Joseph Hoeffel

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. Irwin Rose, who shares the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his colleagues Dr. Avram Hershko and Dr. Aaron Ciechanover of Israel. Dr. Rose is a former resident of Abington, PA and had a distinguished career conducting research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center and elsewhere. Dr. Rose was raised in Spokane, WA. He studied at Washington State College, served as a radio technician near the end of World War II, and then earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Chicago. He served for 9 years on the faculty of Yale Medical School. He then worked at the Fox Chase Cancer Center from 1963 to 1995. His wife of 49 years, Zelda Budenstein Rose, is also a biochemist. They have a daughter and three sons. The research for which Dr. Rose is being awarded the Nobel Prize deals with a certain regulatory protein that is present everywhere in plant and animal cells. The significance of this protein lies in its functions as a destroyer of proteins that are no longer needed and a regulator of certain proteins used in cell reproduction. Because several diseases that are yet uncured, such as cancer and cystic fibrosis, result from errors in the cell reproductive process, Dr. Rose's research provides us with new hope in the search for cures. It is my pleasure to recognize Dr. Irwin Rose for his contributions to the field of biochemistry. I congratulate him on being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the residents of Whitemarsh Township, in southeastern Pennsylvania, on the occasion of their tricentennial celebration. The people of Whitemarsh Township, founded in 1704, are celebrating its 300th birthday with a series of events that illustrate the theme ``Our living past . . . Our growing future.'' These events, including Revolutionary War reenactments, talks about the township's history, and a black tie gala, are bringing the community together and educating citizens about its rich heritage of steady growth and historical significance. As a part of this celebration, the Township is also taking the opportunity to honor distinguished citizens who have worked toward the betterment of the community. From its inception, Whitemarsh Township has been a strong and tight- knit community. The Township has been involved not only in local history; events of national importance have occurred within Whitemarsh Township as well, including Revolutionary War encampments and skirmishes. This rich history has endowed the people of Whitemarsh Township with great pride; Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Fitz Dixon deserve commendations for their stewardship of Erdenheim Farm and community philanthropy, along with countless other citizens who remain devoted to carrying on the longstanding history and community of Whitemarsh Township. It is my pleasure to join the residents of Whitemarsh Township in honoring their tricentennial.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Excellent. Mr. Speaker, let me just say it has been a long time coming, but change is going to come.

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

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I believe we are out of time this evening. Iraq Watch will be back in January, in February and March, as long as these challenges continue, as long as there is a need for debate and for questions to be asked.

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

Mr. HOEFFEL. Next year I am going to be watching. I am going to be tuning in. I know my colleagues will be fighting the good fight as they have been for the last year and a half. I wanted to comment upon your views, that what is virtually a purely military approach to our challenge in Iraq is not working, cannot work in the face of a guerilla opposition that melts away when we attack en masse and comes up and attacks us where we least expect it a few days later in another location. It is consistent with my earlier statement that as strong as our military is and as strong as we have to keep it, we have got to use more than just our military power in our dealings with the rest of the world. We have to use the totality of our power, which includes diplomatic power, economic power, cultural ties, the powers of moral suasion. One of the things I wish this President would talk about and I hope the next Congress will talk about is the need for economic revitalization in the Middle East and in Eurasia. We need a modern day Marshall Plan. We need to address the challenges in Iraq and the rest of that part of the world not just with a military strategy but we have got to give to those young men and women, mostly young men, although there are now suicide bombers who are women, who are so desperate, who are so hopeless that they would believe it is in their best interests to strap a bomb on and kill innocent civilians rather than have some hope that they can build a better life, that they can find a job, they can improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. We have got to address the economic needs. I do not mean by handing out money. I mean by making the kinds of investments, along with Western Europe and other industrialized societies, the kinds of investments that will build some economic strength. In the Marshall Plan after World War II, over a period of 4 years we invested $13 billion in 14 countries. That in today's dollars would be $100 billion over 4 years, $25 billion a year. Our total foreign aid now is about $20 billion a year. So if we a little bit more than doubled our foreign aid, we could create a similar economic revitalization plan as we did so successfully in the late 1940s. It is a different challenge. The countries we are trying to help here are frankly much worse off than the Western European countries were after World War II. Those countries had a labor force that was trained. They had been industrial countries. The Afghanistans, all the Stans, Iraq, Iran, those are countries with much greater needs. But if we try to solve the problems of the world with military solutions only, if we try to keep ourselves safe with military solutions only, if we try to win the war on terror with only a military response, we will not succeed. Our military will perform well, as they always do; but there is not a military solution, a purely military solution, to the challenges that face us. We have got to pay attention to the hopes and aspirations. It is more than just the poverty these people face. It is the grinding helplessness and hopelessness they must feel. We have got to create a sense of opportunity in this part of the world.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, that is very kind of the gentleman from Hawaii, a bit overblown and exaggerated, but very kind of him.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio. That is a very human account of what is happening in Iraq. There is no question that this President knows how to use American power, but what I fear is that he is not aware or willing to use the totality of American power, which certainly starts with military power but is much more than that. We are certainly the strongest military in the world, and we need to stay that way. It is a dangerous world. The war on terror is going to be a challenge for years to come, and we must maintain our military strength. But there is more to American power than the military power that we possess, and this President does not seem to appreciate or understand or value the totality of our power, which includes diplomatic power and economic power, our cultural ties, the powers of moral persuasion. We are the only superpower left in the world, and I am thankful we are. It gives us an opportunity to lead, inspire, cajole, push, advocate, and pressure. We have the ability through diplomacy and trade and economic ties and cultural ties to bend people to our will, up to a point, if we have a good argument and we are right on the facts and it is in their interest too. Obviously, every situation is different from the prior. But this President does not seem to put any value in the totality of American power. The military strength we have needs to be maintained and nurtured, but it has to be used as a last resort, not a first resort. As strong as we are, we cannot be the world's policemen. We cannot impose our will through military strength alone, and yet that is the circumstance that we face in Iraq. We are trying to do very good things there, and we all share the President's goals of creating a pluralistic society, a tolerant, democratic society. And yet the unilateral, go-it- alone, arrogant strategy, the cowboy diplomacy, the failure to admit mistakes, the inability to train up the Iraqis for them to do their own fighting and provide their own security, and the mistakes that were made. The first thing we did was dismiss the Iraqi Army and the border patrol, and the second thing was dismiss the Iraqi civil service, and there was nobody left to run the country but Americans. This President does not seem capable of acknowledging error and fixing it. The people he has been promoting in this echo chamber seem unwilling or incapable of standing up and saying, Mr. President, you have to change these policies.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Well, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, and I am very concerned about the problems we are seeing at the CIA. The reality is that this administration, over the last couple of years, has a very sorry record of spinning the information that the CIA has given them. So we have got a problem with the CIA intelligence not being as accurate as it needs to be for a number of reasons, I guess, listening to each other parroting back what other agencies have said. Not enough human intelligence agencies in Iraq during the Hussein regime. There are a variety of reasons. The intelligence that they did produce about weapons of mass destruction was incorrect. It was filled with caveats and uncertainties. The reports that were being issued to the White House in the fall of 2002 said we think he has these weapons, we believe he has got these weapons, we have been told he has these weapons. But none of that uncertainty was passed on to the Congress or to the American people. In fact, I was briefed at the White House with 20 of our colleagues, a bipartisan group, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on October 2, 2002, by George Tenet, then Director of the CIA, and Condoleezza Rice, then the National Security Adviser to the President, and they spoke with complete certainty: we know that Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, they said to us. We know how many he has got. We know where they are. We know how much those weapons weigh. It turns out that 7 or 8 months later, when the reports that George Tenet's CIA was giving to him and to Condoleezza Rice in the fall of 2002 finally became public, or actually became available for rank-and- file members to review, those reports were filled with caveats, filled with uncertainties, filled with hesitance; and yet none of that was passed on. So I would say to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) that there has been spinning at the White House for quite a while. And as my colleague says, the Deputy National Security Adviser has now been promoted and the National Security Adviser is now going to be the Secretary of State. I must say, based upon her intentional misleading of the 20 Members of the Congress who were briefed by her and by George Tenet on October 2, 2002, I do not have confidence in Condoleezza Rice. I am afraid she is going to tell the President what he wants to hear and will not tell the Congress and the American people what we need to hear and will not face up to the President when she needs to. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, we are here to have another week of the Iraq Watch. Before I start, I want to add my words of congratulations to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) for his outstanding career and what we just witnessed on the floor, a very warm and rare moment of emotion and friendship between two colleagues. I wish we had more of those moments here, but I want to salute the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) for his years of service and his dedication to this House. A year and a half ago, Mr. Speaker, a number of us started what we call Iraq Watch. We began to come to this floor once a week to talk about Iraq, to talk about the problems that we saw with our policy there, to ask questions and to suggest changes in our national policy. Now, a year and a half later, like the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), I will be leaving this House, and yet the questions regarding our policy in Iraq remain. Things have changed in Iraq over the last year and a half, but some of the fundamental problems that were apparent at the beginning of our involvement remain today and plague us today and challenge our best national interest today. A number of us involved in Iraq Watch, some like me who voted for the military power that the President sought in October of 2002 and some in Iraq Watch who opposed the President's request for military power, all of us were alarmed in the spring of 2003 when the fighting actually began in Iraq, that the President had used what we thought was such an arrogant approach to this challenge, to the diplomacy, to the need to move forward with as many allies as possible to confront what was surely a murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein. We saw an arrogant approach. We saw a go-it-alone foreign policy, what many of us thought was a cowboy diplomacy, where we pushed aside our allies, where we told our international institutions, such as the United Nations and NATO and others, that we did not need their help, that we were happy to go alone into the challenge that faced us in Iraq. A lot of us were raising questions about that a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, that approach has not changed. The President talks about having the coalition of the willing supporting us in Iraq, but it is not the kind of strong international coalition that we truly need to share the burdens and share the costs and share the sacrifices that we have faced in Iraq and not the kind of strong international coalition that his father put together in the early 1990s for the Persian Gulf War. What the President is now doing since his reelection this November is making changes in his Cabinet and promoting loyal members of his staff to higher positions and to Cabinet positions in a way that, in my judgment, will limit the options brought to the President for his consideration; that he will begin to hear just what he wants to hear from his Cabinet and top officials; that the advice they give him will be the advice they know he already provides to himself; and that he has, instead of turning in a second term to an independent and vigorous Cabinet of obviously loyal Republicans, which is the President's due, instead of building that kind of working relationship, he has decided to build an echo chamber, to create a foreign policy advice and support system in the State Department and in the CIA and in the National Security Adviser that will tell him what he wants to hear. Well, what he ought to hear, Mr. Speaker, with due respect to the President and with due respect to his victory and the tough decisions he has to make every day, what he ought to hear is that he still needs international support in Iraq. He still needs to internationalize the challenges, the financial challenges, the security challenges, the military challenges in Iraq, and he still needs to Iraq-tize Iraq. We still need to train up the Iraqis so that they can fight for their own future, so they can provide their own security, so that they can be the tip of the spear. Currently, we are using American forces, brave American forces, courageously led, and brave troops to battle the insurgency in Iraq, door to door, in Fallujah and other urban settings, and our troops are behaving magnificently, performing magnificently. But it is my view, and I think shared by my colleagues here in Iraq Watch, that we are doing ourselves more harm than good with the reality that it is American troops fighting the insurgency, instead of Iraqi troops, Arab troops, multinational troops with American support; that the fact that we are having to fight door to door, facing the true horrors of urban warfare. That we are doing this virtually alone, without international help, without very much help from the Iraqis, is generating such ill-will in the Muslim world that while Iraq is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power and Iraq has some hope of moving toward a tolerant and pluralistic society with some version of self- government, hopefully a flourishing democracy sooner rather than later, while Iraq is better off, the way we have gone about this has actually done more harm than good to America; that we have created more terrorists than we have killed; that we have created more ill-will than goodwill in the Muslim world; and that the arrogant and go-it-alone policies that we have pursued, the cowboy diplomacy that we pursue to this day, has set back the relations between this country and the Muslim world, while at the same time we do offer clearly hope to the Iraqi people that they can have a flourishing country, free from the abuses of the tyrant and murderer Saddam Hussein. There is a lot more I would like to say tonight, but I am joined by two of the stalwarts of Iraq Watch, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) who have been here week after week for a year and a half. So let me turn to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) as he was the first on the floor, and I am happy to yield to him.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of Chestnut Hill Hospital's first hundred years. Since its inception on October 1, 1904, Chestnut Hill Hospital has provided attentive and extraordinary care to its patients. Beginning as a facility in twin houses on Gravers Lane, the Hospital originally consisted of two wards, five private rooms, one operating room and one reception room. The support of the dedicated community allowed for the Hospital to treat over 275 patients in the first few months of the facility's existence. Over the past 100 years, the Hospital has grown by leaps and bounds with the latest technology and has continued to treat the families of Northwest Philadelphia and Eastern Montgomery County with the most compassionate of care. The remarkable people who have seen the Hospital through events such as the World Wars, the Depression and the Philadelphia Flu Epidemic also deserve recognition as fundamental to the Hospital's success. Though Chestnut Hill Hospital's second century begins with new owner, the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Vanguard Health Systems, the Hospital will undoubtedly continue the kind and dedicated care that has become its trademark. I congratulate Chestnut Hill Hospital on 100 years of excellent service to the community.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. Clearly we share the President's goals of creating a stable Iraq that can choose its own government. But the policies that he has chosen and the rigidity in which he has implemented those policies and the inability to change course when the policies are failing are clearly leading us to a disaster in Iraq, where our troops are in the middle of the domestic political striving of competing ethnic and religious interests, unable to stabilize the country because we are doing it alone, because we do not have the international support that we need, nor have we trained up the Iraqis that we fired from the Iraqi army and fired from the Iraqi border patrol. We have not trained up Iraqis to do the police work and the peacekeeping that they ought to be doing for themselves. The President continues to act with arrogance, with a cowboy diplomacy and an unwillingness to admit error, compounded by the outrages expressed on the campaign trail, the intentional efforts to mislead Americans, trying to connect 9/11 with Hussein, which is a bogus connection, and with the Vice President saying the other day, outrageously, that if the voters make the wrong choice on November 2, that will lead to more acts of terror against this country. I do not know that I have ever heard a more outrageous or reckless statement made by any leader of this country, unless it would be the President's statement himself in the summer of 2003 that they should ``bring it on,'' and 800 Americans have died since the President said that.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). It has always been clear that we need to internationalize the challenge in Iraq, and we need to ``Iraqatize'' the challenge in Iraq. We need international support from what is happening. I do not believe this President can do it. But from the first day we should have been returning to the United Nations to do the reconstruction. We should have turned to NATO and the Arab League nations for security. Those countries are a lot closer to Iraq than we are and have a much bigger stake than we do in a stable Iraq. But we have not done that. We have done the occupation of Iraq with 90 percent of the troops being American and 90 percent of the money being American, and we have not yet stabilized that country.

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

Mr. HOEFFEL. What enrages me is that the American politicians who whip themselves up into a foaming rage over the notion that someday, somehow, someway American troops might be under foreign generals' command in a U.N. peacekeeping force or something of the kind are completely silent when something much worse is happening here. Our troops today in Iraq are not under foreign generals' command, they are under the command of foreign politicians. It is outrageous. Let me read from this article and yield back. I do not want to monopolize this time. But in this Washington Post article, August 24, 2004, entitled ``In Najaf, Iraqi Politics Dictate U.S. Tactics,'' at one part it says here in the article: ``If there is any doubt that the new Iraqi government is calling the shots in this country, the supporting evidence is mounting daily in Najaf. Here, on the order of interim Prime Minister Allawi, night raids bolt forward or are halted, bombs fall from the sky or remain snuggled beneath the wings of F-15s, howitzers roar or are silenced, and ambitious combined arms operations are meticulously planned and then shelved, only to be revived a day later when a shift in the political winds has been detected.'' A quote from Captain Brian Ennesser, intelligence officer for the First Cavalry's First Battalion, Fifth Regiment: ``This mission is like Normandy. Only instead of the weather, we're waiting on the politics.'' One more quote and I will yield back. Later in the article: ``Since the U.S.-led occupation authority transferred power to the Iraqis on June 28, the chain of command has kept its structure but changed personnel.'' A quote from Major General Peter Chiarelli, who commands the First Cavalry: ``It's civilian control of the military. That's what our system's all about.'' But the article then says: ``Except now the civilians are not Americans. They are Iraqis. And we are losing brave Americans because they are being put in the middle of disputes between Allawi and Sadr. They are being used to push forward domestic political agendas for this interim government that is interested in holding onto its power.'' It is my view that we need to refocus on the war on terror and Osama bin Laden and redeploy troops that are bogged down there. We have got 170,000 troops in the Iraqi theater, 140,000 in Iraq, 30,000 in Kuwait, peacekeeping, border patrol, police work. We have got one-tenth of that number, 17,000, in Pakistan and Afghanistan doing everything we ask them to do, working bravely around the clock but clearly not enough of a focus to get bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda. We have lost our focus. We need to get our troops out of the midst of this domestic strife in Iraq and get them back to bases. We cannot abandon Iraq, but we do not have to be in daily patrol between these warring factions trying to feather their own nests and pursue their own domestic agendas. We can make sure that the country does not fall without having our troops in daily combat because of the inability of this administration to focus on what is really challenging this country, which is the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan posed by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I concur with everything that my colleagues have said this evening. For almost a year and a half, those of us engaged in Iraq Watch have been coming here raising questions and posing alternatives for our failed national policy. The bottom line is, as the gentleman just said, we have lost our national focus on the real threat, which has been and remains Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. We have allowed the Bush administration with its obsession with Saddam Hussein to distract us from what has been the real threat and obviously remains the real threat today. We know the sordid history of misstatements and failed policies and misleading comments by the President and his top advisors. They misled us about the weapons of mass destruction. As the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) said, they misled us about a nonexistent connection about Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda and 9/11. The President misled us about how he would use the military power that he asked for in the fall of 2002. He said he would not use it until he exhausted diplomatic options. He broke that promise. He said he would not use it until he put together an international coalition such as his father had done 13 years before. Broke that promise. And he gave us a number of commitments to allow the international inspectors once back in Iraq to conclude and complete their work, and he did not allow them to finish their work before using this power. The reality is while it is a good thing for Iraq that Saddam Hussein is out of power because he certainly was a murderous tyrant, it has not made America safer. This has reduced our status in the world and has made the challenges and the risks of the war on terror more difficult for America, not easier. What really gripes me tonight, in addition to all of the things that we have mentioned, is what now seems to be the use of our American military in Iraq to suit the dictates of Iraqi domestic politics. We have lost 150 brave American soldiers in defeating the Iraqi Army. It took us 19 days, and our soldiers did everything we asked them to do and fought bravely. We have lost 850 equally brave Americans in what has turned out to be the occupation of Iraq, and I think a big reason for that is the misuse of our troops. Let me quickly quote from a Washington Post article dated August 24, 2004, with the title ``In Najaf, Iraqi Politics Dictate U.S. Tactics.'' The point of this article published a few weeks ago is that Acting Prime Minister Allawi is deciding when American troops are used, when they are held back as suits his purposes for the domestic Iraqi political situation that he faces.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lieutenant Robert P. Del Soldo who is celebrating his retirement from the Horsham Township Police Department after 32 years of faithful and devoted service. Lt. Del Soldo has served in many different capacities during his tenure on the Horsham Township force, working as Patrolman, Detective, Patrol Sergeant, and Sergeant of Detectives. Since 1995, he has been serving the department at the rank of Lieutenant. His dedication to the community has never faltered, even during his toughest assignments. Lt. Del Soldo has received commendations for saving an individual from a burning vehicle and for apprehending armed bank robbery suspects. In addition to his commendations, Lt. Del Soldo has undergone professional training in order to better serve his community. He has trained under the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pennsylvania Chief of Police, Northwestern University and Penn State University. In addition to his service to the Horsham Township community as a member of the Police Department, Lt. Del Soldo served his country honorably in the United States Air Force in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968. He and his wife Peggy are the proud parents of a son and daughter, Robert and Theresa Lynn. Our community has been privileged to have such a devoted servant and it is my pleasure to congratulate Lieutenant Del Soldo on his retirement. I wish him all the best in the future.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time and applaud his leadership on this issue. I am honored to stand with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle tonight to declare that the ethnic cleansing occurring in the Sudan is in fact genocide, to demand that the world recognize that it is genocide, and to urge the United Nations Security Council to take the necessary action to stop the violence and to get humanitarian aid to Darfur Province immediately. There is not a moment to lose. We must act now. I would also urge my colleagues to consider the additional step of joining the protest that has been under way at the Sudanese embassy for the past 3 or 4 weeks and to consider whether an act of civil disobedience in furtherance of the declaration of genocide and in furtherance of immediate humanitarian aid to Darfur Province would be appropriate to be taken and whether it would meet your standards. Because the world is watching what we do. We failed to act when tragedy struck Rwanda. We cannot fail to act again. I would add to the excellent congressional resolution of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) and the fine work of all my colleagues the necessity to take individual acts of civil disobedience, to protest the unresponsive Sudanese government that is unleashing this terror, this genocide, on innocent civilians, failing to admit what they are doing, and not allowing humanitarian assistance to come to the aid of these innocent millions of people. The time to act is now. There is not a moment to lose.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is absolutely right about this. And one of the important reasons that we are talking about the mistakes that were made is to make sure that it does not happen again. We do not want history to repeat itself. I think every member of Iraq Watch would agree that in the age of terror that we find ourselves, it may be necessary in the future to use our American force preemptively to protect America. The days of the armada, of an opposing enemy forming off our harbors or an army amassing on our borders, are probably over and we may need to quickly use preemptive force in the future. That is the Bush doctrine, preemptive use of force, but it has certain requirements that were not present this time. First, you need accurate intelligence. You need an honest assessment of what is happening on the ground and the need for the President to level with the American people, and you have to be willing to use that force only as a last resort, not on a basis before necessary. We see in this case the President exaggerated the existence of weapons of mass destruction. He has fabricated a relationship between Hussein, al Qaeda and 9/11. He failed to exhaust diplomatic options. What would have happened if he had allowed those international arms inspectors the extra 3 months they were requesting after their first 2 months found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? He failed to put together a meaningful coalition, as all of us said tonight. Ninety percent of the troops in Iraq, 90 percent of the money is American. And he has failed to commit enough troops. We have got 140,000 brave Americans in Iraq today, but it is not enough to contain this violent, deadly insurgency, and they were sent there with inadequate equipment, as my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), has been telling us for 15 months during Iraq Watch. And what confidence do we have that this group of political leaders in the White House and the civilian leaders in the Pentagon will not do this thing again and again and again? They do not seem to understand their mistake. They will not admit their mistakes, and we have got to bring this to the attention of the American people.

Mr. HOEFFEL. If the gentleman will yield, I certainly respect and agree with the comments of the gentleman from Washington. This sovereignty in Iraq does seem like a false sovereignty, when you realize the facts on the ground. Number one, this new Iraq government has no ability to protect itself or its citizens or defend against the violent insurgency. All of the security requirements remain on American troops, approaching 140,000 American troops, and the sad fact is we have yet to stabilize that country. We have not been able to contain the insurgency. The highest suggested number of people in that insurgency, the highest estimate is 10,000, and 10,000 violent insurgents have not been controlled, cannot yet be contained by 140,000 brave American troops. The reality is we do not have enough troops to stabilize Iraq; we have not had enough; we do not have the international troops; and we do not have the Arab League troops that we should have. This new sovereign government does not seem so sovereign. They are also not in control of their own reconstruction. The $20 billion of American funds appropriated by this Congress for reconstruction, the gentleman is absolutely correct, has not yet been spent, and, when it is spent, it will be controlled by the American embassy. This is probably the right thing, because it is American dollars, but it is an all-American list of contractors, many of them picked with no-bid contracts, no-bid awards, like Halliburton, and the so-called sovereign government of Iraq will have no control over that money. Thirdly, they were talking the other day about delaying elections. The White House said no, you are not. We are going to have elections, whether you are ready or not, in January of 2005. I do not want to see elections delayed either. I would like to see them moved up even sooner. But here is this Iraqi sovereign government that does not control its own security, does not control the reconstruction in Iraq, cannot even decide when to have elections, and yet the President wants to continue this fiction that we have established a sovereign nation of Iraq. It has not happened yet because we do not have security. Fundamentally we do not have security. We cannot meet our shared goals. I think every member of the Iraq Watch, today and for the last 15 months we have been doing this, has agreed with the President's goals of a stable, peaceful Iraq that is pluralistic and hopefully democratic. None of those goals can be reached without security. We cannot have reconstruction without security; we cannot have a sovereign nation under a new government without security; we cannot have elections without security. This President has been unable to attract the international troops, the NATO troops, the Western European troops, the Arab League nation troops, that clearly need to be added to our brave American troops to get up to the several hundred thousand troops that Army Chief of Staff Shinseki quite rightly said a year and a half ago would be needed.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lieutenant James P. Leary who is celebrating his retirement from the Abington Police Department after nearly 30 years of faithful and devoted service. Lt. Leary has served in many different capacities during his tenure on the Abington force, working as Watch Commander, Platoon Commander, K-9 Commander, and Auxiliary Service Commander. After joining the department in 1974, he quickly ascended the ranks, receiving a promotion to Sergeant in 1979 and then to Lieutenant in 1981. His dedication to the community has never faltered, even during his toughest assignment in 1996. In that year, Abington Township fell victim to a severe flood and Lt. Leary worked tirelessly with residents, community leaders, and municipal government agencies to help the area recover. Lt. Leary faced another difficult challenge when he and five patrol officers rescued two severely burned children from a burning building. Bringing those children to safety has been the proudest accomplishment of Leary's career. In addition to his service to the Abington community as a member of the Police Department, Lt. Leary served his country as a Sergeant in the 5th Special Forces Airborne in Vietnam. He and his wife Martha are the proud parents of four sons and two daughters. Lt. Leary actively participates in the community, where he enjoys spending time with family and friends, and has served for 15 years as the Defensive Coordinator and League Commissioner for the CYO Football Program. Our community has been privileged to have such a devoted servant and it is my pleasure to congratulate Lieutenant Leary on his retirement. I wish him all the best as he moves on to his new position as Chief of the Rockledge Borough Police Department.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. I would say to the gentleman that the fact is the Republican opposition at that time was in full throat, and the criticism was not that he should be doing more; but that he was doing too much, in the view of his critics. I raise the point in good faith. I was not in the Congress then, and the gentleman may or may not have been involved at that point at that time. It shows you when there is too much partisanship I think that it clouds the judgment. It probably affected President Clinton. He probably did not think he could have congressional support if he took more action at that time. I do not know. I would suggest that there is a time when the level of partisanship can rise so high that it can cloud the judgment of the government to act in a concerted way. I do not want to see that happen. There is a lot of frustration about Iraq and a lot of opposition to what many of us think are the deceptions and the half-truths that have been used. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) came today to try to talk about that, and I welcome the bipartisan discussion tonight; but we have got to try to get past the bipartisan anger.