National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (House of Representatives - June 25, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield myself 2 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to provide Congress by the end of the year with an outline of our exit strategy for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. This bipartisan amendment, offered by Representatives Walter Jones, Chellie Pingree, Barbara Lee, and me, does not demand a timeline for withdrawal or a halt to the deployment of the 21,000 additional troops called for by the President. It simply asks the administration to present its plan for beginning, middle, and end of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.
For over 8 long years, our uniformed men and women have done all that we have asked them to do in Afghanistan. We are now asking them to do more. And we are giving them more resources and more boots on the ground to accomplish their mission. What we have not told them is how to tell when their contribution to the political solution is done and they can begin to transition out of Afghanistan.
Mr. Chairman, I want President Obama to succeed in Afghanistan. I stand by our commitment to provide the necessary resources to help the Afghan people take charge of their own future. But as Congress authorizes and appropriates billions and billions of dollars for a new strategy in Afghanistan, is it too much to ask how we will know when our troops can finally come home to their families?
Certainly, we need to hold the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan accountable for governing their own nations. But it is incumbent upon us in Congress to hold ourselves accountable--and before we can even do that, the administration must clearly articulate and outline how it envisions completing its military operations in Afghanistan.
Eleven months into its term is not too soon for that outline to be provided. We are asking the Congress be a proper check and balance. We are asking for Congress to do its job. The people of this country want clarity. They are tired of endless wars.
Please support the McGovern-Jones-Pingree-Lee amendment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, President Obama on a recent ``60 Minutes'' interview said he favors an exit strategy. This shouldn't be controversial. We are told that there's a political solution ultimately to be had in Afghanistan. All we are asking is: When does our military contribution to that political solution come to an end so that we know when we can think about bringing our troops back home?
That's all this amendment does. This should not be controversial at all. What we are asking is simply a clearly defined mission, and nothing more.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.
All we are trying to do is fill in the holes of the strategy that President Obama has already articulated. I think the American people would welcome that. I think the Afghan people would welcome that. The notion that we are sending our men and women into harm's way without a clearly defined mission, which includes a beginning, middle and end, to me, is a mistake.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time.
Mr. Chairman, everyone acknowledges that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, only a political solution; but we are putting billions of dollars into building up our military presence without a clear vision of how to bring our troops home, an exit strategy, for lack of a better term. Every military mission has a beginning, a middle, a time of transition and an end. But I have yet to see that vision articulated in any document, speech or briefing.
We're not asking for an immediate withdrawal. We're surely not talking about cutting or running or retreating. Just a plan. If there's no military solution for Afghanistan, then please, just tell us how we will know when our military contribution to the political solution has ended. Requiring an outline for how our military operations are to proceed in Afghanistan so that Congress can effectively weigh the level of investment, both human and financial, is called doing our job, something this body neglected to do throughout the past 8 years.
I welcome the reports, the time frames, the matrixes included in H.R. 2647. But once again, we're trying to define what the administration has failed to articulate for itself. When I first ran for Congress, I promised my constituents that I would never, ever send our servicemen and -women into a war without a clearly defined mission and a clear vision of how we would bring them home safely to their families and to their loved ones. I am sticking to that promise. Please support the McGovern-Jones-Lee-Pingree amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 1/2 minutes.
This amendment is identical to the amendment approved by the House last year. Its purpose is quite simple: for over 40 years, the names of students and instructors at the former U.S. Army School of the Americas and now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation were available to the public. All you had to do was make a phone call, write a letter, file a FOIA request, and the names were provided.
Suddenly in August 2006, the names became classified. The only reason cited by the Defense Department for denying the names was that the list includes personal information, but nothing about the request had changed. No one had asked for new information and certainly none of a personal nature. So for the past 3 years, the names of graduates and instructors at WHINSEC have remained secret. Well--almost secret. Names constantly pop up in WHINSEC PR materials, sometimes with a photo; but the public is still denied access.
In over four decades of public access, not once has there ever been a whisper that the military officers attending WHINSEC were targets. And those were some pretty turbulent years with coups in the southern cone, civil wars in Central America, drug lords, drug cartels and armed groups in the Andes, especially Colombia and Peru. Not a hint that attending the school was dangerous.
The WHINSEC is supposed to be a model for transparency, accountability, and respect for civil society and human rights. What signal does the school send to its Latin American counterparts about our democratic values when it denies access to information that has been available for decades? Vote to restore public access to this amendment. Vote for this amendment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, my friend from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) talked about the fact that the names were being released by WHINSEC. The fact he didn't mention is they're being released to us in a classified form so that no one in the public can see them. And it is not unique for this information to be made public. Other Army, Air Force and Navy military schools and training schools still provide the public with the names of Latin American students. I have a pile of them right here. Each one asserts the needs of the public interest outweigh any consideration for privacy. And I believe that standing up for transparency, accountability, and our own democratic values strengthens our national security and U.S.-Latin American relations. The danger comes when democratic values and transparency are viewed as detrimental.
Mr. Chairman, the House approved this amendment last year; it should approve it again. The cosponsors of this amendment do not agree on the fate of WHINSEC, but we all agree that we need to restore public access to these names.
Look at these lists, Mr. Chairman, all blacked out. Does this look like transparency? Is this democracy at work? Is this the model we want Latin American militaries to copy? The names were public for decades until August 2006. Openness was the norm, not secrecy.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and restore public access, restore transparency, restore accountability. It is the right thing to do.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source