individual troops, on the 
United States of America and on our economy.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Will the gentlelady yield?
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I don't know if you've had an opportunity to see 
the

[[Page 5583]]

documentary, and I haven't seen the documentary, but I've seen Phil 
Donahue talking about the documentary that he did, it's called ``Body 
of War.'' And it's basically these soldiers who have come back and the 
injuries that they're dealing with, the folks that we see going up to 
Walter Reed. And talk about an eye-opening experience when you first go 
to Walter Reed and you see these 21, 22-year-old kids without legs, 
without arms, severe brain damage, brain trauma, you know, all of the 
gruesomeness. But I think Donahue does a good job by bringing this to 
life and doing a documentary, Eddie Vetter does some of the music on 
it, so it's really a compelling case. But it goes to the point that 
we're all talking, you know, we're all talking numbers, 4,013, and 
29,628 injured. I mean, these are numbers, but these are families that 
have been ripped apart, that will never be the same.
  If we have an opportunity and enough facts to stop this thing, 
because it's not in the best interest of, obviously, a lot of these 
families, but this country, and you look at the human cost, as Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz has said, is tremendous. The financial aspect of this 
is detrimental to the future of this country. The readiness of our own 
troops, the lack of readiness, to be able to address some of these 
problems. And this is not something that you have to believe the 
Democrats or believe a politician on, this is retired Major General 
Punaro, Commission on the National Guard and Reserve, ``we think there 
is an appalling gap in readiness for homeland defense because it will 
be the Guard and Reserve that have to respond for these things.'' Army 
Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody said the Army, ``no longer has fully 
combat ready brigades on standby should a threat or conflict occur.'' 
We're not making this up. In this country, we need to be prepared to 
responsibly, prudently, and practically disengage ourselves.
  Empower the Iraqis. We've trained them for years. You know, I hate to 
always fall back on this example, but it's like when you're getting 
ready for a football season or a basketball season or a baseball 
season, you go through spring training and then the game is on a 
certain day and the coaches are coaching you, at some point you've 
taught the team all you can teach them, you've practiced as much as you 
can, and you're not fully ready for the game, but you've got to go 
play. And the coaches can't go on the field for you. And that's the 
situation we're in.
  The Iraqis are never going to be perfectly prepared, Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz. It's never going to be perfect. There's never going to be a 
perfect time where all these people are trained to the tee and we're 
going to be able to say, now they're ready. Because you always make 
mistakes, you're never trained enough, you're never prepared enough, 
especially when you're dealing with all the cultural issues that we're 
dealing with.
  So what we're arguing is that they're never going to be perfectly 
ready. And I think there would have been a better chance the other day 
of these thousand soldiers sticking with the mission that they had and 
staying there, but they knew the Americans were there, and so it became 
convenient to say, I'm out of here, the Americans will take over.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I think it's clear, and you're absolutely 
right, I think it's clear that the time has come. And this is not just 
our opinion, but it's clear that Americans believe that the time has 
come to shift our focus to the dire situation that we have with our 
economy.
  And I can tell you, anecdotally, when I went home to my district 
during our recess, I had town hall meeting, and I do at least one town 
hall meeting every recess; when I did this last one, I actually, Mr. 
Ryan, had to bring Iraq up myself, otherwise the entire focus of the 
questions and the comments from my constituents would have been the 
economy. I actually had to affirmatively talk about the war in Iraq. 
And there was significant responsiveness on the part of my 
constituents, who agreed, it is long past time to bring the troops 
home. But really, at the top of their mind right now is the economy.
  And just to illustrate that point, there was a new poll done recently 
by the New York Times, a CBS poll that showed 89 percent of those 
surveyed believe the cost of the war has contributed a lot or some to 
the United States' economic problems. When they were asked, from what 
you know, how much do you think the cost of the war in Iraq has 
contributed to the U.S. economic problem, a lot, some, not much, or not 
at all, 66 percent of people who responded to this survey said that it 
has affected the economy a lot. And add 22 percent more to make 88 
percent who believe that it has affected the economy even at all.
  Now, this week obviously it was a big deal that General Petraeus and 
Ambassador Crocker were coming to testify in front of Congress on the 
progress, or lack thereof, that has been made. There were lots of 
newspaper headlines with pictures of the general testifying, a plea 
from Petraeus in the Washington Post, and ``Petraeus Urges Halt in 
Weighing New Cut in Force'' in the New York Times. The Washington 
Times, ``Petraeus Warns of Iraq Backslide.'' ``Iraq Troop Levels Left 
Open'' in USA Today. But arguably, the newspaper in America that most 
closely focuses on the economy and on the financial health of our 
Nation is the Wall Street Journal.
  This is today's Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ryan. There is absolutely no 
headlines, nothing on the front page, any article related to General 
Petraeus's testimony. There is a little tiny entry under ``What's 
News'' that says ``Petraeus recommended that U.S. troop withdrawals be 
halted indefinitely this summer, warning that security gains in Iraq 
are fragile.'' I mean, that's the priority that the Wall Street Journal 
places on the economy versus the war in Iraq, where every other 
article, ``Bush to Expand Help on Mortgages,'' ``Subprime Lenders 
Failure Sparks Lawsuit Against Wall Street Banks,'' those are the 
things that we should be focusing, like a laser beam, our attention on 
because our constituents are suffering.
  There are folks that I represent who are having their homes 
foreclosed on that in a million years these middle class folks would 
never have been in that situation financially if we were not focused 
somewhere halfway across the world as opposed to getting our fiscal 
house in order here in the United States of America.
  And if folks don't believe what we're saying here, let's use the 
third-party validators that we always use, Mr. Ryan. I will quote 
Robert Reischauer, the former Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office, also a respected institution here that is nonpartisan. He said, 
contrary to the notion that war spending bolsters the economy, he said 
recently that the ``domestic benefits of war spending have been muted 
because spending is stimulating economies elsewhere, not the least 
being the economies of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.''
  I alluded to these numbers earlier, and now I've found them in my 
notes, the price of oil and the direct correlation to our involvement 
in the Middle East and the skyrocketing cost of oil. The price of oil 
has skyrocketed since the Iraq war began. The national average price 
per gallon of regular gasoline before the start of the Iraq war was 
$1.73. Today, it's $3.34 cents, which is an increase of more than 93 
percent. And this is predictable.
  In March 2003, Sung Won Sohn, then an economist for Wells Fargo Bank, 
not exactly a progressive think tank, noted that ``any time there is 
conflict in the Middle East, oil prices hit record figures.'' And he 
warned that the longer the war lasted, the higher prices would go.
  We can't take higher prices for gas than we're facing now. We already 
expect this summer for them to go over $4. When is enough going to be 
enough?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, when you look at how many different ways the 
Iraq war is like that pressure point that you hit and it has all these 
different ramifications all over the country, all over the economy, all 
over our society in so many different ways, and this is the one issue 
that needs to be addressed if we are going to make any kind of headway 
into converting our

[[Page 5584]]

economy over from manufacturing and basically the industrial age into a 
new high-tech economy that everyone benefits from it.
  Now, in Youngstown, Ohio, or in Warren or Akron or Cleveland or the 
industrial Midwest or Pittsburgh, Detroit, whatever the case may be, if 
the amount of money that was spent already in Iraq, nearly $1 trillion, 
was invested into these communities that, for example, have been hurt 
by globalization, and the big debate in the Ohio and Texas primary was 
NAFTA, NAFTA, NAFTA, and some areas benefited and some areas didn't, 
and Texas did this and Ohio did that and whatnot, just think, if all 
the communities that were very successful 50 years ago and pumped a lot 
of money into this country in steel and rubber and coal and all this 
stuff that were hurt by globalization, the investment of $1 trillion 
was made into those communities in water lines, sewer lines, roads, 
education, community colleges, worker retraining, investments into the 
NIH research, investments in alternative energy, figuring out who's 
going to make the windmill, figuring out how biodiesel is actually 
going to work without having all these different adverse effects, 
figuring out who's going to make the solar panels and how we're going 
to make these investments, $1 trillion that has been spent in Iraq, and 
we have no real signs of success.

                              {time}  2130

  No real signs of success. So this is what we're all factoring in 
here: The fact that it's costing us $1 trillion already and projected 
to be $3 trillion; the fact that all that money is borrowed; the fact 
that our friends on the other side raised the debt limit five times and 
borrowed $3 trillion already from Japan, China, and OPEC countries; the 
fact that our homeland has suffered because of the Guard and Reserve, 
and so we are incapable now of addressing major threats to the United 
States; the fact that our army is not at the level it should be, all of 
these factor in. The lack of readiness, the money, and then the lost 
opportunity.
  We are Americans. We think about what can be. We think about the 
future. We think about where we want to go, what we want to be, what we 
want to do. And we are stuck because we don't have the resources to 
make the investments that Americans have always made: canals, 
railroads, Internet superhighway, investments in all these research 
projects that bounce into the Internet and put men in spaceships and 
land them on the moon. That's what Americans do. So let's put ourselves 
in a position where we can make these investments so these kids that we 
talk about all the time can have a future, have an economy. When you 
look at the benefits of NASA and science and technology and math over 
the years, how many corporations benefited from all of that, that's 
what we're talking about doing. Let's think about the future.
  And when you look at this war as missed opportunities with 
Afghanistan, national security alone. We have missed opportunities 
catching bin Laden, focusing on Afghanistan, focusing on the global war 
on terror, these networks. We should have been tripling and quadrupling 
our special forces and hiring people who speak Farsi to translate tapes 
that we're pulling down from the satellites. All this stuff could have 
been done. A missed opportunity. Economically, missed opportunity.
  So, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, thank you for coming down to this floor 
and claiming our hour tonight, and it's been great to be with you 
again. And we're going to keep plugging away here.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We are.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. This is the pressure point. This is the issue 
facing our country, and we are going to keep speaking out on it.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, what I think has been really 
interesting is observing the struggle that military leaders underneath 
General Petraeus have been going through in trying to be good soldiers 
and toe the party line about not being ready to withdraw and for us to 
leave those 140,000 troops indefinitely in Iraq, which is the decision 
that was clearly made before General Petraeus came to testify this 
week. But when they're asked specific questions about the impact on our 
troops, the truth comes through in their statements.
  General Richard Cody, the Army Vice Chief of Staff: ``Our readiness 
is being consumed as fast as we build it . . . lengthy and repeated 
deployments with insufficient recovery time have placed incredible 
stress on our soldiers and our families.''
  And we're not talking about retired commanders or retired military 
leaders, who some people might suggest are retired for a reason. We're 
talking about the people who are currently fully engaged in our efforts 
over there.
  Lieutenant General Benjamin Mixon, Commanding General of the U.S. 
Army Pacific: ``We are going to have to change our strategy in Iraq to 
reduce the numbers of troops and thereby reduce the rotations and 
increase the dwell time that we get back here at home.'' That was 
January 27.
  Lieutenant General Michael Rochelle, Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G1: 
`` . . . I should mention that it's clear that the increase in suicide, 
as well as other measures that we track very, very closely, are a 
reflection of the amount of stress that's on the force.''
  And, finally, Brigadier General Michael Linnington, Deputy Commanding 
General of the United States Army Infantry Center: ``Money is not the 
issue . . . They want an opportunity to catch their breath before 
deploying again and to have some control over their futures. They're 
tired and their families are tired.''
  We have got to reach a point where we focus on the things that we 
know we need to focus on, like Afghanistan, for example. We have 
shifted. When we went to war in Iraq originally with the stated notion 
of pursuing the weapons of mass destruction that supposedly Saddam 
Hussein had that he clearly never had, we shifted our attention and our 
focus away from Afghanistan, where we clearly were succeeding, where we 
clearly had the world community behind us and fully engaged, where we 
had the American people's full commitment. And when we did that, when 
we shifted our attention away from Afghanistan and focused on Iraq, we 
lost tremendous ground in Afghanistan.
  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, 
said: ``So should we be in a position where more troops are removed 
from Iraq, the possibility of sending additional troops to Afghanistan, 
where we need them, clearly, certainly it's a possibility. But it's 
really going to be based on the availability of troops. We don't have 
troops, particularly in Brigade Combat Team size, sitting on the shelf, 
ready to go.''
  The military is obviously stretched incredibly thin. And when I talk 
to constituents and groups of folks, I'll tell you that I represent a 
large section of the Jewish community in my State, and I am constantly 
being asked by members of the Jewish community leadership, What about 
Iran and what if we face an increasing threat from Iran? What are we 
going to do then, Debbie?
  And my honest answer is, Well, we are spread so thin militarily now 
that it would be incredibly difficult for us to continue our efforts in 
Iraq, for us to maintain and not lose ground in Afghanistan, and also 
pursue the possibility of staving off a significant threat from Iran. 
And, again, that's not something that I'm saying. That's something that 
is backed up by military leaders.
  I mean it's been 2,399 days, Madam Speaker, since the September 11 
attacks, 2,399 days, and Osama bin Laden still remains free. We have 
gone backwards in Afghanistan since we left and shifted our focus.
  In July of 2007, a de-classified version of a National Intelligence 
Estimate on the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland concluded that al 
Qaeda in Afghanistan and the border area with Pakistan has regained its 
strength over the last few years and has now reached the strength it 
had before 9/11.
  We have put ourselves in jeopardy. The administration and this 
President

[[Page 5585]]

talks about the war on terror, the supposed war on terror, and how 
committed we are to it and how we have to fight terror in every corner 
of the world. Well, it is incredibly disturbing that a National 
Intelligence Estimate, not a progressive think tank and not the critics 
of the administration but our own National Intelligence Estimate on the 
terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland, concluded that al Qaeda in 
Afghanistan has reached its strength that it had before 9/11. The 
Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, testified in 
February that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and his government 
control just one-third of the country now, Madam Speaker. The remaining 
majority is under control of either the Taliban or local tribes.
  We have got to make sure that we refocus our energy and our effort on 
the priorities of the American people. I know our Democratic 
leadership, under the leadership of our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is 
focused and determined to move an agenda that is going to improve this 
Nation's economy. The economic stimulus package that she was able to 
negotiate with Leader Boehner to try to inject some stimulus into this 
economy, checks that are going to be coming to Americans very, very 
soon, those are the kinds of efforts and energy that we need to be 
putting in to deal with the crisis situation that Americans are facing. 
Not continue to insist, as the administration does, that they are right 
and we are wrong. Not continue to say that we need to keep the same 
troop strength that we have where we made absolutely no progress 
between now and before the surge. Basically it's almost as if we have 
run in place. It's just incredibly frustrating.
  So, Madam Speaker, I'm going to end where I began. And that is to 
say, the toll that this war has taken on the individual troops who are 
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, on their families, on Americans, 
where our administration's priorities are not focused on what they 
should be, which should be improving our economy and making sure that 
we can reduce the deficit and get our fiscal house in order and make 
sure that Americans have access to health care and aren't having their 
homes foreclosed on and the skyrocketing cost of housing, and the list 
just goes on and on. But at the same time, we're taking care of the 
needs of the people in Iraq. They have a budget surplus. Their housing 
needs are being taken care of. Their children's schooling is being 
taken care of. Yet we still have the same 140,000 troops that the 
administration has committed to leaving in Iraq, as opposed to trying 
to bring these troops home and end this hopeless war that has not made 
progress. And at the end of the day, as Mr. Ryan stated, we need to 
ensure that the Iraqi troops can stand on their own and that they don't 
believe for generations to come that we are going to carry them 
throughout history. At some point we have to let them go and stand on 
their own, and we have reached that time.
  With that, Madam Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity in the 30-
Something Working Group that the Speaker has given us to talk about the 
issues that are important to the American people and to our generation 
and from our generation's perspectives. We hope that the people who 
have heard this presentation tonight will go to the Speaker's Web site 
and click on the 30-Something Working Group address. The charts that we 
have shown tonight are on that Web site, and they can feel free to e-
mail us and contact us with any questions they have.

                          ____________________