Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the residents of Whitemarsh Township, in southeastern Pennsylvania, on the occasion of their tricentennial celebration.

The people of Whitemarsh Township, founded in 1704, are celebrating its 300th birthday with a series of events that illustrate the theme ``Our living past . . . Our growing future.'' These events, including Revolutionary War reenactments, talks about the township's history, and a black tie gala, are bringing the community together and educating citizens about its rich heritage of steady growth and historical significance. As a part of this celebration, the Township is also taking the opportunity to honor distinguished citizens who have worked toward the betterment of the community.

From its inception, Whitemarsh Township has been a strong and tight- knit community. The Township has been involved not only in local history; events of national importance have occurred within Whitemarsh Township as well, including Revolutionary War encampments and skirmishes. This rich history has endowed the people of Whitemarsh Township with great pride; Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Fitz Dixon deserve commendations for their stewardship of Erdenheim Farm and community philanthropy, along with countless other citizens who remain devoted to carrying on the longstanding history and community of Whitemarsh Township.

It is my pleasure to join the residents of Whitemarsh Township in honoring their tricentennial.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. Irwin Rose, who shares the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his colleagues Dr. Avram Hershko and Dr. Aaron Ciechanover of Israel. Dr. Rose is a former resident of Abington, PA and had a distinguished career conducting research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center and elsewhere.

Dr. Rose was raised in Spokane, WA. He studied at Washington State College, served as a radio technician near the end of World War II, and then earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Chicago. He served for 9 years on the faculty of Yale Medical School. He then worked at the Fox Chase Cancer Center from 1963 to 1995. His wife of 49 years, Zelda Budenstein Rose, is also a biochemist. They have a daughter and three sons.

The research for which Dr. Rose is being awarded the Nobel Prize deals with a certain regulatory protein that is present everywhere in plant and animal cells. The significance of this protein lies in its functions as a destroyer of proteins that are no longer needed and a regulator of certain proteins used in cell reproduction. Because several diseases that are yet uncured, such as cancer and cystic fibrosis, result from errors in the cell reproductive process, Dr. Rose's research provides us with new hope in the search for cures.

It is my pleasure to recognize Dr. Irwin Rose for his contributions to the field of biochemistry. I congratulate him on being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Mr. Speaker, we are here to have another week of the Iraq Watch.

Before I start, I want to add my words of congratulations to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) for his outstanding career and what we just witnessed on the floor, a very warm and rare moment of emotion and friendship between two colleagues. I wish we had more of those moments here, but I want to salute the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) for his years of service and his dedication to this House.

A year and a half ago, Mr. Speaker, a number of us started what we call Iraq Watch. We began to come to this floor once a week to talk about Iraq, to talk about the problems that we saw with our policy there, to ask questions and to suggest changes in our national policy. Now, a year and a half later, like the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), I will be leaving this House, and yet the questions regarding our policy in Iraq remain.

Things have changed in Iraq over the last year and a half, but some of the fundamental problems that were apparent at the beginning of our involvement remain today and plague us today and challenge our best national interest today.

A number of us involved in Iraq Watch, some like me who voted for the military power that the President sought in October of 2002 and some in Iraq Watch who opposed the President's request for military power, all of us were alarmed in the spring of 2003 when the fighting actually began in Iraq, that the President had used what we thought was such an arrogant approach to this challenge, to the diplomacy, to the need to move forward with as many allies as possible to confront what was surely a murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein.

We saw an arrogant approach. We saw a go-it-alone foreign policy, what many of us thought was a cowboy diplomacy, where we pushed aside our allies, where we told our international institutions, such as the United Nations and NATO and others, that we did not need their help, that we were happy to go alone into the challenge that faced us in Iraq. A lot of us were raising questions about that a year and a half ago.

Unfortunately, that approach has not changed. The President talks about having the coalition of the willing supporting us in Iraq, but it is not the kind of strong international coalition that we truly need to share the burdens and share the costs and share the sacrifices that we have faced in Iraq and not the kind of strong international coalition that his father put together in the early 1990s for the Persian Gulf War.

What the President is now doing since his reelection this November is making changes in his Cabinet and promoting loyal members of his staff to higher positions and to Cabinet positions in a way that, in my judgment, will limit the options brought to the President for his consideration; that he will begin to hear just what he wants to hear from his Cabinet and top officials; that the advice they give him will be the advice they know he already provides to himself; and that he has, instead of turning in a second term to an independent and vigorous Cabinet of obviously loyal Republicans, which is the President's due, instead of building that kind of working relationship, he has decided to build an echo chamber, to create a foreign policy advice and support system in the State Department and in the CIA and in the National Security Adviser that will tell him what he wants to hear.

Well, what he ought to hear, Mr. Speaker, with due respect to the President and with due respect to his victory and the tough decisions he has to make every day, what he ought to hear is that he still needs international support in Iraq. He still needs to internationalize the challenges, the financial challenges, the security challenges, the military challenges in Iraq, and he still needs to Iraq-tize Iraq. We still need to train up the Iraqis so that they can fight for their own future, so they can provide their own security, so that they can be the tip of the spear.

Currently, we are using American forces, brave American forces, courageously led, and brave troops to battle the insurgency in Iraq, door to door, in Fallujah and other urban settings, and our troops are behaving magnificently, performing magnificently.

But it is my view, and I think shared by my colleagues here in Iraq Watch, that we are doing ourselves more harm than good with the reality that it is American troops fighting the insurgency, instead of Iraqi troops, Arab troops, multinational troops with American support; that the fact that we are having to fight door to door, facing the true horrors of urban warfare. That we are doing this virtually alone, without international help, without very much help from the Iraqis, is generating such ill-will in the Muslim world that while Iraq is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power and Iraq has some hope of moving toward a tolerant and pluralistic society with some version of self- government, hopefully a flourishing democracy sooner rather than later, while Iraq is better off, the way we have gone about this has actually done more harm than good to America; that we have created more terrorists than we have killed; that we have created more ill-will than goodwill in the Muslim world; and that the arrogant and go-it-alone policies that we have pursued, the cowboy diplomacy that we pursue to this day, has set back the relations between this country and the Muslim world, while at the same time we do offer clearly hope to the Iraqi people that they can have a flourishing country, free from the abuses of the tyrant and murderer Saddam Hussein.

There is a lot more I would like to say tonight, but I am joined by two of the stalwarts of Iraq Watch, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) who have been here week after week for a year and a half. So let me turn to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) as he was the first on the floor, and I am happy to yield to him.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, and I am very concerned about the problems we are seeing at the CIA. The reality is that this administration, over the last couple of years, has a very sorry record of

spinning the information that the CIA has given them. So we have got a problem with the CIA intelligence not being as accurate as it needs to be for a number of reasons, I guess, listening to each other parroting back what other agencies have said. Not enough human intelligence agencies in Iraq during the Hussein regime. There are a variety of reasons.

The intelligence that they did produce about weapons of mass destruction was incorrect. It was filled with caveats and uncertainties. The reports that were being issued to the White House in the fall of 2002 said we think he has these weapons, we believe he has got these weapons, we have been told he has these weapons. But none of that uncertainty was passed on to the Congress or to the American people.

In fact, I was briefed at the White House with 20 of our colleagues, a bipartisan group, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on October 2, 2002, by George Tenet, then Director of the CIA, and Condoleezza Rice, then the National Security Adviser to the President, and they spoke with complete certainty: we know that Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, they said to us. We know how many he has got. We know where they are. We know how much those weapons weigh.

It turns out that 7 or 8 months later, when the reports that George Tenet's CIA was giving to him and to Condoleezza Rice in the fall of 2002 finally became public, or actually became available for rank-and- file members to review, those reports were filled with caveats, filled with uncertainties, filled with hesitance; and yet none of that was passed on.

So I would say to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) that there has been spinning at the White House for quite a while. And as my colleague says, the Deputy National Security Adviser has now been promoted and the National Security Adviser is now going to be the Secretary of State. I must say, based upon her intentional misleading of the 20 Members of the Congress who were briefed by her and by George Tenet on October 2, 2002, I do not have confidence in Condoleezza Rice. I am afraid she is going to tell the President what he wants to hear and will not tell the Congress and the American people what we need to hear and will not face up to the President when she needs to.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio. That is a very human account of what is happening in Iraq.

There is no question that this President knows how to use American power, but what I fear is that he is not aware or willing to use the totality of American power, which certainly starts with military power but is much more than that. We are certainly the strongest military in the world, and we need to stay that way. It is a dangerous world. The war on terror is going to be a challenge for years to come, and we must maintain our military strength. But there is more to American power than the military power that we possess, and this President does not seem to appreciate or understand or value the totality of our power, which includes diplomatic power and economic power, our cultural ties, the powers of moral persuasion.

We are the only superpower left in the world, and I am thankful we are. It gives us an opportunity to lead, inspire, cajole, push, advocate, and pressure. We have the ability through diplomacy and trade and economic ties and cultural ties to bend people to our will, up to a point, if we have a good argument and we are right on the facts and it is in their interest too. Obviously, every situation is different from

the prior. But this President does not seem to put any value in the totality of American power.

The military strength we have needs to be maintained and nurtured, but it has to be used as a last resort, not a first resort.

As strong as we are, we cannot be the world's policemen. We cannot impose our will through military strength alone, and yet that is the circumstance that we face in Iraq. We are trying to do very good things there, and we all share the President's goals of creating a pluralistic society, a tolerant, democratic society. And yet the unilateral, go-it- alone, arrogant strategy, the cowboy diplomacy, the failure to admit mistakes, the inability to train up the Iraqis for them to do their own fighting and provide their own security, and the mistakes that were made. The first thing we did was dismiss the Iraqi Army and the border patrol, and the second thing was dismiss the Iraqi civil service, and there was nobody left to run the country but Americans.

This President does not seem capable of acknowledging error and fixing it. The people he has been promoting in this echo chamber seem unwilling or incapable of standing up and saying, Mr. President, you have to change these policies.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, that is very kind of the gentleman from Hawaii, a bit overblown and exaggerated, but very kind of him.

Next year I am going to be watching. I am going to be tuning in. I know my colleagues will be fighting the good fight as they have been for the last year and a half.

I wanted to comment upon your views, that what is virtually a purely military approach to our challenge in Iraq is not working, cannot work in the face of a guerilla opposition that melts away when we attack en masse and comes up and attacks us where we least expect it a few days later in another location. It is consistent with my earlier statement that as strong as our military is and as strong as we have to keep it, we have got to use more than just our military power in our dealings with the rest of the world. We have to use the totality of our power, which includes diplomatic power, economic power, cultural ties, the powers of moral suasion.

One of the things I wish this President would talk about and I hope the next Congress will talk about is the need for economic revitalization in the Middle East and in Eurasia. We need a modern day Marshall Plan. We need to address the challenges in Iraq and the rest of that part of the world not just with a military strategy but we have got to give to those young men and women, mostly young men, although there are now suicide bombers who are women, who are so desperate, who are so hopeless that they would believe it is in their best interests to strap a bomb on and kill innocent civilians rather than have some hope that they can build a better life, that they can find a job, they can improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. We have got to address the economic needs. I do not mean by handing out money. I mean by making the kinds of investments, along with Western Europe and other industrialized societies, the kinds of investments that will build some economic strength.

In the Marshall Plan after World War II, over a period of 4 years we invested $13 billion in 14 countries. That in today's dollars would be $100 billion over 4 years, $25 billion a year. Our total foreign aid now is about $20 billion a year. So if we a little bit more than doubled our foreign aid, we could create a similar economic revitalization plan as we did so successfully in the late 1940s.

It is a different challenge. The countries we are trying to help here are frankly much worse off than the Western European countries were after World War II. Those countries had a labor force that was trained. They had been industrial countries. The Afghanistans, all the Stans, Iraq, Iran, those are countries with much greater needs. But if we try to solve the problems of the world with military solutions only, if we try to keep ourselves safe with military solutions only, if we try to win the war on terror with only a military response, we will not succeed. Our military will perform well, as they always do; but there is not a military solution, a purely military solution, to the challenges that face us.

We have got to pay attention to the hopes and aspirations. It is more than just the poverty these people face. It is the grinding helplessness and hopelessness they must feel. We have got to create a sense of opportunity in this part of the world.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I believe we are out of time this evening.

Iraq Watch will be back in January, in February and March, as long as these challenges continue, as long as there is a need for debate and for questions to be asked.

I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Excellent. Mr. Speaker, let me just say it has been a long time coming, but change is going to come.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 17 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, November 18, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of Chestnut Hill Hospital's first hundred years.

Since its inception on October 1, 1904, Chestnut Hill Hospital has provided attentive and extraordinary care to its patients. Beginning as a facility in twin houses on Gravers Lane, the Hospital originally consisted of two wards, five private rooms, one operating room and one reception room. The support of the dedicated community allowed for the Hospital to treat over 275 patients in the first few months of the facility's existence. Over the past 100 years, the Hospital has grown by leaps and bounds with the latest technology and has continued to treat the families of Northwest Philadelphia and Eastern Montgomery County with the most compassionate of care. The remarkable people who have seen the Hospital through events such as the World Wars, the Depression and the Philadelphia Flu Epidemic also deserve recognition as fundamental to the Hospital's success.

Though Chestnut Hill Hospital's second century begins with new owner, the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Vanguard Health Systems, the Hospital will undoubtedly continue the kind and dedicated care that has become its trademark. I congratulate Chestnut Hill Hospital on 100 years of excellent service to the community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lieutenant Robert P. Del Soldo who is celebrating his retirement from the Horsham Township Police Department after 32 years of faithful and devoted service.

Lt. Del Soldo has served in many different capacities during his tenure on the Horsham Township force, working as Patrolman, Detective, Patrol Sergeant, and Sergeant of Detectives. Since 1995, he has been serving the department at the rank of Lieutenant.

His dedication to the community has never faltered, even during his toughest assignments. Lt. Del Soldo has received commendations for saving an individual from a burning vehicle and for apprehending armed bank robbery suspects. In addition to his commendations, Lt. Del Soldo has undergone professional training in order to better serve his community. He has trained under the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pennsylvania Chief of Police, Northwestern University and Penn State University.

In addition to his service to the Horsham Township community as a member of the Police Department, Lt. Del Soldo served his country honorably in the United States Air Force in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968. He and his wife Peggy are the proud parents of a son and daughter, Robert and Theresa Lynn.

Our community has been privileged to have such a devoted servant and it is my pleasure to congratulate Lieutenant Del Soldo on his retirement. I wish him all the best in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I concur with everything that my colleagues have said this evening. For almost a year and a half, those of us engaged in Iraq Watch have been coming here raising questions and posing alternatives for our failed national policy.

The bottom line is, as the gentleman just said, we have lost our national focus on the real threat, which has been and remains Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. We have allowed the Bush administration with its obsession with Saddam Hussein to distract us from what has been the real threat and obviously remains the real threat today.

We know the sordid history of misstatements and failed policies and misleading comments by the President and his top advisors. They misled us about the weapons of mass destruction. As the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) said, they misled us about a nonexistent connection about Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda and 9/11.

The President misled us about how he would use the military power that he asked for in the fall of 2002. He said he would not use it until he exhausted diplomatic options. He broke that promise. He said he would not use it until he put together an international coalition such as his father had done 13 years before. Broke that promise. And he gave us a number of commitments to allow the international inspectors once back in Iraq to conclude and complete their work, and he did not allow them to finish their work before using this power.

The reality is while it is a good thing for Iraq that Saddam Hussein is out of power because he certainly was a murderous tyrant, it has not made America safer. This has reduced our status in the world and has made the challenges and the risks of the war on terror more difficult for America, not easier.

What really gripes me tonight, in addition to all of the things that we have mentioned, is what now seems to be the use of our American military in Iraq to suit the dictates of Iraqi domestic politics. We have lost 150 brave American soldiers in defeating the Iraqi Army. It took us 19 days, and our soldiers did everything we asked them to do and fought bravely. We have lost 850 equally brave Americans in what has turned out to be the occupation of Iraq, and I think a big reason for that is the misuse of our troops.

Let me quickly quote from a Washington Post article dated August 24, 2004, with the title ``In Najaf, Iraqi Politics Dictate U.S. Tactics.'' The point of this article published a few weeks ago is that Acting Prime Minister Allawi is deciding when American troops are used, when they are held back as suits his purposes for the domestic Iraqi political situation that he faces.

What enrages me is that the American politicians who whip themselves up into a foaming rage over the notion that someday, somehow, someway American troops might be under foreign generals' command in a U.N. peacekeeping force or something of the kind are completely silent when something much worse is happening here. Our troops today in Iraq are not under foreign generals' command, they are under the command of foreign politicians. It is outrageous. Let me read from this article and yield back. I do not want to monopolize this

time. But in this Washington Post article, August 24, 2004, entitled ``In Najaf, Iraqi Politics Dictate U.S. Tactics,'' at one part it says here in the article:

``If there is any doubt that the new Iraqi government is calling the shots in this country, the supporting evidence is mounting daily in Najaf. Here, on the order of interim Prime Minister Allawi, night raids bolt forward or are halted, bombs fall from the sky or remain snuggled beneath the wings of F-15s, howitzers roar or are silenced, and ambitious combined arms operations are meticulously planned and then shelved, only to be revived a day later when a shift in the political winds has been detected.''

A quote from Captain Brian Ennesser, intelligence officer for the First Cavalry's First Battalion, Fifth Regiment: ``This mission is like Normandy. Only instead of the weather, we're waiting on the politics.''

One more quote and I will yield back. Later in the article:

``Since the U.S.-led occupation authority transferred power to the Iraqis on June 28, the chain of command has kept its structure but changed personnel.'' A quote from Major General Peter Chiarelli, who commands the First Cavalry: ``It's civilian control of the military. That's what our system's all about.'' But the article then says: ``Except now the civilians are not Americans. They are Iraqis. And we are losing brave Americans because they are being put in the middle of disputes between Allawi and Sadr. They are being used to push forward domestic political agendas for this interim government that is interested in holding onto its power.''

It is my view that we need to refocus on the war on terror and Osama bin Laden and redeploy troops that are bogged down there. We have got 170,000 troops in the Iraqi theater, 140,000 in Iraq, 30,000 in Kuwait, peacekeeping, border patrol, police work. We have got one-tenth of that number, 17,000, in Pakistan and Afghanistan doing everything we ask them to do, working bravely around the clock but clearly not enough of a focus to get bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda.

We have lost our focus. We need to get our troops out of the midst of this domestic strife in Iraq and get them back to bases. We cannot abandon Iraq, but we do not have to be in daily patrol between these warring factions trying to feather their own nests and pursue their own domestic agendas. We can make sure that the country does not fall without having our troops in daily combat because of the inability of this administration to focus on what is really challenging this country, which is the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan posed by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). It has always been clear that we need to internationalize the challenge in Iraq, and we need to ``Iraqatize'' the challenge in Iraq. We need international support from what is happening. I do not believe this President can do it. But from the first day we should have been returning to the United Nations to do the reconstruction. We should have turned to NATO and the Arab League nations for security. Those countries are a lot closer to Iraq than we are and have a much bigger stake than we do in a stable Iraq. But we have not done that. We have done the occupation of Iraq with 90 percent of the troops being American and 90 percent of the money being American, and we have not yet stabilized that country.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. Clearly we share the President's goals of creating a stable Iraq that can choose its own government. But the policies that he has chosen and the rigidity in which he has implemented those policies and the inability to change course when the policies are failing are clearly leading us to a disaster in Iraq, where our troops are in the middle of the domestic political striving of competing ethnic and religious interests, unable to stabilize the country because we are doing it alone, because we do not have the international support that we need, nor have we trained up the Iraqis that we fired from the Iraqi army and fired from the Iraqi border patrol. We have not trained up Iraqis to do the police work and the peacekeeping that they ought to be doing for themselves.

The President continues to act with arrogance, with a cowboy diplomacy and an unwillingness to admit error, compounded by the outrages expressed on the campaign trail, the intentional efforts to mislead Americans, trying to connect 9/11 with Hussein, which is a bogus connection, and with the Vice President saying the other day, outrageously, that if the voters make the wrong choice on November 2, that will lead to more acts of terror against this country.

I do not know that I have ever heard a more outrageous or reckless statement made by any leader of this country, unless it would be the President's statement himself in the summer of 2003 that they should ``bring it on,'' and 800 Americans have died since the President said that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time and applaud his leadership on this issue.

I am honored to stand with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle tonight to declare that the ethnic cleansing occurring in the Sudan is in fact genocide, to demand that the world recognize that it is genocide, and to urge the United Nations Security Council to take the necessary action to stop the violence and to get humanitarian aid to Darfur Province immediately. There is not a moment to lose. We must act now.

I would also urge my colleagues to consider the additional step of joining the protest that has been under way at the Sudanese embassy for the past 3 or 4 weeks and to consider whether an act of civil disobedience in furtherance of the declaration of genocide and in furtherance of immediate humanitarian aid to Darfur Province would be appropriate to be taken and whether it would meet your standards. Because the world is watching what we do. We failed to act when tragedy struck Rwanda. We cannot fail to act again.

I would add to the excellent congressional resolution of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) and the fine work of all my colleagues the necessity to take individual acts of civil disobedience, to protest the unresponsive Sudanese government that is unleashing this terror, this genocide, on innocent civilians, failing to admit what they are doing, and not allowing humanitarian assistance to come to the aid of these innocent millions of people.

The time to act is now. There is not a moment to lose.

If the gentleman will yield, I certainly respect and agree with the comments of the gentleman from Washington. This sovereignty in Iraq does seem like a false sovereignty, when you realize the facts on the ground.

Number one, this new Iraq government has no ability to protect itself or its citizens or defend against the violent insurgency. All of the security requirements remain on American troops, approaching 140,000 American troops, and the sad fact is we have yet to stabilize that country. We have not been able to contain the insurgency.

The highest suggested number of people in that insurgency, the highest estimate is 10,000, and 10,000 violent insurgents have not been controlled, cannot yet be contained by 140,000 brave American troops. The reality is we do not have enough troops to stabilize Iraq; we have not had enough; we do not have the international troops; and we do not have the Arab League troops that we should have.

This new sovereign government does not seem so sovereign. They are also not in control of their own reconstruction. The $20 billion of American funds appropriated by this Congress for reconstruction, the gentleman is absolutely correct, has not yet been spent, and, when it is spent, it will be controlled by the American embassy. This is probably the right thing, because it is American dollars, but it is an all-American list of contractors, many of them picked with no-bid contracts, no-bid awards, like Halliburton, and the so-called sovereign government of Iraq will have no control over that money.

Thirdly, they were talking the other day about delaying elections. The White House said no, you are not. We are going to have elections, whether you are ready or not, in January of 2005.

I do not want to see elections delayed either. I would like to see them moved up even sooner. But here is this Iraqi sovereign government that does not control its own security, does not control the reconstruction in Iraq, cannot even decide when to have elections, and yet the President wants to continue this fiction that we have established a sovereign nation of Iraq.

It has not happened yet because we do not have security. Fundamentally we do not have security. We cannot meet our shared goals. I think every member of the Iraq Watch, today and for the last 15 months we have been doing this, has agreed with the President's goals of a stable, peaceful Iraq that is pluralistic and hopefully democratic. None of those goals can be reached without security. We cannot have reconstruction without security; we cannot have a sovereign nation under a new government without security; we cannot have elections without security.

This President has been unable to attract the international troops, the NATO troops, the Western European troops, the Arab League nation troops, that clearly need to be added to our brave American troops to get up to the several hundred thousand troops that Army Chief of Staff Shinseki quite rightly said a year and a half ago would be needed.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is absolutely right about this. And one of the important reasons that we are talking about the mistakes that were made is to make sure that it does not happen again. We do not want history to repeat itself.

I think every member of Iraq Watch would agree that in the age of terror that we find ourselves, it may be necessary in the future to use our American force preemptively to protect America. The days of the armada, of an opposing enemy forming off our harbors or an army amassing on our borders, are probably over and we may need to quickly use preemptive force in the future. That is the Bush doctrine, preemptive use of force, but it has certain requirements that were not present this time.

First, you need accurate intelligence. You need an honest assessment of what is happening on the ground and the need for the President to level with the American people, and you have to be willing to use that force only as a last resort, not on a basis before necessary. We see in this case the President exaggerated the existence of weapons of mass destruction. He has fabricated a relationship between Hussein, al Qaeda and 9/11. He failed to exhaust diplomatic options.

What would have happened if he had allowed those international arms inspectors the extra 3 months they were requesting after their first 2 months found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? He failed to put together a meaningful coalition, as all of us said tonight. Ninety percent of the troops in Iraq, 90 percent of the money is American. And he has failed to commit enough troops. We have got 140,000 brave Americans in Iraq today, but it is not enough to contain this violent, deadly insurgency, and they were sent there with inadequate equipment, as my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), has been telling us for 15 months during Iraq Watch.

And what confidence do we have that this group of political leaders in the White House and the civilian leaders in the Pentagon will not do this thing again and again and again? They do not seem to understand their mistake. They will not admit their mistakes, and we have got to bring this to the attention of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lieutenant James P. Leary who is celebrating his retirement from the Abington Police Department after nearly 30 years of faithful and devoted service.

Lt. Leary has served in many different capacities during his tenure on the Abington force, working as Watch Commander, Platoon Commander, K-9 Commander, and Auxiliary Service Commander. After joining the department in 1974, he quickly ascended the ranks, receiving a promotion to Sergeant in 1979 and then to Lieutenant in 1981.

His dedication to the community has never faltered, even during his toughest assignment in 1996. In that year, Abington Township fell victim to a severe flood and Lt. Leary worked tirelessly with residents, community leaders, and municipal government agencies to help the area recover. Lt. Leary faced another difficult challenge when he and five patrol officers rescued two severely burned children from a burning building. Bringing those children to safety has been the proudest accomplishment of Leary's career.

In addition to his service to the Abington community as a member of the Police Department, Lt. Leary served his country as a Sergeant in the 5th Special Forces Airborne in Vietnam. He and his wife Martha are the proud parents of four sons and two daughters. Lt. Leary actively participates in the community, where he enjoys spending time with family and friends, and has served for 15 years as the Defensive Coordinator and League Commissioner for the CYO Football Program.

Our community has been privileged to have such a devoted servant and it is my pleasure to congratulate Lieutenant Leary on his retirement. I wish him all the best as he moves on to his new position as Chief of the Rockledge Borough Police Department.

I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding. This may be a breakthrough tonight. We have, through the 15 months that we have been handling the Iraq Watch duties on the floor, talked about how we would love to be joined by our Republican colleagues in a good- faith discussion about what is happening in Iraq, to discuss the pros and the cons and to question one another, talk to one another about what is working and what is not working. I do not want to put anybody on the spot, but I would be delighted to have a discussion right now. I am sure the gentleman from Massachusetts would yield and I would yield time to anybody who wanted to ask a question or challenge what we might have said.

This is not a challenge. It is an invitation.

In any event, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for talking about the whole question of whether or not the connection exists between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, a connection that the Vice President has repeatedly invoked. At one point the President himself tried to straighten out the Vice President and said, wait a minute, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. Yet the Vice President has continued to make this accusation, even in the face of the 9/11 Commission staff report that suggests that there was no working relationship, no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

There is no doubt that the inability of the coalition to secure Iraq is a tremendous impediment to everything that we are trying to achieve. I certainly share the goals of President Bush in establishing a peaceful and stable Iraq with a representative government, hopefully a flourishing democracy; but that fine goal and all the yardsticks leading up to it cannot be achieved without security. We are going to have no success with reconstruction, we will not have a legitimate turnover of sovereignty on June 30 without security. We cannot have elections without security.

I wanted to do something I have not done before during Iraq Watch, which we started in, I think it was, April 2003. I wanted to read a few words that were spoken at a rally in Los Angeles on June 5 by a young man named Dante Zappala. Dante's brother, Sergeant Sherwood Baker, a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard, was killed in Iraq on April 26, 2004. I have met with Sherwood's parents, Celeste and Al Zappala. They gave me a copy of their other son's comments regarding Sherwood Baker's death. These are the words of Dante Zappala. I will have them entered into the Record. They are way too long to read tonight. I wanted to read the first paragraph and part of the last paragraph of these remarks. On June 5, Dante Zappala said of his brother Sherwood Baker:

``The tragedy that touches so many people in so many corners of the world, the tragedy of war, the tragedy of violence and sudden death, touched me on April 26 when my brother, Sergeant Sherwood Baker, was killed in an explosion in Baghdad. I speak today with my voice and with the voice of the countless others who have suffered personal loss as a result of this war, those many people with no microphone in front of them, those many people with no one to listen to their pain. As big brothers do, Sherwood protected me, he carried me, and he taught me.''

Dante went on to express his frustrations with our policy in Iraq and then he ended his statement with the following:

``We do not benefit from the deaths of our soldiers, nor do we benefit from the deaths of the Iraqi people. To honor Sherwood, I have vowed to follow his path, to lift my head and go to work. Our duty is to spread truth. Our duty is to combat the lies, the misrepresentations, the fear, the mongering and the people who mean to ruin our belief in this country. I have made a promise to my brother and that is to do as he would do, to not be angry about my circumstances, to not let bitterness overcome my heart, but to proceed with hope.

``Today and in the days ahead, do not let your anger carry you. Allow your desire to make change carry you. Allow the compassion towards humanity to carry you. Ride your commitment to peace. Share your soul with your country. Share your values with the world. Make it your job.''

Mr. Speaker, I find these words remarkable. A family devastated by the loss of a son and brother, and yet this brother, speaking in Los Angeles, calling upon the better sides of our nature, calling upon all of us to put anger and frustration aside and to talk about compassion toward humanity.

The pain that so many American families have suffered as a result of this war is immense. The sacrifices that the armed services have made, the men and women, the loss of life has been tragic. I am sure it is true to say that they were proud to serve and in virtually all cases proud to honor their country, were there because they wanted to be there, and made a magnificent sacrifice to try to bring peace and stability to Iraq. What angers me, and I try to be inspired by Danta Zappala and not resort to anger, but what angers me, though, is the continuous reputations, he referenced them in his statement, the continued attempts to connect the Saddam Hussein regime with 9-11, a connection that is bogus, a connection that the gentleman just said was not made by the CIA, denied by the FBI, and yet the Vice President continues to want to use that nonexistent connection as a justification for taking us to war with half truths and with deceptions.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I wanted to thank our friend from Indiana for jumping into this discussion. We have been looking for some bipartisan debate back and forth; and the gentleman, if nothing else, has the courage of his convictions; and we welcome him here tonight.

I wanted to respond to a couple things the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) said. I think he said that

we were suggesting George Bush has been asleep at the switch in Iraq. That is not at all what we have been suggesting here. President Bush has been anything but asleep at the switch. He has been very aggressive regarding Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, back to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), I just wanted to respond finally to the gentleman's suggestion that the prior administration, the Clinton administration, had not done enough after several acts of terror against this country.

The act of terror on 9/11 did change the thinking of a lot of people. But if you will recall, in August of 1998, President Clinton did order cruise missile strikes in Sudan as a result of some of the acts of terror; and the Republican opponents in the Congress of the President at that time did not accuse him of doing too little; they accused him of doing too much. There was a great partisan uproar that President Clinton was trying to distract the public from his impeachment woes with the use of American military power.

I would say to the gentleman that the fact is the Republican opposition at that time was in full throat, and the criticism was not that he should be doing more; but that he was doing too much, in the view of his critics.

I raise the point in good faith. I was not in the Congress then, and the gentleman may or may not have been involved at that point at that time. It shows you when there is too much partisanship I think that it clouds the judgment. It probably affected President Clinton. He probably did not think he could have congressional support if he took more action at that time. I do not know.

I would suggest that there is a time when the level of partisanship can rise so high that it can cloud the judgment of the government to act in a concerted way. I do not want to see that happen.

There is a lot of frustration about Iraq and a lot of opposition to what many of us think are the deceptions and the half-truths that have been used. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) came today to try to talk about that, and I welcome the bipartisan discussion tonight; but we have got to try to get past the bipartisan anger.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember Sgt. Sherwood Baker, a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard who was killed in Iraq on April 26, 2004. I would like to share with the American people the words of Dante Zappala, Sgt. Baker's younger brother, who spoke at a peace rally in Los Angeles on June 5:

The tragedy that touches so many people in so many corners

of the world; the tragedy of war, the tragedy of violent and

sudden death, touched me on April 26th when my brother,

Sergeant Sherwood Baker was killed in an explosion in

Baghdad. I speak today with my voice, and with the voice of

the countless others who have suffered personal loss as a

result of this war, those many people with no microphone in

front of them, those many people with no one to listen to

their pain. As big brothers do, Sherwood protected me, he

carried me and he taught me.

With his heart and with his decisions, he taught me about

commitment and about determination. When I would get bitter

about the injustice brought to this world by the causes of

the United States, he taught me that you can love this

country and yet not love what people do in its name. He

showed me that we can heal, we can learn and we can grow. He

taught me, in the end, to be a patriot.

With his silent exit into the desert night, he showed me

the difference between empty language and quiet

understanding, the difference between baseless political

grandstanding and true patriotism. Sherwood had a great

intellect and a life commitment to forge responsibility in an

irresponsible world. He was a foster kid who knew he could

have had a much different life. And it made him strong. As

hardships inevitably found him.

Sherwood never had the time or the desire to be angry about

his circumstances. Not when he was a young father working

three jobs, living in a housing project, trying to make a

better life than he had known, and not when the call came to

serve in Iraq. And when that call came, he took the most

simple path--he went.

He went with the hope of doing the impossible--make

something positive happen in the grips of war. To no

surprise, he lifted his head and went to work.

Like most of us, he didn't like his boss but it became

immaterial when it was time to do his job. He spent his life

trying to be kind to people and he saw people in Iraq, and he

thought that he could be kind to them. He left behind a son,

a wife and a family that adored him for his beliefs.

I feel pride, a pride knowing that my brother had honor

even though the person who sent my brother marching to Iraq

has no honor. George Bush is wholly un-American because he

pimps the one value my brother held so true--devotion. He has

sold out the core of America, the people who are this

country--the truck drivers, field workers, the day laborers,

the dishwashers, the waitresses, the teachers, the country

workers, the mechanics, the janitors, the street pavers, the

house painters and the housewives, and yes, the soldiers.

All of us had hoped to live simple lives with our simple

aspirations. George Bush has sold our futures to pay for his

power lust, his greed, and his selfish world plans. He sold

away my brother's future to pay for the privilege and favor

of his friends. We, the people of this country, all of us,

are not his friends. We are not in his circle of favor. We do

not benefit from the deaths of our soldiers nor do we benefit

from the deaths of the Iraqi people. To honor Sherwood, I

have vowed to follow his path--to lift my head and go to

work. Our duty is to spread truth, our duty is to combat the

lies, the misrepresentations, the fear, the mongering and the

people who mean to ruin our belief in this country. I have

made a promise to my brother, and that is to do as he would

do--to not be angry about my circumstances, to not let

bitterness overcome my heart, but to proceed with hope.

Today, and in the days ahead, do not let your anger carry

you, allow your desire to make change carry you. Allow the

compassion towards humanity to carry you. Ride your

commitment to peace. Share your soul with your country, share

your values with the world. Make it your job.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Chief Paul Kittredge who is celebrating his retirement from the Borough of Rockledge Police Department, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

A police officer for 30 years, Chief Kittredge has dedicated his life to serving his community. He started his career in the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. He later worked at the Police Departments in both the Jenkintown and Rockledge Boroughs and was named Police Chief nine years ago. Chief Kittredge went above and beyond the call of duty, serving faithfully and always striving to better the community, leading the efforts to expand and modernize the Rockledge police force.

Over the years Chief Kittredge has proven himself to be a dedicated leader, protector, and manager for the borough community. Dedicated to his family as well as the community, Kittredge and his wife of 35 years are the proud parents of three children and the grandparents of two.

It is my pleasure to recognize Chief Kittredge for his many years of service to our community. I congratulate him on his retirement and wish him all the best in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Anthony F. Heisler of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on his commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.

Lt. Heisler is a recent graduate of the George Washington University where he received a dual Bachelor of the Arts in German Languages and Literature and in History. A resident of Northeast Philadelphia, Lt. Heisler had always aspired to join the Army, and it is his work in college as a cadet in the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) of Georgetown University of which he is most proud.

In his capacity as a cadet, Lt. Heisler was responsible for the oversight of over 80 Army cadets. For his service, Lt. Heisler has won numerous awards, including the Lieutenant Harry W. Apraker, Jr. award, which is given to the cadet who contributes the most to the mission accomplishment of the Georgetown University ROTC program. Upon his commissioning, Lt. Heisler has been assigned to the Field Artillery branch of the Army.

I am eternally grateful to Lt. Heisler for his service to the United States, and I wish him continued success as he begins his career in the United States Army.

Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) aware of how Mr. Chalabi allegedly got the information that he allegedly shared with the Iranians?

It is my understanding that the fact that the Iranians have an intelligence code in order for them to communicate secretly amongst themselves, that that code was broken by America, and we were able to know exactly what the Iranians were doing in Iraq with their agents in Iraq, and that that is the information that Mr. Chalabi allegedly gave to Iran, which is your code has been broken.

The question is, how did Chalabi know? Well, he is under investigation and members of the Bush administration are being investigated because somebody had to tell Chalabi that the Americans have broken the Iranian code.

Do not forget that the President sat Mr. Chalabi right behind Mrs. Bush in this year's State of the Union address, right up there in that balcony 4\1/2\ months ago. There he sat in all his double-chinned glory, Ahmad Chalabi, directly behind the First Lady of the United States in the seat of honor 4\1/2\ months ago.

Mr. Speaker, I admire the fervor that my colleague from Washington has for pointing out the truth about the failings of Chalabi; but the point he just made is a lot more important, frankly, than the fun we are having piling on a guy like Chalabi, who is clearly a fraud, clearly a spinmeister, the kind of guy that my grandfather would have called a floor flusher. To meet Chalabi, as I did once, is to understand that the guy is just full of hot air.

But the question that my colleague poses to us tonight and to the Congress is, why did other people in the administrations not figure this out? And why are those who made mistakes not being held accountable for those mistakes? Because it would be a great injustice if we were to allow anybody watching tonight to get the impression that the problems of our policies in Iraq were solely the fault of Chalabi giving us bad information. He did give us bad information; and I believe, as Colin Powell believes, that it was willfully done, and he ripped us off for $40 million. And the passion of the gentleman from Washington on the subject is admirable, but the fact of the matter is, why did so many people in the administration believe what Chalabi had to say?

It seems to me that he was telling them what they wanted to hear, and

they did not listen to his information and apply a critical eye to it. I know that the CIA has been skeptical of Chalabi for years. I know the State Department has been skeptical of Chalabi for years. But the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith, along with the support of the Vice President, Mr. Cheney, bought Chalabi's lies hook, line, and sinker. It is because he was telling them, in my judgment, what they wanted to hear.

They honestly believed that we would be treated as liberators and not occupiers, and they made one policy mistake after another that has led us to where we are today after a year.

Oh, it absolutely does.

But, Mr. Speaker, I must tell my colleague that not everybody was being conned. The CIA saw through Chalabi, the State Department saw through Chalabi, and yet the civilian leadership of the Pentagon did not.

Mr. Speaker, it is not just that mistakes were made by American policymakers, and it is not just that Chalabi gave us bad information. The other part of the equation is that the ideologues in the civilian leadership, in the Pentagon and in the White House simplified, distorted, took information and twisted it in such a way as to persuade the Congress and the American people that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that we needed to invade to keep that part of the world and this country safe from attack.

Let us not forget the fact that the intelligence information being given to the White House in the fall of 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency report of September, 2002, the National Intelligence Estimate of October, 2002, was not available to the three of us at that time when we had to vote but was made available to us 6 or 7 months later. Those intelligence reports given to the White House were replete with uncertainty and caveats about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, they were wrong apparently to even think they might have been there, although we do know Saddam Hussein had them in the 1980s. They were wrong to conclude that he probably had them, but the reports were saying we think he has these weapons of mass destruction. He probably has them. We have been told he has them.

None of that uncertainty was passed on to the Congress in public statements or private briefings that we all attended, or to the American people in the fall of 2002 when we were asked to vote on the war authority. We were told with complete certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we had to go get them.

In fact, the one member of the administration who had the most credibility in my opinion, Colin Powell, repeated this didactic approach, these statements with complete certainty, 4 or 5 months later in February or March of 2003 when he spoke to the U.N. He identified where the weapons were. He showed us pictures. He told us how much they weighed. He has 500 pounds over here; he has such and such over there. They talked about those two mobile chemical labs on flatbed trucks. Colin Powell assured the United Nations and all of the world that these things existed. They did not.

The intelligence they were basing these statements on was full of uncertainties. They deceived us. They led us to war with deceptions, and we have to hold them accountable for that. It is not just the mistakes. It is not just Chalabi's lies. It is the fact that some in the Bush administration were willing to twist that information, and this

goes to the President himself, to get us to go to war.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, let me just add to the gentleman's wise comments.

We are at risk of losing in Iraq if we do not get security in that country. We all share the President's goals of creating a stable and peaceful Iraq with a representative self-government, hopefully a flourishing democracy. We all share that goal. But we cannot achieve that goal or any of the benchmarks without security. We cannot reconstruct that country without security, we cannot have a meaningful transfer of sovereignty on June 30 or any other day without security, and we certainly cannot have elections there without security. So we have not accomplished the fundamental task of this occupation.

The President keeps saying, well, we are going to turn things over June 30

and get out. Well, the military occupation is not ending, and it cannot end because the country is not secure, and it is not able to secure itself.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I agree with the gentleman that we have probably heard too many slogans and that slogans do not really help resolve complicated problems. But I would say to the gentleman that we need to get more troops in Iraq, preferably international troops, so we can get security. That is essential. Then we can get elections and get an Iraqi government freely elected in charge so America can get out.