Providing for Consideration of H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on important provisions contained within the National Defense Authorization Act.

I have said many times that too little attention has been given to a long-term political strategy in our fight against ISIL. That is why I worked with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to include an amendment now contained in the bill that requires the administration to develop an integrated political and military strategy to defeat ISIS. Without this strategy, we risk repeating mistakes of the past.

We largely defeated al Qaeda in Iraq militarily in 2009 but failed to follow through on the root causes and ensure the success of Iraqi politics going forward. It created a political vacuum that ISIS grew into. We cannot afford to make that mistake again.

Second, we should all be able to agree that our military personnel and veterans deserve the best health care in the world. That is why I am proud to report the bill also contains provisions I worked on with several Members to address the increased rates of suicide in our military. Since 2012, suicide has been the leading cause of death in our military. In the past 3 years alone, the suicide rate has been nearly 50 percent greater than in the civilian population.

The Department of Defense needs to take an aggressive approach in solving this crisis. My amendment included in the bill would identify trends and instances of suicides and require better proactive and reactive mental health care for active personnel.

Finally, I want to call attention to the urgent need to continue the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans who worked for U.S. forces. A bipartisan amendment before the Committee on Rules now would remove the unfortunate narrowing of eligibility requirements included in the mark, which would prevent hundreds of Afghans whose lives are at risk because of their work for our country from even being considered for resettlement in the United States.

The narrowing of eligibility intentionally excludes hundreds of Afghans who worked for the U.S. State Department, USAID, and U.S. security contractors in a number of capacities, many of whom face well-documented death threats due to their work with our government, regardless of whether that was with frontline troops or on an American base. By narrowing eligibility, the program would erode the expectations of hundreds of Afghan staff whose lives remain in danger because of their work for the U.S. mission and also make it more difficult to hire and retain qualified Afghan staff who are essential to achieving our diplomatic and assistance goals. For that risk and sacrifice, the very least we can do is offer them a chance to stay alive, to keep living, rather than abandoning them to the same enemies they united with us to destroy.

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