Congressional Record: March 17, 2004 (House)
Page H1142-H1202
RELATING TO THE LIBERATION OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE AND THE VALIANT SERVICE
OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES AND COALITION FORCES
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 561, I call up
the resolution (H. Res. 557) relating to the liberation of the Iraqi
people and the valiant service of the United States Armed Forces and
Coalition forces, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The text of House Resolution 557 is as follows:
H. Res. 557
Whereas Saddam Hussein and his regime committed crimes
against humanity, systematically violating the human rights
of Iraqis and citizens of other countries;
Whereas Saddam Hussein's terror regime subjected the Iraqi
people to murder, torture, rape, and amputation;
Whereas on March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein's regime had and
unleashed weapons of mass destruction against Kurdish
citizens, killing nearly 5,000 of them;
Whereas as many as 270 mass grave sites, containing the
remains of as many as 400,000 victims of Saddam Hussein's
regime, have been found in Iraq;
Whereas rape was used to intimidate the Iraqi population,
with victims often raped in front of their families;
Whereas the regime punished the Marsh Arabs by draining the
marshlands, which created hundreds of thousands of refugees
and caused an ecological catastrophe;
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-
338), passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 360
to 38, made it United States policy to support efforts to
remove from power the regime headed by Saddam Hussein;
Whereas with the Iraqi regime failing to comply with 16
previously adopted United Nations Security Council
resolutions, the Security Council unanimously approved
Resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002, declaring that Iraq
``has been and remains in material breach of its obligations
under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991),
in particular through Iraq's failure to cooperate with United
Nations inspectors''; and
Whereas on October 10, 2002, the House of Representatives
passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against
Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243) and on March 19,
2003, the United States initiated military operations in
Iraq: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) affirms that the United States and the world have been
made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime
from power in Iraq;
(2) commends the Iraqi people for their courage in the face
of unspeakable oppression and brutality inflicted on them by
Saddam Hussein's regime;
(3) commends the Iraqi people on the adoption of Iraq's
interim constitution; and
(4) commends the members of the United States Armed Forces
and Coalition forces for liberating Iraq and expresses its
gratitude for their valiant service.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 561, the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the gentleman from California
(Mr. Lantos) each will control 2 hours.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde).
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General Leave
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and to include extraneous material on the resolution under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Illinois?
There was no objection.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is an important moment in our history. We are in
the middle of a war the like of which has not been seen in recorded
history. Everybody is a combatant, and the enemy works by night and
works through cowardice. We do not see them. It is not like when Hitler
marched through Europe with the blitzkrieg, where you could see the
enemy. The enemy extends from New York City to Madrid to Indonesia. And
if ever there was a time for this country, the United States of
America, to be unified, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha)
said earlier, it is now.
Now, there are two aspects to this issue that we have here today. One
is the procedure by which we got here, and that is controversial and
has evoked some harsh words. And the other aspect, the one that I
choose to dwell on, is the substance of the resolution.
The resolution, it seems to me, is simple, straightforward and one
that everybody can support. It does four things. It congratulates the
Iraqi people on withstanding the torture, the brutality, and the
oppression that Saddam Hussein has visited on that country for so long.
It affirms that the United States and the world has been made safer
with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime. And I understand
there are some who doubt that and wish to contest that. I would suggest
to them that they look at Libya and they consider that Libya has given
up its pretenses to have weapons of mass destruction, its capacity to
develop nuclear weapons, and is rejoining the community of nations
without a shot being fired. And anyone who doubts that that is not a
direct result of our intervention in Iraq, seems to me, is not a very
good logician nor a student of history.
The other two things the resolution does is commend the Iraqi people
on the adoption of an interim constitution. This, Mr. Speaker, is a
miracle. You have Sunnis, you have Shiites, you have Kurds who have
been at each other's throats for a long, long time. You have them
coming together in a period of 9 weeks reaching a constitutional
document. Not perfect, but a giant leap forward from where they were.
This is an immense contribution towards democratizing the volatile
Middle East, and they deserve recognition.
And, of course, this resolution commends the United States Armed
Forces and the Coalition for their valor and their courage in the war
in the Middle East.
Now, those things, it seems to me, everybody can support. And
regardless of our disagreements on process, regardless of our concerns
about how we got here, I would ask, in the spirit of, dare I say,
patriotism, sticking up for our country, never mind our ruffled
feelings, justified or not, let us stand as one with our military
people who are fighting this war, this strange, weird, deadly war,
where all of us should be Americans, not Republicans and not Democrats.
{time} 1415
Mr. Speaker, the vote in Spain was a great victory for al Qaeda, but
it was simply a battle, it was not the war. The war will be a long,
long war; and the voices of appeasement are being heard in Europe, but
there are other voices, some from the past, voices like Churchill,
voices like de Gaulle and voices like Roosevelt that caution
resistance, resistance to tyranny. I would ask that Members read the
resolution. It is very simple, very straightforward; read it and then
put your bruised feelings aside and support it.
If we want to go into bruised feelings, both sides have ample cause,
we certainly do, being called, and I say this in sorrow not anger,
crooks and liars and having it suggested that the war was started by
the President. Those kinds of ideas are not conducive to getting
together and embracing each other in the unity that must prevail if we
are to win. We do not dare lose this war. What can we do to help win
it? I ask Members that, and I ask my friends on the other side of the
aisle to give it heartfelt thought and support this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the resolution we are considering today is deeply
flawed. The way it was handled was meant to be divisive, and it has
achieved that goal. None of us in this House knows if next January we
will have a Kerry administration or a Bush administration, but we do
know that whoever is in the White House must ensure the success of U.S.
policy in Europe. Success in time of war requires cohesion and unity.
We do not need a divisive, partisan resolution. This may be the way to
prepare a Republican tax bill, but it is not the way to prepare a
foreign policy resolution to win broad bipartisan support.
Mr. Speaker, the conflict in Iraq should not be a partisan issue. The
soldiers who are fighting in Iraq are Democrats and Republicans and
Independents. The soldiers who are wounded and killed in Iraq are
Democrats and Republicans and Independents. The families who grieve for
their sons and daughters who died in Iraq are Democrats and Republicans
and Independents. The citizens of this country who are paying for this
war are Democrats and Republicans and Independents.
Mr. Speaker, it is totally unacceptable that not a single amendment
to this resolution was made in order. This was a Republican resolution,
drafted with partisan intent by the Republican leadership. Many of us
in this House who have been committed to and who have worked for a
bipartisan foreign policy for decades know that this is a slap in our
face.
A resolution that commends our troops ought to receive the unanimous
support of this body, but this resolution has been written specifically
to prevent that result.
Mr. Speaker, war is a time for shared sacrifice, a time when we are
all united in a common struggle. This is not shared sacrifice. Some
Americans are being killed, some are being wounded, some are asked to
leave their families and risk their lives far from home; and some at
the very top of the income scale are being asked to accept massive tax
cuts.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution commends the troops, but it does not
acknowledge the supreme sacrifice of many who are fighting. This
resolution makes no reference to the more than 550 service men and
women who have died in Iraq. It makes no reference to the thousands
more who have been wounded. It offers no condolences to the families of
those who have been killed. It makes no reference to the sacrifices of
the families whose members are away from them serving in Iraq for many
months or over a year. It makes no reference to the many civilian and
humanitarian workers who risk their lives daily. It makes no reference
to the contribution of our allies who have thousands of troops in Iraq,
and it makes no mention of the death and casualties they have suffered.
And it makes no reference to the Iraqi civilians who have lost their
lives and suffered injuries, including dozens who were killed today.
Mr. Speaker, there are other serious omissions in this resolution. We
should spend our time today debating substantive legislation to fix
these problems. The American people have not sent us here just to be an
``amen'' chorus for this administration. There are serious problems,
and we should be debating serious solutions.
There is no mention in this resolution of the flawed intelligence
that was the basis of the administration's argument for going to war in
the first place. We should be debating the establishment of a truly
independent commission to examine the shortcomings of U.S. intelligence
and the way it was used.
The members of this commission must not be appointed solely by the
President, and the commission should make its findings known before
Election Day. Only a truly independent investigation, and an
investigation that the American people perceive to be independent, can
bridge the credibility
[[Page H1144]]
gap in our intelligence both here at home and abroad.
The failure of this Congress to deal with the problems facing our
intelligence agencies will ultimately harm our national security, the
war against terrorism, and our fight against the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Speaker, we are commending our troops but we are not taking
action that we can and should take to make their lives and to make the
lives of their loved ones easier. The sacrifices being made by our
National Guard and reservists in Iraq and elsewhere are extraordinary.
Many National Guard and Reserve families have suffered serious
financial losses because of the pay gap between their military pay when
they are called up and their private sector pay. With longer rotations,
Guard and Reserve families are facing dramatically increased financial
burdens while their loved ones risk their lives far away from home. One
of the consequences is a serious problem with reenlistments in the
Reserves and the National Guard.
My legislation, H.R. 1345, legislation that I introduced 1 year ago
this week, would fill that pay gap. My bill would ensure that
government and private sector employees can continue to defend our
country without being forced to worry about their families facing
financial disaster.
Words of support for our troops ring hollow when substantive
legislation to improve their conditions is sandbagged by the leadership
on the other side.
Mr. Speaker, I very much regret that this resolution in its present
form is brought before the House today. This should be a time for
bipartisan unity and cohesion, not a time for partisanship. This should
be a time for us to deal substantively with serious problems we face in
Iraq and in our foreign policy. This should be a time for us to take
serious action to help our service men and women. All of us join in
commending our brave men and women of our Armed Forces.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), a leading member of the Committee
on International Relations.
Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. Let us
review and remember the history of Saddam Hussein, a history of
torture, murder and massive abuse of human rights. Saddam was not only
an aggressor against his neighbors, but he murdered his own people.
This is an outrage against all humanity.
Under Saddam Hussein, torture was widely used. Rape was a standard
practice to intimidate and punish families, an outrage against women
and all humanity. Murder was common. Truckloads of bodies took away
victims. Ethnic cleansing was practiced with precision and effective
organization, again an outrage against humanity.
The mass graves he created could barely hide the devastation of
Saddam Hussein. Let us remember that Saddam Hussein was known in his
own neighborhood, the Middle East, as The Butcher of Baghdad. Back in
1998, Saddam Hussein made a poison cocktail for the town of Halabja,
using a combination of nerve agents, mustard gas and conventional
munitions to kill 5,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, again an outrage
against humanity.
And from 1983 to 1988, he went on an ethnic cleansing rampage against
Iraqi Kurds, killing nearly 30,000 and wiping out 60 individual
villages.
If you were not marked for death, Saddam Hussein was a master at
torture and these were his favorite tools of torture, electric shock,
drip acid on victims' skin, gouging out eyes, pulling out fingernails,
suspending individuals from rotating ceiling fans, and for those who
spoke ill of Saddam Hussein, they ripped out those victims' tongues.
This is all an outrage against humanity.
There are over 400,000 unidentified bodies being unearthed in Iraq
which call out for justice. I have a photo of a woman searching the
remains of a mass grave for a loved one. Tell me this is not a just
cause for freeing Iraq from Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Speaker, this Congress, this President, and our American military
men and women had the leadership, the courage, and made the sacrifice
to liberate Iraq from the mad, mad man, Saddam Hussein. It was the
right step to take for all humanity.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I will support this resolution. I will support it as an
expression of our Nation's gratitude and pride in our men and women in
uniform who have performed with brilliance and valor in Operation Iraqi
Freedom. To date, 565 Americans have given the ultimate measure of
devotion to our country in Iraq, including a young soldier from my
district, Jason C. Ford who was killed just a few days ago by a
roadside bomb, 2 weeks after arriving in Iraq.
We mourn the loss of Jason and all other fallen patriots, and extend
our most profound sympathies to their loved ones. We also pray for the
full recovery of the more than 3,200 servicemen and -women who have
been wounded there.
{time} 1430
And to the approximately 110,000 Americans still in Iraq, we must
offer this pledge: we will do everything within our power to ensure
your success and safe return home.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution should have simply expressed the support
of this House for our Armed Forces now in harm's way. Regrettably,
however, the majority has handled this resolution in a manner which
inevitably led to division. Our troops and the American people expect
and deserve better. On a matter of the highest national importance, the
majority has undermined the democratic process in this House, treated
those who hold different views with disdain, and created a bludgeon
where it should have built a bridge. This is the same approach that has
guided the current administration's foreign policy and which has
undermined our Nation's credibility and driven many allies away from
us. This is a time to bring together, to consult, to be unanimous.
Mr. Speaker, I share the view that the Middle East and the world are
better off with Hussein in custody and his Baathist regime on the run.
But our mission in Iraq has not been accomplished. Even as we speak
here, a car bomb has rocked Baghdad and killed more than 20 people.
This comes on the heels of attacks on our troops, civilians and even
innocent worshipers. Success must be our only exit strategy. And only
when our objectives are accomplished can we say with certainty and
conviction that the world has been made safer. As today's events in
Baghdad and last week's horrific attacks in Spain make clear, this war
has not been won. Yet. But we send an unequivocal message to those who
perpetrate such madness: we will not retreat from our objective to
eliminate the source of terrorism and those who perpetrate it. The
legacy of the men and women who have committed the ultimate sacrifice
in Iraq demands that we do no less. It should also demand that we do so
united, united by common resolve and not divided by efforts to achieve
political advantage.
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, the debate on Iraq today I think confuses the American
people. After all, one side focuses solely on parliamentary procedure
or when they do on substance they focus solely on the tough times and
the challenges that we face, which are very real. But its message all
too often is devoid of any mention of progress. Sometimes it even
suggests that we are not better off, we are not safer since Saddam's
capture. However, the other side, Mr. Speaker, the side that I am on,
talks openly of our soldiers' historic victories, how just 1 year after
the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam is in a dark cell, Osama
is in a dark cave, and General Qaddafi is learning to play better with
others.
The good news for the American public is that soon they will not have
to rely on the media or the politics from either side of the aisle as
the troop rotations take place. The public will get to hear from the
soldiers themselves, our hometown heroes. And the story that they are
going to hear is moving, it is amazing, it is historic. On the sobering
side, the public will hear of
[[Page H1145]]
mass graves discovered and death cells shut down. On the thrilling
side, they will hear about some of the things I saw myself when I was
in Iraq just a few months ago. The public will hear of schools and
universities that are open and operating, clinics and hospitals that
are open and serving, and democratically elected governing councils
that are open and governing. They will hear that well over 100,000
Iraqis now serve in the military and the police and that water projects
and economic development are well under way. In Mosul when I was there,
I saw a sign on the wall of the headquarters of the 101st which read:
``We are in a race to win over the Iraqi people. What have you done to
contribute to victory today?'' The answer from our magnificent troops
is clear, a lot, an unbelievable amount. And Lord willing, the public
is going to hear more each and every day about just what these
fantastic brave men have done.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, before yielding to the gentleman from
Florida, let me remind the gentleman from Wisconsin that national unity
and cohesion are not matters of parliamentary procedure. They are at
the core of uniting the United States and the American people at a time
of war.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Florida (Mr. Wexler), a distinguished member of the committee.
Mr. WEXLER. Mr. Speaker, while I strongly support the brave American
soldiers risking their lives to defend security and freedom, I rise in
opposition to this politically motivated resolution because it is a
farce and anyone who says otherwise is too blinded by politics to see
the truth. The truth is Iraq was not an imminent threat to America.
There were no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons; and there was
no link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The only mushroom cloud
resulting from the war in Iraq is that represented by the Bush
administration's barrage of deception and lies. While President Bush
considers himself a war President, he is actually a self-made President
of war. The President created the pretext for the war in Iraq. He
planned for it before September 11, and he misused and fabricated
intelligence to sell it to the American people. Instead of debating
this empty resolution of praise for President Bush, Congress should
investigate the President's unconscionable misuse of power and
manipulation of the truth.
Despite this second declaration of ``mission accomplished'' in Iraq,
history will tell the true story as it did in Vietnam. The mission is
far from being accomplished, and President Bush will be judged harshly
for the tragic events of the past year.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen).
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for yielding me
this time.
Mr. Speaker, as a political refugee from a brutal, sadistic regime, I
know of the terrible crimes that dictators commit against their own
people. Yet after talking to survivors of Saddam Hussein's regime and
speaking with the teams who uncovered Iraq's mass graves, I was left
speechless in the face of such atrocities. The Iraqi dictatorship
indiscriminately slaughtered Iraqis but the women were among the most
vulnerable. The notorious Fedayeen beheaded women in public, dumping
their severed heads at their families' doorsteps. According to the
September 2001 report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur, at
least 130 Iraqi women were beheaded between June 2000 and April 2001,
in just 1 year. The regime used widespread rape to extract confessions
from detainees and would intimidate members of the opposition by
sending them videotapes of the rapes of their female relatives. At
times, family members were forced to watch those tapes.
However, Saddam Hussein's legacy of terror knew no boundaries. Even
small children were not spared the butchery as evident from the tiny
skeletons found in mass graves throughout Iraq. In 1998, the evidence
of the Iraqi regime's threatening behavior continued to mount and we as
Members of the United States Congress in a unified manner
overwhelmingly approved the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, calling for
the regime of Saddam Hussein to be removed from power and replaced with
a democratic government. By 2003 after 6 more years of Saddam's
oppression, the death toll had reached frightening proportions. The
U.S. could not watch idly and do nothing. As a Nation which stands for
freedom, democracy and human rights, we were compelled to act. Today as
a result of the President's resolve in Iraq and the courageous
dedicated service of our troops, the Iraqi people are free.
As Iraq's new female minister of Municipalities and Public Works said
last week to us: ``On April 9, 2003, Iraqis were offered the
opportunity to begin to dream their future.'' To determine if going to
war in Iraq and liberating the Iraqi people was the right decision,
just ask Dr. Khuzai, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council and
National Council on Women. After being prisoners in their own country
for 35 years, she told us: ``For the Iraqi women, the morale is so high
that you can't understand it unless you go and see. All the Iraqis are
very grateful to Mr. Bush and to the U.S. for liberating us from the
dictatorship regime. We will be grateful forever.''
Today, the United States is helping Iraqi women reintegrate
themselves into Iraqi society and, indeed, the outside world. Toward
this end, the administration has embarked on the Iraqi Women's
Democracy Initiative to train Iraqi women in the skills and practices
of democratic public life. It has also established the U.S.-Iraqi
Women's Network, helping to mobilize the private sector.
This is just the beginning. We will have a better, safer world for
the Iraqi people, especially for the Iraqi women, and for all.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the distinguished chairman of
the Democratic Caucus and an important member of the Committee on
International Relations.
(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. MENENDEZ. I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding me
this time.
Mr. Speaker, I hear my colleagues now talk about human rights and
brutality, and there is no question about that; but there is human
rights and brutality in many parts of the world, and that has not
caused American troops to intervene in those countries. One year after
the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it is time to focus on the truth. Yet this
resolution leaves out the administration's most important justification
for the war in Iraq, weapons of mass destruction. This administration
systematically misled the American public and Congress into believing
that there were weapons of mass destruction and that we were under an
imminent threat. According to the Carnegie Endowment For International
Peace recent report, the administration systematically misrepresented
the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction by presenting the
case as solid instead of expressing the uncertainty that existed in the
intelligence assessments, and making the threat seem dire rather than
minor by misrepresenting the inspector's findings.
In fact, a report by the minority staff of the Committee on
Government Reform found the administration made over 200 misleading
public statements on the Iraqi threat.
The truth is that this administration will not have the American
people know what really happened with the intelligence until after the
November elections, a year from today. Most importantly, this
Republican Iraq resolution, crafted with no input from Democrats, makes
no mention of the over 565 American men and women who gave their lives
in Iraq to date and over 3,500 others who are wounded. I say we should
honor those who gave their lives, not ignore them. This resolution
should commemorate that ultimate sacrifice.
In the wake of the recent attacks in Spain, it is shameful that
Republicans are acting as dividers, not uniters. It is shameful that
the Republicans without input from Democrats on a crucial resolution
that could express our collective sentiment as we did after September
11 seek partisan gain out of what should be a national embrace.
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Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris).
(Ms. HARRIS asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Ms. HARRIS. I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 557, which
reaffirms the morality and justice of Operation Iraqi Freedom. One year
ago, our brave men and women in uniform began to liberate a proud and
resilient nation from an unspeakable 30-year nightmare. They also
delivered a clear message to terrorists and tyrants alike: the United
States will not tolerate a regime that pursues tools of mass murder and
destruction. Operation Iraqi Freedom reversed more than a decade of
failed diplomacy which exacted a devastating price. Because the world
permitted Saddam Hussein to violate 16 U.N. resolutions with impunity,
the terrorists became convinced of our weakness. Meanwhile, Saddam
continued to murder, torture, mutilate and rape men, women and children
by the millions. After routing Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait in
1991, we urged the Iraqi people to rise up and rebel against this
brutal dictator. Then, because United Nations and international opinion
required us to leave Saddam in power, we betrayed them.
During the Pryce delegation's mission to Iraq last fall, we listened
to the victims and witnesses describe the horrors of this wicked
regime. Incredibly, however, the faces of the Iraqis with whom we met
reflected a new hope, born from the blood, sacrifice, heroism, and
successes of our troops. Even as they endure the attacks of the enemies
of freedom, they know that by working together, we will win the
twilight struggle for their future.
{time} 1445
In the heart of the Middle East, we are replacing the oppression and
despair that breeds terrorists with the freedom and hope that defeats
them. Mr. Speaker, this stunning transformation is the very essence of
the war on terror and let us not permit the rhetoric of an election
year to obscure this fundamental truth.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman), ranking member of the
Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia of the Committee on
International Relations.
(Mr. ACKERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is extraordinary, not for
what it says but for what it deliberately refuses to admit. The
President took us to war. An immediate nuclear threat was the bait.
This resolution is the switch.
In the aftermath of the war, we found no stockpiles of weapons of
mass destruction, and with shifting justifications coming from the
President and memorialized here in this Republican-crafted resolution,
I cannot help but feel, as my constituents do, that we were sold a bill
of goods. Not surprisingly, today's feel-good pep-rally resolution does
not speak to these issues. What it does provide is the background music
for justification revisionists.
But since we have not discovered the promised stockpiles of weapons,
we have a big problem. Not that our failure to find the weapons is not
a big problem or that al Qaeda forces sneaking into Iraq is not a big
problem or that nation building a place the size of California is not a
big problem. The real problem is an utter lack of White House
credibility. It is gone. Having not just cried wolf, but rabid wolf,
this administration has lost its credibility with the Congress, with
the American people, with the people of Europe, even with the people of
``New Europe,'' and with the international community.
And the credibility gap extends to the plans for what we would do
after the war. We won the war. The Secretary of War makes good war. And
for the peace we were assured, the American people were assured that
there was a plan. In fact, there was. It was crafted by the State
Department. It spoke to all of the issues and problems that we have
come up with until today, and it was scrapped by the Secretary of
Defense. So how are the American people supposed to believe that the
current plan to hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30, ready or not,
come hell or high water, will actually work when all the expertise the
United States Government could muster in advance has been summarily
dismissed? I have concluded that the administration's plans to get us
into the war was bait and switch, and the plan to get us out looks like
cut and run.
Finally, I am deeply concerned that the war against Iraq has
undermined our stated Bush national security doctrine on preemption.
Surely we face a new and different world in the wake of September 11
and we must think differently about how to win the war on terror, but
preemption as a valid and legal doctrine for self-defense depends on
imminence, an imminent threat to our national security. What we have
discovered in Iraq is that there was no imminent threat and that our
intelligence about Saddam's weapons was far from the mark. The
administration has destroyed its credibility with the world community,
and if by our actions we have transformed preemptive war into
preventative war, then despite what today's resolution says, we have
not made the world a safe place but a more dangerous place in the long
run.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
I would just like to comment on the use of the word ``imminent.'' I
wonder when the aircraft smashed into the World Trade Center, what was
imminent. That morning? The day before? See, when we are dealing with
suicide bombers, ``imminence'' is a rather difficult term to apply to
circumstances. Sometimes by the time one finds out it is imminent, they
are dead.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from
Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis).
Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support
of this important resolution. It has been almost a year now since our
brave men and women in uniform liberated the Iraqi people from the
oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein. In doing so, our Armed Forces
brought individual freedom to a people who have for decades only known
persecution. Now they are proving just as impressive at rebuilding the
country.
Mr. Speaker, several of the previous speakers have said that the Bush
administration falsely claimed that the threat posed by Iraq was
imminent. The threat was not imminent. The administration made no such
claim. The threat was it needed to be dealt with before the issue
became imminent. Saddam's regime continued to try to kill our American
and British air crews patrolling the no fly zone, people like the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), who flew those missions as a naval
reservist. The United States could not keep a potential invasion force
on station near Iraq indefinitely, nor would we want our soldiers to
have to fight at the height of the summer.
With the ousting of Hussein from power, we have discovered the true
horror and atrocities of this regime. As we look at the unearthed mass
graves and reflect on the countless human rights abuses, how can we
possibly question the legitimacy of this decision? The world is a safer
place with the liberation of Iraq, particularly for the 25 million
Iraqis who no longer have to live in fear of a brutal tyrant.
We entered Iraq to free its people and plant the seeds of a
democratic government, and that is precisely what we are doing. If a
few years ago, one would have told someone, anyone, that in the year
2004 the Iraqi people would be creating a constitution founded on
democratic principles, I daresay that no one, no one, would have
objected. Consequently, that is just what our decision has done.
I commend the diligence of our Armed Forces in the reconstruction
effort, and I am pleased with the rapid progress that is being made.
The road is certainly not an easy one, but I remain confident in the
ability of the Iraqi people, with the cooperation of the coalition, to
rebuild their country and to create a secure and stable sovereign
nation.
I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Brown), a distinguished member of the committee.
[[Page H1147]]
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for
yielding me this time.
We all in this institution support our troops. We marvel at and
applaud their bravery and their courage. It is not, Mr. Speaker, what
is in this resolution. It is what is not in it. I suggest to my
Republican colleagues that they meet with families of the men and women
who are serving in Iraq, something many of us in this institution have
done. They will learn how badly this administration has supplied our
troops.
There is no mention of the lack of body armor in this resolution and
how the Bush administration has failed to outfit our troops. There is
no mention in this resolution about the lack of safe drinking water for
our troops, something that this administration has failed to supply.
There is no mention in this resolution of cuts in prescription drug
benefits to veterans that this administration has forced on those who
have lived up to their obligation for our country. There is no mention
in this resolution of the $1.2 billion underfunded for the Veterans
Administration in the President's budget. There is no mention in this
resolution of 558 courageous young men and women who have died in Iraq.
There is no mention of the 2,788 soldiers and sailors who were wounded
since President Bush dressed in his flight suit and declared, ``mission
accomplished.'' There is no mention in this resolution of weapons of
mass destruction. There is no mention in this resolution of the Bush
administration's deceit in leading us to this war.
Mr. Speaker, the best way to honor our troops is to supply the troops
adequately, to protect the troops and make sure they are safe, and to
fulfill the promises to our veterans. Something the Bush administration
has failed to do. Something my Republican friends on the other side of
the aisle have failed to address.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I was fascinated by the remarks of the last gentleman. We have been
checking records of people who have strong views on this subject, and I
find the gentleman has voted 11 times to cut the intelligence budget.
That is pretty consistent, and I give him an A for consistency. He also
voted against the supplemental to provide the wherewithal for the
troops to be fully equipped. And so, as I say, the gentleman talks a
very robust military, but he does not quite follow up with supporting
funding for our intelligence.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the $87 billion, first of all, I
voted to equip the troops in Iraq in the first vote. When the Bush
administration failed with enough money in that budget to provide safe
drinking water, to provide body armor, when the administration failed
to do it, they had plenty of money to do it; yet it took them months
and months and months to make our troops safe. That is why so many in
this body said do not give the Pentagon more money, do not give
Halliburton more money, do not give more money to the company that is
paying Vice President Cheney $3,000 a week while he is Vice President
of the United States.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman said what is not in our
resolution. I will tell the Members what is not in. The 11 votes he
voted to cut funds for intelligence, his vote against the supplemental.
And so to talk out of one side of his mouth for a vigorous military and
that they should be supplied, and then to deny them the wherewithal to
do it, it seems to me is standing on two stools. It is a great way to
get a political hernia.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs.
Kelly).
Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this
resolution, first to praise the efforts of our men and women in the
military who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much on behalf of
this country. I also want to take a minute to recognize the courage and
resilience of the Iraqi women.
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women lived in fear. They endured years
of great beatings, torture, under a farce of a legal system under which
they had no rights. Does no one remember the pictures of the Kurdish
people, dead, holding their babies in their arms, trying to shield them
from the horror of a weapon of mass destruction in Iraq? Only Baathists
were awarded the right to have medical care. Families were torn apart
on trumped-up charges. Divorce was grounds for having their children
taken away. Imagine a mother watching her child die because of her
political beliefs. Imagine watching a husband leave for work one day,
never to come back. Imagine walking down the street and having their
children ripped from their hands.
The persecution of women under Saddam Hussein was brutal and
systematic and left deep and damaging psychological wounds. Women were
afraid to walk down the streets. Girls were afraid to go to school.
With the source of that oppression now removed great challenges lie
ahead. Some estimate, for example, that over 70 percent of the Iraqi
women are illiterate. They could not go to school.
Somehow this battered and oppressed nation has to educate a new
generation of Iraqi children. And in the face of that tough task, there
is optimism in Iraq. For the first time in generations, they see an
opportunity where only once they had terror. Where once there was
depravity, there is excitement and hope in these women for the future.
I have met with these women. I have talked with these women.
The optimism is due to the United States' intervention and the
selfless service of our men and women in uniform. In our Armed Forces
stationed in Iraq, women stand alongside with men there and they serve
as a model for the Iraqi women who aspire to that kind of equality on
their own in their own country.
The new Constitution of Iraq calls for almost a 25 percent
representation of women. The Iraqi women themselves have asked for 40
percent. Mr. Speaker, the resolution before us commends the Iraqi
people for their courage in the face of unspeakable oppression. I
commend the women of Iraq for overcoming that unspeakable adversity. I
hope that everyone will back this bill.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Sherman), the distinguished ranking member of the
Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human
Rights.
(Mr. SHERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, we send troops into battle without body
armor. Shame. Those troops come back deprived of the veterans benefits
we promised. Shame. And now we deliberately divide the homefront for
political advantage. Shame.
Make no mistake about it. This resolution was designed by political
consultants to generate the largest possible Democratic ``no'' vote
which can then be the subject of political ads saying one of our
Nation's great political parties does not support our troops. Shame.
The world is better because Saddam is gone. But a fair resolution
would acknowledge that we are worse off because 566 of our troops are
now deceased and 3,254 were wounded. And we are less safe because our
military is exhausted and overextended. Our international credibility
has been mangled beyond belief. So the real threats to our security,
North Korea and Iran, are able to make progress on their nuclear
weapons programs. We are not safer now than we were a year ago because
those who would develop nuclear weapons and smuggle them into our
cities have had a year further to progress.
{time} 1500
And one party devotes a day of floor time to dividing our Nation
during our war on terrorism. Shame. Just as that political party
brought forward money for our troops in a supplemental and linked it to
a giant welfare program for Halliburton and forced us to vote on it as
a package. Now it attacks our patriotism when we said ``no'' to
Halliburton, because they would not let us say ``yes'' to our troops
and ``no'' to Halliburton at the same time. Shame.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
learned gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood).
Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this
time.
[[Page H1148]]
After listening to some of this debate, and I am sure it will get
worse during the day as we deal with this politically, from a policy
point of view, I would just like to take a minute and review what
really we are talking about here. We are talking about a resolution
that I cannot imagine any American, frankly, could not support. I mean
we are simply saying that we affirm that the United States has made the
world safer by the removal of Saddam Hussein. Well, I believe that
pretty strongly.
We are commending the Iraqi people for their courage and going
through all they have gone through. We are commending the Iraqi people
because they actually have an interim Constitution and a Bill of
Rights. That ought to have been on the front page of some paper
somewhere. And we are commending our troops. What is there to be
against, against that? All of it is true.
Do we want something else added to it? Well, I do too. And my
colleagues will vote no because they did not get it exactly like they
wanted it. I would like for this resolution to have commended the
Commander in Chief of the United States. I would like for us to say to
President Bush, thank God we have a man who has come along with enough
backbone to stand up to the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction around the world and is willing to stand up to the
terrorists. Thank goodness we do that.
My colleagues spend all of their time talking about weapons of mass
destruction. What this President has said to us about weapons of mass
destruction is precisely what the previous administration said to us
also. The difference is, we have a 9/11. And the difference is, we had
a President that was willing and ready to act as we should have acted.
Just think about it a minute. We knew he had weapons of mass
destruction. We knew he had the ability to make weapons of mass
destruction, did we not? We knew he used weapons of mass destruction.
When I voted yes for the President, I thought he had weapons of mass
destruction, but I was not by myself. Israeli Intelligence thought so;
British Intelligence, German Intelligence, French Intelligence, the
U.N., even Saddam Hussein thought he had weapons of mass destruction.
Get off of that.
We are doing the right thing to protect this world, and we are doing
the right thing to protect our security here at home.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), a distinguished member of the
committee.
Mr. MEEKS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing but praise for our
warriors in Iraq, but I oppose the President's Iraq war.
If this was a resolution praising our warriors instead of using them
as a pretext for applauding the President's after-the-fact arguments
for going to war, I would vote for it. If this was a resolution
proposing ways in which Congress and the President will raise our
soldiers' pay, improve their housing at home and abroad, ensure quality
health care for their families and survivors, I would vote for it. If
this was a resolution guaranteeing the greater benefits, job training,
educational and employment opportunities for returning veterans, I
would vote for it. If this was a resolution demanding that the
President develop a real foreign policy agenda instead of a doctrine of
preemption and preventative war, I would vote for it. If this was a
resolution calling on the President and the Intelligence Community to
come clean on why no weapons of mass destruction have been found, I
would vote for it. If this was a resolution condemning the no-bid
contracts by which private military companies like Halliburton have
enriched themselves and whose contributions have fattened the
President's campaign war chest, I would vote for it.
But since this resolution is none of the above, I am compelled to
vote against it. Since this resolution is steeped in hypocrisy and
self-congratulatory bravado while refusing to address the false
pretenses upon which the Iraqi war was launched, I am compelled to vote
against it.
Again, this is poli-tricks, again, as this resolution was crafted to
divide this Nation, not bring this Nation together. No, none of us had
an opportunity on this side to contribute anything to this resolution,
if, in fact, they want to have any kind of unity.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to
the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Illinois (Chairman Hyde) for authoring this very important resolution.
Mr. Speaker, much of the dark and unseemly world of Saddam Hussein is
only now coming to light, and it is significantly worse than many of us
had thought. The fact that as many as 400,000 victims were
systematically brutalized and raped and tortured to death ranks the
Hussein dictatorship as one of the worst in modern history. Had the
United States and coalition forces not gone in to liberate Iraq, there
is no doubt whatsoever that the killing fields would have continued
unabated and that tens of thousands Iraquis or more would have met a
terrible fate.
Mr. Speaker, on the issue of chemical weapons, we know that chemical
weapons used by the Iraqis are not mere conjecture. Hussein used
weapons of mass destruction and used them with impunity both in the
Iran-Iraq war and he used them against the Kurds. We know for a fact,
according to Human Rights Watch and many other organizations and the
U.S. Department of State, that upwards of 5,000 Kurdish people died a
horrific death from those chemical attacks. There have also been, as my
colleagues know, a staggering number of disappearances, believed to
range between 250,000 to 290,000.
Mr. Speaker, the Armed Forces of the United States and our coalition
partners have conducted themselves in Iraq with incredible valor,
professionalism, and commitment. Our forces and those of our allies are
peacemakers. We often talk about peacekeepers, soldiers who go in when
the situation, while volatile, presents the opportunity to ensure that
the combatants can be separated. Our men and women went into Iraq and
they ``made'' the peace. They are peacemakers in a place in the world
where peace was an oxymoron.
The recently adopted interim Iraqui constitution, Mr. Speaker, will
more likely get further worked once the new assembly is up and running
next year, is historic; a constitution which articulates basic
fundamental human rights and the rule of law in the Middle East. After
Israel, which has an excellent constitution, we now have Iraq. And I
think there is a great opportunity for democracy to break out and the
rule to be respected and that also mitigates the danger of Iraq which
now is a peacemaker itself to its friends and allies in the region.
Finally, just let me say, a previous speaker talked about shame when
it comes to our veterans and our men and women who are returning home.
I chair the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. We have seen, since
the Bush Presidency began, and it continues the trend line of the late
1990s, more than a 30 percent increase in health care funding and we
will increase it again this year, and we will do so significantly.
President Bush has signed no less than 16 separate bills to enhance,
to expand veterans benefits. The Veterans Benefits Act of 2003 was
signed on December 16. There were seven titles to it, filled with very
important provisions to enhance veterans benefits. The Veterans
Education and Benefits Act contains a 46 percent increase in the GI
Bill, 46 percent increase in college funding. I know, because I
authored it. I was the prime sponsor of the bill. With no fanfare
whatsoever, this President signed that legislation and 15 other bills
into law.
Mr. Speaker, I would hope that these trying to use veterans issues as
a political football would cease on this floor today. We are trying, in
a bipartisan way, to meet the obligations and the needs of our
veterans. I stand committed to that. This party, and I would say to my
friends on the other side of the aisle, to do so as well, we should all
be pro-veteran, and we are matching our words and our rhetoric with
funding and with responsive and responsible laws.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), a
[[Page H1149]]
distinguished member of the committee.
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this resolution, but I am going
to do it with a heavy heart. I am going to do it with a heavy heart
because this is obviously a politicized resolution. It is a resolution
that was designed to make Democrats look bad. It is a resolution which
Democrats had no input in whatsoever. It is a resolution that really
smacks, I think, of hypocrisy, because when we look at the self-
righteousness on the other side, when we had a resolution on the House
floor several years ago when Bill Clinton was President to support our
troops in Kosovo, almost everyone on the other side voted no.
I am going to vote for this because I support our troops. I am glad
that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, and I am glad that there is
an Iraqi Constitution, and that is essentially what this resolution
says. I believe that whether one believed that the war in Iraq was
justified or unjustified, the fact that we are there now and we cannot
cut and run because if we did, Iraq would surely be a terrorist state
now if it was not one before, we really cannot cut and run.
But I think my friends on the other side of the aisle really ought to
build a consensus. Democrats should have had input into this
resolution. Democrats should have been allowed to amend this
resolution. If we truly want bipartisanship, then we really need to
stand together.
I am troubled that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.
I am troubled that it seems that our intelligence was not exactly up to
snuff. I am troubled that the American people were not told the entire
truth. But I think we have to come together to support our troops.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say again to my friends on the other side of
the aisle, we support our troops whether they are in Iraq, Kosovo, or
anywhere around the world, and we have to stand together and say it,
not play partisan political games.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res.
557. Americans should be proud that we are again confronting an evil
threat to the Western world. We have done that before and we will do it
again. We should be proud of our soldiers and we should be proud of our
President.
The last administration did nothing. What we are doing now is making
up for what was not done 10 years ago. Ten years ago, we let
Afghanistan be turned into a terrorist base. Ten years ago, we let
Saddam Hussein continue his dictatorship and yes, the administration
before the last, George Bush's father, deserves some of the blame for
this; but for the 8 years of the Clinton administration, Saddam Hussein
was murdering his people and aligning himself with the terrorists of
the world. Yet we did nothing.
Now, I remember voting for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. It passed
this House by 360 to 38. Now, today, we hear oh, the President of the
United States did not justify going into Iraq. Well, many of the people
making that point voted for the Iraq Liberation Act in which section 3
of the Iraq Liberation Act authorizes the President of the United
States to remove Saddam Hussein by force. Yet this President is taking
care of business, while the last administration did nothing. Finally,
we have a President who is taking care of business, protecting our
national security. And what do we get? What do we hear? Nitpicking and
back-biting from day one.
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to support this resolution because it
indicates that America is standing proud again. We have a President
that is providing leadership. We are courageous and we are going to
change the course of history. By getting rid of Saddam Hussein, we are
going to create a democratic Iraq and we are going to stick it out
there. Nobody is going to force us to cut and run; no amount of
nitpicking or back-biting will hurt our resolve. We are going to create
an alternative for moderate Muslims throughout the world, and that will
change history. It will take the power away from the radical Islam. We
are taking care of business now. Let us support our troops and our
President.
Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 minutes of my time to the gentleman
from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the House Committee on
Armed Services, and 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Goss), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, for purposes of control.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a valued member of our
committee.
Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, first let me just say I rise in total
opposition to this resolution. This is another resolution to deceive
the American people. This resolution completely distorts and ignores
the basis for this war and its costs.
{time} 1515
This resolution never even mentions the more than, now,
unfortunately, 560 Americans and countless others who have died in this
war. This is really insulting, and it is insensitive.
It also leaves out any mention of weapons of mass destruction, which
was the rationale for this war. And it claims the war made the world a
safer place. That ignores reality.
We had choices. We had options. We did not have to go to war. In the
last year, for example, 72 Members of this House voted for my amendment
to the Bush administration's war resolution that would have rejected
the unnecessary rush to war and instead strengthened our commitment to
the United Nations inspections process.
Now we have a resolution today that celebrates this war but ignores
its cost, its cost to our soldiers, to our credibility, to our
children's future. This pattern of deception and distortion must end.
I tried to offer an amendment to this misleading resolution
yesterday. It just expressed our deep sorrow for all those who have
been killed in this war and pointed out the terrible toll this war has
taken on our own security. The Committee on Rules did not even allow my
amendment honoring the sacrifice of our troops or offering the truth
about the war. Once, again, the debate is being stifled.
What has happened to democracy in this body? Once again, this
administration and the Republican leadership are attempting to trick
the American people. And they are neglecting the very soldiers they
claim to honor, the men and women who need health care, proper
equipment, and veterans benefits, whose families need economic
security. We must call them out on this and vote against this
resolution.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is the opportunity for Members of the Committee on
Armed Services to talk about our piece of this important resolution,
and that is, I think, the most gratifying part of this resolution,
which I think we can all join together on and that is commending our
great troops who have been carrying out this effort in Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, from the time when they spearheaded this drive up from
Kuwait up through the choke points in Nasarea with the Marines out to
the east and the Army, the 101st Airborne and the 3rd Infantry Division
further to the west and worked up to those choke points at some places
where RPGs were coming like volleys of high-tech arrows at those
convoys of Humvees and trucks and tanks, to where they got up and went
past the bridges before they could be blown, took the positions in the
dams before the electronics could be executed to blow those places, and
launched one of the most rapid-moving attacks in the history of
warfare, with great heroism and great accomplishment, from those days
to today when our troops are in this AO, this area of operation, not as
much as attackers but in this case defenders of the new freedom of the
Iraqi people, and hooking up pipelines and sanitary systems and getting
children to school and opening up medical clinics, our people in
uniform have performed heroically.
The most important message we can send from the United States House
of Representatives is, you did a great job, America's people in
uniform. You did a wonderful job for our country. And what you are
doing has great value and
[[Page H1150]]
will enure to our freedom over the coming decades as well as the
freedom of the world.
So, Mr. Speaker, we stand together and even united in commending our
troops. I am glad that my colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Skelton), is here as my partner on this committee to also commend the
troops for the great job that they have done.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a valued member of our committee.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, if the Republican leadership wanted to
work on a bipartisan expression of support, we would have been able to
get some place today. They could at least have had an opportunity for
Congress to step back and examine what we have learned.
We were prepared to win the war in Iraq. It was never an issue. A
major concern is that we were not adequately prepared to win the peace,
either in terms of equipping or staffing the occupation of Iraq nor
preparing the American public for the full scope of the cost and
consequences.
Giving too much money to the wrong people to do the wrong things in
Iraq is a legitimate object of debate, and I hope that we will some day
have it. But, in the meantime, the most important unanswered question
is whether the massive investment of the troops, the money, and the
attention was best spent rushing to Iraq rather than concentrating on
continuing the global struggle against al Qaeda and the other forces of
terror.
By delaying for over a year and a half the concerted efforts in
searching out bin Laden, it has allowed al Qaeda and other terrorists
to gain strength, to metastasize, making bin Laden almost irrelevant
other than as a symbol of our policy failure. Our unwillingness or
inability to launch a concentrated effort to mobilize global support
when we had the entire world united on our side is a sad by-product of
this administration's policies.
We are long on celebration; we are short on analysis. We are long on
talking; we are short on accomplishment. Congress's job is to know what
is going on, define the policy, to fund the right things, and provide
oversight. That is our job, and we are falling far short of the mark.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Schiff), my colleague and a distinguished member of the
committee.
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago this Friday, the President
ordered the men and women of our Armed Forces into Iraq. They performed
magnificently and have continued to do so despite an ongoing guerilla
campaign, difficult conditions, and a shortage of protective gear such
as Kevlar vests and armored Humvees.
As we celebrate their courage and skill, we must also reflect on
their sacrifice. As of today, 565 American troops have been killed in
this war including United States Army Specialist Rel Allen Ravago, IV,
one of my constituents.
I will support this resolution because it includes language honoring
our troops, but I am very concerned over what the resolution excludes
and deeply disappointed that it was not crafted in a bipartisan manner.
Our troops in Iraq are not representatives of one political party or
the other, and those who seek to exploit their daring and sacrifice for
partisan gain would do well to remember that.
This resolution fails to address a number of serious issues that have
arisen as a result of the war. Although the resolution before us makes
no mention of it, this Nation went to war over intelligence that Saddam
Hussein had both an existing arsenal of biological and chemical weapons
and an ongoing nuclear weapons program. A year has passed, and we have
yet to find evidence that this was correct.
Clearly, we must look at the totality of the circumstances that led
to such a colossal intelligence failure. This failure cannot be
minimized or, in the case of this resolution, ignored all together. To
do so does no honor to our troops who have been lost and further
imperils our future.
The planning for the post-war period of this operation was also
deficient and based on a number of unsupported assumptions. Over the
past decade and a half, our forces have been engaged more and more in
post-conflict operations. Clearly we need to organize ourselves better
to meet the challenges posed by post-conflict reconstruction.
In the coming days, I will offer a House companion to a bill
introduced in the Senate by Senators Lugar and Biden that does just
that, and I hope my colleagues will support it.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Watson), my good friend and distinguished
colleague.
Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, for more than 200 years the men and women of
the United States military have, through their valiant actions, earned
a well-deserved reputation for courage, honor, and sacrifice in defense
of liberty. The brave Americans now fighting and dying in Iraq are
heirs to a legacy that flows from Lexington and Concord through
Normandy, straight up to the present day. They should be very proud of
what they have accomplished in Iraq, and they deserve our firm support
as they continue to face danger there.
I am sure that my colleagues who support H. Res. 557 are sincere in
their desire to salute our troops. However, I feel they have committed
a grave error by confusing the valor and the sacrifice of our troops
with the misguided and misleading policy that sent them to Iraq in the
first place.
Members of Congress voted in good faith for a resolution on the use
of force believing that Iraq was capable of unleashing deadly weapons
of mass destruction. We were told that the threat was imminent and
could directly impact our Nation's security. Certainly the people of
Iraq had suffered from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, but this
was not the primary reason given for the preemptive strike by the
United States.
It is good that Congress is on record listing the many atrocities of
Saddam Hussein's regime. Saddam was a brutal dictator. That is not
debatable. What is debatable is whether our actions in Iraq have
improved the security of the United States and our allies. I therefore
question the resolution's assertion that ``the United States and the
world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his
regime from power in Iraq.'' In fact, our laser beam focus on Iraq,
with no proven connections to 9/11, has allowed al Qaeda to regroup and
again unleash its destructive capabilities on one of our closest
allies. Moreover, I believe our involvement in Iraq is a major
contributing factor to America's declining image around the world,
which Margaret Tutwiler, the administration's head official in charge
of public diplomacy, admitted ``will take us many years of hard,
focused work'' to restore.
When the President announced on May 1 of last year that major combat
operations in Iraq had ceased, I expected a quick draw-down of American
troops and a significant increase of United Nations peacekeepers.
Tragically, our Nation has lost more American men and women in Iraq
after the President's declaration that major hostilities had ended. The
total now stands in excess of 565 and is climbing.
This resolution is disingenuous. In its place should be a
straightforward resolution of commendation for those who fought
valiantly and risked their lives to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime.
And condolences to those whose lives were snatched from them in this
most unjustified conflict.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), our last speaker.
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, today we are asked to commemorate a
preemptive war. President Bush told the world there was no doubt Iraq
was concealing weapons of mass destruction, but this Republican
resolution instead reinterprets history.
It would have the American people believe that President Bush took
our Nation to war because in 1988 Saddam gassed the Kurds while
President Reagan appeased the Iraqi regime or because Saddam punished
the Marsh Arabs by draining the marshlands while the first Bush
administration watched.
This resolution memorializes the horrors of a dictator to justify the
flawed premise for preemptive war, but it fails to acknowledge the 565
American patriots who sacrificed their lives. This resolution exploits
the sacrifices of our troops, the suffering of the Iraqi people, all
for partisan gamesmanship.
Our Nation is at war. Our troops, their families, and the American
people deserve honesty from this House and from the White House.
[[Page H1151]]
We all support our troops. We all want a safer world. And the
American people deserve the truth.
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the rule, I designate each of
the following three Members to control \1/2\ hour of time allotted to
me under the rule: \1/2\ hour for the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Skelton), \1/2\ hour for the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman),
and \1/2\ hour for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the greatest asset our
Nation has known, those heroes, and they are heroes, that we call on
every time when we need courage and effectiveness on the battlefield,
the incredible American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that
reflect the best attributes of those who have served before them; and
they are a wonderful reflection of America across our country. So we
thank them and we honor them.
Like many Members, I have had the privilege of traveling to Iraq
twice, this last time with our minority leader, the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Pelosi), and with the gentleman from North Carolina
(Mr. Hayes) from the Committee on Armed Services.
And what was clear is that our men and women are doing an
extraordinary job in the most trying of circumstances. They are
superbly trained, superbly led, and are just the finest force in the
world. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.
We also owe the same to more than 550 families of those who have
given the ultimate sacrifice to our Nation in Iraq. But what was also
clear in my trips, there was no effective or realistic planning done
for the aftermath of the military invasion of Iraq. We did a superb job
on the battlefield; but since that time, sadly, as I warned the
President in two letters, September 4, 2002, and then one a couple of
days before the actual invasion, I feared the outcome and I warned the
administration in these letters about what the potential consequences
might be of getting the post-war wrong.
{time} 1530
Sadly now, we are seeing those consequences come home to roost, and
some of the issues that I raised in those letters are sadly coming to
pass today.
While the Iraqis now have an interim constitution and we should
congratulate them for that, it is no clearer now than it was back in
November, when the timetable for transformation was laid out, who will
take over on June 30. Now it looks like there will be no status of
forces agreement negotiated before that time. Let me tell my
colleagues, a status of forces agreement is very important because it
can establish limitations. It could establish rules of engagement that
make it more difficult for our forces to protect themselves.
Perhaps most dangerously we see more signs of ethnic and religious
strife, raising the possibility of a civil war in Iraq. I truly hope
that does not happen, but the tensions are growing, and there are
insurgents and foreign fighters who have fanned those flames. Today's
most deadly and tragic bombing of the hotel in Baghdad seems to be the
only recent sign of this. We need to do a better job in planning.
Everything we have worked to achieve in Iraq will be undermined if we
do not figure out who we are turning sovereignty over to on June 30 and
how to manage the transition in a way that avoids civil war.
These are dangerous times. This is not an easy day for our troops or
for the leadership in our country, and that is why I raise these
issues, Mr. Speaker. The security of the Iraqi people, the security of
our troops, the stability in the region, and even our own national
security depends on doing this right.
I will support this resolution because I support the men and women
who are sacrificing daily, and I support those families who are
fighting the insurgency in making Iraq secure, but I urge the
administration to do the hard planning, to figure out quickly what will
happen after June 30 to hold off a potential civil war, and we cannot
have that.
We must not let last year's military victory become a long-term
defeat because of more failures due to the tough planning ahead. June
30 is a date that must be taken very seriously by our country. We must
make sure there is a stable Iraqi transition, and that it works;
because if it does not work, if there is civil war, all of the
sacrifices of those young men and women in uniform, whether wounded or
killed, and the families that have grieved and shared their burdens
with them, will have been in vain. We really, really cannot afford to
have that.
So let us praise the troops. And every American should be proud of
them as I am.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his
thoughtful statement, and I yield for a unanimous consent request to
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw).
(Mr. SHAW asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, and I rise in support of
this resolution, support of our troops and particularly pay my great
admiration to the 124th Infantry, Bravo Company, that just returned
safely to Palm Beach County, Florida.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 557 and to offer my
gratitude to all the men and women who have worked, and who continue to
work, so hard to serve their country in Iraq. In particular, I'd like
to extend my respect and admiration to Captain Joseph Lyon and the
reservists of the 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry, Bravo Company, who
have returned home safely to West Palm Beach from service in Iraq.
The contributions of these brave soldiers can be seen every day in
the numerous improvements in the Iraqi economy and society. With the
aid of the Coalition forces, the transfer of power to the people of
Iraq is progressing smoothly. Iraqi forces are gradually relieving and
will completely replace coalition forces in all aspects of the
reconstruction.
I am thankful to all who have helped the Iraqi people establish a
stable and peaceful country. By doing so, we defend our people from the
danger of Iraq returning to being a haven for terrorists. Today, Iraq
is a safer place and is on the road to establishing their own democracy
to serve as an example in the heart of the Middle East.
I urge all my colleagues to support H. Res. 557.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, who spends more
time with the troops than he does with us.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of traveling to Iraq twice in
the last few months to visit our troops and to thank them for the job
they are doing, as well as to see firsthand the progress that is being
made by both the Iraqis and the international coalition in providing
security and growing stability to the Nation.
I was amazed to see and hear some of the very real and significant
success stories that our forces are accomplishing. When one travels by
air, for example, over Iraq, it is easy to realize that 65 percent of
the Iraqi people live off the land. Many are accomplished farmers, but
others are being aided by the efforts of the American soldiers and by
American generosity.
In Iraq, the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture once ran a 400-acre farm
not far from where Saddam Hussein was captured. It was called Saddam
Farm, and it produced a harvest that benefited only Saddam Hussein and
his family. Today, the Army is helping Iraqis establish the nation's
very first cooperative farm on that 400 acres. Iraqi farming families
are also being helped by the generosity of the American citizens who
have donated some $20,000 worth of seeds, and the Army has distributed
them.
Throughout my travels in Iraq, I have found Iraqi children with
smiles on their faces. It is remarkable to think that they are living
in freedom for the first time. They know it and they like it. Like many
children throughout the world, Iraqis enjoy the sport of soccer, and I
have seen Iraqi children kicking soccer balls on the playing fields and
vacant lots and empty streets. American troops have undertaken projects
to give soccer balls to some of the poorer Iraqi children who may not
be able to obtain for themselves. For example, the 501st Forward
Support Battalion undertook one
[[Page H1152]]
project and gave away 150 soccer balls to kids in Baghdad. The 101st
Airborne also distributed soccer balls in the north.
Perhaps the greatest and most noteworthy accomplishment that I have
seen in Iraq, however, is the increase in the level of security and
stability for the Iraqi people. Unfortunately, there are still those
that want to see a free Iraq fail, but for our troops, many changes in
the Iraqi lifestyle have been evident. In many other areas, security
and stability are succeeding because of the efforts of the
international coalition forces and the Iraqis themselves.
Iraq's security forces have grown tremendously in the last year since
they were first created. The Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement now
employs 80,000 Iraqis and 9,000 border enforcement agents, as well as
to monitor the nation's 3600-kilometer border. More than 11,000
experienced policemen now patrol Iraq, and another several thousand
Iraqi policemen will join their ranks by the end of this year.
There is still much to be done in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is
that there are many success stories, many more than one reads in the
morning newspaper or sees on daily television reports, and certainly
many more than I have time to outline here.
The successes I spoke of and the countless others not only are
helping Iraq to become more stable, but they are helping Iraqis to
provide for that security and stability. Ultimately, the sooner Iraq is
run and secured by Iraqis, the sooner our great troops will come home.
I am proud to stand here today and commend the Iraqi people for their
courage and to say again thank you to our troops for a great job well
done.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman,
formerly from Missouri, now from California (Ms. Waters).
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Missouri for
recognizing that Missouri, too, is the State of my birth, and I am
delighted to be on the floor today with him because he has provided
wonderful leadership for our caucus.
Mr. Speaker, I came today to the floor to shame the Republicans and
the President for politicizing this tragic war in Iraq. God bless our
soldiers. They do not deserve to be made pawns in political
gamesmanship. There are many Members who love and support our soldiers
but refuse to be blackmailed into supporting this preemptive strike
doctrine of this administration and to be used by this President. Just
as President Bush is attempting to use the New York 9/11 scene as a
backdrop in his political advertisement, this resolution is being used
to paint the picture that this President is a tough leader, fighting
terrorism and winning.
Mr. Speaker, this President is not winning. Our country and the world
is not more secure. Tragically, over 564 soldiers have died since the
war began last year, and thousands more have been injured. The
administration has spent $157 billion so far in this war, and even the
allies who have supported him are being retaliated against.
If my friends on the opposite side of the aisle were sincere about
gathering us all together in a resolution to say to our soldiers thank
you for your sacrifices, they would have done what was asked of them by
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) today: Pull this one-sided
resolution off the floor, get Democrats involved, let us join hands and
support our soldiers.
This is the most divisive administration that this country has ever
had, polarizing us, putting us at each others' throats. It is a shame,
and I do not mind saying it on this floor today. You need to withdraw
it.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).
Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I thank our great chairman for yielding me
the time. And, Mr. Speaker, if my colleagues in this Chamber have any
doubt about the necessity of our war against the sadistic and despotic
regime of Saddam Hussein, I urge them to look at this photo that I took
with Iraqi girls during a congressional trip that some of my colleagues
and I went on last December.
If my colleagues take a close look at this picture, they will see
bright, sunny faces of happy girls who look like they could live in my
district or any of their districts around this country, but the sad
reality is that a little over a year ago, these young girls were living
under the ugly regime of a murderous dictator who would not hesitate to
take their lives or the lives of their friends and family. In fact,
from 1983 to 1988 Saddam Hussein wiped out 60 villages and murdered
more than 30,000 Iraqi citizens with weapons of mass destruction. Human
rights organizations continually received reports from women who said
that rape was routinely used by Iraqi officials as weapons of torture,
intimidation, and blackmail.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know what would have happened to these girls if
the United States had not acted against Saddam Hussein's ruthless
Baathist regime, but I do know this much. Since the liberation of Iraq,
more than 5.5 million children went back to school this year; 2,300
schools which fell into disarray under Saddam's regime have been
rehabilitated. School children have books, shoulder bags, notebooks,
pencils, papers and desks to use for their studies; but, most
importantly, they are now living free from Saddam's repressive regime,
and they never have to worry again about being harmed by their
tyrannical government, thanks to the strong leadership of President
Bush and the heroic efforts of our men and women of the armed services.
I cannot say enough about our troops who risk life and limb every day
to bring freedom to these girls and to the other people of Iraq. I urge
strong support of this resolution endorsing our troops.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), the ranking member of our Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time, and it is unfortunate that this resolution has become so
political because I think clearly all of us should have been able to
sit down and come up with a resolution that would be united and that
would send a clear voice to all of the world how much we support our
troops.
We are going to have 4 hours of debate, and there are so many
important things we should be discussing, like the fact that we failed
to provide our troops with critical protection and equipment that they
need, from interceptive body armor to anti-jamming devices, to armored
humvees.
Yesterday, I met with Brian Hart, the father of Private First Class
John Hart who was killed in Iraq last October when the unarmored humvee
that he was patrolling in was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. Just
days before his death, Pfc. Hart called his father and told him how
unsafe he felt riding around in humvees that lacked bulletproof
shielding or reinforced doors.
The story of John Hart is all too familiar. A couple of months ago,
the Defense Department stated that 29 American troops had been killed
and 290 wounded on attacks on humvees. Now I hear they are not even
tracking those numbers anymore, but I do know that of the 18 soldiers
killed in Iraq from Massachusetts, 6 died in unarmored humvees or
trucks.
Look at this chart. Almost 80 percent of the 12,500 humvees deployed
in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom lack reinforced windows
and doors. The evidence here is overwhelming that we have not gotten
what our troops need fast enough.
{time} 1545
And what bothers me is that the Army did not even begin to address
this shortage until August 2003, 3 months after President Bush
announced the end of the war in Iraq. The Secretary of the Army says
that they will get this done by August; but as of today no new orders
have been placed, leaving our troops, many of them, in this vulnerable
position, in unarmed vehicles. August just is not good enough.
For too long, the Army has dragged its feet because it failed to
consider quick, effective alternatives to uparmoring Humvees like
installing add-on armor kits.
If we purchased more add-on kits and reached out to other vendors, we
can get these Humvees armored now.
Recently, 25,000 Marines deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and took
with them 3,000
[[Page H1153]]
trucks and Humvees, all of which have been armored with protective
plating. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Hagee, understood
that installing temporary add-on kits provides a quick, easy
alternative to uparmoring Humvees in depots at home. So Gen. Hagee
purchased $9 million worth of add-on armor kits to outfit Humvees
before he sent his Marines back into the battlefield.
I have introduced a resolution urging the Defense Department to use
whatever means possible to armor these Humvees as quickly as they can.
If we truly want to support our Armed Forces, this would provide them
with the critical protection and equipment they deserve!
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to
let my colleagues know that all Humvees are manufactured unarmored.
They are basically big Jeeps, and this Congress has been rushing to
armor Humvees in the wake of the new threat known as the IED, the
remotely detonated device. We put some $400 million in the last
supplemental to pay for that armor.
I just would say to my colleagues, it would have been great if they
could have voted with us on that one because that is the funding
supplemental that paid for the arming of the Humvees.
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, that is precisely why I could not vote for
it. We were supposed to have this money appropriated. We have troops
over there in unarmed vehicles. It is inexcusable.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the idea that you do not
armor vehicles because it is not done already at the factory makes no
logic to me.
I would urge the gentleman to work with me to continue to armor them,
because we are shipping steel in there now.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Akin).
Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, just as an introduction, it seems to me that,
to a certain degree, the other party doeth protest too much.
The first thing I have been hearing about is complaints about
intelligence information. Yet it was the other party, the Democrat
Party, that under the Church Commission dismantled our human
intelligence and has consistently done that. Over the 8 years Clinton
was in office, they voted to cut the human intelligence budget 30
percent and now want to complain about the fact that our intelligence
information is not that good.
This is also a party that cut the defense budget close to half and
wonders why there is not some equipment sometimes. They cannot have it
both ways.
But I would like to focus, rather, about what was and what is now.
What was, we saw. We saw the late-night knock of the secret police. We
saw the torture chambers when I was in Iraq that used to exist. We saw
the women that had been raped as a form of political coercion. We saw
women that were not educated.
Those things have changed. Because what is now is a society that is
moving into a new century, a place where women can be educated, where
no longer torture and murder and amputation are used as a tool to
intimidate, and where we saw on the streets of Iraq people starting to
emerge into a free civilization. There are all kinds of new businesses
being formed.
These are words from a brave Iraqi Parliamentarian, probably risking
his life, talking about the new constitution. Some, he says, may say
that the Bill of Rights is copied from the West. My answer: these
rights and values are not exclusively the property of the West. They
are universal and should be respected and implemented everywhere. We
have put up a high standard so that the people of the future may always
try to reach.
I think that is a statement of our success. Americans have always
succeeded when we invest in those tremendously important principles of
our own founding, the belief that people are valuable. And we continue
to attest to that by our presence in Iraq, by our brave soldiers there.
They believe people are important, as opposed to the terrorists that
say they are mere pawns.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Mrs. Tauscher).
Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding
me this time.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution claims to honor our troops, but it is
nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to run a political campaign on
taxpayers' time.
We have the best military in the world. I am honored to represent the
men and women of Travis Air Force Base in Congress, and I will always
be grateful to all of our men and women in uniform for their
patriotism, courage, sacrifice, and devotion to our great Nation. As
Members of Congress, we must support them in word and deed.
I have been to Iraq and the Persian Gulf twice in the past year to
talk to our troops serving there and learned firsthand what they need
to get the job done and return home safely. Forty thousand American
troops were sent to Iraq without bulletproof vests, and many more still
do not have reinforced Humvees to protect them from daily roadside
bombs. But this resolution does nothing to get this critical lifesaving
equipment to our troops.
I am very disappointed this resolution does not offer condolences to
the families of the 564 Americans killed in Iraq thus far, nor mention
the 2,500 wounded in action.
It is also hard to believe that these congressional leaders would
consider a resolution that categorically reaffirms that the United
States and the world are made safe by the removal of Saddam Hussein and
the Ba'ath Party from power just days after the Spanish people buried
more than 200 of their citizens in the worst act of terror in European
history, and on a day, today, when a bomb blast killed dozens in Iraq.
Instead of patting ourselves on the back, it is time to ask whether
this administration's approach to the war on terror and the war on Iraq
have made us safer. Two and one-half years after the September 11
attacks, al Qaeda is more dangerous than ever. The war in Iraq removed
a dictator, but has created a new front on the war on terror that did
not exist before and has pinned down a large amount of our troops in
the Middle East for years to come.
Mr. Speaker, I will vote ``no'' on this resolution. I urge my
colleagues to support our troops with action, not shameless political
ploys, and do the same.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes).
Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, all too often the voices whining about what
they find wrong with our planning, our troops, or our military tend to
drown out their great successes. But when I went to Iraq, I found our
troops were proud that they had liberated 24 million Iraqi people in
just 3 weeks.
The untold story of Operation Iraqi Freedom were the stories
describing the logistics warriors who not only accomplished
extraordinary things but who were often also put in harm's way to
support the phenomenal contributions of our combat troops. Sometimes we
just assume that food is going to get there and our ammunition is going
to get there, but let me tell you some of the truly amazing logistics
work that occurred during this conflict.
The main supply line stretched 350 miles; and on any given time,
there were 2,500 logistics and support vehicles on the road. There were
2.5 million gallons of gas per day delivered effectively to fly our
aircraft. We built the longest pipeline the Army has ever built, 220
miles long. There were 66,000 pipe sections hand laid to construct that
critical system, and it is still in service today serving the Iraqi
people. We delivered 1.5 million liters of water a day successfully and
effectively. A third of a million meals were served per day. Two
million tons of spare parts and equipment were moved effectively every
day.
In particular, the tremendous effort of the Army's Quartermaster
Corps, the home of which is in Fort Lee, Virginia, are reflected by
these totals from the war: 186 million gallons of fuel, enough to fill
the tanks of 40,000 cars; they served 53 million meals, enough to feed
the entire population of New York State with three meals a day;
provided 330 million gallons of water, enough for a daily shower for
the half million residents of Las Vegas; and delivered nearly 8 million
pieces of mail.
[[Page H1154]]
With so much success and such an enormous effort, it should not be
hard to find additional improvements to be made. But, Mr. Speaker, I
think it is only fitting today that we stand up and pass this
resolution to honor their great work.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Guam (Mr. Bordallo).
Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri for
yielding me this time, and I rise today in support of our service men
and women who need much more than the words we speak here today to help
them in Iraq.
As the fires from the most recent terrorist attack today in Baghdad
burn against the night sky, I am moved to remember Army Specialist
Christopher Jude Rivera Wesley, who died in Iraq, the first Chamorro
casualty of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I also want to take time to pay tribute to Army Specialist Hilario
Bermanis of the 82nd Airborne Division. He joined the Army from the
Federated States of Micronesia, and after losing both legs and his left
hand fighting in Iraq, he has now become an American citizen. I visited
him at Walter Reed Medical Hospital. One day he might even become a
Senator, like Max Cleland, who also sacrificed for his country a
generation before him.
In my mind, this resolution affirms that we are yet to do everything
that we can for our troops. We need the best technology to defend our
troops and care for the wounded, the best diplomacy to make sure they
do not stay a day longer than they have to, and the courage of our
convictions to finish the job.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for
yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the leadership of President George W. Bush,
the valor of the American military and the courage of our coalition
partners, 1 year ago this week the liberation of Iraq started marking
the beginning of the end of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.
My gratitude for this historic success is as a Member of Congress. I
had the opportunity to go with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr.
Skelton) and visit our troops in Iraq. Additionally, I am grateful as a
veteran myself. I retired last July after 31 years of service with the
Army National Guard, and I am so proud of what our active Guard and
Reserve forces have done. But additionally, I am proud and grateful as
a parent. I have three sons who are in the military of the United
States, and one of my sons began his deployment in Iraq this week. We
are very proud in the Wilson family of our contribution and the success
of the American military.
Some today have incorrectly accused the administration of saying Iraq
was in imminent threat. In reality, the case for the war with Iraq was
made precisely because Iraq was not yet an imminent threat. After the
hard lesson of September 11, we can no longer wait until our enemies
grow stronger and more deadly before we take decisive action to prevent
future tragedies.
Saddam Hussein posed a unique danger to the people of the United
States and the world. He ignored 17 United Nations resolutions for over
a decade, harbored and supported terrorists, and had used biological
and chemical weapons on his own people, had a history of violent
aggression against his neighboring countries, and attempted to
assassinate a President of the United States.
Today, Saddam Hussein's regime of terror has ended and the world is a
safer place for it; yet we know the war of terrorism is not over. We
need to remain vigilant to protect America's families by promoting this
resolution today, and I urge its support. In conclusion, God bless our
troops. We will never forget September 11.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me
this time.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution, never opened for committee discussion
and now closed to amendments, is perhaps a consistent way to mark the
anniversary of an unnecessary war that was built on misleading
statements, dangerous disregard for the facts, and dangerous policies.
To a person, we believe that our military men and women have done a
remarkable job in very difficult conditions, conditions like traveling
in tactical vehicles that do not have steel armor, leaving them
dangerously vulnerable to grenades, small arms, and roadside bombs.
Soldiers in Iraq are hanging flack vests and even plywood on their
Humvees in desperate attempts at protection, army officials are quoted
as saying, and the casualties mount week by week.
Republicans who choose to slime the records of opponents of this
resolution would be better to turn the mirror on themselves. Many of us
will be supporting a Democratic budget resolution that will back up our
rhetoric with the resources needed to provide equipment, compensation,
military housing, child tax credits for military families, and other
necessities that are missing in the Republican budget proposal. Let us
put our money where our mouth is.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from
Colorado (Mr. Hefley), who provides all those quality-of-life issues to
our uniformed services.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time, and I rise today to support House Resolution 557.
Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people lived in
poverty and fear. During his 30-year reign of tyranny, he massacred
tens of thousands of his own people, some murdered for their religion
and some for their ethnicity.
On March 19, 2003, the United States and its coalition partners
launched the first air strikes of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 3 weeks,
Iraqis in Baghdad danced and waved their country's flag as U.S. forces
toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein, signaling the end of Saddam's
brutal tyranny.
{time} 1600
Operation Iraqi Freedom was a military success, courageously executed
by American men and women in uniform. It was an operation of
unparalleled precision and speed, and was carried out in a way that
prevented widespread destruction of Iraqi's infrastructure, lengthy
street-by-street fighting or a humanitarian crisis. Food and medical
aid flowed into Iraq immediately after the troops and there was no
``adventurism'' by Iraq's neighbors or other destabilizing action in
the region.
One year later, Iraqis are engaged in the enormous challenge of
rebuilding their country after decades of neglect, and are working with
the coalition toward the creation of a secure, stable, sovereign and
peaceful Iraq. To date, in nearly all major cities and most towns and
villages, Iraqi municipal councils have been formed, and for the first
time in more than a generation the Iraqi judiciary is fully
independent. More than 600 Iraqi judges preside over more than 500
courts that operate independently from the Iraqi Governing Council and
the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Mr. Speaker, U.S. forces are handing the torch to the Iraqi people as
they take control, form an army, build an effective police force, and
develop a fair justice system.
Mr. Speaker, I support this resolution. I have a lot of other good
stuff to say, but my time has expired.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Green).
(Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise first and foremost to thank
the men and women of the Armed Forces serving bravely in Iraq,
Afghanistan and literally all over the world. I supported the
resolution to authorize the war, and in the supplemental request I
continue to support those troops and their work, but I must express my
continued concerns about the safety of the troops and the haphazard way
the administration has proceeded in Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, we have no end game in sight. Our exit strategy is
murky, and our efforts to help this fledgling democracy seem to be
going nowhere. When this war began last year, it became clear our
troops do not have the
[[Page H1155]]
life-saving body armor and vehicle armor they needed. Even with the
passage of the Iraq supplemental last November, there are still too
many soldiers at risk, and we are experiencing increasing reports of
street fire, mines and ambushes aimed at our troops. It is
unconscionable that they continue to lack the protective gear they
need.
On yesterday's evening news, Houston's CBS affiliate KHOU reported
there are still a number of Humvees in Iraq without bulletproof armor,
and I will include for the Record the news report. In fact, there are
Humvees on the streets of Houston that have more safety features than
the ones being used by our troops, according to the report. These
vehicles are intended to transport soldiers and defend them in the war
zone, and the last thing we should hear is soldiers' complaints that
their family's sedans are safer than the military's soft-sided Humvees.
A year ago today, we started a war to remove an evil man from power;
but in doing so, the lives of our troops are unnecessarily jeopardized
by sending them into harm's way without proper armor and underequipped
vehicles. Our troops are doing a dangerous job, and I hope the
administration will correct these problems.
[From KHOU.com, Mar. 17, 2004]
Up Close: Military Leadership Little Soft on Vehicle Protection
(By Dave Fehling)
As we approach the 1-year anniversary of the war in Iraq,
we're learning more about an additional risk to our troops
overseas. Thin-skinned vehicles not designed for combat are
currently being driven by hundreds of soldiers in Iraq right
now. And several service men have been killed, including one
from League City. 11 News looks at the shortage of armor and
the rush to fix what some call a deadly miscalculation.
Last October, 20-year-old paratrooper John Hart phoned his
parents from Iraq and whispered words that shook them. He
felt exposed in his softsided humvee, the same kind in which
friends already had been killed or wounded in ambushes. The
vehicle offered less protection than the family sedan.
``We were thinking about how best to address it,'' says
John's father, Brian Hart, ``when we got news the following
week that John had been killed in an ambush.''
John Hart was shot to death in his unarmored humvee, along
with Lieutenant David Bernstein, fifth in his class at West
Point.
Diane Elliott lives in fear that her husband is also an
easy target in his unarmored humvee. ``A bullet came through
the humvee and through the back of his seat,'' she says. ``He
said there was a bullet hole, just barely missed his head.''
That was the second time Army reserve Captain Roger Elliott
escaped death in a canvas covered humvee in Baghdad.
The first time he got hit by a homemade bomb. ``They said
it hit the humvee, rolled off and hit the ground, and it blew
a big hole in the ground,'' says Elliot. ``Here's the humvee,
and screws and nails and everything flying, just goes right
through it.''
Captain Elliott's Purple Heart arrived in an ammo box,
along with his wife's wedding anniversary gifts.
Bullets, nails and shrapnel go right through the vast
majority of humvees in Iraq because they were designed to
transport soldiers, not to protect them.
A factory near Cincinnati is the only plant in the world
that produces armored humvees. ``This is what we end up with.
Fully armored doors, armored perimeter, turret,'' says a
factory worker. ``Underbody capable of defeating a
landmine.''
And windows that stop bullets. It's the kind of protection
soldiers are asking for, and dying for.
``It's maddening,'' says Brian Hart. ``It's absolutely
maddening.''
Maddening for John Hart's father, for Roger Elliot's wife.
``How could you not know you need armored humvees when you're
going into a war?'' asks Diane Elliott.
And maddening for the parents of Texas National Guardsman
Nathan Feenstra who says their son was sent to Iraq with old
soft sided humvees, and without new bullet proof vests that
have saved an untold number of lives since the war began.
``Basically, they're saying they've done all they can for
now, `It's too late for your unit, but we are preparing for
the next group going into Iraq,' '' says John Feenstra. ``I
said that's not good enough.''
The Feenstras write letters to military leadership, and
pray their son comes home alive.
Brian Hart is pressing congress to press the Army to speed
up production. The plan in Ohio is boosting output. But some
lawmakers are outraged. And the republican chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee called the shortage of
armored humvees ``unacceptable.''
The Army Vice Chief of Staff told Congress in September
more armored humvees weren't sent to Iraq because ``To be
honest, we just didn't expect this level of violence.''
Back in May there were only about 235 armored humvees in
Iraq. The army now wants more than 3,000. But it's expected
to take until summer of 2005 before the Army gets all the
beefed up humvees it wants.
To Brian Hart who made a promise to his son and to the
soldiers who brought home his son's body, that's not good
enough.
The army says it's rushed all available armored humvees to
Iraq, and is sending 6,000 kits to toughen up standard
humvees. It's also speeding up production of new armored
vehicles.
Meanwhile many soldiers are improvising, using steel
plates, rubber mats and sandbags to harden their humvees
against attacks.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a
unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach).
(Mr. LEACH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, the measure before us contains many
consentaneous American thoughts: Recognition that Saddam was a despot
of tyrannical proportions; support for a process of democratic self-
governance in Iraq; and, profoundly, appreciation for the sacrifice and
commitment of Americans serving in our armed forces in these very
troubling, indeed dangerous, times.
But as widely accepted as these notions are, care must be taken in
this debate to underscore what this resolution is not. It cannot be
read either as a Gulf of Tonkin-like resolution giving the Executive a
blank check for future actions or considered an indication of
Congressional approval of executive action to date.
Many in Congress, perhaps a majority, would be willing to vote for a
more expansive resolution, but such is not before us today.
Nonetheless, the subject matter of this resolution necessitates a
review of what has transpired since the Congress, without my support,
authorized military intervention in Iraq a year and a half ago.
All of us recognize that Iraq is a judgmental quagmire. Thoughtful
Americans are conflicted. The President has a case for the actions he
has taken. But I feel obliged to make clear why I continue not to find
it compelling and indicate, in as constructive a way as I am able, the
problems that a lengthy occupation may yield and present a theoretical
framework and the case for timely disengagement.
Perspective is difficult to apply to current events or for that
matter life itself. But it is important to attempt to frame the
discussion of the war in which we are engaged in relation to our
history, to the development of knowledge (particularly science), and to
our relations with other countries.
First our history. In the broadest sense the political history of
America has encompassed four great debates. The first was the question
of whether a country could be established based on the rights of man.
The second was about definitions: whether the concept of ``man''
included individuals who were neither male nor pale. It took over a
century, a civil war and suffrage and civil rights movements to bring
full meaning to the universal language of the Declaration of
Independence. With courage and sacrifice Americans finally came
together to embrace the democratic notion that consent of the governed
lacked legitimacy unless all individuals of all backgrounds had rights
of citizenship.
The third debate is about opportunity, whether individual rights can
be protected if every citizen doesn't have a fair crack at the American
dream. There are many on-going elements of the opportunity debate,
which in the 20th century was symbolized by the New Deal initiatives of
Franklin Roosevelt and the counter-weight of the Reagan revolution. But
I would like to emphasize an aspect of this debate which gets little
attention because it is taken for granted, and that is the role of
public education. All young Americans not only have access to public
education, they are required by law to attend public schools or
comparable alternatives. As society becomes more complicated,
educational opportunity becomes increasingly central to advancing
social opportunity. And as we look at the narrow schooling provided by
madrasses abroad it becomes apparent that how and what others teach has
relevance to the security of Americans at home.
The fourth debate is symbolized by Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
revolves around the question of whether any right can be valid if it is
not underpinned by a right to peace.
In these debates the role of foreign policy is critical, and even
when we've looked inward it has been with an eye to establishing a
shining city-state on a hill, a beacon for all.
The greatest legislated act in American and perhaps human history is
the Declaration of Independence. The universality of its principles
constitutes the cornerstone of historic American idealism in foreign as
well as domestic policy.
As architect of the Declaration, Jefferson--while never a member of
Congress--was our greatest legislator. And as the architect of the
Louisiana Purchase, he stands as our greatest
[[Page H1156]]
diplomat-president. The precept implicit in the Declaration and the
Louisiana Purchase is the notion of individual rights and collective
decision-making by a people entrusted with the capacity to make
sovereign decisions.
Jefferson was the philosophical godson of John Locke, who borrowed
from Thomas Hobbes the 17th century paradigm of a state of Nature
where, according to Hobbes, life was nasty, brutish and short.
Hobbes had a pessimistic view of human nature. Self-centered man
could not escape from the jungle of human relations. Locke, on the
other hand, was an optimist. He also assumed that man was self-
centered, but, unlike Hobbes, he believed that individuals were
rational enough to recognize the necessity of accommodating the self-
interest of others. Civil society--the condition where rules would
govern disputes and third-party arbitration would exist--was thus
possible as well as necessary.
Whether or not the theoretical constructs that political philosophers
relied on three centuries ago have relevance to real life on the
planet, then or now, the progress of science has made man's efforts to
protect the rights of individuals and society more difficult today. In
one of the most profound social observations of the 20th century,
Einstein noted that splitting the atom changed everything save our mode
of thinking.
Physics has brought us nuclear energy and perhaps a way to help live
a modern life without reliance on fossil fuels. Biology has brought us
the capacity to extend the life of man by several and perhaps many
decades. But just as splitting the atom has a dark side--nuclear
weapons--splitting genes has ominous implications, too--the ability to
manufacture diseases for which there may be no antidote. Hence the
obvious: at no time in human history is there a greater obligation for
people in public life to appeal to the higher rather than lower angels
of our nature.
This is particularly the case as the world has smallened and friction
between peoples has increased in economics, politics and, most
profoundly, religion.
Perhaps the most thoughtful speech ever given in Iowa was delivered
four decades ago by the Oxford historian, Arnold Toynbee. A decade
earlier, Winston Churchill chose a small Midwestern college in Fulton,
Missouri, to warn of the dangers of Soviet expansionism; an ``Iron
Curtain,'' he said, had descended on Eastern Europe. Toynbee picked
Grinnell College to chastise Marxists for shallowly looking at history
through the lens of economic determinism and Americans for assuming, in
part because of the civil rights movement then underway, that the most
contentious issues in the world related to race. Toynbee argued that at
this stage in history conflict would more likely erupt because of
religious differentiations than economic or racial ones. As we look at
the Middle East, at Northern Ireland, at the Balkans, at the divisions
between Pakistan and India, Toynbee's observation appears to be
vindicated.
Expanding on Toynbee, Samuel Huntington of Harvard has propounded a
theory of international relations over the past several decades that
suggests that the next great wars are less likely to represent battles
between countries than clashes between various civilizations.
Given Toynbee's predictions and Huntington's civilization-clash
paradigm, it is appropriate to return to Jefferson, who at the public
level strove assiduously to protect individual freedom of religion and
at the private level believed that what mattered most was not nuanced
differences between religions or denominations, but the moral threads
common to all creeds. In terms of guides to individual behavior, it is
impressive, for instance, that the Ten Commandments underpin Islam as
well as Judaism and Christianity. And the Confucian doctrine of
``shu,'' which asserts that moral behavior should be premised on not
doing unto others what one would not have done to oneself, is an
inverted kind of Golden Rule.
Despite the fact that history is rife with examples where religious
differentiations have caused and intensified conflicts, there is no
credible substitute for the constructive role of faith-based
convictions. Conflict may be envisioned, but it can be constrained if
individuals are taught the most esoteric of precepts: loving, or at
least not hating, one's neighbor.
Ironically, genocide, which is disproportionately a 20th century
phenomenon, is about weapons of lesser lethality: machetes, bullets,
poisonous gas.
But if mankind can't prevent killing up close, the question must be
pondered whether there can be any optimism that the world can avoid a
cataclysmic exchange from afar of weapons of mass destruction, which
would make the greatest crime of mankind to date, genocide, the second-
to-last crime in human history. It is simply a short stop from
genocide--the killing one at a time of millions--to ``global-cide''--
the end in a single stroke of all life on the planet.
In recognition of the 20th century's experience with Holocaust and
other brutal genocides, from Cambodia to Rwanda, we have no choice
except to change our mode of thinking. Man's instinct to hate must be
curbed and social wisdom applied to the new challenges science has
thrown at man.
In this context, I want to stress a second challenge of science that
has nothing to do with war and arms making but is clearly the largest
foreign policy issue of our day. It is the problem of disease. In Iraq
more than 500 Americans and perhaps as many as 20,000 Iraqis have been
killed in the past year. But over the last two decades 20 million
people have died of AIDS and 40 million are infected with HIV. In
Africa, Southeast Asia, and Southern Russia, AIDS has hurdled well
beyond the groups considered most vulnerable in the U.S. In many
countries children are infected through mothers at birth and in several
countries a 15-year-old girl is far more likely to have the disease
than a 15-year-old boy. We simply must expand resources to stop this
disease abroad before it stops our families at home.
Not that everything in the world is dark or unraveling. Promising
political breakthroughs are occurring between India and Pakistan; in
the civil war in Sri Lanka; in Libya, where Muammar Khaddafi may be
giving up a quest for nuclear weapons; and even with North Korea, as
six-party talks unfold. Several of these bits of good international
news are developing without a central U.S. role; several will require
our leadership. My only advice to the Executive is to meet every
positive step of others with at least two steps of our own. Progressive
change from suspect leaders cannot be sustained if peoples of various
societies are not convinced that America prefers extending carrots to
applying bullying tactics. We simply can't wait for tomorrow to respond
to good omens today. This is especially true of a country like Libya
where backsliding is so easy. It may be more difficult with the hermit
country--North Korea--simply because paranoia and anti-Americanism run
so irrationally deep in the people as well as the government. But
constructive steps, especially of a humanitarian dimension, can be
taken.
Iowa also has brought some good news to the world. In January I
attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and a
Conference on the Prevention of Genocide in Stockholm, Sweden. In
conversations with Europeans the depth of anti-American sentiment
becomes quickly evident. But when asked what state I represent, I was
impressed with the sincerity of the positive responses when I indicated
I was from Iowa. Everyone knew of Iowa because of the caucuses. In Iowa
the caucus process seems a bit mysterious. In other states it is very
mysterious, and in Europe it is a full blown mystery. But people in
Europe were deeply impressed that individuals seeking the most
important political position in the world had to come to the homes and
schools and offices of private citizens who, with real care, reviewed
their credentials and platforms.
For many years I have had reservations about the caucus system
because the ballot is not secret and because participation is not as
large as in a traditional primary. But I feel obligated to reconsider
and, as a Republican, must tip my hat to the Iowa Democrats for the
thoughtfulness with which they advanced American democracy and
spotlighted our values for the world. Abroad, people followed but did
not necessarily identify with the individual candidates, but everyone
was impressed with the process and the care with which citizens carried
out their duties.
It is instructive to put the current tension in transatlantic
relations in historical perspective. With regard to the profoundest
issue--war and peace--attitudes on each side of the ocean have come
full circle over the five centuries of interaction.
The U.S. was founded by immigrants seeking refuge from religious
persecution and a spate of seemingly senseless wars among European
countries and principalities. The new Americans sought to distance
themselves from the violence and religious intolerance of the
Continent. It was with the greatest reluctance that in 1917 a pioneer
country, which had been convulsed with the magnitude of a westward
moving Manifest Destiny, determined that blocking a Kaiser's ambitions
called for intervention in European affairs.
In the wake of a war trumpeted to end all wars, America retreated
into political isolation in the 1920's. After inspiring its creation,
we refused to join the League of Nations; and after expanding trade in
industrial and agricultural products, we succumbed to economic
protectionism in the 1930's. Only a direct attack on our territory
caused us to enter World War II.
Today, it is Europe which is looking inward, pre-occupied with its
manifest destiny, political integration made feasible by a growing
economic union. Increasingly secular Europeans desire to separate
themselves from an America that appears to them to be too unilateralist
and quick to go to war, too fundamentalist and
[[Page H1157]]
thus blind to tolerance, and too simplistic to realize that conflicts
with religious overtones are the most traumatic to manage.
When speaking to constituents of the rationale for and against the
Iraq War, I have over the past couple of years referenced a set of
books that held particular currency in the 1960's: the Alexandria
Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Each of the four books describes the same
set of events in inter-war Egypt from the perspective of a different
character. While the events are the same, the stories that unfold are
profoundly different, causing the reader to recognize that one person's
perspective is at best a snapshot of reality. A clear picture cannot be
pieced together without looking through the lens of a multiplicity of
eyes and experiences.
The Moslem experience gives substantially less weight than the
Western experience to the two cataclysmic wars of the 20th century.
Despite Lawrence's involvement in Arabia and the battles between Allied
forces and Rommel's tanks, the engagements in the Middle East and North
Africa were skirmishes compared with the struggles in Europe and the
Far East. Not only do Moslems see the 20th century differently from
Westerners, but Europeans and Americans have drawn different strategic
parallels in the application of common experience to current challenges
in the Middle East.
In the immediate afte
