Joseph Hoeffel

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to start another of the Iraq Watches that we have been conducting for the past 2 months or so. The first night of each week that we are in session, a group of us come to the floor to talk about Iraq, to talk about the fortunes of our fighting forces and our relief workers who are toiling in that country. We talk about the problems that we see, we suggest changes in our national policy, we ask questions of the administration and seek answers, both for the Congress and for the American people. I have been joined each week, and I will be as well tonight, by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). We have often been joined by other Members. We would welcome all Members of the House to participate tonight or in future Iraq Watches. Democrats and Republicans are welcome to participate during this hour of discussion. Mr. Speaker, recently the President has sought $87 billion for fiscal year 2004 to pay for our military operation and reconstruction activities in Iraq. That number is larger than rumored a couple of weeks ago, caught most Members of Congress by surprise, although we knew a big request was coming certainly, on top of the $79 billion requested and approved last April for fiscal year 2003. Many of us feel that we need more information from the administration at this point before dealing with this supplemental request for $87 billion for activities in Iraq. No one in this Congress wants to do anything that hurts the troops in the field. Of all the things going on regarding Iraq, the diplomacy, the reconstruction, the comments about weapons of mass destruction, the comments about our allies, the activities of the Ambassador, Mr. Bremer, of all the things happening in Iraq, the only truly good thing is the behavior of the troops. Our young men and women in uniform have performed brilliantly during the period of time when active warfare was under way and during the period of time after victory was declared by the President but the guerrilla war has continued and over 100 Americans have been attacked and assassinated by those guerrilla warfare tactics in Iraq, the men and women of the Armed Services have really performed brilliantly and have done all Americans proud. So the issue is not whether we support the troops in the field. We all do. Of course we do. And we also want to make sure that we live up to our commitments, that we see this challenge through. Some of us who engage in Iraq Watch, such as myself, voted in favor of the military authority sought by the President last fall. Some of us voted no. But all of us understand, now that the military activity has occurred, we have an obligation to see this process through. We cannot cut and run. We cannot leave Iraq with no functioning government. We cannot leave a vacuum, a power vacuum that would allow the bandits and the bad guys to resume power using the weapons that they have and once again subjugate innocent Iraqi civilians. But in the face of this very large request for $87 billion, about two-thirds of which would go to our military operations and about one-third of which would go to reconstruction costs, many of us in Congress feel that we need more information from the administration. I would put into three categories the questions that we have and the information we are seeking: The first is simply more information on the cost of our activities, the length of time that the military operations would be expected to continue, the length of time that the reconstruction would last, accurate information regarding the whereabouts of the weapons of mass destruction, the casualty lists of American soldiers wounded and otherwise incapacitated in Iraq. We need more good information about what is happening over there, and we need the full truth about the problems and the bad information that is happening there. The administration has not been as forthcoming as most of us would like it to be over the past 6 months. And now that an $87 billion request has been made for the upcoming fiscal year, this is the time surely for President Bush to come clean with Congress, to level with the American people, to provide answers to these questions, to provide as much information as possible regarding not only the current activity in Iraq but what he foresees coming down the pike in terms of cost, timetable, manpower needed, resources needed, what the prospects are for being joined by allies and friends. We need more information. Secondly, related to that but I think a second category, we need a specific plan for what will be happening in Iraq, really in two parts. One for the internationalization, if you will, of the activity there and the second half of the plan would be how to get Iraqis back in charge of Iraq. In order to internationalize the operations, we need to turn to our traditional friends and allies, to international organizations such as the United Nations, perhaps NATO, to seek their support, to seek their manpower, to seek their dollars and their resources to help rebuild Iraq, to help empower the people of that country economically and to bring a new government and a new freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. I do not believe America should try to do that alone. I do not believe we have got the resources to adequately do that when we are facing the huge budget deficits that we already face in this country. We need our friends and allies to be involved. Of course we all remember the virtual stiff-arm that the President gave to our friends and allies in the run-up to the military activity in Iraq. There was an arrogant unilateral approach to our diplomacy, what I called at the time a cowboy diplomacy that indicated to our friends and allies that we did not need their help, that we could go it alone, that they should get out of the way, particularly the old Europe, as the Secretary of Defense characterized it, and allow us to do our thing without a lot of hassle from our pesky allies. Of course it is those ``pesky allies'' that we are going to now, that the President is seeking support from, that the President is hoping by going to the United Nations that he can attract into what seems to be a quagmire in Iraq. So we need a plan here. We need more than the President saying, we're going to go to the U.N. and seek their support. We need to know how that support will be put together, how much of it we need, how much of it we have a realistic chance of securing, what it will take to get the United Nations fully engaged. It seems to me that one thing it will take is to allow the United Nations to do its job as a peacekeeper and a reconstructor and a redeveloper of nations, as a nation-builder, if you will. Because that is what the United Nations is there for, to nation-build, a concept that was disparaged by the President when he was running for office but a concept that he now embraces, although not by name, as he is urging that America, virtually alone, undertake nation-building in Iraq. Most of us would like to see this process internationalized. We need to see a plan from the President to figure out how to do it, how long it will take and how much it will cost. The second part of the plan we need is to determine how to get Iraqis back in charge of Iraq. It will not be easy to do that. Iraq does not have a tradition of self-government. It does not have a tradition of democracy. I believe that all people in the world are capable of self- government. I think all Members of the Congress believe that, but those that do not have a tradition of it, those that have dealt with powerful elites in their country that have abused average citizens, recognize that they need assistance. They need assistance building the institutions of liberty and democracy, institutions like a free press, institutions like a free and corruption-free court system, institutions such as a civil society, documents like a Constitution, a written Constitution that all members of a country, all groups within a country have a stake in and have a role in determining. All these things have to be accomplished in Iraq and we need to know how to do that, how to build these institutions of liberty. We need to know a timetable: How long is it likely to take to get Iraqis back in charge of Iraq? What will it cost? How much support do we need? How much training must there be? How much do we need to expand the existing interim governing committee that has been created? Who else needs to be involved in establishing that group, to give it more credibility and a greater representation from all segments of Iraq? So we clearly need, after we get more information from the President of the United States and after he develops and gives us a plan for both the internationalization of the reconstruction and how to get Iraqis back in charge of Iraq, the third thing that we need is an exit strategy, when can we leave, how long must we stay and how much will it cost us to do the things that are needed? As I said at the outset, all of us, whether we voted for or against the war in Iraq, understand now that we have conquered the nation. In a rather crude phrase, we now own the nation. We cannot walk away. We have a moral obligation to see this situation through, to make sure that there is a stable and representative and hopefully democratic government in Iraq before we leave or the Western powers leave. But we also need to know from the President before we vote this $87 billion what that exit strategy is and how long he thinks it will take and what standards we want to accomplish in achieving the status that would allow us to leave. And how will we measure our progress toward that date when we can leave? We have to know where we are going in order to get started. At least I would recommend that. It seems like an awful lot of what has happened in Iraq got started without knowing where we are going and we should not allow that to continue any further. Keep in mind, this war was waged at a time of our choosing and it would seem to me that the American military and the administration would have done a better job with the planning for both the war and the postwar activities. One thing Congress has not done well regarding Iraq in the last year is require that information to be divulged and the plans to be articulated and the exit strategy to be set forth. The one great power Congress has, the one great constitutional power is the power of the purse. We control the pursestrings. We determine how much money is spent. That power ultimately, slowly but ultimately brought the Vietnam War to a close a generation ago. We must exercise that power of the purse now, responsibly, in a way that is true to American ideals, that keeps our commitments to the people of Iraq but nonetheless that clearly sets forth our constitutional requirements and obligations to control the pursestrings, to make sure we know how American taxpayer dollars will be spent and make sure that those dollars are spent pursuant to full information from the White House, a plan from the White House on how to internationalize the reconstruction and how to put Iraqis back in charge of Iraq, and, finally, spending money pursuant to an exit strategy. When will it end and how will we know that it has ended? I call upon the President to give that information to the Congress in order for us to cast an educated vote on his request for $87 billion. At this point I have been joined by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), my colleague and senior member from the House Committee on International Relations and an eloquent member of the Iraq Watch. I welcome the gentleman.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that there is very little confusion among the American people about that. Unfortunately, the polls show that two thirds of Americans believe that Hussein was behind 9/11, even though as the gentleman from Massachusetts has correctly pointed out there is not a shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein, as evil as he is, there is no evidence that he was behind 9/11. But the administration has repeatedly suggested it. The Vice President's television appearance on Sunday was one of a long series of such suggestions. The President himself in his speech of a week ago wanted people to believe that stopping the terrorists in Iraq was part of dealing with the people that have led to 9/11, and it is a repeated theme of the administration, and it is a shame. I can only conclude that it is not only a misleading effort to make a false connection, but it is an intentionally misleading effort, and this is a tough situation. It is tough enough to try to find out what happened. It is very unfortunate that the American people have been fooled in that way. Hussein is bad enough. We should deal with him for his own evil record, and we do not need to fool people or to draw false conclusions, and I commend the gentleman for pointing out in great detail this problem.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for joining me this evening. The Iraq Watch will be back next week.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, we come to the floor again this evening as part of the Iraq Watch. For the last 2 months or so, four of us have been coming here the first evening that the House is in session each week to talk about Iraq, to talk about the policies that we think are flawed, to suggest new policies that the Nation might pursue, to ask questions about our policies and involvement in Iraq that we believe the American people need to know about and that Congress needs to know about. The four of us who have done this week after week include the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). We have been joined each week by several others, and we look forward to the discussion this evening and to continuing this each week until our involvement in Iraq has been clarified and stabilized and until we get answers to some of the questions that we think Congress is entitled to and the American people are entitled to. Mr. Speaker, this past week the President has announced his budget request for our occupation in Iraq for next year totaling $87 billion, a much higher figure than anticipated, on top of the $79 billion appropriated by Congress just this past April for the 2003 budget year. This requested $87 billion for 2004 would make our national investment over about a year-and-a-half period of time $166 billion, and every Member of Congress wants to make sure that we do right by the brave soldiers that are stationed in Iraq today. Every Member of Congress is determined to do right by the troops in the field, to make sure they get the support that they need, the resources they need, the equipment, the reinforcements, the supplies, everything they need to fulfill their mission as safely as possible. So the debate that Congress will have over the next 2 or 3 weeks regarding the President's request for $87 billion will not be about supporting the troops in the field, because we all want to do that; and we are all prepared to do that. What we will ask questions about is the President's vision for Iraq. He wants $87 billion. I believe Congress is entitled to the benefit of his thinking to know what he plans and what his administration plans to accomplish in Iraq and how he is going to do it. We owe those questions and deserve those answers, not just to Congress, but to the American people. It is their tax dollars being spent. It is their sons and daughters who are fighting in Iraq; and in a very tragic sense, their sons and daughters who are dying in Iraq, and this Congress needs to know some of the answers. Fundamentally, we need to know what the plan is. We need to know what the exit strategy is. How long will we be in Iraq? What are we trying to achieve? How will we know when we have achieved it? What standards can we set for ourselves? What are we trying to accomplish? What yardsticks can we use to determine whether or not we are succeeding, whether or not more troops will be needed, whether or not more money will be needed down the road? So I would suggest four areas before I turn to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). Let me suggest four areas that I would like to see the President give information to the Congress. The first would be regarding the military operations and occupation in Iraq, how long does the President believe that our troops will be needed, how much money will be needed, not just next year but in the foreseeable future to support those troops and how many more troops will be needed to fulfill the mission. I should point out that the civilian leadership of the Pentagon last spring estimated by this time, by September of 2003, we would only need 40,000 American troops in Iraq. Right now we have 130,000 American troops in Iraq; and clearly, that is not enough. So we need a better plan. We need to know how many troops, how long will they be here, and how much will it cost to support them. Secondly, we need to ask the same questions and get the same answers about the reconstruction of Iraq. How long will it take to get the lights back on? How long will it take to get clean water to the villages and the cities of Iraq? How much will it cost America to finance the reconstruction? When can we anticipate Iraqi oil revenues coming on line to pay for Iraq's reconstruction itself? How many more personnel from America will be needed, whether it is architects or engineers or teachers or government experts or lawyers? How many more personnel will be needed to move the reconstruction and the new governance forward? Thirdly, how quickly can we internationalize the operation? I think this is a key to our success in Iraq. We have got to bring forward our allies, United Nations, other international organizations to help pay for the reconstruction and to provide their resources and assets and expertise for the reconstruction, as well as for the military security challenges. Many of us have thought that the U.N. should have been brought in months ago to be put in charge of the reconstruction. Many of us felt that NATO should have been brought in months ago to be responsible for security, but we need to know what the President's plan is, how does he foresee the internationalizing of Iraq, if he foresees that at all. This is something that we need to know. Finally, the fourth point is, when will Iraqis be back in charge of Iraq? Clearly, America cannot run Iraq into the indefinite future. It has been said since we almost unilaterally won the military victory that we now own Iraq, Iraq is ours. I am not sure we want that to be our approach to this. We cannot own, run, dominate, occupy a foreign country for long. That is not what America is about. We will fight for freedom, we will fight to liberate, we will fight to disarm murderous tyrants. We will do many good things to help people around the world, both to help people around the world and to protect our own national interests; but occupying a foreign country for a long period of time is not what this country is all about. So how will we get Iraqis back in charge? What do we need to do to get them back in charge? What kind of training do they need? How can they support a democratic government when they do not have a history of democracy? What do we need to do to build the institutions of liberty to help them support a democracy? What do we need to do to establish a free press in Iraq, the rights of free speech, the traditions of free speech? How do we make a corruption-free and open court system in Iraq? How do we help them write a constitution? How do we get all segments of Iraq to participate in a representative government, a pluralistic government, and a democratic government? How long will it take, how do we do it, what yardsticks can we use to measure our progress? Mr. Speaker, these are the questions I believe that Congress needs to ask of the President. These are the questions I hope he will be eager to answer. He wants $87 billion. It is a great deal of money. We want to do right by our American troops. We want to do right by our commitment to freedom and liberty around the world. But doing right requires us to know what we are doing and to do right by the American taxpayer as well. And so we will be putting these questions forward, and I hope that we will be getting prompt and full and complete answers from the administration. Mr. Speaker, at this point let me turn to my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), who has been a leader in the Iraq Watch and a leader on the Committee on International Relations and welcome him to this discussion. We look forward to his comments.

Mr. HOEFFEL. If I may reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, for just a moment, the President has recently said that he will be advocating to make the 2001 tax cuts permanent. If the gentleman will recall, that tax program was too big to fit into the 10-year budget program that the Republicans put forward, so they sunsetted most of those tax cuts. But now the President wants to make them permanent, which will lose another trillion or so of revenue over the next 10 years. I wonder if the gentleman has ever before noticed, in his study of history, a time when America was at war, where, when we asked for sacrifices from the American people, those sacrifices were limited to the middle-income and low-income people who are receiving frozen or reduced government services and, of course, are bearing most of the cost and burden of fighting our battles in Iraq, while the wealthier Americans are actually being asked to sacrifice by getting a tax cut?

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Eloquent as always. We have been joined by our colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), and we welcome him.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). We have also been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland). I look forward to your comments.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman explain that for the viewers? Would the gentleman explain the point he is making about the difference between authorization and appropriation?

Mr. HOEFFEL. The gentleman has made several very good points, and he has been talking about the notion of whether or not the President is leveling with the American people. I would like to get back to an earlier discussion. A suggestion was made by one of us this evening that the President was deceitful and we were admonished by the Chair that was not appropriate language. None of us are here to challenge the Chair. We are here to ask for the truth and ask questions about our policies in Iraq. I would like to review the bidding a little, to set this question in some context, whether or not the President has been deceitful. The President and his top advisers in the fall of 2002 said with complete certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was developing more weapons of mass destruction, was developing a chemical weapons of mass destruction program, a biological weapons of mass destruction program, and was probably moving forward to try to restart a nuclear weapons of mass destruction program, long before the State of the Union address this past January. I am speaking now of September 2002. In private briefings many of us received at the White House the same representations were made: complete certainty that the weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq was in full bloom and full speed ahead with, as I think the gentleman said, hundreds of tons of these weapons in the possession of Saddam Hussein, more on the way. The briefing I attended with maybe 15 of our colleagues was led by George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. In their presentations and in their answers to questions from Members of Congress, a bipartisan group of us, complete certainty was expressed. At one point, Mr. Tenet, being asked would you rate on a scale of zero to 10 your certainty about the presence of these weapons in Iraq, he said 10.

Mr. HOEFFEL. It is not just that we have not found those weapons. Maybe they are there and hidden away, but we sure have not found them yet. It is not just we have not found them. It has now come to light that the White House was being given classified information by the intelligence agencies last fall that was telling the White House that there was great uncertainty about the state of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. These then-classified documents, now available in part because the White House declassified one to try to prove its case, and the other because it is now available for us to read at the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence office, the Defense Intelligence Agency report of September 2002 and the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 are replete with expressions of doubt, uncertainty. I remember the phrase ``no credible evidence'' that Hussein had an ongoing chemical weapons program. None of those doubts were reported to the American people or to Congress, none of that uncertainty was expressed; and it is my belief that the President exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the fall of 2002, in the buildup to the war, in order to secure public support and congressional support for an authorization of war. I will yield when I have unloaded my frustrations, which will be in just a moment. It is my belief that the President misled Congress, and it is my understanding from the documents that I have since read that are now available to us that were not available to us in the fall of 2002 that the White House was well instructed about the doubts and the uncertainty from the CIA, the FBI, and the rest of the intelligence agencies. Now, if it is objectionable to say that on the floor of the House, if the Republican leadership does not want to hear that on the floor of the House, bring it on. Let us bring it on right here, because this is the nub of the argument. This is what we are here to ask about. I would be happy to yield to my friend.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair, and I thank the gentleman for his cooperation. I would like to thank the gentlemen that joined in the discussion this evening. We will be back next week, and the Iraq Watch will continue to ask questions about our policies in Iraq. We need to discuss some legislative proposals such as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) has made, his American Parity Act, which would require the spending of equivalent dollars on our American domestic needs for each dollar spent on domestic needs in Iraq. If we are going to spend $10 billion on housing in Iraq, we want to do the same in America. If we are going to spend money on water systems or infrastructure improvements in Iraq, we are suggesting we do the same in America. That legislation deserves consideration during our next weekly discussion. We will ask more questions about the administration's policies. We hope we will get answers. I think it is a consensus view of all of us that we need to know what the plan is in Iraq. And we need to know what our exit strategy is in Iraq before this Congress will be comfortable in appropriating another $87 billion. We need to know what our strategy is, what conditions we are trying to achieve, what yardsticks we can use to measure our progress, how we can internationalize the situation in Iraq, how we can get Iraqis back in charge of Iraq because that must be the ultimate goal for all of us.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the House is back in session this week. And on the first evening back in session, we are resuming the Iraq Watch. This is an effort that has been going on since late in the spring, primarily by four of us here on the floor of the House, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), to raise questions about our policies in Iraq, to suggest corrections in those policies, to ask questions about the diplomacies leading up to military action, to ask questions about the intelligence relating to weapons of mass destruction, the use of that intelligence, the presence and whereabouts and the custody of those weapons of mass destruction, fundamentally questions about whether we are winning the peace and what exit strategy we have and when we will turn Iraq back to the Iraqis. I know my colleagues have a lot of things to say tonight because a lot has been happening since we were last in session, and much of it bad, in Iraq, and we all have our own focus we would like to put on the debate this evening. I am going to open up and ask some questions focused on the fundamental issue of credibility, and I am then going to turn to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) who has a conflicting time commitment, if my colleagues will agree, for the points that he would like to make in just a few minutes. There are so many unanswered questions about credibility relating to our actions in Iraq. Why did the White House press the CIA to approve misleading language in the State of the Union, suggesting that Hussein was uranium shopping throughout Africa, when the White House knew that that information was not accurate? Why did the administration hype alleged strong ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, although those ties have never been established? Why did the White House exaggerate the threat of the weapons of mass destruction themselves and hype both the nature of those weapons and the urgency of the danger caused by those weapons? The real threat that I see posed by Hussein, who was clearly a murderous tyrant who used weapons of mass destruction in the past against innocent civilians, the real threat was his potential to restart those weapons of mass destruction programs, including the ability and perhaps the desire on his part to restart or even purchase nuclear weapons if the international community lost its focus, if the focus and pressure for resumption of international inspections were to have been set aside, or if sanctions were lifted or if we simply lost interest. That was the threat from Saddam Hussein. Why did President Bush not stick to that? Why did he exaggerate the threat caused by weapons of mass destruction and these other alleged ties that have not come to pass? We know now that these claims by the administration were exaggerated. Last fall, in the lead-up to the congressional vote, the administration publicly and privately stated with complete certainty that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that he was seeking more; that his chemical and biological and nuclear programs were well underway; that there were ties between al Qaeda and Hussein; that he had these weapons, he was trying to get more and he was likely to give them away to terrorists. Now we know from declassified intelligence documents that at this very same time the administration was being told by our intelligence agencies that there was a great deal of uncertainty about the status of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Defense Intelligence Agency report of September 2002 and the national intelligence estimate of October 2002 raised serious doubts about this, used phrases like no credible evidence of an Iraqi chemical weapon program. Yet the administration publicly and privately said it is a sure thing, we count on it, we have got to stop it. Does this matter? Maybe this is the question that we need to address. Does this pattern of deception matter? Do the ends not justify the means? Should we not all be rejoicing that Saddam Hussein is out of power? I think this pattern of deception does matter because the administration's credibility is shot as a result of this, and when the administration's credibility is shot, our national credibility is threatened. It matters when a government uses deception to try to achieve its goals because that deception can become a habit. It can be habit forming and we reach a point where the government loses its credibility and its moral stature. The administration oversold the need for war. They oversold the prospects of winning the peace. They oversimplified the challenge of bringing liberty and democracy to Iraq, all the while insisting that we could do this on our own unilaterally, without the help of our traditional alliance, the Western alliances, and in the international community, willingly proclaiming all this time that the U.S. and Britain should be known as the occupying powers, the occupying powers in Iraq, and ignoring the international institutions and the assets they can bring to bear to help a people become a free people and develop democratic institutions. It is time for the administration to level with the American people, to stop this pattern of deception that undermines the work we are trying to achieve. The President should answer seven questions. The first is he should tell us how long the military occupation is going to take, how long will it last. Secondly, how much will the military occupation cost? The current estimates are $1 billion a week, $4 billion a month, to maintain our military occupation. Thirdly, how long is the reconstruction going to take? Fourthly, how much will that cost? Most estimates I have seen, $20 billion a year for at least 5 years. That is $100 billion to reconstruct Iraq.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. HOEFFEL. A $450 billion deficit.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the fiscal picture is bleak. It is daunting. One of the things the President has to tell us is how we are going to finance his reconstruction plans in Iraq, because I do not know how we are going to pay for it. The gentleman is absolutely right to bring that up, and I can see the gentleman from Illinois is anxious to make a point.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I thank my colleagues for being part of this tonight. Iraq Watch will be back next Tuesday night.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, just quickly, I wish to ask the gentleman from Illinois if in his review of our military history, and I know his statements are accurate and insightful, has he ever come across an example where an American President has taunted the enemy to ``bring it on''? Has my colleague ever seen an example where after victory is declared, while Americans are continuing to die post declaration of victory due to a guerilla war, that the President of the United States taunted the opponents to ``bring it on'' and subsequent to that taunt another 60 or 70 Americans have been assassinated in this guerilla opposition in Iraq? And my question to all three of my colleagues, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) talked about the war coming home to Quincy, what does the President say to those families? It is a tough enough job for the Commander in Chief in good faith to deal with any death to any American serviceman or woman, but what does he say to the families when he said on that day we have enough force in Iraq to protect our own troops so bring them on? What does he say to those that have died since?

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, not only is the administration engaging in a unilateral nation-building, but I would submit it is a stealth nation-building because they do not want to tell us the cost, the length, how many troops might be needed, how many more civilians of all manner might be needed. I think we need to ask the President three fundamental questions. The first is what is in store in Iraq, what is it going to cost and how long is it going to take? Secondly, what is he doing to build the international support that he has finally acknowledged that we need, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has just referred to. What can we expect him to do to reach out to the international community to get their assets and their troops, if necessary, and their civilian reconstruction experts into the mix. And as the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) has been saying all night and in private conversation as well, the third question is how soon do we put the Iraqis back in charge, and what is the administration prepared to do to put the Iraqis back in charge? I would respectfully say to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) that the Iraqi governing coalition is not ready to run those ministries that have been identified, and I think the gentleman knows that, too. They are not ready. We need the President to tell us when, and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Let me thank the gentleman from Washington for joining us and for his comments. And, the first time with Iraq Watch, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Madam Speaker, for 6 or 7 weeks a number of us have been coming to the floor to talk about our role in Iraq. We are calling ourselves the Iraq Watch, and we are back tonight. We are back with some of the challenges regarding Iraq fresh in the news. And I am joined by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) coming as well as part of our four Iraq Watchers, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). I believe there will be others joining us as well this evening. We are dedicated to the propositions of asking questions, seeking answers about what is happening in Iraq, trying to suggest policy changes that would improve the situation and certainly reporting back information to the American people. Two of us voted in favor of the military authority sought by the President last fall, myself included. Two of us did not. All of us, of course, were told, as were the American people and Members of Congress, we were told with great certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was trying mightily to develop more. And there is no question that in the past Hussein had such weapons. He used them in murderous ways against his own civilians and against innocent Iranian civilians in the past. None of that is in any doubt. But it is becoming more and more clear as time goes by that last fall there were those in the White House and in senior levels of the administration and the President himself who, in my opinion, exaggerated the threat of the weapons of mass destruction in order to win support in Congress and in the country for the invasion of Iraq. It is now known that our intelligence agencies were reporting to the White House and to the Pentagon with significant uncertainty and with serious doubts about certain aspects of the weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq; notably, the September, 2002, Defense Intelligence Agency report and the October, 2002, National Intelligence Estimate, both of which have been discussed in the news. I have reviewed parts of both of those which are classified documents in the custody of the intelligence agency. It is interesting to note that the administration itself declassified some of the National Intelligence Estimate last week to try to prove their point that there was a legitimate threat from Iraq, and most analysts have concluded that that release of that information actually pointed out once again how many doubts and how much lack of certainty was being expressed by our intelligence professionals, but that information being used by the White House and the Pentagon civilian leadership with no uncertainty, with nothing but certainty in terms of trying to sell their case. So let me just make a couple of quick points before yielding time to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). Because of the recent disclosures regarding the intelligence gathering by our professionals and the use that that intelligence was used for by the administration, I am joining others in calling for the creation of an independent commission, something the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has talked about for weeks here on the floor, an independent commission, a nonpartisan or bipartisan commission, that would be above politics, to investigate both the accuracy of the gathering of intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the uses of that intelligence by the administration. We clearly won an important military victory in Iraq due to the brave and courageous fighting of our young men and young women in uniform, but I do not think that our military mission is complete until we have a full accounting of the weapons of mass destruction, both regarding their location and the custody of those weapons so that if they still exist we know they are in safe hands, and also a full accounting regarding the intelligence associated with those weapons of mass destruction. Having won the military victory, we surely will not win the peace unless we seek and receive more international help in Iraq for the post-conflict phase of the challenges there, so I am giving my support to those that are calling for a United Nations Security Council resolution. We are seeking approval from this administration and urging President Bush to go to the United Nations Security Council to seek an over-arching resolution that would sanction NATO peacekeeping and United Nations reconstruction and humanitarian aid so that we can provide proper security in Iraq, which is obviously a huge problem, as now 38 American soldiers have been assassinated in attacks and ambushes since the President declared victory on May 1, 38 Americans in uniform assassinated by guerilla tactics in Iraq. Clearly we have not secured that country, and we will not be able to deal with the reconstruction and humanitarian challenges, first, without security, and, secondly, without more international help. Let me stop at this point before I get too carried away, because there is so much to talk about and so much has happened since the time we were on the floor a week ago; so much has come out in the press and in public discussion. Let me at this point yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations. Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would just reinforce his words regarding the need for an independent commission, because, unfortunately, there are or have been accusations about political sniping occurring, when it is the purpose of many of us simply to pose questions that not just our constituents, but many Americans have, regarding the use of intelligence, whether in fact it was selective, the quality of the intelligence. But I think it is very important tonight to stress to the viewers that this is simply too important to be a partisan issue. The reality is that many prominent, well-respected Republicans share our concern. This past weekend, Senator Lugar of Indiana, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, as well as the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden, all expressed their concern about the need for the White House, for the President, to start telling the American people the reality of how long the American presence will be required in Iraq. The three Senators indicated that they had reached a consensus that some 5 years was a reasonable period of time. I hope they are right. But I fear that it will even be longer, given the experience that we have had in the Balkans, given the experience we have had in the Korean Peninsula, and given the estimates that we have heard from others. But this is not a Democratic issue, a large D Democratic issue; it is not a Republican issue. It is an issue that affects each and every American, because it is about American credibility. In some respects, it is more than simply our policy vis-a-vis Iraq, because the credibility and the competence of the President of the United States, no matter what party is in the White House, is essential to peace in this world. I do not think, as some pundits say on TV, that in a serious issue such as this there should not exist a ``no spin zone.'' It is simply too important. When I first suggested an independent commission, I pointed out the fine work that was conducted under the cochairmanship of the former Senator from New Hampshire, a Republican, Senator Warren Rudman, and the former Senator from Colorado, Gary Hart, and there were many well- respected, highly experienced Americans who were part of that commission, and they had an excellent staff. Tragically, the quality of their work could not be disputed, because they filed a report back in February of 2001 that described in frighteningly prescient terms what would occur if America did not take seriously the threat of terrorism. They, for all intents and purposes, predicted the tragedy that occurred some 9 months later on September 11, 2001. I feel confident that the kind of people that served on that commission would be willing, if asked by the President, to come to answer all of the questions that are currently being posed; and they could do it in a way that was transparent, that was open to the American people to hear, to see, and to reach their own decisions. I notice we are joined by our colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). He looks like he wants to have something to say. Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, as all of our colleagues here have noticed, this is our sixth week down here discussing what is going on in Iraq, what is happening to our troops, what has happened to the occupation, what has happened to the reconstruction. A lot has been focused on the President's credibility. I have repeated before from this podium, as we have done this Iraq Watch, that although it is the President's credibility, it is very much America's credibility that is on the line, and that this inquiry would be so important as we face what is now becoming a consensus in the intelligence and security arena, an ever-present threat in North Korea. Former Secretary of Defense Perry, a well-respected Secretary of Defense, on North Korea, our policy there, I think his words were clear. He fears war by end of the year. Unless we clear up the notion of America's credibility locked into and tied to the President's credibility, we will not be able to muster the international support for the choices we will make as we deal with that nuclear threat. Just recently Iran, another member of the ``axis of evil,'' has prepared a missile with capability to hit American troops. There, too, we will need international cooperation and consensus.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?