Iraq Watch

IRAQ WATCH -- (House of Representatives - July 17, 2006)

BREAK IN THE TRANSCRIPT

Ms. WATERS. I thank very much Representative Larson. I would like to thank you for the leadership that you are providing in putting together these opportunities night after night on the floor to illuminate what is going on in Iraq. You are absolutely right.

I am the Chair of the Out of Iraq Caucus, and we have our 1-year anniversary as of this week. We organized because we understood very well that something was very wrong with this war. It was not a popular thing to do, but increasingly, Members began to join. We do have 72 Members. We have other Members who are recognizing, as they work in their districts across this country, that the people of America are sick and tired of this war. They believe that the President of the United States has mismanaged this war, and they want to bring our troops home.

The violence that we are witnessing on a daily basis in Iraq is absolutely unconscionable. The violence is such that not only are the Sunnis being attacked by the Shiias, but innocent people are being killed. Civilians are being killed day in and day out, and to tell you the truth, Mr. Larson, and other Members here and Mr. Delahunt who has worked on this issue so long and so

[Page: H5263]

hard, I think it is easy for us to conclude at this point, no matter how difficult it is, that we have destabilized Iraq with our occupation.

When we went into Iraq supposedly because they had weapons of mass destruction and discovered that there were none; when we decided to change our tune, that is, the President of the United States and talk about wanting to instill a democratic government, the American people said, okay, the President of the United States must know what he is talking about.

So they have a new government. Saddam Hussein is behind bars. There are no weapons of mass destruction, and you know what is going on? The civil war that this President and this administration is in denial about, but if you read the papers today, you even have Sunnis that are saying, well, we do not like the Americans, we do not like this occupation, but you know, we need them now to help us be protected against these attacks that are coming at us on a daily basis.

So we recognize that the President of the United States started this discussion about the training of the Iraqi soldiers and how we were doing such a good job, there was a turning point, and they were going to be able to take over and to provide security for that country.

Well, in the first place, we did not go there. The President of the United States did not tell the American people we were going there, to be in the middle of a civil war, to protect one group from the other. Never said that. And now that is the only reason we are there, because we have got to protect the Sunnis from the Shiias? I mean, that is what our American soldiers are supposed to be doing. Our American soldiers who come from these towns and these hamlets do not know a Shiia from a Sunni, and then they get in situations where they are shooting to kill, and people would criticize them when they do not know what it is they are confronted with. We are there because we have to negotiate this civil war by way of warfare.

I think it is unconscionable what is happening there, and I think it is time for this administration to admit that not only have they made a mistake, but they have not trained enough Iraqi soldiers to take over the security of this country, and there is no number of Iraqi soldiers being trained in sight that will take over the security of this country. These groups who have been at each other's throats for centuries and maybe were contained by a strong man, right or wrong, are in the throes of a full civil war.

BREAK IN THE TRANSCRIPT

Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it was alluded to earlier that not only were we distracted from doing the job in Afghanistan and we have ended up in this morass in Iraq, it was reported, and I do not have the documentation for it, that Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Cheney and some of the other war hawks had said, once we are in Iraq, we tie down; then on to Iran and on to Syria. Now, I do not know if that is true, if Iraq was to be used as a staging ground to then move on to the attack in Iran and in Syria, but I think that the Iranians believe it, and I think the Syrians believe it.

I watch what we are learning every day about the fact that many of those missiles that are being launched from Beirut are missiles that have been manufactured in Syria, and we also know that the Iranians have their hand in support of Hezbollah and what is going on.

Now, this says an awful lot, and you guys alluded to it a bit earlier. Here we are, here we are tied down in the middle of a civil war in Iraq and having threatened with no more than talking about the axis of evil but even beyond that, going into these neighboring countries, and now I think they are about to put us on the run, trying to distract us and have us react in different parts of the Middle East. And of course, we cannot do that with Kim Jong Il looking over our back in North Korea, launching missiles over into the Japan Sea. And we have got Tehran who has told us that they would certainly continue with their development of nuclear capability.

So here we are, Afghanistan, we are spending much of our soldiers' time trying to protect Karzai who is sitting in Kabul and not doing anything, and as you said, the Taliban and the warlords are really running it.

We are getting overwhelmed. We are getting outmaneuvered. We are placing the American people at great risk, and it is about time we just go ahead and tell it like it is. We have created more risk than not, when in fact this war on terrorism was supposed to be about making the American people safer.

BREAK IN THE TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov/