Announcing Formation of Out of Iraq Caucus

ANNOUNCING FORMATION OF OUT OF IRAQ CAUCUS -- (House of Representatives - June 21, 2005)

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I am here this evening to talk about something new and wonderful that has happened in the Congress of the United States of America. I am here to talk about a new caucus that is named Out of Iraq Caucus. I am here to talk about the men and women of this House who have decided they can be silent no longer. I am here to talk about men and women who represent various points of view relative to support for the President from the time that he first announced he was going into Iraq to now. I am here to talk about why we have formed this caucus, what we plan to do, but more than that this evening, we are going to focus on our soldiers and those who are in Iraq serving this country, those who are there in harm's way, those who have been killed in Iraq, those who are up at Walter Reed Hospital suffering from serious injuries, having lost limbs, having lost their eyesight, those who do not know what the future holds for them.

We are going to focus on that this evening because it is extremely important for the families of these soldiers to know and understand that we support these soldiers. We know that many of them went there because they were called to duty. They were recruited to go to Iraq because their President asked them to do so, and they wanted to serve this country despite the fact they did not understand all of the reasons why. Many of them went to serve because they thought that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. But, of course, we know now that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11, and many of the soldiers know that now.

So this caucus has been formed. We have 61 members, and they are still adding on. We met this morning at 10 a.m., and we will continue to meet as we develop our mission statement, as we help to define who we are.

Basically, we have come together to say we want out of Iraq. We want out, and this caucus is not putting a time certain. This caucus has not concocted demands about how we want to get out. We simply want our young people out of Iraq. So we will provide support to other Members of Congress, other caucuses who want to get out of Iraq. We will provide support to the citizens of this Nation, the organized national groups who want to get out of Iraq.

We will organize not only coming to the floor as we are this evening to talk about various aspects of this war. We will also organize workshops and seminars. We will travel, some of us, to different regions in this country, responding to citizens who are asking for Members of Congress to come and explain this public policy to them. We will be available to meet with the families of servicemembers who have been killed, who have been injured. We have families who are asking to meet with somebody, anybody. We have people who are asking to meet with Donald Rumsfeld, who cannot get any response, who are not being talked to. We are going to meet with them. We are going to talk with them. We are going to share with them what we know.

But more than that, we are going to be an ear to family members who need to talk with someone about why their son or daughter died in Iraq. We are going to spend the time and give them some attention because we think that the least that we can do is sit and talk and listen to family members.

Some of them will say that they are very proud that their child or their son or their relative served in this war, and we will commend them for the pride that they feel and the fact that their relative, their child, their brother, their father served. Some will say that ``I once support the war but I no longer support it.'' We will listen to them, and we will hear what they have to say. And we will explain to them how we feel at this time about getting out of Iraq.

And so this is a caucus that will have the ability to extend itself not only to the organized groups and organizations but again to the family members.

I would like to point out something about this war. We have heard many of the statistics and much of the data over and over again. But we have to remind folks we have been there now since March 19, 2003. We have 1,722 soldiers who have died in this war, and the numbers mount each day. The number of soldiers injured: 13,074. We have many Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who are going up to Walter Reed Hospital to see the soldiers there who are injured, and the stories that we hear coming back from those visits break one's heart. These are stories of young men and women who had hopes and dreams. Many of them went to war because they had no jobs. They did not know what the future held for them, and they thought, Perhaps if I go and serve my country and get an income, perhaps I can do good. I can not only serve my country, but perhaps I can get ahead. Perhaps I can learn a trade. Perhaps I can learn something. Perhaps I can exploit some of my talents and show what I can do. But when I come home, I want to go back to school. I want to go to college. I want to get married. I want to have children. I want to contribute to my community.

Well, unfortunately, these 1,722 will never be able to realize their hopes and their dreams. They have died. But the question still remains for many of us, Why are we in Iraq? What is the real story? We know now there are no weapons of mass destruction. Why are these young people dying?

I want to relate an interview that I watched on television this past Sunday. This past Sunday, as many folks in America do, I watched some of the great television shows, and I was watching George Stephanopoulos as he interviewed the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. And he interviewed her. They talked about, of course, the work that she is doing in the Middle East, working with the issue of Israel, the Palestinians.

But then he segued to the war in Iraq. And he said to Condoleezza Rice, ``As you know, there has been a lot of talk back here in the United States about these Downing Street memos, the minutes of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the spring of 2002 where they discuss their meetings with the United States.'' And then he said, ``I want to show you what one mother, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a U.S. soldier, had to say about that memo this week.'' And then they showed Cindy Sheehan, mother. She said this: ``The so-called Downing Street memo dated the 23rd of July, 2002, only confirms what I already suspected. The leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-picked intelligence.''

And then George Stephanopoulos said to the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, ``How do you respond to this, to what Mrs. Sheehan said? How do you respond to that?'' Condoleezza Rice started out with her explanation. She started out by saying, ``Well, I can only say what the President has said many, many times. The United States of America and its coalition decided that it was finally time to deal with the threat of Saddam Hussein.'' And she went on with the typical kind of discussion and explanation in line with the message that is given by this administration. Along the way, she said, ``When you consider what the Iraqi people had gone through in the Saddam Hussein regime's reign, what about the responsibility to the Iraqi people?''

I was struck by this conversation because not one time did the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledge Cindy Sheehan, who had been on the screen with the question that was raised by George Stephanopoulos. Not once on Father's Day did she say, we are sorry your son died, we feel your pain, we understand how you must feel. Not once did she recognize her. Not once did she recognize the death of her son. Not once did she show any sympathy. But oftentimes we hear from this administration how much they care about the soldiers.

Well, the Out of Iraq Caucus is going to show not only do we want them out of Iraq but we care about them. We will never fail to acknowledge a mother who is in deep pain about the loss of her son. Not ever will we be on national TV and not take a moment to say we too care about our soldiers. No. This conversation basically focused on our responsibility to the Iraqi people.

My first responsibility is to Americans and to those American soldiers. My first responsibility is to their safety. My first responsibility is to their well-being.

My first responsibility is to acknowledge them and their families and their parents. And my responsibility, as a public policymaker, is to tell the truth. We all know now there were no weapons of mass destruction. We cannot tell these young people why they are really there. We cannot tell them that there is an exit strategy. We cannot tell them why many of their friends that they met in this war died in vehicles that had no armor. We cannot tell them why they died up in Fallujah. We cannot tell them why they died in Operation Lightning. We cannot tell them what they are doing in Operation Spear.

We hear all of these fancy, concocted names for the operations, but what we do not hear is the definition of why they are doing what they are doing. Are they simply being organized into these special operations to try to send a signal to the American people that they are really in charge? What are they to do when they go into these battles and into these special operations? Are they to shoot whatever moves?

We know that, yes, thousands of Iraqis have died because we have young people in these special operations, Operation Lightning, Operation Spear, operation this, operation that, who were told to shoot anything that moves. Many of them cannot live with the psychological damage that is fostered upon them because they are shooting and they are killing and they do not have all of the answers.

So today we focus on our soldiers, and we say to Cindy Sheehan we are sorry about the loss of her son and we thank her for caring enough to ask the questions, to be involved. We are trying to get public policymakers to do the right thing. So tonight, as we further announce the Out of Iraq Caucus and the Members who have signed up to do the work of providing the platform of creating the voice for those who want to speak out, we focus tonight on our soldiers in Iraq. Our prayers go out to them. We want them to be returned home. We want them to realize their dreams and their hopes and their aspirations.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), who has been on this floor night after night talking about these issues, the gentlewoman from California that basically said we want out of Iraq; administration, tell us how you are going to do it.

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Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), not only for being here this evening, but for all of the work, all of the hours, all of the time that she has put into this effort.

I now yield time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who too has been a leader in opposing this war. She warned us early on that we should not just give permission to the President of the United States to go to war without understanding what the reasons were and without having that debate. So, unfortunately, our debate is taking place a little bit late, but it is taking place.

I would like to thank the gentlewoman from northern California, the Oakland area, (Ms. Lee), for all of her work and for being here this evening.

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Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee). We appreciate so very much the work that she has been doing and her wisdom and early warnings about this war.

Next, I would like to call on the Congressman from New York (Mr. Rangel), who is a veteran who knows a lot about war because he served.

He is a gentleman who has been unsettled about this war for months. And he has taken many opportunities to ask what we are doing. When are we going to have a discussion? When are we going to speak out? When are we going to have hearings? What is going on with this?

Well, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank him for raising those questions. I wanted to thank him for being a part of what we are attempting to do with the Out of Iraq Caucus. And I welcome him this evening to this discussion.

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Ms. WATERS. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and ask him to remain for a colloquy if he has a few moments with all of us here. I thank the Members for focusing our discussion tonight on our soldiers and helping to remind people that these are real human beings, as I said before, with hopes and aspirations. And when they die, not only are those hopes and aspirations gone, but the family members are left devastated and destroyed by these deaths, and we have got to do more to slow our support for them.

It is not their fault if they are there. They answered the call for many reasons, some of which the gentleman described so wonderfully well in his presentation. Some people looking for just a job, for income. Some folks looking to serve their country, to answer the call for whatever reason. And what we have got to be sure about is that we do not allow these sacrifices to be taken lightly.

For example, we hear some Members saying, who wish to support the war, to continue to support the war, saying all they show on television are the bombings, the suicide bombings. All they show are the deaths and the destruction. They do not show the good stuff.

Well, I get very upset when I hear that, because what they are literally saying to me is that somehow the loss of lives of our soldiers should take second place or third place to some news about perhaps cleaning up a street somewhere. I cannot say news about new electricity or clean water or schools or any of that, but they simply say over and over again, all they show are these suicide bombings; they do not show the good stuff.

Well, I do not like hearing that because, again, they are relegating the loss of lives to some secondary status. And tonight we draw attention to the importance of the soldiers, how we are proud of them and their families. And I mentioned earlier that in this interview on Sunday with Mr. Stephanopoulos and Condoleeza Rice, even though he drew her attention to Cindy Sheehan, the mother who had a comment who had been here in the Congress trying to raise the discussion, he drew her attention to her and something she had said and Condoleeza Rice never acknowledged her, never said she was sorry about the death of her son, never gave any attention to the fact that this woman in pain was attempting to create this discussion.

So tonight there is a mother who has not been answered, who has been trying to get some response from Donald Rumsfeld. Now, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) has put together a letter to Rumsfeld saying, please talk to her. Not only has she been knocking down the door, making the telephone calls, she is talking about other mothers and other families. Please talk to her. Please respond to her.

I signed on to that letter today. We are going to encourage all the members of the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus to sign on to that letter. But I would like to ask all Members here tonight, do you think that we should not only join as the Out of Iraq Caucus in asking Donald Rumsfeld to respond to Ms. Sheehan and perhaps other mothers and families, should we not have an organized way by which they really are talked to, that they have an opportunity to even come to Washington?

If we can offer $40,000 to their children to come to Iraq, can we not help them to come to Washington and be recognized and talk with them, not just in ceremony, not just one day perhaps out of the year; but when they say they need some answers that they want to know, should not we encourage Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice and this administration to be more sensitive, more sensitive?

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Ms. WATERS. Those are certainly tough questions and, of course, just as Condoleeza Rice gave the framed message that she always gives when she is speaking publicly, Saddam Hussein was a terrible man, Saddam

Hussein was a threat to the United States. Now, the Middle East will be better off without Saddam Hussein. Those are the kind of answers I suspect that she would give. But I think when Condoleeza Rice is on national television in an interview where millions of people are watching, and you have a mother who is shown on television raising a question and you do not even take the time to acknowledge that mother, to say, Ms. Sheehan, I am sorry about the loss of your son.

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Ms. WATERS. Well, Cindy Sheehan has already made the inquiry. She had made calls. She has written the letter and now she has asked the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) to help her. He started to circulate a letter, which I signed, and I would like to encourage others, because we are not encouraging her to start this. She has already been doing it. And she is simply put out with the fact that she can get no response, no returned telephone calls, anything. And I think that we should give her some support.

In addition to that, I do think perhaps one of the things we should look at further is support for all the families who have questions, because what I am hearing is families are not being told how their children died. They get the message that it has happened, but when they start to ask for details and particulars they are not getting it. And as they put together these budgets, these budgets ask for whatever they think it is they need. And I think it is time to include in the budgets some assistance to the families, that they can at least be respected enough to be given the information, for somebody to sit down and talk with them and answer the questions, tell the truth. They may not get the truth. They may not get the questions answered in the way they want to, but I think we are going to have to try to work at forcing that to happen.

I am awfully sorry that our time has expired. I see two more Members just entered the room. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) just entered the room and I know that they wanted to be part of this.

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