[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 124-125]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     EPIC FAILURE OF FOREIGN POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, it was a beautiful September 
day in 2001 as I was driving to work and I hear that a plane hits the 
World Trade Center. I was a newly minted private pilot at the time, and 
I remember thinking, How could a plane fly into a big building? And 
then I heard that another plane hit the other tower. Eventually, I 
heard one hit a field in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon not too far from 
here.
  I realized that America was a country under attack. It was under 
attack by an ideology that believes that anybody that thinks 
differently than their brand of theology is not just wrong, but that 
they are worthy of death. In fact, it takes that belief and actually 
implements it by killing innocent men, women, and children, including 
folks of their own religious ideology.
  Mr. Speaker, as a result of that, America became a generation that 
went to war to defeat this ideology. I am a veteran of the wars. I 
spent quite a bit of time in Iraq.
  Mr. Speaker, I heard the other day that al Qaeda, America's number 
one enemy, raised the black flag over Fallujah, an area that the United 
States Marines, who fought harder than they have any battle since 
Vietnam, fought to achieve and take over and bring peace to.
  Mr. Speaker, al Qaeda raised the black flag over Fallujah. This is an 
epic failure of American foreign policy and an epic resurgence of 
America's chief enemy.
  In 2011, President Obama had an opportunity to make a decision about 
whether America would continue to show its support for a free Iraq, 
whether America would continue to be the intercessor between difficult 
back-and-forths and continue to bring people together in Iraq as we did 
during the surge, which the President opposed and now we are finding 
out may actually have been for political reasons. Shocker.
  We are finding out, Mr. Speaker, that al Qaeda now has a town very 
close to Baghdad. This is a failure of American foreign policy.
  If you look into Syria, Mr. Speaker, you see a brutal dictator that 
kills people and has no compunction about killing innocent women and 
children just to maintain power. In essence, he has become a strong 
partner to the United States in order to take chemical weapons out of 
his arsenal.
  Yet as another part of Syria, you see not the moderate forces of 
opposition to Mr. Assad, but you now see al Qaeda-related forces 
overpowering moderate opposition to Assad. You see that because of 
America's foreign policy, which said we supported the Free Syrian Army 
but, in reality, has not supported the Free Syrian Army.
  If you look in Egypt, you see the Egyptian people stand up and say, 
We don't want to have one dictator replaced by another. We don't want 
the

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Muslim Brotherhood to run our country and change our constitution.
  But we have no idea where the President is at on this. We have taken 
a very important ally in the Middle East and basically told them we are 
not interested in their future.
  Look at the instability in Lebanon and the questions with the people 
of Afghanistan about what is going to happen post-2014, as America 
committed to defeating al Qaeda and defeating the Taliban. I could go 
on and on. Look at the deal we have with Iran, basically giving Iran 
the option of continuing to enrich uranium.
  Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago, I could not have written a sadder story 
about where American foreign policy could be. What I see now in the 
United States is that our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no 
longer fear us.
  Mr. Speaker, the United States needs to use limited air power in Iraq 
to push al Qaeda back out of Iraq. We need strong intelligence assets 
to work with the government of al-Maliki to ensure al Qaeda has no 
foothold in Iraq again.
  It is not too late to reverse the tragic foreign policy consequences 
and what we have seen in the Middle East. But, Mr. Speaker, this has to 
be done today. This has to be done now.
  Americans have sacrificed blood for a free Iraq and a free 
Afghanistan, and we cannot let that sacrifice be in vain.

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