Providing For Consideration Of House Concurrent Resolution 248, Afghanistan War Powers Resolution

Floor Speech

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1146 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order without intervention of any point of order to consider in the House the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 248) directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan, if called up by Representative Kucinich of Ohio or his designee. The concurrent resolution shall be considered as read. The concurrent resolution shall be debatable for three hours, with 90 minutes controlled by Representative Kucinich of Ohio or his designee and 90 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the concurrent resolution to final adoption without intervening motion.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized for 1 hour.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

GENERAL LEAVE

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1146.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?

There was no objection.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1146 provides for the consideration of H. Con. Res. 248, directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan. The rule provides 3 hours of general debate in the House, with 90 minutes controlled by Representative Kucinich and 90 minutes controlled by the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the concurrent resolution and provides that the concurrent resolution shall be considered as read.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important day, and an important debate, in the House of representatives. Last summer, I had the privilege of traveling to Afghanistan and meeting with our brave troops. They are an incredible group of people, proud of their accomplishments, thoughtful and candid about the challenges that confront them. They deserve to know that we are thinking about them and do not take their lives or their fate for granted. It has been far too long since Congress had a full and open debate on the issue of U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

In 2001, I voted, along with the vast majority of my colleagues, to go after the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th. I believe we must have a comprehensive strategy to counter the global threat posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates, no matter where they are in the world--Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, North Africa, and elsewhere. But I also believe that we have serious challenges right here at home. Millions of Americans are out of work. Our economy is just now beginning to emerge from the worst recession in decades. Our schools, our health care, our tax code, our infrastructure--all must be updated for the 21st century if we are to create a better America.

Mr. Speaker, the war in Afghanistan has cost U.S. taxpayers well over $200 billion--none of it paid for. None of it paid for. All of that money has been added on to our debt. And those costs will continue to rise as we fund increasing troop levels and provide the necessary care to our veterans when they return home. Our policy has drastically changed in those 8 years. We are no longer just going after the bad guys. We are engaged in a massive ``nation-building'' effort in Afghanistan.

Now, I certainly don't believe we should abandon the Afghan people. But instead of nation-building in Afghanistan, I'd like to do some more nation-building here at home.

Our allies in Afghanistan, the Karzai government, do not inspire confidence.

The recent election there was characterized by widespread fraud and corruption. Just 10 days ago, Mr. Karzai unilaterally rewrote the election law to ensure that he can handpick the members of the election monitoring commission that oversees voting irregularities. Talk about the fox guarding the chicken coop.

Over 1,000 U.S. servicemen and women have sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan. Over 670 more lives have been lost by our NATO military allies. Thousands more have been wounded, many severely, in ways that will affect the rest of their lives. Suicide and post-traumatic stress among our troops and veterans continue to increase at alarming rates.

Mr. Speaker, last summer I authored an amendment to require the administration to develop an exit strategy for our military involvement in Afghanistan. While my amendment did not carry the day, I believe it demonstrated to the administration that an open-ended commitment was not sustainable. As we know, President Obama outlined such a strategy in his speech at West Point. And I believe it is essential that we in the Congress work to keep the administration to its word. We must fulfill our constitutional responsibilities by making sure that taxpayer funds are spent wisely and with complete accountability and transparency for every dime and every dollar. No more Halliburton and Blackwater scandals. No more projects where fat-cat middlemen walk off with all the money while the Afghan people go without hospitals, schools, roads, or food.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that this is just the first--not the last--debate that we have on the House floor this year over our policy in Afghanistan. The issue is simply too important. The future at stake is too grave. We have sacrificed too much--in the lives and well-being of our soldiers, in the cost to our economy--to wait another year or 2 or 3 for Congress to do its job. We must continue to ask the hard questions and demand straight answers.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I'd like to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday the Iraqi people went to the polls to vote in their latest national parliamentary elections. Millions of Iraqis voted at thousands of voting stations throughout the country. The democratic process is succeeding in Iraq. The people there, despite extraordinarily difficult challenges, are able to express themselves in free elections.

Sunday was a good day for the future of Iraq. Those elections would not have taken place but for the decision of President Bush in 2007 to send over 20,000 surge troops to Iraq in order to establish, ``a unified democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself.'' Those elections would not have been possible but for the sacrifices of our troops and their families. Just 4 months ago, Mr. Speaker, President Obama announced a surge strategy for Afghanistan. He committed 30,000 additional forces to a counterinsurgency strategy that I believe will help to strengthen the government in Afghanistan's security forces, as the surge did in Iraq.

Since President Obama's announcement, we've seen considerable results. For example, last month, our troops began what is known as the Marjah offensive. The joint offensive with the Afghan National Army and coalition partners has pushed the Taliban out of Marjah and has allowed the Afghan government to take control of significant areas that were previously controlled by the Taliban. This offensive is what General David Petraeus, the commander of the United States Central Command, has described as the ``initial salvo'' in a 12- to 18-month campaign to defeat the Taliban.

Now I have had and I continue to have, Mr. Speaker, disagreements with policies of President Obama, but I have said privately, I have said publicly, and I reiterate here today, that in the case of Afghanistan, President Obama has demonstrated great responsibility and a sense of the national security interest of the United States. He deserves our support.

Just as our military is making tangible progress, like the Marjah offensive demonstrates, just as this is occurring, many of our colleagues in the majority party now feel that it is time to withdraw from Afghanistan. The resolution that we are set to debate today would require the President to withdraw our troops in 30 days. I believe that that would be precipitous. I believe that precipitously withdrawing our troops would be reckless. I believe it would allow the Taliban to regain control of Afghanistan and thereby provide criminal groups such as al Qaeda with carte blanche to run terrorist training camps and plan terrorist attacks against the United States and our allies. I would remind my colleagues that it was the safe harbor and support that the Taliban gave bin Laden which allowed him to plan the September 11, 2001, attacks from Afghanistan against this country. A reconstituted Taliban will undoubtedly do the same and will pose a significant and grave risk to the national security of the United States.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that we must never allow Afghanistan to once again fall into the hands of terrorists whose sole purpose is to destroy the United States and to kill innocent civilians. Precipitous withdrawal would not only be dangerous, I believe, to our national security, but would constitute a mortal blow to the Afghan people, who are relying on our support.

Although they have far to go, Afghanistan has made demonstrable progress. But if this resolution were to become U.S. policy, all the improvements made by the Afghan people would disappear. Afghans would no longer be given the chance to vote in elections. The Taliban would rule by the edict of terror. It would mean the return of a nightmarish tyranny to Afghanistan. Women would see the rights they have gained disappear as the Taliban once again made women noncitizens and banned young girls, who for the first time are learning to read, from schools.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that now is not the time to turn our backs on the Afghan people. It is not the time to counter the mission of our troops, especially when they are engaged in the first major offensive of President Obama's reaffirmed counterinsurgency strategy. Let us send a message to the terrorists that the United States is committed to our mission to prevent the return to power of the Taliban. Let us soundly defeat this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciated the gentleman from Florida's comments. He spent a great deal of time trying to compare Iraq to Afghanistan. I would remind my colleagues that Iraq and Afghanistan are very, very different countries, different cultures, different levels of education and a different history of centralized government. In Afghanistan, there is no tradition, there is no history of a centralized government. Comparing Iraq to Afghanistan is not comparing apples to oranges. It's like comparing apples to Volkswagens. There is no comparison. And we could have a debate about Iraq, but that should be on a separate day, and we could talk about whether there were any weapons of mass destruction; but today we're here talking about Afghanistan.

I think this is important, and it's an important discussion because this Congress, with the exception of a few amendments that got very little time, has not had a debate or a discussion in this Chamber on Afghanistan since after September 11, 2001. And our policy has changed in a number of different ways over those years, and we still have not had a debate or a discussion on Afghanistan.

So today, hopefully, we will. And my hope is that in this Chamber, where lots of Members talk all the time and very few Members listen, that this may be a day for Members to listen. It is important that we get this right, especially for the men and women who we have deployed over there.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 1/2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree), a member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you very much to my good friend from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for yielding me the time, for his excellent opening statement, and for his response to
our colleague from the Rules Committee as well. And I thank him for being here today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and the underlying concurrent resolution. It is a rare occurrence that Members of this body have the opportunity to devote 3 hours of debate to such an important issue, and it is even more unusual that Members are given a chance for a clean up-or-down vote on ending the war in Afghanistan. Each time an emergency war supplemental, a Defense appropriations bill or a Defense authorization bill has come to the floor, continued funding for the war in Afghanistan is hidden behind spending to create jobs, to provide humanitarian relief or to increase medical benefits to our troops, all of which I support. And privileged resolutions like this, which exercise the constitutional right of the United States Congress to decide whether or not to continue the use of the military force, rarely sees the light of day.

This country has spent over $250 billion, Mr. Speaker, on the war in Afghanistan. The share of my home State of Maine is almost $700 million. And in the next few months, the administration will likely ask this Congress to spend another $30 billion to fund a surge of troops in Afghanistan. At a time when we cannot find $30 billion to create jobs, continue unemployment benefits or help small businesses, we need to ask ourselves, Is the cost of this war worth it? Is it right to spend more money and lose more lives on a strategy that isn't working? Can we afford to turn our backs on the challenges we face at home and to pursue failed policies abroad?

I am an original cosponsor of this concurrent resolution because I firmly believe this war needs to end. We have asked our men and women in uniform to return to combat again and again. They have fought with bravery and helped the people of Afghanistan with compassion. They have risen to meet every challenge and paid every price to defend this country. But the cost of this war is too high. The economic situation in the country is too dire, and the lives of our brave men and women in uniform are too precious for this war to go on and for this issue to be muddled and tucked away in large spending bills.

It is time to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home. It is time for this Congress to demand an open debate on Afghanistan and a clean vote on any future bills that fund this war. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule and the underlying concurrent resolution.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. POLIS. I thank my colleague from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, this Nation does face a very real and immediate terrorist threat. The terrorist threat stems from al Qaeda, which is a stateless menace, a menace that is not rooted in any one location or has any dominion in any one particular area.

In fact, the two countries that our Nation continues to occupy, namely Iraq and Afghanistan, are not significant bases of operations for al Qaeda. It's been recently reported that there are, in fact, only around 50 al Qaeda operatives in the entire nation of Afghanistan, and there could very well be 10 times that number in nations like Yemen and Pakistan.

Yes, there is a very real threat, but the answer is not to continue to indefinitely occupy countries where we only breed more sympathy with those who would do us harm. The correct and more important way to leverage American military might to combat this menace is to have targeted and aggressive intelligence-gathering and targeted special operations against the terrorists no matter where they are.

Some have expressed concerns that if we leave Afghanistan precipitously, al Qaeda could reassert itself there. The answer to that is to go after al Qaeda in a targeted way in Afghanistan if the need arises again. It is not to engage in an indefinite occupation of one or two particular countries. How many more countries would we need to occupy? If they're in Yemen, do we occupy Yemen? If they're in Pakistan, do we occupy Pakistan? If we weren't already in and occupying Afghanistan, would we choose to go in there today? I would submit that the answer is no.

We need to continue our effort to battle terrorists wherever they are and focus on this stateless menace through intelligence-gathering, targeted special operations and a refocused emphasis on homeland security, all of which a very costly and expensive effort in Afghanistan continues to reduce our ability to do by soaking up our national time and resources as well as costing the lives of American soldiers.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. DOGGETT. Today, so very late, represents the first real House debate on Afghanistan since President Obama announced that the path to peace could only be found through wider war. I have continually challenged that policy. But because our security, I believe, will not be found in either the false choice of ``more troops in'' or ``all out now,'' I cannot support the resolution, as I do not support our current strategy in Afghanistan.

This December escalation announcement by the President was counterproductive and somewhat misleading. He tried to have it both ways. He pledged to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, but his plan continues sending troops through near the end of this year. Defense Secretary Gates was more candid. He says that any withdrawal next year will be a ``handful,'' that there is no real Afghanistan exit strategy, and that a large military presence is planned there for ``a very long time.''

With our unceasing commitment to American blood and treasure being poured into Afghanistan, there is no meaningful pressure on President Karzai and his drug dealer and warlord cohorts. They have been much less interested in undertaking the steps necessary to secure peace than in clinging to power and wealth, such as by stealing one-third of the votes in the last election. I believe that the calls for reform have been greeted since that time by Mr. Karzai only by taking over the independent election commission that questioned that election and by the appointment of multiple drug warlord types to the cabinet who are part of the problem. In Afghanistan, reform is a slogan, it is not a reality.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tierney). The time of the gentleman from Texas has expired.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. DOGGETT. We have exercised minimal leverage over Karzai and his cronies, who view our continuing presence there as an invitation to steal all they can get when they get it. The better exit strategy is having fewer troops who need to exit. I agree with General Eikenberry, our former commander and now ambassador, who last November questioned an escalation that would only ``bring vastly increased costs and an indefinite, large-scale U.S. military role.'' He wisely concluded that further increases would ``dig us in more deeply.''

In 2001, I voted for the use of force against the enemies that attacked us, and I continue to support that effort. But unless we pursue a different approach with a more narrow military footprint and a pragmatic exit strategy, we will remain embroiled in a land that has entrapped so many foreign powers throughout the centuries Afghanistan can consume as many lives and as many dollars as we are willing to expend there. As in Iraq, we are on a course for a trillion-dollar war waged on borrowed money. That must be changed to save American lives and America's future.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the author of the resolution.

Mr. KUCINICH. We're either in or we're out. Unless this Congress acts to claim its constitutional responsibility, we will stay in Afghanistan for a very, very long time at great cost to our troops and to our national priorities. Or we can set a date, December 31, 2010, by which we must leave. And this is exactly what the resolution seeks to do.

Congress has to be mindful of our responsibilities under this Constitution, article I, section 8, to claim responsibility for the true casualties, which are now close to 1,000, to claim responsibility for the cost, which is approaching $250 billion and together with the Iraq war close to $1 trillion. And this at a great cost to our priorities here at home for housing, for job creation, for health care, for education; to claim responsibility for the casualties to innocent civilians, the human costs of the war.

Congress must claim responsibility one way or another for challenging the corruption that my colleagues have talked about that has engulfed the Afghanistan administration. We must claim responsibility and understand exactly the role the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has in all of this. We must claim responsibility for debating the wisdom of the counterinsurgency strategies which apparently have failed and claim responsibility for the logistics of withdrawal.

I brought this resolution to the floor of the House with the help of the Rules Committee and the support of the leadership, which believes the debate is merited, because after 8 1/2 years it is time that this Congress be heard from. It is time that we claim our constitutional responsibility under article I, section 8.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was enacted to ensure that Congress has a role in the decision to send the United States Armed Forces into hostilities or the continued use of such forces and hostilities. And my legislation, if enacted, would require the President to bring the Armed Forces out of Afghanistan by December 31, 2010.

As the U.S. Armed Forces and our allies begin the first in a series of large military operations in Afghanistan, it is up to us to have our voice and our vote felt at this important moment.

Regardless of your support or opposition to the war, this resolution is about ensuring meaningful and open debate. And in the 3 hours ahead, I'm confident that this House will have the opportunity to do that so that people, no matter what their position is, can finally be heard from with respect to our constitutional responsibilities.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his courtesy in permitting me to speak on this. I continue to have profound reservations about our troop commitments, first in Iraq and more recently with President Obama's decision to escalate our presence in Afghanistan.

History suggests we will not be successful in stabilizing Afghanistan with military force. No one has. I don't think anyone ever will. Afghanistan today is perhaps the most corrupt country in the world, ranked next to last out of 180, according to Transparency International. If you have a culture of corruption, it's hard to plant seeds. It's hard to rent allies and have them remain loyal. Global economic development through roads and water are not esoteric, abstract issues. These are things that make a difference between people being thugs and, in some cases, feeding their families in any way they can, having little sympathy for infidels and drug problems.

The magnitude of spending that we're involved with here needs to be put in perspective. Each one of these additional troops that we are sending over costs $1 million a year to support. We are going to be spending as a Nation $7,000 for each of the 14.5 million Afghanis in the workforce.

Our military spending per Afghan worker is 20 times what that worker will earn in an entire year in Afghanistan. At the same time, there is a dire need for the most basic of services. In rural Afghanistan, 80 percent drink polluted water and only 10 percent have adequate sanitation.

I have profound reservations about the course we are on and the ability to generate positive long-term, fundamental changes that will persist over time. I think it is absolutely essential that we have this debate. While I don't agree with the resolution that somehow we are going to be able to pull the plug and be able to end this in 30 days or 30 weeks, I do think it is important for Congress to focus on what is here, what is possible.

What we need to be doing is redirecting our effort. We need to start reversing the course that we are on there. We need to narrow our focus. We need to make more efforts to involve the Afghans themselves with water, with sanitation, with education. And we need to make sure that Congress has a voice and is pushing back as the elements come to us.

I don't agree that we are powerless on some of the defense appropriations, for instance. We can in fact push back. We can be heard. And we can start reversing what I think is an inappropriate course.

I welcome the debate today. While I am not going to support the particular resolution, I appreciate my colleagues bringing it forward. I think it is important to engage and for us to imagine how we can do a better job in that troubled country and in that troubled region. The time to begin the discussion is long overdue. I look forward to continued progress.

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think this has been a good discussion today. And I think it is appropriate to have it. I certainly hope that the result is clear, and that this Congress today strongly and in a bipartisan way rejects the resolution that is being brought forth. It would be a grave mistake for us to allow the Taliban to regain power in Afghanistan.

Sometimes the lessons of history may be a little bit more difficult to explain. In this case, when the Taliban was in power they opened the country up to training camps for terrorists to attack the United States. That was in 2001. It is not ancient history. So I hope we don't forget the lessons of history.

In addition, as I said before, Mr. Speaker, our Armed Forces with our coalition allies and the Afghan armed forces are in the midst of the first major offensive in President Obama's new strategy. So I think it would be a grave mistake if this Congress does not clearly and emphatically reject the resolution today.

Having said that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, there is nothing wrong with demanding our troops come home, including forcing that debate by using the privileges of the war powers resolution. There is nothing unpatriotic in demanding that our troops and their families, their neighbors and their communities be told when they are coming home. And Mr. Speaker, there is every reason to debate how we go after al Qaeda and how we create a flexible, mobile, global strategy able to track, find, counter, and strike al Qaeda cells wherever they might be. And there is no reason to run away from a debate over whether 100,000 boots on the ground in Afghanistan is the best strategy to eliminating al Qaeda once and for all.

I do not doubt that our brave military men and women can and will achieve military successes in battle after battle after battle. But are Afghanistan's tribal disputes going to be solved on the battlefield or at the political negotiating table? And if it is going to take a political solution to resolve centuries of grievances, then who is willing to stand at the front of this Chamber and declare how many American lives that is worth?

Mr. Speaker, President Obama has said he will begin to bring our troops home next July, but he didn't say when the job will be complete. Representative Kucinich says let's bring them home by New Year's Eve, this year. We must continue to debate this issue, debate it today, debate it on the supplemental, debate it on defense bills.

Let's debate it when we are begging for resources so our kids can go to quality schools, when we are trying to find the money so every American has a decent job and affordable health care, so we can maintain our roads and our bridges and our waterways, so we can guard our ports and our borders, so we can keep our cops on the beat and our seniors safe in their homes. Let's debate the war in Afghanistan, how we will pay for it, how it will end, when it will end, and when our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors will be able to come home.

Source