Waiving Points Of Order Against Conference Report On H.R. 5631, Department Of Defense Appropriations Act, 2007
WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 5631, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - September 26, 2006)
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1037 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 days to revise and extend their remarks and insert tabular and extraneous material into the RECORD.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Oklahoma?
There was no objection.
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, on Monday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of the conference report for H.R. 5631, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2007.
Mr. Speaker, when the Rules Committee met on Monday night, it reported a rule that waives all points of order against the conference report and against its consideration. Additionally, it provides that the conference report be considered as read.
Today, I rise to support the rule for H.R. 5631 and the underlying legislation. This piece of legislation is a hard-fought compromise between the House and the Senate. The required give and take in this case is a tremendous example of the dedication that Members of both bodies of Congress and both political parties have when it comes to supporting our troops in the field.
Mr. Speaker, many said we could not be at this point today. Many expected compromise could not be reached. I am pleased to say this has not been the case.
Furthermore, the underlying legislation also provides the continuing resolution for the government to remain in operation until November 17. This represents a great compromise and maintains the lower funding levels from either the House or Senate from the previous year or the fiscal year 2006 current rates. H.R. 5631, in short, represents good, bipartisan, bicameral work.
Mr. Speaker, the primary purpose of the underlying legislation is to secure and improve the defense of our country. To that end, the underlying legislation provides for several critical needs for our forces. First, its overall level of funding provides $377.6 billion plus $70 billion in the fiscal year 2007 bridge for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Additionally, a full $17.1 billion is provided for the Army for the purpose of resetting and refurbishing the force. This is particularly critical at a time when the Army clearly requires and deserves additional funds to fulfill the many complex and dangerous missions it has been called upon to undertake.
Other critical expenditures in this legislation includes significant dollars for the Army's future combat systems, the Navy's shipbuilding program, and aircraft research and development and procurement by the Air Force.
Rather than focusing on the specific numbers, however, I want to address the fundamental reasons for the underlying legislation and the challenges that it attempts to address.
Mr. Speaker, today we are at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and are embarked upon the greatest military rebuilding effort in a generation. While our forces are stretched, they are doing a magnificent job. There is no doubt of their dedication, professionalism, and commitment to the missions we have asked them to fulfill. Frankly, we ask more of them than anyone should have to give; yet when we do, they always exceed our expectations.
Mr. Speaker, our combatant commanders and the administration have been very open during the multiple oversight hearings about the challenges they foresee in what they refer to as the long war. It is not a war that can be fought and won by force alone. It is one that requires military action, but also reconstruction, stabilization, and the fostering of democratic concepts and structures of government in areas and among peoples who have been subjected to dictators and totalitarian regimes for decades.
This task is neither simple nor easy. However, it is necessary for the security of our country. When the American people are asked to support our troops in the field, they always respond with the generosity and commitment required of them. Historically, however, Congress and the President have not always funded the military in peacetime at levels necessary to adequately protect us from future threats. I believe that many of the challenges we face today come from underfunding our military during the 1990s.
Mr. Speaker, today we may hear that the force is stressed. We may hear that we don't have enough troops. We may hear about excessive deployment rates. We may hear about increasing levels of stress on military personnel and their families. In large measure, I accept these assertions as true, but they are issues that have grown out of an historical reluctance to see the world for what it is, a very dangerous place.
At the end of the first Bush administration in 1992, we were left with a military that was much larger and could have sustained operations in the current environment for a much longer period of time. During the 1990s, many of the forces we wish we had today were RIF'ed, disassembled, retired and transferred in pursuit of the so-called ``peace dividend.''
If there is one thing we should learn from this experience, it is that the military is like life insurance: it is expensive, and no one wants to pay for it, but it is there for a specific purpose and to be used when the situation requires.
We have clearly seen what the misguided decision to reduce our forces from 15 divisions and then down to 10 divisions has meant for the Army. It has resulted in a force that is burdened, strained and stretched by our historically naive decisions.
Mr. Speaker, the road out of this situation is not easily traveled. It is one that will require the sustained commitment and support of the administration and both Houses and both parties in Congress. This bill is a step in that direction. It is a step toward achieving our objective in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a step toward building a future for us that can meet America's changing security needs. This is an ongoing process.
However, Mr. Speaker, some today may try to make the underlying legislation out to be more comprehensive than any bill can possibly be. They will argue it should be the final answer, a cure for all problems. This is not, and, indeed, this can never be.
The defense of our country requires a constant vigilance born of necessity. And the funding, sizing and transformation of our military forces is by necessity an evolutionary process. One appropriations bill will not meet all of the challenges or solve all of the security needs of our country. However, this bill is a real substantive and incremental step in securing our future.
Mr. Speaker, the appropriators have forwarded us a bill that is substantial, sound, and needed.
It is a robust vote of confidence in our servicemen and prioritizes the funding on ongoing operations. It is one that I believe we should support. And after all is said and done here today, I am convinced that this bill will indeed receive an overwhelming bipartisan vote of support in this House.
To that end, Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule and the underlying bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, let me take a moment to make a couple of points in response to my good friend from Wisconsin's observations. First, on the bridge fund for appropriations for ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, I just want to note for the record, it is considerably higher than it has been in the past, $70 billion, I believe, as opposed to $50 billion. That is a significant increase.
Also, that bridge fund allows us to frankly adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield. The reality is battlefields do not move in budgetary cycles, or wars do not.
And, finally, it keeps us from building in a lot of expense of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq into the permanent base. We think it has been a good procedure to move forward with in this conflict. In terms of the cuts my friend mentioned, let me just say again for the record, if we check each year, we actually spend more money than we do the year before, and on more things.
We have many, many choices to make, many, many tough decisions to make. The most important priority for government is always the defense of its citizens and the operation of its military. I would actually argue, I would probably agree with my friend, we should have been spending more there, we should have spent more there during the 1990s.
In every other area of government, the reality is, including education, you mention No Child Left Behind, our expenditures are considerably higher than they were just a few years ago, and they continue to grow every year.
So while we would all like to do more, the reality is we have increased the expenditures considerably. Some would argue too much.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I actually came here to debate the defense budget, but I am happy to respond to a number of points that my good friend from Maryland made.
Let me first say I appreciate his recognition for the outstanding work the Republican Congress did in the final 4 years of the Clinton administration balancing the budget and dragging our friends across the aisle kicking and screaming to that laudable thing.
Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield on that point?
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I did not interrupt my friend. I would like to finish my remarks if I may.
Not only did I appreciate the recognition that the budget was balanced with a Republican Congress, I also would ask my good friend simply to recall the situation this administration inherited, a recession that began literally within weeks after the President took office, followed by the shock of 9/11, which sent this economy, we think, into a tailspin.
We had 3 consecutive years of reduced revenue by the Federal Government, the first time since the 1930s that that would happen, and frankly something that I would not blame on any party. I simply think it was an incredibly unfortunate confluence of events with a growth era that had run its course, and was coming down, hit by a dastardly attack that I know we all agree was a great tragedy in American history.
Given that, I think the policies that the President pursued and this Congress supported of cutting taxes, reviving the economy, beginning to create jobs and now increasing the amount of revenue available to us were indeed the right course. And indeed the budget deficit has gotten progressively smaller as those policies have kicked in and been allowed to work.
The challenge in front of us now is coming again to the spending restraint that we found in the bipartisan fashion during the 1990s. I would just point out to my good friend that I very seldom see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle come here and tell us we need to spend less money. They usually propose more money on almost every piece of legislation than we propose.
Ergo, I suspect that means taxes need to go up, because they not only want to cover the current deficit, they want to spend beyond the current spending levels or higher than current spending levels. So on that we are simply going to have a debate and disagree.
I am happy about this legislation. As my good friend from California mentioned, we had wonderful bipartisanship in the conference. We have a product that we can both be proud of. I think both parties and all Members are doing the appropriate thing for the men and women that are serving us in uniform. I look forward to continuing the discussion.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, as you know, I have been here for many years, 26 to be exact. The gentleman mentions 9/11, a cataclysmic event in the history of our country. He is right to mention that. Obviously it cost us money.
But I have served here for 26 years, as the gentleman knows, 18 of these have been with Republican Presidents, 8 with a Democratic President. I tell my friend, in every one of the 18 years with a Republican President we ran deficits above $100 billion.
During the Clinton administration, as you know, we ran 4 years of surplus and 4 years of decreasing deficits, the only President in our life time who had a surplus, i.e., $62.5 billion surplus; the only President in our lifetime who did that during his tenure.
Further, I say to my friend, in 1993, with Democrats in control of the Congress of the United States, and with not one Republican vote, we passed an economic program which raised revenues, which you mention frequently, I do not mean you personally, but your party mentions frequently, but you never mention the fact that in that same bill, we cut $254 billion in spending.
Furthermore, in terms of spending, you say restraint of spending. Democrats do not control spending at all. We do not have control in the House; we do not have control in the Senate. Yet the Republicans have spent, as you well know, at twice the rate of spending under the Clinton administration. I thank you for yielding.
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time.
Well, again I want to thank my friend, in a very back-handed, but I think very obvious fashion thanking that Republican Congress which was actually in control of the purse strings. And I will leave it to the American people to decide who they want as the next President of the United States.
But you have made a very eloquent case, in my opinion, for the continuance of a Republican majority in Congress, because that is when spending control was actually achieved. I thank my friend.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Again, I came here largely to talk about the defense bill, but I want to discuss some of the points my good friend from Ohio made. While I respect him, I respectfully disagree.
Frankly, the administration, this government, never claimed we went to Iraq because of 9/11. We claim we went there because they repeatedly violated U.N. resolutions and they were pursuing activities, as indeed they were, to get themselves out of sanctions, and they expelled weapons inspectors from their country. Every intelligence agency in the world believed they were pursuing weapons of mass destruction; and, indeed, the reality is we probably simply caught them early in the process, rather than later in the process.
I think my friend's comments are based on the unstated but very real premise that this war is somehow better off if Saddam Hussein was still in Baghdad. That is simply an assertion or an opinion that I reject. I have been to Iraq six times, as many of my colleagues frankly on both sides of the issues have been numerous times, and I simply remind my friends what Saddam Hussein and Baghdad meant: two regional wars that more than 1 million people died in; twice close to nuclear weapons, once in 1981, once in 1991; 270-odd mass graves in Iraq.
I have been to Iraq. Nobody in Iraq wants Saddam Hussein back. Nobody in Iraq, at least of any significant numbers, would tell you that they lived in a good era, and everybody in the region I think would tell you that the region is better off without him.
That does not mean that we have an easy situation that is confronting us. Indeed, it is very difficult and I would acknowledge that up front, but I think it calls for perseverance. I think an immediate withdrawal would be a disaster for the region and, frankly, would endanger people, thousands of whom have placed their faith and their confidence in the United States of America.
I am extraordinarily proud, as I know each and every Member of this body is, of the men and women that wear the uniform of the United States and do the tough job that we ask them to do. I think in the long view of history people will look back on this and say they did a very important job very well for this country and, like their fathers and grandfathers before them, for the region in which they were deployed, because where they go, democracy has followed.
Democracy certainly was not going to break out on its own in Iraq, nor was Saddam Hussein going to wither away on the vine in Iraq, in my opinion.
So I respect the decision that the President and the administration made, that this Congress on a bipartisan basis supported, dozens of my friends on the other side of the aisle voting in favor of giving the President the right to use force; half, I believe, of our friends in other body on the other side of the aisle voting for the President to have the option to use force and go into Iraq.
That is something we ought to remember as we have this debate. We did not go to war on a partisan vote. We went to war on a bipartisan decision.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to differ with my good friend from New York on something. I actually never mentioned President Clinton. You did. I talked about the 1990s, and I think there were mistakes in terms of size in our force by a Democratic President and a Republican Congress. I say this as somebody who was very pleased to serve in my first term on the Armed Services Committee where Members on both sides generally found themselves out of step with the majority on this body on the floor and the administration and wanted to do more. So I do not think this was a partisan mistake. I think this is a bipartisan error in judgment and a mistake about the way the world is, and I think my remarks reflected that.
In terms of talking about whether or not the President told us the truth, I think the record is very clear that he did tell us the best intelligence estimates that we had. And I suspect that most members of the Intelligence Committee, if you look at the committee and go back and look at how they voted on a bipartisan basis, you will find there was considerable bipartisan consensus that that was indeed the case.
Fair enough to say that there is now evidence that the judgment was wrong. I think that is legitimate to bring up and discuss. What concerns me is, quite often, because we now disagree with the judgment, we have to attack the motives of the people who made the judgment at that time. I disagree with that. I think the motives were good motives. We can argue about whether or not the decision was correct, but I do not think the President of the United States deliberately misled this body, nor did this body deliberately mislead the American people in the war. That is my opinion and my view of it.
In terms of not caring about the war on terror, I would submit that is simply not the case. We can disagree about tactics, we can disagree about methods, but the fact that this country has not, thank goodness, and I always knock on wood when I say it, suffered another attack since 9/11, something that nobody on 9/12 would have predicted, is not an accident. It has happened because millions of Americans, thousands of people in uniform, our intelligence system, our border people and, frankly, people in this body have made tough and good decisions to try and keep this country safe.
Now, could it be safer? I will quote the President. We are safer, but we are not safe. I think that is the record, but the reality is we are considerably safer today they than we were on 9/10, the day before, when we had no earthly idea the danger that we were facing and had not taken the preparations in my opinion that we should have taken to deal with it.
I don't judge people harshly for that. People make mistakes, and it is easy to have 20-20 hindsight and be a Monday morning quarterback. But I do give credit when the record shows that somebody has succeeded, and I would tell you, in my opinion, this President, this administration, and, frankly, this Congress has by and large done the right things to keep the country safe over the last several years.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I simply want to respond to a number of the points my good friend made. First, let me for the record go back and remind people of all the statements that we could line up here of one American leader after another, of both political parties, who told us that Saddam Hussein had active weapons of mass destruction and was actively pursuing those programs.
It was this Congress, under President Clinton, that passed legislation that made it the object of American policy in 1998 to remove him from power because we thought he was a very dangerous person. So I do not think you can say everybody knew that that wasn't the case. Quite the opposite, in my opinion, is true. Most people saw him as a danger.
In my opinion, they were correct. They may not have had an exact count of what he had available, but I think given his record of having used chemical weapons against his own people, of having launched the wars, of having tried twice and come close twice, according to our people, in acquiring numeral weapons, they were right, particularly in light of 9/11, to be very skeptical and very concerned.
Second, I will ask our colleagues to take somewhat of the long view here. If this were 1954-55, we could all get here and say, gosh, wasn't Korea a terrible thing; it is a dictatorship, 50,000 American lives, what a waste. The reality is, if you look at Korea today, the sacrifices, the decisions made by a Democratic President, Truman, I think worked very well. There is a democracy there. It is secure. Thank goodness we made the tough decisions in that part of the world. I think Iraq will look the same way down road.
Finally, I want to deal with my friend's concern about the war in Iraq has made us less safe or has stimulated terrorism. I have not had an opportunity to read, obviously, the classified document, which I understand today is now going to become available to all of us, so I want to preface my remarks by noting that I want to read what they actually said. But I do want to offer this observation. To say that somehow that Iraq has fostered Islamic terrorism and that Afghanistan somehow wouldn't have is just counterintuitive to me. If Iraq did it, and we were in Afghanistan alone, which nobody seems to debate, we would still have that same force running through the Islamic world, that same stimulus. It is a reaction, I think, to us legitimately defending ourselves in the case of Afghanistan. It would occur just as surely as it has in Iraq.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. I thank my friend, and I would just like to point out, is it not true, however, that we were told by the intelligence community that even if Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction, that they would most likely use them only if we attacked?
Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate my friend's observation, and I would be happy to deal with it, but I think that comment can be handled on your side and I look forward to the discussion.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, today, in closing, I again want to draw the attention of the Members to the strength of the underlying legislation, H.R. 5631. We have had a vigorous and good debate on the rule and the underlying legislation today, which I believe will help convince the House to support this vital appropriations measure.
Much of our discussion today, frankly, is not centered on the legislation or the rule; it is focused on the conflict in Iraq. I, for one, simply want to state for the record that I think the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, and I think most of the positions that my friends on the other side of the aisle take sort of ignore the question, is the world better or worse off without him. I think it is better, and it took American action to do that.
I think it is better that there is a democracy in Baghdad; that people have gone in much higher percentages in their population to the polls on three occasions, under difficult situations, than frankly our citizens will go to the polls this November.
I think it is better that that government is actually pluralistic, that represents all the different elements in the country. And I think long term there is more hope in Iraq, and it is a better model for the future in the Middle East than Iran, which simply is neither democratic nor peaceful in terms of its neighbors.
Mr. Speaker, the underlying legislation takes critical and incremental steps in funding not only the warfighters' needs of today but the future needs of our warfighters as well. Today, our Nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines require and rely on the passage of this legislation. And despite the vigorous debate we have had today over Iraq, I have no doubt that that legislation and this funding measure will receive strong bipartisan support in this House. I am very confident that this House will not let them down.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure it is no surprise that I intend to vote for the rule and the underlying legislation, and I would urge my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
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