Announcement By the Acting Chair

Floor Speech

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Mr. CROW. Mr. Chair, I fully support Ukraine in its existential fight for freedom and democracy. I have also spent years in this Chamber addressing the issue of civilian casualties. In fact, I am one of the founding co-chairs of the Protection of Civilians in Conflict Caucus. Why? Because I spent the formative years of my life in Afghanistan seeing the horrific results of war, including cluster munitions.

However, there are times in this Chamber when a measure doesn't do what we think it does, when it, in fact, does the opposite.

This measure will not stop the use of clusters in Ukraine. I have written to the administration. I have asked for clarity. I have asked for assurances and mitigation measures, and I will continue to do that.

What this measure will do is play right into pro-Russian and pro- Putin propaganda. It will be twisted and contorted by nefarious actors who say that America doesn't support Ukraine and that Democrats don't support Ukraine. That is not where we need to be because that is the history of this bill. That is the history of many of those who are supporting this bill and who have originated this bill. That is the context from which this bill originates.

That is not where progressive, pro-Ukrainian Members should be.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this measure vociferously.

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Mr. CROW. Mr. Chairman, I do a lot of good work with my friend from California, and we have agreed before, but I have to vehemently disagree with him on this particular amendment.

It is framed as an Afghanistan oversight amendment, an issue that is very important to me and which I have worked very hard on over the last couple of years, both before the withdrawal from Afghanistan and after the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

It lists a number of efforts and a number of data points and information and documents that it wants the government to turn over.

If only somebody had thought of this before. If only we thought about doing oversight of Afghanistan before; like maybe the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, SIGAR, or maybe the Abbey Gate investigation, or maybe the thousands of documents that CENTCOM already has on its website, or maybe the Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee that Foreign Affairs actually just created that I am the ranking member of, or maybe the DOD, State Department, and CIA after- action reviews that exist, or maybe the General Accountability Office investigations, or maybe the IG investigations, or maybe the bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission that we have supported that has eight Democrats and eight Republicans that many of my friends on the opposite side of the aisle won't even agree to fund now, or maybe the 20 pieces of legislation that I and others have supported to make sure that we learn lessons and do this right, or maybe the Afghan Allies Protection Act that I am moving forward to do right by our SIVs, or maybe the Afghan Adjustment Act to make sure that we are helping those Afghans that we evacuated.

I could go on and on about all the efforts that I have worked on, and others have worked on that I would fully support and hope that you would do the same, but this is just a political effort, right?

There is all this other stuff going on that I support that are good, bipartisan efforts. This is duplicative which makes it gratuitously political, and I urge my colleagues not to support this measure.

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Mr. CROW. My friend from California, I will always accept an offer to meet with our families of the fallen. I served in Afghanistan, as you know, and some of my friends and people that I served with made the ultimate sacrifice, but this is not the way to advance this mission and get this done.

As the ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee, I will work with you to do it the right way.

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