Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the Chair.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, could I have a further inquiry. Do we anticipate that there is some prospect that an actual vote might be allowed on this amendment?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I cannot believe Members of Congress saying the American people are not generous, they are not willing to give. We borrowed $79 billion in the spring to pursue the war in Iraq. We are going to be asked to borrow $87 billion more in the name of the American people tonight. But what we are saying here is for the money to build the infrastructure, not rebuild, this is not war damage, this is to give the Iraqis a spiffy new state-of-the-art telecommunications system, water and sewer, roads and bridges, all sorts of things the American people would like to have, good projects, public works, but to give it to them free of charge, because Saddam Hussein stole their money and neglected to do it. Now, this is a country that has seven thousand billion dollars in oil reserves, and we cannot ask them to foot a little bit of the bill? How about when we talk about welfare people in this country, ``have them bootstrap themselves.'' Well, how about having the Iraqis pick up half of the bill to build their country? Otherwise, we are going to obligate Americans, working Americans, for the next 30 years, to carry the entire tab for building this country, not rebuilding it, and committing the American people to pay for projects there that we need here at home that are being neglected because we do not have enough money. We cannot borrow the money here in the United States of America to build the roads, bridges, highways, water and sewer systems, to pay extended unemployment benefits out of the trust fund, but we can borrow the money in Iraq to pay for no-show jobs, to build water systems, sewers, state-of-the-art telecommunications and all that, and we cannot ask them to obligate themselves out of a seven thousand billion dollar oil reserve to pay a tiny fraction of that? One gentleman said it is one-fifth of one percent of our GDP and we should not care. It figures out to one-fifth of one percent of their seven thousand billion dollar oil reserves. Fair is fair. They should at least pick up half of the bill.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to be in the well this evening to offer an amendment to the pending legislation, the legislation under which the House of Representatives has been asked by the President of the United States to borrow $87 billion to continue to pursue the conflict in Iraq and nearly $20 billion of that will be used to build Iraq. This is not an issue of rebuilding Iraq; it is building Iraq. Many of the things that are included in this legislation will provide Iraq with infrastructure that they could not even have dreamed of before this war: wireless Internet network, a 911 cellular system, new sewer systems, combined cycle turbines for their electricity. These are not things that were destroyed in the war; they are things that were neglected through 30 years of dictatorial rule by Saddam Hussein. And now we are being told that somehow it is the responsibility of the American people to borrow money to construct these projects generally in an exorbitant price. I had hoped to offer an amendment to the American Parity Act that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) and I introduced early in the year, that would require that we match dollar for dollar the expenditures in Iraq with similar expenditures in the United States. For instance, under this legislation we are going to invest, the United States of America is going to borrow on behalf of the American people and send $50 million more to Iraq to further improve their port, which is already a fully functioning port in which the American people have already invested $50 million since the war. But I have ports in my district that cannot get a penny for dredging. Under this legislation, the United States Congress is going to borrow, at the request of the President, on behalf of the American people, and send to Iraq tens of millions of dollars to pay Iraqis for no-show jobs, former members of the regime, former members of the military. They will be paid not to work. Yet the President tells us that we cannot afford to draw down the $20 billion unemployment trust fund here in the United States of America and give extended unemployment benefits to Oregonians and others who have exhausted their benefits and cannot find a job through no fault of their own. We are going to give them a state-of-the-art energy infrastructure despite the fact that the lights blinked out here in the eastern U.S. this summer, in my part of the country two summers ago. Our whole system is underinvested in, unstable, but the Iraqis have 1960s boilers, and Mr. Bremer is appalled so we are going to purchase them brand new combined-cycle turbines at exorbitant prices to be installed by Halliburton and others to give them a state-of-the-art energy infrastructure with money borrowed from the American people. The American people are going to borrow money and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy new AK-47s for the police force of Iraq. We could not even have a buy America provision and give them M-16s or something made in the United States of America. These things are not going to benefit the American people. I do not believe they are going to protect our troops. Our troops need the flak vests, they needed armored Humvees. They need rides all the way home. They need some basic things they are not getting. And none of the billions in this bill are going to that either. But this amendment that I would have offered, I went to the Committee on Rules, and I asked to have it made in order. I said just allow us a vote. All we want is a simple vote up or down, do the Members of this House think it is at least as important to invest in the economic reconstruction and stimulation of this country, putting people to work, unemployment benefits, roads, bridges, highways, hospitals, schools, health care. That would have been a statement from this Congress where we would have put more than a million people back to work by matching the investment in Iraq. But I have been shut down by the Republican majority, the majority Committee on Rules. I am not being allowed to offer that amendment. And that is too bad because I think a majority, a large majority of the American people would support such an amendment. There has been a lot of hypocrisy here tonight. People who said they supported loans instead of grants, but then when they were given finally an opportunity to vote for a loan instead of a grant, those who stood bravely here and said they would support a loan instead of a grant and were denied a vote by the Republican majority, their own party, when they were given a chance to vote on a Democratic amendment for loans versus grants, they voted no. And I hope they are held to account by their constituents. I hope people are held to account by their constituents for the fact that this House, the people's House, the Republican majority, are refusing to allow us to vote on matching investments, investing in our country, in our people, in our infrastructure, in our economy, at least comparable to that which we are borrowing to invest in Iraq.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. The President has requested of the United States Congress, on behalf of the American people, $87 billion to continue the conflict and build Iraq. I only have three problems with the President's request. Every penny of the $87 billion will be borrowed, obligating this generation and future generations of working Americans to foot the bill. It could be paid for; just suspend the tax cuts for those who earn over $300,000. It is a time of war and conflict and sacrifice. Maybe there could be a little bit of sacrifice at the top. Eighty-seven billion dollars is excessive. It is rife with the potential for sweetheart deals and war profiteering. There was a cement plant with a $15 million estimate; done for $80,000. Feed the Iraqi council, 25 people, $5,000 a day. They canceled the contract. They think we are nuts. Mr. Al-Barak on the council says, where you spend a billion dollars, we could do the job for $100 million. So maybe 10 percent of this money is justified. And it is not to repair war damage; it is to build Iraq, not rebuild Iraq. The President is putting the needs of the Iraqi people first with borrowed funds. Now, we are going to borrow money to pay Iraqis for no-show jobs, but we cannot get an extension of unemployment benefits out of the Unemployment Trust Fund. The President says we cannot afford it. We are going to borrow money to build a water system for Basra because, ah, we are appalled, they have an open unlined channel providing water. I have a city in my district in Albany, Oregon, that has an open unlined channel providing water for that city, but they cannot get help from the Federal Government because the President says there is no money. We are providing another $50 million for the Port of Nasra. We cannot get money to dredge ports in the western United States. The President says there is no money. Americans at home need economic security, and the young men and women who we have sent over there need their basic needs in equipment and health care and food and shelter met, and this bill fails on all those points. It is $87 billion that is not going to meet the needs of the American people and the young men and women we have sent into harm's way.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today Congress will begin the debate on borrowing $87 billion to continue the conflict in Iraq and build that country. Not rebuild it, build it. It is not for war damage; it is a vision of people in the Bush administration of the needs of the Iraqis, which apparently exceed the needs of Americans when it comes to clean water. They are appalled that they have open water systems; we have open water systems in the U.S. They are appalled that the port does not have state-of-the-art cranes. Well, we have got a lot of cranes missing from ports in the United States. Then the most outrageous thing is somehow we have troops over there without ceramic body armor. Despite the fact, we appropriated $79 billion earlier this year, $300 million to buy $27 million worth of vests. There was a nearly $400 billion Pentagon budget; could not find the $23 million there. Now, we are told they need another $300 million to buy $23 million worth of vests. How many times are we going to buy these things? What is going on? When are the troops going to get the equipment they need? Billions and billions for contractors, for Pentagon procurement, but the troops do not have the basics. There is something very wrong with this picture.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have heard about the sweetheart deals and the war profiteering in the rebuilding of Iraq, the billions that are being wasted, but how are the troops doing over there on the ground? Not so well, it turns out. Thirty to 40,000 of our troops cannot get $500 pieces of body armor. They are working with flak vests from the Vietnam era which will not stop an AK-47 bullet. We have Humvees with canvas side curtains. Some of our troops are being sent over there with jungle camouflage. We cannot afford that desert camouflage. How is it with the buildup for months by this administration, a $380 Pentagon budget, $80 billion appropriated by Congress last April for this war, that the Bush administration, Secretary Rumsfeld in all of his great wisdom, could not have thought to buy our young men and women body armor, to give them armored Humvees, to get them desert fatigues, boots and sidearms that work, and other critical supplies? They said we just cannot afford it, we need more money, then maybe we will give the young men and women what they need. Mr. Speaker, they can find that money. It is about 2 minutes' spending at the Pentagon.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, next week the Congress will consider the President's request that we borrow $87 billion and indebt the American people for the next 30 years to repay that 87 billion borrowed dollars on top of the $79 billion that Congress borrowed last April to continue the actions in Iraq and build that country. And I say ``build'' because the President has asked for $20.3 billion to build Iraq, not rebuild. We are not talking about war damage. That is a tiny fraction of the cost. This is a guide to the gold-plated construction and war profiteering that the administration has put forward for Iraq. There is no sum too great. Six billion dollars, not to repair the damage to their electrical grid but to update their 1950s and 1960s boilers and generators to 2003 standards and all the other disinvestments. Six billion dollars the American taxpayers will be asked to borrow to give them the state-of-the-art energy grid when lights are blinking out in this country and our rates are going up. No idea is too tangential. The Bush Administration wishes the Iraqis to have wireless Internet. They did not have it before the war. I do not think they even had laptops. Maybe a few of the elite did. But they are going to have it after the war. They are going to have wireless Internet paid for, money borrowed, in the name of the American taxpayer. And then, finally, nothing is too wasteful when it comes to this administration. Mr. Bremer, the pro-consul, signed a contract to feed the 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council handpicked by Mr. Bremer and the President for a mere $5,000 per day. Apparently the food was going to be flown in on an executive jet from some exclusive restaurant in Washington, DC or New York. I do not know how they could spend $5,000 a day for 25 people. The Iraqi Council canceled that and generally said, ``You know, when it comes to reconstruction or feeding ourselves or doing all these other things, help us do it, and we can do it for 10 cents on the dollar.'' They are aghast at what we are wasting. The major point is when it comes to this administration, no sum is too much when it comes to war profiteering and gold-plated construction in Iraq. But it is too easy for them to neglect our troops. We find out that 30,000 of our troops lack body armor. They have been issued flak vests from the Vietnam era. It will not stop an AK-47 bullet. It would cost $15 million to equip those troops with vests, but the Pentagon, which got $79 billion last spring to equip the troops in the war and had a budget of nearly $400 billion last year, said it could not find within that budget, $15 million to give our young men and women those vests. So now, in order to equip those young men and women with the vests they should have had before they went there, they are asking for $300 million. What is this? Yes, $15 million worth of vests are needed, and the Pentagon said they want a $300 million appropriation to do that. But it does not stop there. Some of our troops are over there in their jungle fatigues. Many of them are driving Humvees that have either canvas side curtains or sheet metal doors, which do not do real well with AK-47 bullets or rocket-propelled grenades. Now, they finally came to the conclusion that we should buy some armored Humvees for those troops. The boots, the substandard boots they purchased are wearing out. Some of the troops are wearing jungle fatigues. We cannot afford those desert fatigues for everybody. A $400 billion budget, $79 billion last spring, another $79 billion now. Some of those people are going to have to go over there in their jungle fatigues, wear that Vietnam era flak jacket, drive around in Humvees with canvas side curtains. But yesterday the Bush administration decided they are going to get this all right and fix it. So they appointed Condoleezza Rice to oversee Mr. Bremer, the pro-consul in Iraq, and see if they can do these things better in the future. I have a suggestion for Pro-Consul Bremer and his overseer, Ms. Rice: Why do not they go over there, looking like a target, wearing jungle fatigues, and wear a Vietnam era flak jacket and drive a Humvee with canvas side curtains, instead of going around in their armor-plated Suburbans, surrounded by Bradley Fighting Vehicles with helicopters overhead, and they say they have been there and are doing what the troops need. The troops are not getting what they need, and we are wasting billions to rebuild that country.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, and every penny of those billions will be borrowed, not only hitting hard at the needs today and causing cuts in the budget today and giving the President an excuse to say we do not have the money to rebuild our bridges and highways and waste water systems or do adequate homeland security and port security and we do not have enough money for education and we do not even have enough money for flak jackets for the young men and women over there, but every penny of those billions will be borrowed, indebting future generations of working Americans to pay for this misadventure, with no consequences. The people who were so wrong. Mr. Wolfowitz, who I quoted earlier, who said Iraq would pay for itself, they are still making policy and spinning out fantasies at the White House. There are no consequences for making mistakes that cost the American people $20 billion in this White House.

Mr. DeFAZIO. M.

Mr. DeFAZIO. If I could document that for a second. Ahmad al-Barak, who is a member of the Governing Council named by the United States of America, said that ``Savings could be a factor of ten. Where they spend $1 billion, we could spend $100 million.'' He said that on the day that they canceled the $5,000-a-day contract to feed the 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council entered into by Mr. Bremer, the former Chief Pro-Counsel before Ms. Rice. Apparently, they were flying the food in from Sardi's from New York on 747s. I do not know how they got the price up that high, but ten cents on the dollar.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Briefly, I do not want to sour that because it certainly was a much better international effort, but there was an $11 billion payoff to Egypt where we forgave their debt.

Mr. DeFAZIO. That is not connected.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Yesterday I was in Cottage Grove, Oregon, in a National Guard dispatchment from Cottage Grove, Oregon, 600 men and women are about to be deployed to Iraq for a year. And yet I hear, and I understand, that despite the protestations of this administration and the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars at their disposal, that they may not have the proper equipment, that they may not have the flak vests that will stop an AK047 bullet. They may not have the armored HUM-V's that they may need. They may not even have the desert camouflage. So I suggest that maybe those members of this administration who are waxing so eloquent about how things are going, maybe they should go over there and wear forest green camouflage instead of desert camouflage, wear a Vietnam-era flak vest and ride in a HUM-V with canvas windows and plexiglas around the country, not in their super- armored Suburbans, air conditioned, state-of-the-art, surrounded by helicopters and everything else and then come back and say how great things are. Go over there and experience what our young men and women are experiencing over there, and maybe they will come back a little bit humbled, and maybe they will want to do a little bit more to resolve this, to safeguard our men and women and to resolve this situation, honestly, as opposed to spinning and spinning and spinning. These people are never wrong, never wrong, no matter what. You can go back and find 15 misstatements. They can be off by $100 billion and a couple of hundred American lives, but they were not wrong. They are never wrong.

Mr. DeFAZIO. If we took the $20.3 billion the President is proposing that the American people borrow and spend and invest in Iraq, and we spent and invested that money here in the United States of America, in the same things, in sewer, water, bridges, roads, airports, stable electricity, we would create a million jobs, a million jobs here in the United States of America. But instead we are going to create obscene profits for a few contractors, maybe do a little bit on the ground for the Iraqi people. But the bottom line is, we are borrowing money and ignoring the needs here. Yes, I know more than anybody. My district, my State has the highest unemployment rate in the Union. My State has led the country for more than a year having the highest unemployment rate in the Union. We have a $4 billion highway bridge problem on the interstate highway system, and the President says there is no money to repair it. Well, there is $16 billion sitting in the highway trust fund. He would not even have to borrow it. He is borrowing money to invest in Iraq, but he will not even spend money we have paid in taxes here in the United States of America to invest in our highways. He says we do not have money to invest in the airports. There is $4 billion in that fund. He says we do not have money for extended unemployment benefits. There is $16 billion in the unemployment trust fund paid by taxes of employers and workers, and the President will not draw it down. We are paying hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for no-show jobs or for the fact that they used to be part of the military over there, but we do not have money to extend unemployment benefits in this country. There is something very wrong with the priorities of this picture.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, in fact, the intelligence information, which was available to Mr. Wolfowitz, to Mr. Cheney, to President Bush, and all the others who formulated this policy, Ms. Rice who has been promoted to Pro-Consul now, that intelligence information which said that, in fact, the Iraqi oil infrastructure was in miserable shape, not capable of producing large amounts of oil, not capable of paying for its own reconstruction, was either not read by all of these esteemed people in this administration, or ignored, or deliberately distorted. Because they told us, the American people, do not worry; they are going to pay for it themselves. But now they are handed a very big bill, not just to this generation. I talked to a bunch of high school kids in my district yesterday. I said, ``We are giving you the bill.'' There is a joke going around, why do politicians smile at babies? It is because they are being given the bill to rebuild Iraq. They are the next generation.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we will bring down in the actual quotes and not have to characterize it. Following in this vein, you know, arguably the architect of this policy man who has been advocating a war with Iraq since the last war in Iraq ended, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary, when talking about misjudgments, and this is a direct quote, not a characterization, ``There is lots of money to pay for this that does not have to be U.S. taxpayer money and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and a $100 billion over the course of the next 2 or 3 years. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.'' That is a direct quote. Mr. Wolfowitz, held in high regard by this administration, said Iraq would rebuild itself, no cost to the American people. So thus far, if we just add up the first reconstruction bill and the second reconstruction bill, he is wrong by $20 billion, $20 billion that this President is asking this Congress to borrow on behalf of the American people, indebting future generations of Americans, to build, not rebuild. Remember, much of this is not rebuilding war damage. This is building Iraq in the vision of Halliburton and all the gold-plated defense contractors. We might get into that later. There is a wonderful little piece here I have from the administration on that. But that is what the money is. It is going to be borrowed and spent in Iraq, not providing jobs here, infrastructure here, but building infrastructure in Iraq in the vision of Paul Wolfowitz who is wrong by a magnitude of $20 to $100 billion at least in addition to the lives that have been lost. But has he been held to account? No, he has been held in high regard.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just restate briefly from what I have heard from the three gentlemen who have gone before me, because I think it is very important for the American people. I mean, it would be one issue if there was misjudgment that was costing the American people tens of billions of dollars. The President is asking us to borrow $87 billion and put into debt future generations of Americans to pay it back. We do not have the money. It is going to be borrowed. Thirty years, people will work for the next 30 years to pay it back. But really not wealthy people, because they do not pay taxes anymore, but working people. So there is a question, if someone in my administration made a mistake that was causing the American people 30, 50, 100, 200 billion dollars, maybe there would be a consequence. Then we go to the issue of lies. There was an extraordinary article in the press today which said the President said our troops have the best equipment possible; they have everything they need. And we find out the young men and women over there have Vietnam-era flak jackets that will not stop bullets from AK-47s. $400 billion budget at the Pentagon, $80 billion from Congress last spring, and they are just now placing the orders. Individual families have been buying these kids state-of-the-art flak jackets, available for $500 in the private sector in the United States, and mailing them to the kids who are serving the United States of America. So you get to the next level which is beyond someone simply made a mistake to extraordinary incompetence, extraordinary incompetence that is costing the American people tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 30 years. It is costing young American men and women their lives today as we speak. And yet no one has lost their job. No one who planned this, no one who made this case, no one has been involved. In fact, they are being promoted. As you said, Condoleezza Rice has been promoted now to be Pro-Consul over Afghanistan and Iraq because she has been doing such a great job. What has she been doing a great job on?

Mr. DeFAZIO. But we did find in a refrigerator of an Iraqi scientist purportedly one vial of botulin toxin, which, of course, you can find basically at any ag school or any research lab anywhere in the United States, but for only $300 million we did find that and that apparently presented, according to this administration, a real and present danger to the United States of America, that one vial of toxin, which, of course, is readily available. In fact, I think you can still buy them and have them shipped in the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Not only do they need flak jackets; they could use desert camouflage. They are not in forests. But I talked to one dad at the early part of the war. I thought this had been corrected, but I find out now it has not; we are still sending National Guard over there without even desert camouflage. We cannot afford it. We can afford all these other things, gold-plated contracts, but we cannot afford to give these young men and women, selflessly putting their lives on the line, not only flak jackets but desert camouflage so they can blend in a little better.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, we heard some amusing speeches earlier about the new Washington Waste Watchers, the gentleman from Texas and some other Republican over there. I guess that their vision does not extend too far. First of all, the Republicans control the White House, every agency of the Federal Government, the House and the Senate. If there is waste, fraud and abuse, well then, they should take care of it. But they are too busy asking the American people to borrow $87 billion to build Iraq in the vision of the neoconservatives in the White House that put this failed policy on us and pursuing this adventure. Right here, here it is. The gold-plated guide to war profiteering in Iraq, otherwise known as the Coalition Provisional Authority Request to Rehabilitate and Reconstruct Iraq. Most of it has nothing to do with reconstructing Iraq or war damage that we caused. Now, there is an argument that could be made that we should repair war damage. But these are things that the Iraqis never had, they have not had ever. We are talking about, well, they have 50-year-old steam boilers, so we have got to spend $6 billion on their electric grid. Guess what? The lights are blinking out here in the eastern United States and on my coast a couple of summers ago, the West Coast, because we are underinvesting here. The President can ask to borrow $6 billion not only to rebuild the little bit of damage we did, but to give them a state-of-the-art system. The American people will pay for that for 30 years. How much is he asking to invest in the United States of America? A big goose egg. Yeah, I guess the eye on Waste Watchers on Washington does not go to waste watchers in the war profiteering and the rebuilding of Iraq. Let us take up a couple of other subjects. $1 billion will be borrowed by the American people at the request of the President and Republican Congress to train the police in Iraq. Certainly and arguably, we should have a trained police force. But it is extraordinarily expensive because they say, Well, first off, they have to build a facility to train them outside the country. They cannot train them in Iraq. The French, they offered to train the Iraqi police in Iraq for free. But, God forbid, those French, we should accept anything from them. They are a lot better at policing, military policing in these sorts of situations, have a lot more experience than we do, but we are going to hire consultants and pay $1 billion, borrow $1 billion to take the Iraqis out of their country to train them. Then we have got to arm them. Of course, the U.S. military has confiscated hundreds of thousands of weapons, many in the original grease and wrappers. But, no, that is not good enough for the Iraqi police force. We are going to spend $200 million to buy them brand-new weapons. I thought, well, maybe this is good. Maybe it has got a Buy America component to it. Maybe we are going to buy from American arms manufacturers. No, AK-47s, that is what the Iraqi police want. We have confiscated tens of thousands of them, but instead of reissuing the ones we have confiscated, we are going to buy them brand-new ones at more than list price from our friends, the Chinese. This is not waste, fraud, and abuse. No, the Washington Waste Watchers over there do not have their eyes set on Iraq and this kind of stuff, they are talking about the $100,000 missing over there at the Department of Education that might have fed some hungry kids. But, no, if it is a huge contract, wasting billions of dollars in Iraq; that is just fine. The President asked for it. We have to do this. Let us talk about the cement plant in northern Iraq. Our estimators looked at it and said $15 million to rebuild that plant. So the Bush administration put out a request for proposal for $15 million. The Iraqis didn't want to wait. They rebuilt it themselves. Cost: $80,000. Now, there is Mr. al-Barak, who is a member of the Ruling Council which we named. You would think he would be beholden to us since we put him in place. But he has been a little critical of our spending. He says, ``You know what? We can do it for 10 cents on the dollar. The Americans are wasting incredible amounts of money.'' We are going to be asked to borrow nearly $20 billion, indebt Americans for the next 30 years for waste, fraud, and abuse and war profiteering, and the Iraqis say they can do it for 10 cents on the dollar. There was a contract to feed the Iraqi Ruling Council, which we named, which Mr. Bremer put out, no bid, of course. I guess it was from Sardi's in New York because to feed 25 people a day, $5,000 a day. The Iraqi council was aghast, and Mr. al-Barak said, No, thanks, we can feed ourselves for a lot less than $5,000 a day. They think we are nuts. They really do. Waste, fraud, and abuse, apparently is only when it might benefit Americans. But when it can benefit war profiteers and no-bid contractors overseas in the gold-plated building, not rebuilding, of Iraq, there is a blind eye being turned here.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I brought something here tonight to show to the American people. This document, which has become publicly available, is the coalition provisional authority request to rehabilitate and reconstruct Baghdad, Iraq. Published accordingly, Baghdad, Iraq, is a gold-plated guide to war profiteering. I urge each and every tax-paying American citizen to get a copy to see where the $20.3 billion that President Bush wants to borrow in their name to send to Iraq will be spent. We have already had some examples of just incredible waste. There was a cement plant in northern Iraq needed repair. Mr. Bremer sent in his experts. They said it would cost $15 million. The Iraqis could not wait, and they went ahead and repaired it for $80,000. There was the $25 million spent to rebuild police stations in Basra. The Iraqis estimate they could have done it for $5 million or less. Then there was the $5,000-per-day contract Mr. Bremer signed to feed the Iraqi governing council, all 25 of them. I guess we were going to fly over catered meals from the United States of America. The governing council was so appalled at that waste of money, even though it was being spent by the United States of America, borrowed by the President on behalf of the American people, they cancelled the contract, got some local food for a fraction of the cost. Then, of course, on the governing council, we have Mr. Ahmad Al- Barak, and he estimates that in cases the savings could be a factor of 10. Where they spend $1 billion, we would spend $100 billion. If we carry that formula through, instead of borrowing $20.3 billion on behalf of the American people and spending it to rebuild Iraq, as the President wants to do, we could do it for $2.3 billion or less. There are other things in this new proposal that are a bit strange. There is the proposal of $33,000 per pickup truck delivered in Iraq. I went online just to kind of check out a pretty nice 2003 new Ford F- 150, two door regular cab, XL, two-wheel drive, style side, with the AC and the automatic transmission and of course destination charge, $17,817. Does not have armor plating, but then again neither do the Humvees that this administration gave to our troops who are being killed on a daily basis. There are other things that I would question here, $20 million to develop and train a cadre of business people in Iraq. That is a 4-week course, $10,000 each. By equivalent it would cost $4,000 to send them to Harvard, or if we send them to a continuing-education course at a community college in my district, we could put them through a good course, one term, with credits, for $400. But the Bush administration wants to spend $10,000 per Iraqi, $20 million borrowed from the American people, spent to give these $10,000 4-week courses to Iraqis. Then, of course, there is a lot of, like, well, we have an obligation to all the damage we did to the country. I guess we blew up their wireless Internet network. Whoops, wait a minute. They did not have wireless Internet network, did they? No, they did not, but an essential part of this reconstruction effort is that we provide a wireless Internet network for all the Iraqis and their laptop computers. I do not know how many Iraqis have laptop computers, but I think that is somewhere else in the request perhaps. Although we cannot equip our kids, our schools with laptop computers, we are going to give them to Iraqis. There are other things that have more merit arguably, $5.8 billion to rebuild their power grid and electrical system. I thought, well, maybe we did that. I found out it was not necessarily for damage we caused. In fact, Mr. Bremer was quoted saying, well, I have been into the plants, they have got these boilers from the 1950s and 1960s; they are holding them together with duct tape. What does that have to do with the war? What obligation does that put on the American people? Why should we borrow money on behalf of the American people, though it will be repaid and there is a lot of talk about children and grandchildren, by tax paying Americans today, children and grandchildren of tax paying Americans, to give the Iraqis state-of-the-art cycled turbines to generate electricity in Iraq? They cannot use the old system; we cannot just put that back together for a fraction of cost. No, they have got to have a brand new system. Of course, here in the United States of America where lights blinked out in the West a few years ago, blinked out in the East this year, the President cannot find any money to invest in our system and keep our lights on, but we can give them a state-of-the-art system there in Iraq. If we spent this $20.3 billion on infrastructure and critical needs in the United States of America. Even if we borrowed it on behalf of the American people and spent it on behalf of the American people, we could provide 1 million jobs in this country. This provides for nothing but war profiteering to generous contributors to the Bush administration.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, the President has asked the United States Congress to borrow another $87 billion to finance ongoing action in Iraq, and of that, the President is asking the United States Congress to borrow on behalf of the American people $20.3 billion to engage in an extensive reconstruction of Iraq. There has already been discussion on the floor of the no-bid contracts and the favoritism and extortion prices to Halliburton and other companies, war profiteering, but now there is also, now that we have seen the list, questions about the priorities in a couple of ways. There are questions about what they are going to spend the money on. On the list is Wifi. A lot of people do not even know what Wifi is. Iraq is a country where I do not think the average Iraqi or even the elite Iraqis own laptop computers. We are going to give emergency spending money, which the American people are going to borrow, to give them Wifi capability in Iraq, when the people in the rural parts of my district do not even have broadband. They have hardly decent telephone service, but we are going to do Wifi in Iraq. We are going to give them Zip codes in Iraq, an American invention. We are going to give them a national 911. Is that not nice? The American people are going to borrow money to install 911 in Iraq. Why would we do that? Why is that necessary? They did not have 911 before the war. We did not destroy it with bombing. Why they are going to have it now? Then there is the executive training. We are going to provide $10,000 for a 4-week course for Iraqi executives that exceeds the cost of sending them to Harvard University for the same period of time, let alone a community college in my district that could do a fine job for a quarter the price, but no, it is not just that. It is the fact that this is gold-plated and out of control. Here are a couple of examples. Major General David Petraeus, in charge of North Iraq, told a congressional delegation, his engineers said and we priced rebuilding a cement plant for $15 million. Well, the Iraqis were in kind of a hurry. So they decided to do it on their own and not wait for the $15 million and the U.S. contract. They did it for $80,000, a tiny fraction of the price. So at least the American taxpayers did not get gouged for that and did not have to borrow $15 million to do an $80,000 job on a cement plant. Maybe that was isolated. Well, unfortunately, no. We also have another instance, $25 million to refurbish 20 police stations in Basra and a member of Iraq's governing council kind of laughed at that and said, we could do it for five and still make a bunch of money. So the American people are going to be asked to borrow $25 million for a gold-plated contract to do something that would cost something less than five. The American people are being asked to borrow money to build houses in Iraq at a price that is 10 times the value of the average Iraqi house. Maybe it would be better if we give them a little of the wherewithal, some materials and nails and cement, and let them go at it themselves. They have 60 percent unemployment. I think they would be happy to build their own houses. But that is not the way the Bush administration wants to do this. They want to gold-plate it. They want to make the American people borrow $20 billion and pay for it the next 30 years, the gold-plate and war profiteer, for the reconstruction of Iraq. Then, finally, there is Ahmed al-Barak, a member of the Ruling Council, very prominent, who became unpopular with this administration, although previously had been very favored by them, when he said the savings could be a factor of 10 if the Iraqis did their own work. Basically, where they spend $1 billion, we would spend a hundred million. So I offer the 10 percent solution to this administration. Two point three billion dollars is still a lot of money where I come from, but it is a lot better than $20.3 billion, and the Iraqis could do it for that price. We could do the reconstruction, whatever we are really obligated to because of the destruction of the war, but we do not need to give them exotic things they never had before. I have heard we have to rebuild the electrical infrastructure. We have kind of got a failing one here, and the reason was they have got boilers from the 1950s and 1960s. Guess what? Our war did not install boilers from the 1950s and 1960s, so why is it the American people have to borrow the money to give them brand new boilers or new high- efficiency turbines to generate electricity when we could use that money here at home to put Americans to work? If we spent $20.3 billion on real infrastructure projects that are underfunded by this administration in the United States of America, we could put one million Americans to work. So, no, to the gold-plating, maybe a 10 percent solution if that is justified, but we should not be borrowing in the name of the American people $20.3 billion and indebting generations of Americans to pay for the gold-plated war profiteering in Iraq.