Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans' misplaced budget priorities are actually shameful. They continue to be a reverse Robin Hood, slashing funds to safety net programs only to give more tax cuts to the wealthiest of Americans.

The budget reconciliation that we will talk about next week or the next week, whenever you guys can get your stuff together, proposes huge cuts in important programs that the poor and the working poor depend on day in and day out, such as $15 billion in cuts in Medicaid programs; $12.5 billion for student loans; and almost $1 billion in cuts for food stamps. All of this while, and you would allow the richer to get even richer at the expense of helping those who need it the most, doing

nothing to offset Katrina expenses or to reduce our Nation's deficit.

Using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to extend tax cuts, while taking from the programs that the victims of the hurricane need most, is an embarrassment. I hope you will fix it.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday Saddam Hussein faced a panel of Iraqi judges where he will finally stand trial for the crimes against humanity that were committed under his regime. Saddam Hussein is an evil person. He ordered thousands of his own people to death, and it is time that he is brought to justice for these crimes.

But anyone who suggests that Iraq is more stable or less of a threat to the United States now than it was before the war is fooling themselves. Iraq has never been less stable, and it has never posed a greater threat to the United States than it does today.

The war in Iraq has not combated terrorism as President Bush and his administration have repeatedly claimed. It has actually encouraged terrorism by providing a unified target and rallying point for those angry with our Mideast policies.

Since we invaded Iraq in March of 2003, hundreds of terrorist attacks have killed thousands of innocent people, both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Most people assume that suicide terrorism of the sort that plagues Iraq on a daily basis stems from opposition to democracy in general or hatred of the United States in particular. But Dr. Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor, reaches a different conclusion based on a comprehensive study on every act of suicide terrorism that has occurred over the last 10 years. Dr. Pape found that the common element linking all suicide attacks around the world is not religion. Rather, suicide terrorism is about pressuring another country to withdraw its military forces from the lands that the terrorists view as their homeland.

This helps to explain the intensity of the Iraqi insurgency. The insurgents resent the continued United States occupation of their land and want control over it.

If the folks in the Bush administration truly want to end the war, they must honestly convince the Iraqi people that the United States has no long-term objectives in Iraq. But to do that would require a sea change, because we currently maintain over 100 military bases in Iraq, with what certainly appears to be intentions to maintain some of them permanently.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that President Bush loves those prime time speeches to our Nation. Maybe it is time for him to eat a little crow and ask the international community to help. He needs to face the fact that the so-called Bush doctrine of preemptive war and unilateral military action just is not working. He should tell the Iraqi people that the United States has no plans to maintain permanent bases in Iraq, nor do we have any designs on controlling Iraqi oil. You could call this speech the ``anti-Bush doctrine.''

Mr. Speaker, there were plenty of mistakes made in Iraq, mistakes that could easily have been avoided. But now, the best thing for the President to do is cut his losses, admit he made mistakes, and change his course. He needs to seek the cooperation of our allies around the world to help Iraq get back on its feet, because we cannot do it by ourselves in the United States. The President should do that by going back to those countries we have spurned in the past like France and Germany, as well as influential bodies like the United Nations and NATO, and ask them to assist.

A true multilateral coalition could and would enable us to bring thousands of our troops hope. To borrow a phrase from the President, as our allies stand up, we will stand down.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I did not see any purple fingers in this Chamber so far this week. We all remember how the Iraqi elections in January were hailed by the President's supporters as the turning point in Iraq.

Well, now there has been another election, a referendum on the Constitution. And what we are hearing from the pro-war forces is that we are still in for a long and deadly occupation in Iraq.

It was all going to be so simple, remember? We would march into Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein. The grateful Iraqis would embrace the American presence, and a glorious democracy would spontaneously bloom. The Iraq situation was often compared to Germany and Japan after World War II where we were able to quickly fashion functioning democracy.

The New York Times cites Richard Armitage, Bush's former deputy Secretary of State, who notes that those were homogeneous societies, whereas Iraq is a patchwork of rival ethnic groups. Armitage also points out that Germany and Japan, in 1945, were cowed populations, exhausted and deeply shocked by the war.

Iraqis, however, were unshocked and unawed. They simply want their country back. So 2\1/2\ years and 2,000 body bags later, we are spinning our wheels and the President who drove us into this ditch in the first place has no plan for getting us out.

Instead, according to a New York Times article on Monday, he seems to be preparing us for, and I quote, ``a struggle of Cold War proportions.'' Does that mean we can look forward to a half century of American boots on the ground in Iraq?

One of the President's aids says in the article that this is a struggle of ideologies that is not going to end with one election or one constitution, or even a string of elections. Is this what the American people signed up for, a titanic ideological struggle with no end in sight? No, they were told Saddam Hussein had to be removed because he had deadly weapons pointed at American cities.

As he has repeated over the last few years, the President is mixing apples and oranges. The President is saying that there is a threat of Islamic terrorism which is real and must be addressed, and that is true. Though I would argue we need to use more diplomatic and fewer military tools in that struggle.

Then there is the war in Iraq, which is and was not a country of Islamic terrorists until we actually invaded that area and actually inflamed Muslim extremists and served as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda.

In a twisted way it turns out that the Bush administration was right. You cannot separate Iraq from the war on terrorism. What they did not tell us is that invading Iraq has helped the wrong side of the war on terrorism.

That same Times article quotes Kenneth Pollack, a scholar who initially supported the Iraq invasion. Pollack now says, and I quote him, ``The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproven on the ground every day.''

So if we cannot defeat the insurgents by continuing to hold elections, what can we do? There is only one answer. We can take away the one thing that animates the insurgency in the first place, that is, our perceived military occupation of Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I traveled to Iraq a few weeks ago to meet with our military and to learn more about their mission. I cannot tell you how impressed I was with their courage, their loyalty, their intelligence. From the officers down to the citizen soldiers of the National Guard, they are indeed the best America has to offer.

Unfortunately, they have been let down by their civilian superiors who

sent them to Iraq on false pretenses, on a poorly defined mission, without all of the tools they needed, and without a plan to get them out of there.

Our soldiers deserve better. They deserve a clear strategy from their President. They deserve a one-way ticket back home.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, appeared on ``Meet the Press'' yesterday morning and made this assertion, and I quote Dr. Rice: `` . . . when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into the buildings and, therefore, we would go after al Qaeda and perhaps after the Taliban and then our work would be done . . .

``Or we could take a bolder approach, which was to say that we had to go after the root causes of the kind of terrorism that was produced there, and that meant a different kind of Middle East. And there is no one who could have imagined a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein still in power.''

Mr. Speaker, what happened to the weapons of mass destruction? In the run up to the war, no one said anything about a bolder approach.

We were told about uranium purchases from Niger. We were told about the world's most dangerous weapons falling into the hands of the wrong people. We were told by Dr. Rice herself about the specter of mushroom clouds over American cities. We were treated to a campaign of fear and deception about weapons of mass destruction because the Bush administration knew that was the only way to convince the Nation and the Congress to commit to this war.

They knew that this bolder approach, this ideological pipe dream, was an absolute nonstarter.

So what are we supposed to tell Cindy Sheehan and the thousands of other mothers, fathers, spouses, siblings, and friends of dead soldiers and soldiers who were wounded? That their children died or were wounded not to protect America but for some ``bolder approach,'' because the Middle East is the personal chess board of a gang of neoconservatives who have not had to sacrifice a thing for this war?

Mr. Speaker, I traveled to Iraq a few weeks ago to meet the troops to learn more about their mission. I cannot tell the Members how impressed I was with the courage, the loyalty, and intelligence of our soldiers from the officers down to the citizen soldiers of the National Guard. They are, indeed, the best America has to offer.

My question is: Why can we not have political leaders with the same honor and integrity as the men and women who wear the uniform, who take the risks, who make the sacrifices? It is nothing short of tragic the way the Pentagon and the White House have let down and even exploited the men and women in their charge. They sent them to Iraq on false pretenses, on a poorly defined mission, without all the tools they needed and without a plan to bring them home.

I have been calling for our troops to come home this entire year. I have called for hearings. I have introduced resolutions. I have forced a vote in this Chamber. But, Mr. Speaker, I am not just speaking for myself. A majority of Americans clearly share this anxiety and skepticism about the war.

I have tried to jumpstart the conversation about how to go about ending the occupation. At the hearing I convened last month, some very sound ideas were laid out about how to end this debacle and how the United States can play a constructive role in the rebuilding of Iraqi society.

But the President will not engage on this level. He will not engage in this conversation. He offers nothing but platitudes and vague assertions. Terrorism is bad and freedom is good, he tells us. We need to stay the course, he tells us. We will be there as long as we need to be there, he tells us.

This is not enough. The American people and our soldiers deserve better. They deserve a plan, an endgame, a clear strategy to return Iraq to the Iraqi people and the troops to their families back home.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill represents a new low. Wasteful drilling in the Arctic and dismantling the Clean Air Act are bad enough, but now the Republican majority wants to weaken the Endangered Species Act, weaken it by handing out subsidies to oil and gas companies and land speculators for not killing endangered species, meaning taxpayers will be giving money to these land developers for simply following the law or for taking a risk by making a big investment in land so they can sell it at a higher price.

What next? Will taxpayers be asked to foot the bill to pay companies to follow other laws of the land?

Mr. Speaker, I know we can do better. Protecting our endangered species is never easy, but if we do not do it right, if we do not depend on sound science, if instead we yield to greed and politics, there is no second chance. I urge my colleagues to vote against the bill and protect the environment for our children and their children and vote for the bipartisan substitute.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House out of order.

Mr. Speaker, 8 months ago standing outside this dome, the President of the United States spoke these words as he was sworn in for a second term: ``We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation, the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom which is eternally right. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors.''

Beautiful words, honorable sentiments, if only the Bush administration were conducting this war in Iraq in a way that actually reflects those values.

Last week, Human Rights Watch released a report that details once again how Iraqi war prisoners were subjected to acts of sadistic cruelty at the hands of their supposed liberators. This time it was at Forward Operating Base Mercury, where beatings and other forms of humiliation took place on a daily basis for several months. Often, this was not even about interrogation or securing some vital piece of national security. ``In a way, it was sport,'' said one sergeant in the 82nd Airborne, a way to ``work out your frustration.''

What is perhaps most tragic is that our soldiers who have committed these acts are themselves victims as well, victimized by their incompetent and amoral superiors who give a wink and a nod to torture and then blame it on a few bad apples. One officer in the 82nd Airborne, Captain Ian Fishback, was appalled by the prisoner abuse and tried in vain for a year and a half to get some clarification from his superiors about how prisoners should be treated, given that the administration had essentially tossed the Geneva Conventions in the trash can. He got no answers because the Pentagon seemed to want the abuse to continue but did not want to take any responsibility for it.

That is how it works with this crowd: The powerless take the fall while the high-level decisionmakers who make bad decisions are left in place to make more bad decisions. So it is that Lynndie England faces jail time for her conduct at Abu Ghraib while Tommy Franks gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The prisoner abuse episode is consistent with everything else about the way this war has been handled. It indicates both a moral blind spot and a staggering incompetence that has cost nearly 2,000 Americans their lives. The Bush administration had no plan for how to conduct this war, they had no plan for securing the country once Saddam was deposed, and now they have no plan for ending the war. We need a compassionate and we need a viable exit strategy, one that ends the occupation but still gives us a constructive role in the rebuilding of Iraqi society. If the President will not do it, we will. If the President will not lead, we will.

Two weeks ago, I held an informal bipartisan hearing to discuss plans to withdraw our troops and end the war. We heard from a panel of Middle East experts and military strategists, just the kind of people George Bush should have listened to along his march to war, all of whom testified about the need for a change in U.S. policy in Iraq. The hearing was not about endorsing one particular approach. My goal was to put ideas on the table, to start a conversation that the Nation wants and the Nation deserves. Two-thirds of the American people disapprove of the President's handling of Iraq, and yet it has been some sort of taboo around this place to discuss troop withdrawal. The American people are way ahead of Congress on this. It is about time we caught up, it is about time we realized

Mr. Speaker, the Violence Against Women Act has made a great difference for countless women and their families when confronting violence, and VAWA has made a significant difference in the health and happiness of hundreds of thousands of women, children and families.

With one in four women in this country experiencing domestic violence, clearly much more remains to be done. So we cannot abandon our commitment to them and to the women around the world.

Women have every right to feel safe in their own homes. They also deserve to know that law enforcement and health officials are equipped to deal with their special needs in these tragic situations, and we must include teaching young people that bullying and violence must be avoided. We must teach them how to handle situations of conflict and anger in other ways besides bullying and violence.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the reauthorization of VAWA to ensure these protections and make sure that resources are available.

Mr. Chairman, the Violence Against Women Act has rescued countless women from the vicious cycle of family violence, and it remains the cornerstone of our country's efforts to put an end to domestic abuse and sexual assault. Now is not the time to abandon our commitment to women around the world. It is time to strengthen our resolve and to protect these women.

We must also teach our youngest citizens, our children, that bullying, intimidation, and physical abuse are unacceptable behavior. That is why I fully support strengthening VAWA.

The Sensenbrenner amendment, on the other hand, offered today would weaken the very core of this legislation. If racial and ethnic minority language is struck from the STOP grants, which specifically target women of color and immigrant women who have experienced domestic violence, these populations will continue to be underserved.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the reauthorization of VAWA in the Department of Justice bill and oppose the Sensenbrenner amendment so we can ensure these protections and resources remain available to all women.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.

Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 years, Halliburton and subsidiaries such as Kellogg, Brown, and Root, have received billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild Iraq. Despite the handsome profits, Halliburton, which used to be run by the Vice President, Dick Cheney, has not had to offer competitive bids on the vast majority of these projects. Earlier this week a Halliburton subsidiary received yet another no-bid contract for reconstruction efforts.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, anyone who has monitored the greed, the selfishness, the sheer corruption with which the Bush administration has administered Iraq's reconstruction. Only this time, the contract was not for Iraq, it was for hurricane relief and reconstruction efforts here in the United States. Finally, the chickens have come to roost.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues might recall that Halliburton is the company that overcharged the United States Government for meals served to soldiers serving in Iraq. It is also the company that made the United States Government pay a ridiculous markup on gasoline purchased from nearby Kuwait. Unfortunately, the Bush administration did not seem to mind. Halliburton's corruption certainly did not stop the White House from turning to them yet again as its primary source for no-bid government contracts in the Gulf.

But the sad truth is, these examples of corruption and incompetence are not just isolated to Halliburton. They are emblematic of the Bush administration itself.

This is the administration that presided over $9 billion in missing funds that was supposed to pay for Iraq's reconstruction. This is the administration that, for over a year, neglected to provide the lifesaving protective body armor that our troops needed to survive. These examples are not isolated. No, they are indicative of how the Bush administration has approached both the war in Iraq and the recent hurricane devastation in the gulf coast.

The sheer ineptitude surrounding the war in Iraq has been the most staggering of all. The Bush administration had no plan for how to conduct the war, they had no plan for securing the country once Saddam was deposed, and now they have no plan for ending the war.

It is clear that the military situation in Iraq is not improving. In fact, it is the very presence of nearly 150,000 U.S. soldiers who appear as occupiers that so enrages Iraq's insurgency.

By bringing our troops home, we can save both American and Iraqi lives, and we can reunite thousands of American families in the process. That is why I have called on the House Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on International Relations to hold hearings to address how best to achieve a military disengagement. Since they will not address this issue, we will.

Two weeks ago, I held an informal bipartisan hearing to address how to end the war in Iraq. Not when, but how. We heard from an expert panel of witnesses who each testified that the need for a change in U.S. policy is absolute in Iraq. This is not about finding the one right approach. It is about getting the conversation started. It is about putting all the ideas on the table.

Mr. Speaker, my hope is that last week's hearing will help begin a discussion that we desperately need, one that is long overdue, one that will help save lives, how to end the war in Iraq, and how to bring our troops home.