[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25444]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   PROSECUTING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

  (Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, we are a Nation at war, and our 
Commander-in-Chief is more focused on how to engineer a government 
takeover of our health care system than he is on prosecuting the war in 
Afghanistan. It is my belief, having read General McChrystal's 65-page 
report on what is necessary to win this war, that he was pressured by 
the administration to strip his request for how many troops out of this 
report.
  When things were going bad in Iraq in 2007, the Commander-in-Chief 
then, George W. Bush, turned to his military commander on the ground in 
Iraq and said, What will it take to turn this situation around? And 
General Petraeus came up with a plan, came before the Armed Services 
Committees for the House and the Senate to address what was necessary 
to turn the tide in Iraq, and he was granted what he requested for.
  The President needs to allow General McChrystal to give an honest 
assessment of what it will take to win in Afghanistan, and General 
McChrystal needs to share that with the Congress of the United States.

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