[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10997]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               DOES THE U.S. HAVE A PLAN TO DEFEAT ISIS?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the President ``avoids the battle, 
complains, and misses opportunities.'' Those were the words of Leon 
Panetta, President Obama's former Secretary of Defense and CIA 
Director, in 2011.
  At the time, Panetta, along with military commanders and the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, recommended that the United States leave 24,000 troops 
in Iraq to prevent that country from falling apart and becoming 
chaotic. According to Panetta, the administration was ``so eager to rid 
itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in 
arrangements that would preserve American influence and our 
interests.''
  So the President ignored the advice of his own Secretary of Defense 
and top commanders and pulled troops out of Iraq in 2011. The timing, 
just before the 2012 Presidential election, to me, appeared to be based 
on the politics of political convenience, not our own national 
interests.
  In any event, what is taking place today in 2015? Enter the Islamic 
State, ISIS. ISIS took advantage of the power vacuum left by America's 
absence. So today ISIS is stronger than ever, spreading its reign of 
terror throughout the region.
  ISIS practices religious genocide against people that don't agree 
with it. They have redefined the term ``barbarian'' to an all new low. 
They rape, pillage, loot, behead, and burn those in this ISIS war 
against the world's people.
  ISIS not only controls a massive amount of territory in the Middle 
East, it also controls the minds of thousands of foreign fighters, many 
from the United States. It is a sophisticated criminal enterprise that 
uses any and all ways to recruit, fundraise, and spread terror. It even 
uses American social media companies to promote its cause. Through 
American companies like Twitter, ISIS is instantly and freely spreading 
its cancer of Islamic extremism to teenagers, recruiting them to join 
the jihad and then launch attacks on the streets of America.
  Since the President announced his campaign against ISIS, we have seen 
embarrassing results. Even the President admitted that the United 
States did not have a complete strategy.
  The ISIS terror has been going on for over a year and we don't have a 
plan to defeat them? This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
  The United States must answer this question: Is ISIS a national 
security threat to us? If the answer is yes, then we must defeat them; 
and Congress needs to weigh in on this and make this decision.
  If we decide that ISIS is a national security threat, then, of 
course, we need strategy, a complete strategy. The administration's 
plan so far is to train mercenaries to fight ISIS. However, just this 
week, Secretary of Defense Carter admitted that the United States has 
trained, get this, 60 so-called moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS--
just 60.
  The $500 million program that was supposed to fund 3,000 fighters 
before the end of 2015 has trained 60. So if I do my math correctly, 
Mr. Speaker, we are spending about $8 million per fighter right now. 
That is abysmal. That is no way to fight and win a war against terror.
  Also, there are more Americans fighting with ISIS rebels than we have 
trained fighters to fight against ISIS. Meanwhile in Iraq, just 8,800 
fighters have been trained to fight ISIS compared to the goal of 
24,000.
  This administration's strategy to defeat ISIS seems to be in chaos. 
Even the Kurds want to do their own fighting, and they have asked us 
for military support. Our allies want to send direct aid to the Kurds, 
but the administration won't let them do that. They have to send it 
through Baghdad for some reason.
  It is time for the administration to stop being indecisively weak and 
do the obvious. It needs to lead in this war against ISIS, and it needs 
to listen to the commanders.
  The United States needs to act and have a plan to defeat this 
determined, well-financed enemy. It is a terrorist enterprise that is 
at war with us.
  And that is just the way it is.

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