War Supplemental Is Bad Politics, Bad Policy

Floor Speech

WAR SUPPLEMENTAL IS BAD POLITICS, BAD POLICY -- (House of Representatives - March 21, 2007)

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Mr. CARTER. Would the gentleman yield? I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Very good description of what we are looking at this week. And you are right; this may be one of the most critical votes that the people that hold these valuable seats that our people back home gave us are going to cast in their lifetime, because they are going to cast a life-and-death vote here.

You know, as you mentioned, the troops and the 1st Infantry Division that you represent over there in Georgia, I am very blessed to represent the folks at Fort Hood, Texas. We are the only two division posts in the entire world, as I understand it, and I am very proud to represent the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division and III Corps.

As we meet here tonight, the 1st Cavalry Division is in Baghdad, and General Odierno and III Corps are in command.

Now, I have my soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, and I call them mine because I care about every single solitary one of those soldiers as they serve our country. I have them in harm's way tonight as we stand here, with great generals who know what they are doing, know their mission, and are ready to accomplish it.

I don't think the American people have really understood what General Petraeus is trying to do with what some are calling a surge, but more familiar to our soldiers is a call for more boots on the ground; or as Jack said, for somebody to take your back.

But the real issue here is what is the plan for victory that General Petraeus has painted for us. Well, the plan is to involve Iraq in their own defense. The plan is for one battalion of American soldiers to back up a brigade of Iraqi soldiers as they go in and execute a new policy in the neighborhoods of terror in Baghdad. The Army will be backing up a brigade with a battalion. There are five battalions in a brigade. So that means it is a 5 to 1 ratio is the plan for the Iraqis to be in the fight versus the Americans. The Americans will provide all of the great resources, all of the know-how, all of the skill, all of the training, all the can-do that our American forces provide to the fight. But the Iraqis will go in and they will take care of cleaning out the neighborhoods in Baghdad. They speak the language. They know the culture and the religion. They know the various groups. They can do this in a much more effective way, with the support of General Petraeus' troops. And he has told us that he needs the additional boots on the ground to make this plan work.

Now, I think the American people are a people that believe in winning. You know, I sit around this House in our off time, and what are we talking about, who is going to win the next basketball game competition that is going on in this country? And we are talking about who is going to win, not who is going to lose.

When it is football season, we are looking for a winning season. When we have a baseball team, we want them to have a winning year and to win the pennant. We are a Nation that likes winners. We have the most effective fighting force in the history of man on the ground today, and they can win. And they are telling us we have a plan.

One of the problems that we have run into in Baghdad, and I have learned this by visiting with these generals. I visited just recently with the general who brought the 4th Infantry Division back, and they are ready and training to deploy again next fall for their third or fourth deployment.

What was said was we have demonstrated we can clear out an area like Sadr City, for instance. The 1st Cavalry Division went in 2 years ago and cleaned out Sadr City, redesigned the sewer system, got the electricity system working slightly, got the garbage that had been in the streets for years under Saddam Hussein cleaned out, and they did this under fire. And they also killed or captured the bad guys that they found, and ran the rest of them out of Sadr City. But they didn't have the resources to hold Sadr City.

This plan is to clear, hold, and rehabilitate. That's the plan that General Petraeus talked to the Senate about. That's the plan he has, as I understand it.

And the Iraqis will set up like stations in the various neighborhoods to do the clear with our help; they will do the hold with our help; and then teams will come in from the Army and the Marine Corps and like from the State Department to do the rehabilitation of the area and give them services they practically haven't had under Saddam Hussein, and some have never had in their lifetime.

This is a plan that I think we owe to our soldiers and their sacrifice, to give them a chance to get done. I am heartsick that we have a plan that is supposed to be funding these troops to get this job done that is coming to the floor of the House, and it has provisions in that plan which it looks like to me are saying we don't think you can succeed. Therefore, we are setting up kind of a track to get you out because by a vote for the bill in its present state, we are saying to our soldiers overseas, we don't think you can get the job done and so here is how we are going to get you out, and here is the drop-dead date, August of next year, when you are getting out, like it or not.

You mentioned General PELOSI micromanaging. I have real problems with this bill, and I hope every Member of Congress will look at this bill and look at it in terms of human beings, i.e. our soldiers. It has a provision, and it has a provision which says no unit can go to the fight unless they are certified by someone, that they are fully trained, fully equipped before they are allowed to go. And if they cannot meet that certification on their demarcation date they will be by this bill defunded because they are not certified to go to the fight.

Meanwhile, there are troops in Iraq who are expecting to have a replacement coming in. They have been there for a year. But what does this bill say about those troops in Iraq? In this case, the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, next fall under this bill, once they reach 365 days in theater, this bill defunds those soldiers.

Now, if we fail to certify their replacements and we have defunded the soldiers and now you have a 1st Cavalry Division soldier who is short on gasoline and ammunition in the war, is that where we want that soldier to be? Is that caring for the American troops? And all of this is being managed from here, not from the generals that are in the fight?

I think it is a tragedy that we would even consider doing something like this, thinking we as a body have the military knowledge, superior to the people we just, by the example you gave, by a unanimous vote of the Senate hired a man to do the job.

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