Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to do something that I think has been a long time coming. On March 19 of 2003, the United States made the initial strikes in Iraq with two F-117 aircraft carrying 2,000-pound bombs that initiated the action in…
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to do something that I think has been a long time coming. On March 19 of 2003, the United States made the initial strikes in Iraq with two F-117 aircraft carrying 2,000-pound bombs that initiated the action in which Americans took Iraq, overthrew the dictator, Saddam Hussein, ultimately established a free government, and built from scratch a security apparatus and a military in Iraq capable of protecting that free government. And today, Mr. Speaker, I thought it would be appropriate for this Congress to thank the more than 1 million Americans in uniform who have served in Iraq, in the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, the Coast Guard and in our intelligence services and our security services, to thank those more than 1 million Americans, men and women, for doing something that Americans often applaud; that's winning. We have won in Iraq.
Mr. Speaker, it was March 19 when we initiated that operation with those first Tomahawk missiles that were launched on leadership positions in Baghdad, and those first two F-117 stealth aircraft that moved out and dropped 2,000-pound bombs on important sites. And after that, just 48 hours later, on March 20, 2003, two prongs of coalition forces moved across the berm in Kuwait, after American intelligence agents and American Special Operation Forces had laid the groundwork, and they moved out and they started to move toward Baghdad.
Mr. Speaker, the launch of the operations and the ground forces and, incidentally, those ground forces were led by Army Lieutenant General David McKiernan. He was the commanding general of the Combined Forces Land Component Command. They crossed the line of departure from the Kuwaiti desert into Southern Iraq, and they had to go about 600 kilometers to get to Baghdad. We covered that distance in record time. And I don't know how many people in Congress or in the American populace remember it, but you had many commentators, many armchair commentators stating that the United States forces would be bogged down, that Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld had not sent enough forces, and that we would see this operation grind to a halt and we would take heavy casualties. They were wrong, and Tommy Franks' forces, in fact, you would have talk shows in which the commentator or the guest would be talking about American forces bogging down, and his statement would be interrupted by a news flash that Tommy Franks' forces had taken yet another one of Saddam Hussein's strongholds.
So we drove on to Baghdad. And on March 21, in fact, Iraq's 51st Army Division, which was estimated to be about 8,000 personnel, surrendered and deserted at Iraq's southern border.
The main ground effort was led by U.S. Army Fifth Corps under Lieutenant General William Wallace. Fifth Corps moved along a western route up to Baghdad, and the First Marine Expeditionary Force, 1MEF, under General James Conway, now the Commandant of the Marine Corps, moved along the more urban route closer to the border with Iran, on the east side. They took the far southern port of Umm Kasar. The main Marine force encountered some resistance as they pushed north, in particular, An Nasariya.
Mr. Speaker, I can remember talking with a young Marine who had some injuries and was at Bethesda hospital shortly after that operation, and he talked about how much he loved those Marine tanks when he was pinned down by fire coming from several buildings at An Nasariya, and these big Marine tanks came whipping in, laid some heavy fire on the Feyadeen who were laying down these torrents of RPG fire; that's rocket propelled grenades. And they rushed out, that is the Feyadeen did, after being hit with several tank volleys, and surrendered to the Marines at that choke point.
In the west, the Army faced a longer distance but a less populated terrain. And Fifth Corps began combat operations with two divisions under its command, the Third ID under Major General Blunt, and the 101st Airborne Division, the 101st under Major General David Petraeus.
The Third ID led the western charge to Baghdad. They moved speedily through the south. They reached Saddam International Airport on April 4 of 2003. At that point the division launched the first of what it called ``thunder runs.'' And a ``thunder run'' was a fast armored strike going right into the heart of Baghdad. And according to the Brigade Commander in Charge, General David Perkins, the Americans wanted to ``create as much confusion as they could inside the city.'' And the second purpose was to make sure that no one in that city, whether it was a member of the Iraqi population or an Iraqi leader, had any doubt that the city had fallen and the Americans were in charge.
The 101st followed the Third ID up the western route into Southern Iraq,
clearing resistance in southern cities, and that allowed the Third ID to move up very quickly. Soldiers from the 101st faced intense fighting in Hillah, Najaf and Karbala. And just after mid-April a division arrived and set up its headquarters in Mosul in northern Iraq.
In the north, on March 26, 2003, the 173rd Airborne jumped into Iraq. They had to parachute into Northern Iraq because the Turkish government decided not to allow the Fourth Infantry Division to move across Turkey into that anchor position in the north. So the 173rd, deploying out of Italy, flying in C-17s, jumped at about 1:30 in the morning; came into some hip-deep mud, but they anchored Northern Iraq, and they linked up with the peshmerga and Kurdish fighters who were moving then into the Kirkuk area and moved down and secured and anchored that northern portion of Iraq.
The UK First Armored Division, our great friends in the coalition, the United Kingdom, the Brits, were operating under the Marine force, took the important port city of Basra by April 6 of 2003.
On April 9, 2003, just some 21 days after we had gone over the line from Kuwait into Iraq, the statue of Saddam Hussein fell in Baghdad. This was just 21 days after we initiated that operation.
Mr. Speaker, we had, at that point, taken less than 150 KIA, precious American lives, but we had destroyed more than 20 enemy divisions in an unprecedented move through the center of Iraq.
And for that, Mr. Speaker, I know that over the last year or so the pundits have been filling their pages, and some politicians have been filling their quote lines with critical statements about Don Rumsfeld. But Don Rumsfeld's operation, in ignoring the critics who wanted him to build slowly and to bring in more divisions before he moved on Baghdad, was absolutely right, and the critics who said he would bog down were absolutely wrong because he moved with precision, like a hot knife through butter, straight into Baghdad and took down the Iraqi divisions before they could really establish a strong position against the Americans.
And I might add that General Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at that time, was an able assistant in helping to carry out Secretary Rumsfeld's policy.
The First Armored Division also began arriving in Iraq in April 2003.
Saddam Hussein was captured outside his hometown of Tikrit by 4ID units on December 13, 2003.
In April 2004, the young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia, which we refer to as the Mahdi Army staged uprisings in cities and towns throughout the Shiia populated southern Iraq, just as a volatile Sunni populated City of Fallujah in Anbar province simmered in the wake of the murders of four Blackwater contractors.
For all the great men and women of the United States Marines, the chapter entitled ``Fallujah'' will forever be a part of the history of the U.S. Marines, which testifies to their tenacity, to their greatness on the field of battle, to their compassion for their fellow marines, to their ability to handle tough, difficult situations, for their tenacity, and for their courage.
Now, we went into Fallujah right after the four contractors were hung from the bridge and burned. After we were partway through the city, because of political considerations, which was a real mistake on the part of the American governance and Iraq, the marines were pulled back out of the city even though they'd taken KIA. At that point, they were moving swiftly through that city and were taking out the terrorists.
Well, after that, Fallujah became a hotbed for terrorists and a base for operations throughout al Anbar province. So, in November, the marines went back again, and they went into a determined enemy who was waiting for them, who was set in place, but it's a credit to the great men and women who wear the uniform of the United States Marine Corps, from where the sun now stands to the end of our history. The chapter of ``Fallujah'' is a testament to their capability and to their courage.
I want every single marine in the United States and every family of a marine and every neighbor and every friend of a marine and every citizen who loves that globe and anchor to be proud of what they did in Fallujah.
In Fallujah, they went into a determined enemy. The operation included some 540 air strikes, 14,000 artillery and mortar shells fired, 2,500 tank main gun rounds fired, and at the end of that operation, over 70 marines had been KIA--that is killed in action--and over 609 had been wounded. Incidentally, army units participated in that, and a few other coalition units participated in that, but of the 39,000 buildings in Fallujah, 18,000 had been damaged or had been taken down by the force and fury of this marine operation. Now, at the same time, military operations in the town of Tal Afar in 2005 marked an early, multifaceted and successful application of what we call counterinsurgency approaches.
In Washington, Tal Afar gave birth to a new Iraq policy lexicon in Iraq, though not immediately to the expanded use of counterinsurgency practices. Tal Afar is located in Ninewah Province, along the route from the provincial capital of Mosul to Syria. Its population is about 290,000. It includes Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and Yezidis.
From April 2003 until early 2004, the 101st Airborne Division had responsibility for Ninewah and for Iraq's three northern, largely Kurdish populated provinces. Because the north was relatively quiet, due in part to the effectiveness of the pesh merga, the 101st was able to concentrate primarily on Ninewah, a relatively high troops-to- population ratio.
In early 2005 when the 101st redeployed, the responsibility for the area passed to a much smaller striker brigade. That brigade, in turn, was periodically asked to provide forces for operations elsewhere in Iraq. So the coalition force footprint in Ninewah was substantially reduced. Tal Afar was a convenient trade route location, and a mixed population perfect for fomenting sectarian strife became a base of operations for former regime elements and Sunni extremists, including suicide bombers.
In May 2005, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, now commanded by Colonel H.R. McMaster, arrived in Tal Afar. Colonel McMaster was familiar with OIF issues from his previous service as director of General Abizaid's Commander's Action Group at CENTCOM.
In early 2005, the ACR began their deployment preparations at home in Fort Carson, Colorado, studying counterinsurgency approaches. Later in Iraq, Colonel McMaster described the regiment's mission in the classical counterinsurgency lexicon of population security. The whole purpose of the operation is to secure the population so that we can lift the enemy's campaign of intimidation and coercion over the population and allow economic and political development to proceed here and to return to normal life.
Now, for every single American who participated in the Iraq operation--and I don't care if you were stocking shelves in Kuwait or fixing strikers as a mechanic or working in Balad in logistics or making thunder runs in Baghdad early in the war or going house to house in Fallujah--you participated in a very important operation.
Let me tell you why it's very clear that we've won in Iraq. We've deposed Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was the guy who sent Chemical Ali to put poisoned gas on the Kurdish population in northern Iraq. He is the first leader since Hitler who had put poisoned gas on his own people. If you ever have any questions about the morality of what we did in intervening in Iraq, push aside this argument about weapons of mass destruction and pick up the picture of Kurdish mothers holding their babies where they were killed in mid stride, laying on those hillsides in northern Iraq by the thousands, where that poisoned gas struck them and killed them immediately or go to the History Channel, and watch the mass excavations where you will see mothers with their children, where they were executed by Saddam Hussein's army and bulldozed into open trenches and where, if you will look closely, as the scientists and the excavators who have the stomach to do it did for these reviews and analyses, you will see bullet
holes in the backs of the heads of the mothers and, in many cases, bullet holes in the backs of their babies' heads where they, too, were executed before mother and baby were pushed with a bulldozer into open trenches.
That's the regime that you, every single American who wore the uniform of the United States, put out of business when you did your job in Iraq--you, the more than 1 million Americans who left your families, who in many cases did multiple tours, who were separated from your loved ones, who in many cases undertook some very, very difficult, very dangerous missions, who suffered some very hot weather and, in some cases, some very cold weather, who suffered lots of inconveniences but who did it for a purpose, which was a good and idealistic and moral purpose, and you won. Let me tell you how we know that you've won.
We now have an Iraqi Government which was elected by the people, and it's not a perfect government, and it has got lots of strife and lots of crosscurrents of politics and lots of people who resent other people on the other side of their aisle, but it's a government where people settle most of their problems with ballots, not bullets. It has got a modicum of democracy and representative government. Only the Americans, only the people who wear the uniform of the United States could have brought that to Iraq.
Throughout Iraq, there are schools and there are medical facilities that you built, that you Americans in uniform built. There are millions of babies who were inoculated because of the Americans, and there are hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers who were given prenatal care because of the Americans. There are people who have avoided disease because of the Americans, and there are people who have enough to eat now because of the Americans.
Now, it's true that they have a fragile infrastructure. They've always had a fragile infrastructure, and it's true that Iraq hasn't developed all of its natural resources. On the other hand, neither has Mexico and neither have lots of countries throughout the world, but on the backs of the American men and women who wear the uniform of our country, they had free elections, and they now have a government, and that government is holding. The voices in Congress and the voices of the pundits who talked about an all-out civil war don't talk about that anymore, and they never say they were wrong or sorry. They just move on to a different subject. There is no civil war, and we now have a government which is settling in and a people who are settling into the idea of having fierce fights but of having those fights with words and by settling things with ballots and not bullets.
Now, one thing that we did that has to be credited very strongly to President Bush--and for all of those who don't like President Bush, he has one characteristic which Winston Churchill admired above all others, persistence, because at a time when many people were saying you have to give up and leave Iraq, he said, ``I'm not going to give up.'' He joined with Mr. Maliki in sending in more American troops and more coalition troops and more Iraqi troops into Baghdad in what is known as a surge.
If you want to talk about the surge, very simply, the surge was this: Instead of Americans going in and clearing an area and coming back out and having the terrorists flow back into that area, the surge involved going in, clearing the area, sometimes with Iraqi forces in the lead, sometimes with Americans, but clearing that area and then holding the area, building the area, restoring the confidence of the population, securing the area, making the area a little bit more terrorist resistant and not giving up those games.
That's what this President did, and he should be commended for it. Of course, history, as we go down through the years--and as the Iraqi Government continues to hold and as it is a friend, not an enemy of the United States as it was before and as it has a modicum of democracy and as it will not be a state sponsor of terrorism as it had been in the past and as its neighbors are--will be appreciative of what those more than 1 million Americans did who wore the uniform. You won. You fulfilled this mission. We've got a government in place that's holding. We've got a military that's holding. It has got about 160 battalions, and we built that military from scratch.
Now, many of the pundits and many of the politicians said we should have taken Saddam Hussein's army and kept it in place. That wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't have worked because Saddam Hussein's army had 11,000 Sunni generals. That's a recipe for disaster. Especially in a country in which the Shiite population is in the majority, the idea that you're going to have an army with 11,000 Sunni generals--literally squads of generals, each one a futile lord in his own right with his own arms cache--and the idea that they would be honest brokers is ridiculous. That's why we had to build that army from scratch.
Now, we've got a few weaknesses in the army. We've had a few weaknesses in the Field Grade Officer Corps. This is an army that traditionally did not have a large noncommissioned officer segment, and we've had to build that segment from scratch, but we're being successful.
One of the marks of success was when Mr. Maliki, the President of Iraq, moved into Basra on his own initiative. Now, we were used to calling the shots in Iraq. Yet, in Basra, Mr. Maliki decided to move ahead on his own. He moved into Basra. He initially took quite a few casualties. We had situations in which we had Iraqi battalions which didn't show up for the fight the next day, some of the green battalions. In the end, with Americans backing them up and with this fledgling government working against the extremists in Basra, the coalition and the Iraqi forces prevailed. That is the mark of a government which is maturing, one which takes its own initiatives.
Now, Mr. Maliki had initially a force of some very small numbers of battalions that were ready. Then he got to the point where he had over 100 battalions and then 130, and he has got, roughly, 160 battalions right now.
Now, I recommended to the President and to our military leadership that the way you build a military is through military operations; that means saddling up your battalion, moving them into the fight, rotating them into the fight, exposing their weaknesses--whether it's logistics or your leadership levels or your ability to direct fire power--and fixing those problems. You build a strong military force through military operations.
And in fact, they did this in many cases, and they rotated their forces--when we did the surge in Baghdad, the Iraqi forces rotated battalions in and out of that particular area of operations where they made lots of contact with the enemy where they had to exercise their logistics chain, where they had to exercise their chain of command, where they had to be soldiers. And so the Iraqi Army has matured.
Now, it's nowhere near the capability of the American forces. Nobody in the world is near the capability of the American forces. It needs lots of enablers.
On the other hand, the Iraqi Army today can do what it has to do. It can go to an area in Iraq where the extremists, were al Qaeda are in control, maybe where extremist Shiite militias are in control, and it can push them out and it can fracture them, and it can defeat them on the battlefield.
They don't have to handle a column of armored divisions. All they have to do is be able to hold on to their own sovereignty in their own country, and the Iraqi military can do that. And they can protect their government, and they can now largely protect their infrastructure. That's important.
So for all of the Americans who participated in the Iraq operation, whether you were there when we first went over the line in March of 2003, whether you just got back, or whether you have friends that are there right now kind of wrapping up the operation--and that's what we're going to do over the next couple of years. We're going to mop up, and we're going to pack up, and we're going to leave. But we have taken out the tyrant Saddam Hussein. We have defeated al Qaeda.
In fact, when the leader of the Senate was saying that we had lost in Iraq--and he was absolutely wrong. You had senior Marines in Anbar province sending messages back saying, ``We are
crushing al Qaeda in al Anbar.'' So we won. You won. Everybody that wears the uniform of the United States, whether you carried a base plate for mortars, drove a truck in those difficult convoy runs, were a nurse in one of the many medical clinics and facilities we had, if you were a medic in some of the difficult battles, maybe you were a support troop, maybe you flew aircraft or a crew in aircraft, whether it was a C-130 or a tactical fighter, what you did was of enormous value to the United States of America.
You know, I'm reminded of great stories that have emanated from Iraq. I'm reminded of the battle of Fallujah when General John Kelley was the assistant division commander, and at the same time his son, Robert, was a private first class in a rifle squad fighting door-to-door at close range. And when it was over, Robert was the only one in his platoon who had not been wounded.
I'm reminded of Jason Fry, Captain Jason Fry who, going up through the Nassiriyah choke-point was hit by an RPG that took off his right arm; and when the medics were working on him and one of them asked, ``Are you right handed or left handed,'' he said, ``I'm left handed now. You tell my men I'm okay.'' That was the spirit of the American service personnel who served in Iraq.
And remember when they went into Iraq, we had intelligence to the effect that they would use poison gas against our troops because we'd seen them use poison gas against their own people killing thousands of them. And yet the American service personnel persevered and moved ahead into that storm of unknown quality.
And because of them, we have won in Iraq. Yes, we have won in Iraq. And don't let any left-wing journalist come up and tell you that we haven't won. It's true that there's no surrender on the Battleship Missouri. There's not going to be one in this war against terror. But if you look at the military missions that we have--and it's also true we haven't turned Iraq into Iowa. That was never the mission. And if somebody says the other guys won, you tell them to produce Saddam Hussein.
But what we have done, we've taken out the dictator and his forces, we've installed an elected government, and we've now installed a security apparatus, including an army built from scratch by the Americans capable of protecting that government. Nobody is guaranteed freedom and perpetuity, including this country.
But the American military mission in Iraq has been accomplished. You brought us victory. You, the more than 1 million Americans who served in uniform in that theater. And for that, Mr. Speaker, I think the American people owe a huge ``thank you'' to those great men and women, to their families who endured those separations, for all of the difficult burdens that they've carried ever since March of 2003 when we took that first unit across the line into that country known as Iraq.
Thank you to everyone who wears the uniform in that operation. Thank you for winning.
Mr. Speaker, I would yield back the balance of my time.
