Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well of the House today to address America's predicament in Iraq and I do so with the thoughts of my neighbor's son who tonight is serving in Baghdad as many of our proud men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives are serving. I am going to have his future in mind during my comments today. I know my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, share these views. They have their own kin and neighbors. My neighbor was one who is the young man I watched growing up playing peewee football in Bainbridge Island, Washington. He was called to service in Iraq. He went. He served proudly for a year. He was ready to return. He was literally on the plane to return when he was called back to go back into Baghdad in the President's effort to send more troops into Baghdad. He has suffered two IED explosions, just about lost his ear in one of them. He is now in continual firefights in Baghdad. And I think of his 1-year-old son who is being raised by his grandparents since the mother is also serving in the United States Army in Iraq at this time. Their lives are in my mind, and Iraq is not an abstraction nor a partisan issue, it is a very personal one for many of us. And those are what my thoughts will be and I would like them to infuse some of my comments tonight. The reason I have come, of course, is we have had this Iraq Study Group report. It is an amazing document. I hope people who are interested in Iraq will take some time to look at it. It is both accurate in some places and woefully short in others, and I would like to address both places where it is stunningly accurate and amazingly candid and refreshingly real and the places where it falls short in what we really have to do to accomplish our true national interests in Iraq. Before I do that, though, I think it is appropriate in talking about Iraq and our obligation to our soldiers there, like my neighbor's son, just for a moment to ask how we got in this current predicament in Iraq. We went into Iraq with two goals: One goal was to remove Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator, from power, to give the Iraqi people the chance to restore some dignity and freedom to their country. That mission was accomplished through the incredible, efficient and courageous act of our military men and women in fairly short order. It was accomplished. It has been now accomplished for over 3 years. That is mission accomplished, truly. The second reason we went into Iraq was to make sure that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Despite scouring Iraq with a fine-toothed comb and literally billions of dollars trying to find any scent, any hint, any fingerprint, any dust of WMDs, that has been eliminated as a threat because it did not exist in the first place. Our two national missions in Iraq have been complete now for some time. We have had a third national mission in Iraq that comes not out of our self-interest as a Nation but out of our obligation as a fair country to lead the world in caring for our neighbors, and that is to give the Iraqis a fair opportunity to form a government and take control of their own destiny. We now have been at that mission for longer than we were fighting World War II. That mission is accomplished. We have given the Iraqi people every opportunity to form a meaningful government in Iraq at this time. Yet our sons and daughters are still there tonight with the administration still tonight committed to staying as long as the Iraqis decide we are going to stay. The President has said that our people are going to stay there indefinitely unless conditions that are under control of the Iraqis will allow him to bring them home. I am here tonight to say we should not allow the Iraqis to control when our sons and daughters come home. That should be a decision of the United States of America. That position finds substantial support in the report I will allude to as well as our common sense as Americans. Now, first I want to say I am glad this report has been issued. Before the election, we heard a President who was bound and determined to stay the course. He was bound and determined to never take off rose- colored glasses. He was bound and determined to stay with his Secretary of Defense, despite the fact that every living human being who had looked at Iraq has seen nothing but a continued evidence of failure of leadership in the civilian ranks in the Secretary of Defense. He was bound and determined to have his Vice President say that we were dealing with dead-enders and that this was just a matter of a short period of time to roll up the opposition in Iraq. Every single one of those statements by the President of the United States was flat wrong. Then we had Tuesday, November 7 came along and the American people gave a very strong verdict to the President's stay-the-course position. We hope that has been a sobering influence on the White House. Secondly, we had this Iraqi Study Group report come out. We hope that the combination of those two events will knock the White House off its pedestal into a position where it will work with the U.S. Congress to get our troops home. It remains to be seen whether or not those two events have that desired effect. I would like to allude to this report now. There are things in this report that I think have not been in the news that I have reviewed, that I think it is important to realize in substantial detail, and the reason is that this report is the most categorical, clear, objective, bipartisan and well-reasoned rejection of President George Bush's assessment of the conditions in Iraq that you will find. It was bipartisan, as people know. It had people, I don't think any of whom had been against the Iraq war when it started, I don't believe, wiser heads who had been around policy for many years in this country, and unanimously they rejected the hallucinations of the White House that things were going okay in Iraq. And it is long overdue to have had a pronouncement from Washington, D.C. to that effect. So, if I can, let me allude to what their conclusions have been. Number one, and I will quote: ``The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. The government is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services.'' Iraqis have no electricity, they have no functioning police, they have no employment, they have no means to run their army, they have no functioning control over their borders. They have no functioning government. This is a government in name only. Number two: ``Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own future. Iraq's neighbors and much of the international community have not been persuaded to play an active and constructive role.'' I want to just focus on that for a moment. Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own future. Why is that? Why have the Iraqi politicians refused to make an agreement about disposition of oil? Why have they refused to make a disposition about employment practices in the Iraqi government? Why have they refused to make an agreement about how the ministries will be handled? Well, there is one reason. President George Bush has told them that troops will stay indefinitely in Iraqi. They do not have a real-life incentive to form a true government in Iraq because we have given them a crutch to lean on forever, according to this President. We have got to change that message dramatically, immediately, and I think this report makes that clear. Quoting: ``The United Nations estimates that 1.6 million Iraqis are displaced within Iraq, and up to 1.8 million Iraqis have fled the country.'' The Iraqis are voting with their feet. ``Iraqis may become so sobered by the prospect of an unfolding civil war and intervention by their regional neighbors that they take the steps necessary to avert catastrophe. But at the moment, such a scenario seems implausible because the Iraqi people and their leaders have been slow to demonstrate the capacity or will to act.'' We have not focused their intention on the necessity of reaching agreements to form a true national government in Iraq. We have given them a security blanket at the cost of over 2,800 lives, over 20,000 seriously injured Americans, over 400 billion American taxpayer dollars, and probably over $2 trillion in the long-term costs of this war with no end in sight, with no guarantee to the American people that this war is going to end, and with no requirement by the Iraqis that they act. For some time I have been bothered by this. I have been bothered that the President has stood on the sidelines and allowed this situation to deteriorate, with rose-colored glasses on cruise control. I picked up the phone a few weeks ago to call one of the administration officials to talk to them about that. I said it was my perception that there is no Iraqi government essentially because there is no agreement about oil. The oil in Iraq is located under the Shiites' territory and the Kurds' territory. It is not located where most of the Sunnis live. And the Shiites to date have been insisting at least on the new oil fields remaining in the regional areas, meaning, bottom line, Shiites get the oil. Sunnis who have run the country for 75 years, if not more, are left out. Therefore, they have had continuing sectarian violence. So I asked this official, is that assessment a fair assessment of this situation? And he said, yes. And it is interesting because his assessment is the same one as this report as we will talk to in depth. I said, well, then, I hope to believe that the President has given an ultimatum, at least privately, to Mr. Maliki and all of the other Iraqi officials that we are leaving if they do not form an agreement about oil. And the answer stunned me. He said, no, we have not done that. We haven't put that pressure on the Iraqis. And I said, why not? He said, well, we don't think that's our place. So while our sons and daughters are dying tonight, and my neighbor's son is in Baghdad when he should be home with his 1-year-old son, the White House doesn't think it is its place to put pressure on the Iraqis to reach an agreement about oil so that they can form a government and we can get our troops home. This is the most callously indifferent, negligent attitude of this administration and it is costing our country dearly and it is wrong. And this report on a bipartisan basis has said it is wrong. It has said very clearly that we need to make a statement. It goes on to say, ``There is no action the American military can take that by itself can bring about success in Iraq.'' This requires a political resolution. Yet our President has not insisted on a political resolution. He has essentially told the politicians they can diddle, they can squabble, they can bicker, they can disagree, they can create these little deals where the Shiite radicals, al-Sadr gets three ministries and maybe the Sunnis get half a one, and the sectarian violence goes out of control and our kids get killed, with no threat whatsoever that we are bringing our troops home. That is one of the reasons that we are in the pickle we are in. The report goes on to say, ``The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq.'' That is exactly what the President has done. He has made a commitment to keep these troops there indefinitely. As long as we have been in Japan or Germany, and apparently people still think that this is like World War II, when the Vice President and Mr. Wolfowitz and the whole group of them essentially said we would be welcomed like we were in the streets of Paris in World War II. They still have that image of what this is all about in Iraq. As a result, our policy is failing, because they still are essentially saying, we are going to stay there for 50 years like we have in Europe, and that is a policy inconsistent with our national security goals. Next statement, ``While it is clear that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is moderating the violence, there is little evidence that the long-term deployment of U.S. troops by itself has led or will lead to fundamental improvements in the security situation.'' Now, that is a profound statement. We believe, because we are truly the greatest Nation on Earth, and we are, we have done remarkable things. We have the most efficient, most capable, most dedicated military force the world has ever seen. We have the best soldiers, Air Force and sailors the world has ever seen. They are great people. I know I visited two of them in a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, two young men from Bremerton, Washington, on my return trip from Iraq about a year and a half ago. These two young men had very, very serious leg injuries, and I went and saw them in their hospital beds and they had their legs propped up and tubes and pins and everything in their legs, and they had only been out of Iraq 2 or 3 days. I asked them how they were doing, and both of them said, sir, I just want to get back to my unit as fast as I can, sir. That was a pretty impressive moment for me that these young men who had such bad injuries, the first thing they could say is they wanted to get back to their unit. Anyone who has dealt with the people, Americans serving in Iraq, you would be so proud of their service and what they are doing. We have incredible talent and dedication there. They have been amazingly dedicated through a very difficult 3 years, many of them serving on their second, third, fourth rotation throughout Iraq, without complaint. It is really pretty amazing. So we have got the best people, we have got the best equipment, but we do not have the best policy, and a policy that essentially allows the Iraqi government to dawdle and not form an agreement is one doomed for failure. That is the policy of the President tonight unless something changes, and we are calling for strong changes in that regard. There is a real clear reality in Iraq. No deal on oil, no peace. No deal on petroleum, no way for us out, and we have got to insist on that, and that has not happened. The report goes on to say, the composition of the Iraqi government is basically sectarian, and key players within the government too often act in their sectarian interest. Now, we are all thrilled when there was voting going on in Iraq. We would like to think that they, in Iraq, were as committed to their government when they voted as we are to ours. We know how government works. We have had a peaceful transition of power here in the United States Congress. The people were dissatisfied with the course of the Nation this November 7, and they spoke, and I think they spoke very clearly that they wanted a change of course in Iraq. But the fact of the matter is, this is more like sort of a gangs dealing up turf in Iraq than it is a working government. Right now three of the ministries are controlled by Mr. al-Sadr, who runs this brigade of perhaps 60,000 people in a personal militia, and those three ministries of the government we are supposed to be helping and allied with, will not even work with Americans. Three of the major ministries, might be 40 percent of the government in Iraq, won't even talk to us, and these are the people we are trying to help. This is not a working situation. And have we basically said to the Iraqis, to Mr. Maliki, you must disarm that Sadr militia? You must get access to those agencies of the government? No, we haven't said that. We haven't said that at all. We have said we will just stay there forever if it takes that long. You can just play whatever difficult games you have in the sectarian tensions in Iraq, and we will stay forever. That is the wrong message to Iraq. We have got to tell them they are going to stand on their own feet very quickly, or they will fall, and only the Iraqis can make that decision ultimately, and we have made a decision, a commitment, and I know a lot of people who are against this war, myself among them. I was very vocally opposed to this war when we started. I thought that we did not receive proper intelligence. I thought the intelligence was cherry picked. I thought that the threat was vastly overstated. Even though it was popular to be for the war at the time and the war drums were beating, I and 164 other Members of the House voted against the war. Many of my constituents felt the same way I did. But even though they were very, very strongly against the war, they felt there was some national obligation on our part to give the Iraqis some reasonable chance to form a government. We had destroyed a government, we had some obligation to give them a chance to reestablish security and a government in Iraq. But that cannot be a never-ending responsibility of the United States, and we have now spent longer in and given the Iraqis longer than the greatest generation took to win World War II. We have to realize that even though that period of time has gone on, the situation according to this bipartisan report isn't getting better, it is getting worse, and we have to recognize that reality. We have to have a major change in Iraq. It goes on to say the security situation cannot improve unless leaders act in support of national reconciliation. Shiite leaders must make the decision to demobilize militias. Sunni Arabs must make the decision to seek their aims through a peaceful political process, not through violent revolt. The Iraqi government and Sunni Arab tribes must aggressively pursue al Qaeda. None of those things are happening, and we have not insisted on any of those things happening. We have been the patsy while this sectarian conflict has gone on, and we have not insisted that it stop, or we are removing our troops tomorrow. As a result, these folks have refused to make the very difficult compromises it takes to form a government. I have got to tell you, I know how difficult it is. It is difficult enough around here in peace time, and I know it is difficult for leaders in Iraq. But American sons and daughters cannot be expected to be sent to the streets of Baghdad when Iraqis will not go. You know what happened when we decided to pull troops out of Al Anbar Province where the insurgency is essentially taking over to send into Baghdad, and we called for six groups to come of the Iraqi forces? Only two of them showed up. We still don't have the troops the plan called for months ago to get security into Baghdad. Why didn't they show up? They didn't show up because they don't have a government to stand up for yet, because the politicians will not make the compromises necessary to do so, because we haven't required it. We have got to have a tough position in Iraq, and the tough position is one of tough love. Tough love is you tell the Iraqis they have got to fish or cut bait, because our ability to sustain this is not unlimited. This goes on to say the problems of the Iraqi police and the criminal justice system are profound. Significant questions remain about the ethnic composition of some Iraqi units. Specifically they will carry out missions on behalf of sectarian goals instead of agenda. Units lack leadership, equipment, personnel, logistics and support. I want to take a moment, if I can, to talk about what this administration has not done in the pursuit of its own policy. You know, for 3 years now, the President has said we will stand down as the Iraqi military stands up. But this administration has always wanted to fight this war on the cheap. It has never been willing to commit the resources to what a successful pursuit of this mission would require, and a successful pursuit of this mission, for the last 3 years, would be to equip, arm and train an Iraqi military as rapidly as possible, and we haven't done 40 percent of that effort. The reason I know that--I went to Iraq, and I talked to the Iraqi forces, and they say we don't have any equipment, we don't have any communications, we don't have any payroll system, we don't have any recruitment system, we don't have any logistics system, we don't have any medical evacuation system, we don't have any communication system with the public. We are some people with AK-47s in pickup trucks who have been given a very short training period by the United States Government. As a consequence, a difficult situation where you had extremely low motivation anyway to stand up for the government has been made worse. In fact, it was so bad that a year and a half ago, my friends the Republicans limited the amount we were going to spend training the Iraqi army. They wanted to reduce it. I said if the way out of Iraq is to stand up an Iraqi army, it seems to me we should do this as quickly as possible. So I offered an amendment to the military appropriations bill that was accepted that at least didn't cut the training for the Iraqi army, but the fact of the matter is, any military assessment of the Iraqi army is they can't fight. They don't have the wherewithal to fight. We go into battle with armor, communications, Medevac, howitzers, gunships, F-16s. We tell the Iraqis to go out with some pickups and AK-47s and no communications equipment. Why is that? Well, it is because the administration has never been willing to ask the sacrifices that are necessary of the American people to complete this mission successfully. It has tried to fight the war on the cheap, and the people paid dearly with both our losses of 2,800 people, 20,000 people who are seriously injured, and goodness knows how many Iraqis who have lost their lives. You know, maybe we would have a different attitude if we had a chief executive who was committed to this commission enough to ask for sacrifices of the American people, but we don't have that. We have a situation where for 3 years this has been essentially a half-hearted effort, an unwillingness to get tough with the Iraqis and an unwillingness to commit the resources necessary to do the job, and a debacle has unfolded. Probably the largest foreign policy debacle has unfolded in the last of America's history. So this is a stunningly disturbing report, and I note that it contains many of criticisms that I and my colleagues and what's called the Iraq Watch have been making on the floor of the House now for 2 years. We have come to the floor of the House in the evening. Many, if not all of these criticisms we have espoused. I think they have more reliabilities now that a bipartisan group has essentially been saying what we have been saying about the failure of this administration policy in Iraq. So the question now becomes what should be the change? Well, the first thing is there has to be a change in the Iraqi government. I will quote this report, the composition of the Iraqi government is basically sectarian, and key players within the government too often act in their sectarian interest. The security situation cannot improve unless leaders act in support of national reconciliation. Shiite leaders must make the decision to demobilize militias. Sunni Arabs must make the decision to seek their aims through a peaceful political process, not through violent revolt. We must insist on this. We must require. We must compel it. Today we have not done so. Now, what conclusions has this report drawn? It gets a little bit murky reading the report. It is not entirely clear what this group actually said. It is a committee of individuals who signed a report, and most people know the old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, and what this group really recommends is a little bit ambiguous in part. But I would suggest there is one thing that is important and one thing that has a little lacking in this report. The first thing is it demands a change in our policy, it demands a realistic assessment of our policy, and it demands that we get tough with the Iraqis to demand a political solution in Iraq, because that is a central prerequisite to any progress being made in Iraq. And that is a very import offering of this report, that we have to do that. Now, the question then becomes, what do we do as far as troop levels and our military mission in Iraq? Their report is a bit of weak tea in that regard. It essentially alludes, and you will hear news reports that this calls for essentially removing our major combat missions by the end of next year, by 2008, by the first quarter of 2008. The report isn't quite that clear. It says that by the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. ``Could be.'' At the time U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces in rapid reaction and special operations teams and search and rescue. ``Could.'' ``Could'' is not a strong enough word for what this situation demands of American leadership. The word ``must'' must be in our response from Congress about Iraq. It is time to talk turkey with the Iraqi government. We cannot shade it. We can use polite language, but we cannot use language that is susceptible to multiple interpretations. We must tell the Iraqi government that their training wheels have to come off, they have to strike the political deals on oil that have to be made, because our troops are coming home at a date, if not certain, that is at least within certain parameters. There is no reason that that process should not start now in a way that is militarily defensible. We have to send that strong message to the Iraqis, and only our actions will do so. Frankly, language like ``could be'' I don't think is going to register on the streets of Baghdad, where 100 to 200 bodies are being found every couple of days. We need to send a stronger message. The question is, how do we do that? I would like to think the President of the United States would have an epiphany reading this report. I would like to think that he will shed those rose-colored glasses that he has worn for 3 years. I would like to think that he will decide not to heed the advice of his vice president, who has been wrong on virtually every single thing in Iraq policy. I would like to think that he will then come to the U.S. Congress and say, ``I am totally changing my statement on Iraq. I now believe we have to start bringing our troops home, because nothing less will result in the Iraqi government having an incentive to form a real government.'' If those things happen, Congress will be able in short order to reach an agreement to end this war in Iraq and give the Iraqis what they need, which is an incentive for action on the political front. I am not all that hopeful that will happen. The President since the election has said some gracious things. The day after the election he said that he wanted to work on a bipartisan basis, and those words were greeted happily by us and we would like to believe that was the case. Two weeks later, the President sent up six judges that he knew would be rejected by the U.S. Senate because of their entirely right-wing beliefs. Last week he appointed an individual to take care of the contraceptive program of the United States, to give women control over their destiny, and he appointed a person who thinks contraception somehow should be illegal, or at least inappropriate. So the signs have not been entirely favorable that the President received the message from the American people given him on November 7. Some of my colleagues have. In the earlier discussion here, we had some of my colleagues, Republicans, quite a number of them, doing a valedictorian speech tonight who had come out on the short end in the election. I think they received the message. Many of them I consider friends, and they are good people, and they are credible people and hard-working people, and I know the taste of defeat, so I have some empathy for them. But the American people have spoken, and we need the President to listen to them, and we need the President to listen to this report, and we need the President to listen to his troops, and those messages are we need a radical rethinking of Iraq policy. Now, I have a message I would hope my colleagues will also consider tonight, and that is if the President does not heed that message of the American people, we here in the House of House of Representatives have a responsibility to act. We cannot just be folks who give speeches about Iraq, all though that is what I am doing here tonight. We cannot be people who just issue press releases about Iraq. We cannot be Congressmen and women who simply send letters to the White House. If the President of the United States refuses to change course in Iraq in a meaningful way, this Congress has to use the ability granted to it by the United States Constitution to assure that there will be a change in Iraq, and we have an opportunity to do so through the appropriations process. This war cannot be fought and the President cannot continue to put these troops in harm's way without funding. The geniuses in Philadelphia established the People's House and gave as its first obligation responsibility for the fiscal condition of the Nation. No President can continue a war without funding. If the funding stops for the Iraq war, our troops will come home, and this Congress has to have the gumption to take such action if the President does not heed the will of the American people. Now, people say, oh, isn't that fraught with political risk? You know, it might be. And that is why people in Vietnam waited 3 to 4 years after it became obvious that our policy was wrong, of not removing our sons and daughters at that time, and my friends at that time and my colleagues at that time, from harm's way in Vietnam. Iraq is not Vietnam. It is dangerous to draw comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. They are manifestly different in many, many ways, including our national interests and the nature of the threat and the extent of the losses that we have suffered. But it is similar in this way: If we follow the failure of the Congresses in the early 1970s who refused to stand up to a chief executive to demand a change in course, we will have fallen victim to what they did during the Vietnam years. We have at least 15,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial wall as a result of Congress' refusal to be willing to use the appropriation mechanism to bring our troops home. That is not a failure of will or courage or backbone that we should suffer. We have an obligation to these kids and not-so-kids in Baghdad tonight, and we should know, we should be willing to do so, and we should say we should be willing to do so, so that the President of the United States knows that we are serious in our discussions. I am hopeful that is not necessary. I am hopeful we can forge a bipartisan agreement with the President to heed the recommendations of this report and the will of the American people from November 7. But we have to be prepared to do our duty here, and I think that is important for us to say early in this discussion, so that we can move forward. I want to, if I can, say another thing that I think would be important for the President to do. He can do this tomorrow and he hasn't done it. He can have a statement to the people of Iraq that the United States of America does not intend to have permanent military bases in Iraq. This is a statement that the Iraqi people need to hear. In polls, 75 percent of the Iraqi people believe we are not a positive influence in Iraq. Sixty percent of the Iraqi people in a poll believe it is appropriate to attack Americans in Iraq. Think about this. These are people that the war was started out, at least in its later chapters, to try to give Iraqis a chance at democracy. We have spent $400 billion, 2,000 lives, 20,000 injured, the honor of the Nation to help Iraqis, and 60 percent of them believe it is okay to attack Americans. This is not a situation where we are capable of helping them militarily. Our presence there is a reason, at least one of the reasons, for violence in that country. And we lost 10 of our best yesterday and 24 in the last 2 days. It is a recognition that we have to come to grips with. One of the reasons for that antipathy is a conviction, as much as we don't share it, that the Bush administration wants to have permanent bases in Iraq. But because of stubbornness and willfulness and refusal to show any flexibility to reality, this administration has refused to say that. That would be helpful. That would be a first start, and we hope that that happens. So we now have an obligation to follow one conclusion of this, and the first phase of this report, if I can in conclusion read, ``Current U.S. policy is not working.'' That is the most powerful statement in the whole report. And we need radical changes, the ``radical changes'' is my language, not the report. Quoting the report, ``Current U.S. policy is not working as the level of violence in Iraq is rising and the government is not advancing reconciliation. Making no changes in policy would simply delay the day of reckoning at a high cost. Nearly 100 Americans are dying every month. The United States is spending $2 billion a week. Our ability to respond to other international crises is constrained. The majority of the American people are soured on the war. The level of expense is not sustainable over an extended period, especially when progress is not being made. The longer the United States remains in Iraq without progress, the resentment will grow among Iraqis who believe they are subjects of a repressive American occupation.'' We need a change, and we need it now, and we cannot dither or dally or wait or have debates amongst ourselves. We have to take action now. And I hope my colleagues will join me in a willingness to do that. That will be difficult. While we have troops in the field, it is always difficult to talk about the mission. But I am here tonight, proud of my neighbor's son who is tonight in Baghdad. I am proud of the mission he has done and is doing, and I am caring about he and his 1- year-old son. I believe the U.S. Congress owes an obligation to him and his own to insist that this President come to grips with the reality of Iraq, send a message that our troops are coming home; that this is something the Iraqis have to deal with quickly because they are going to be on their own. We can no longer keep training wheels forever on Iraq at the expense of our sons and daughters. That statement, I believe, in the long run will be best, with the least possible damage to all concerned. And I don't offer a panacea. I don't offer a silver wand in Iraq. But I can say that the current situation is not acceptable, and we will change it one way or another, and the sooner the better.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, today we will be taking action so that America's shorelines do not suffer the same fate as Indonesia's on December 26, 2004. I am very pleased that this prolonged effort has arrived today where Congress is going to take measures to give Americans a warning and an ability to avoid damage from a tsunami before that big tsunami hits. We are in danger and threatened on our coastlines in Washington. First, I will allude to the Pacific. Right off the coastline of Washington and Oregon in the Pacific is what is called the Cascadia subduction zone. This is an evil twin sister of the fault in Indonesia. It is almost identical to the fault off the coastline of Indonesia that caused that quake that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. We have similar subduction zones in the Alaskan-Aleutian zone. We are in the bull's-eye of a potential tsunami. In fact, one happened on February 26, 1700, off the coastline of Washington, and sent what could have been 50-foot waves onto the coastline. We need to do a better job, and this bill is a good start. The good news is we have some great technology to deal with this issue. We have these detection buoys that use a product developed in Redmond, Washington, in my district, by a company called Paro Scientific. These buoys are anchored off the coastline and they have a little sensor that is on the bottom of the ocean that can measure the difference of depth of one-tenth of an inch over 2-mile deep water. It is an incredible technology. Then it radios changes in the average depth of the ocean to a satellite. In a matter of seconds, we have a system that can generate information along our coastlines. We have six of these buoys, we need at least 20 in the Pacific. For the first time, this bill will put some buoys in the Atlantic as well. This will be a first international tsunami warning system using what are called piezometers to measure the depth of the ocean. The second thing the bill is going to do is the critical link in the chain of warning because buoys aren't enough. We have got to have a way to warn people, to educate people, to have systems in place so that they can evacuate along the coastlines. A little community called LaPush, Washington now has a system where they can move the whole city in about 12 to 15 minutes. We need to have those systems, and this bill is going to do that. I want to say there is an additional benefit of this bill. False alarms happen as well. And when false alarms happen, we lose millions of dollars when we have false alarms. This whole system will reduce false alarms so that for the first time we can have a credible, meaningful, reliable tsunami detection and warning system in this country. It is overdue. I am glad we are going to have it happen. It is one of the crowning achievements of the great career of Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, who has done such great work for the environment and for science. We are all going to miss his great leadership. I want to note a fellow who just left the Speaker's chair, Representative Charlie Bass, who hopefully will take credit for this as well for his great environmental stewardship. And it is a good day for America's shorelines to protect us from tsunamis.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to make clear it is not the impression in people's minds that counts in Congress. It is what is in people's bills, and in this bill is nothing to solve the Kelo problem. We should not let anger about Kelo allow developers to game taxpayers. This bill should be rejected.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of anger about eminent domain law right now because of the Kelo decision, and I am one of the people who disagrees with that decision. I do not believe it is wise to allow eminent domain to be used for private purposes, and I think it was a poorly decided decision. But I want to make sure that the Members understand. This bill does nothing to fix that problem. If you are angry about Kelo, this bill is not medicine. It does nothing to change the standards for when eminent domain can be used by Federal or municipal governments. So this does not solve the problem, and I want to yield to Mr. Chabot, if I could, for a moment. I just want to make sure that we are on the same page on this. I have looked diligently through this and can find nothing that changes the eminent domain standard that would overturn the Kelo decision. Do you agree with me on that assessment?

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to understand my friends on the Republican side of the aisle's efforts to stick this burden on the taxpayers and allow developers to do the equivalent of developer's gerrymandering to increase their profits. Why should the taxpayers have to succumb to developers doing to the taxpayers what politicians have done to the voters? Politicians, what they have done to the voters is carved out these little districts to try to keep their seats safe. If this bill were to become law, which it will not, it will allow developers to carve up their little development, fancy little lines to extract the maximum amount of money from the taxpayers. Where is the reason to allow developers to decide their own rules, to write their own paycheck from the taxpayers? We have laws on the books enforced by supreme courts that say that, if you have your property taken as a whole, you get compensation. But this bill will game the system, will create this arbitrary system where the developer decides, not the courts, and that is a massive gambit to allow the guy who wants to build a strip club or a gambling spot or a strip mall in your neighborhood to make it impossible for your local community to have meaningful zoning to protect your neighborhood. And it is done for one single reason, to put money in developers pockets in a way that is not fair. And, by the way, this is not about grandma out in her backyard. It is about people wanting to break up large chunks for a subdivision, and decide that they are going to take a wetlands. Right now, if there is a wetlands, and we have lost humungous amounts of wetlands in the last couple hundred years; whether there is a taking depends on the whole property. Do not allow this gambit to take place. It is not fair. It is not Constitutional, and it is not going to pass.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like the Record to reflect on rollcall 501 on the motion to recommit on H.R. 5825, I was unavoidably detained and had I been present I would have voted ``aye'' on that motion.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, we ought to hold this truth to be self- evident, that no President should be given the ability to hold people in detention indefinitely without review by the judicial branch. We should never yield to al Qaeda, not one inch, not one right, not one American principle; but, today, in this bill, we yield a fundamental American principle, the principle that no executive, no President, should have the untrammeled ability to be free of checks and balances that have kept our country so free in the last 230 years. That principle of writ of habeas corpus has been fundamental, and it is destroyed in this bill. When we learn that George Bush's policy has kept a man in detention for years who was totally innocent without trial, it was not just he who suffered. It was we who had a wound as well. We do not care about the terrorists' displeasure here, but we do care about the principled integrity of our country, about the light of liberty that so attracts the world. It is that light that will help us win the war on terrorism, not just the light of our bombs. This is the principal weapon in our arsenal. It is the light of liberty, may it ever shine. Reject this bill. Go back to the drawing board.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I came here this morning to chastise the Republican majority for their failure to act on the minimum wage, but one of my colleagues said something so outrageous and indecent that it demands an answer. One of my colleagues lauded President Bush's action on security and foreign policy, asserting that we hadn't had any losses since September 11, that we hadn't been attacked. We have been attacked in Baghdad. We have been attacked in Mosul. We have been attacked in Tikrit. We are being attacked every single day, because this President and this do-nothing Congress has sent our troops and our finest men and women, our sons and daughters, our husbands and wives, into harm's way, where they never should have been in Iraq. We have lost 2,600-plus. We have had 15,000 of them limping around America because of the absurdly incompetent, ineffective, boneheaded decisions by this President and this Congress which has allowed them to go into harm's way. Those who sit there and pat themselves on the back and say that we have had unalloyed success have done a disrespect to the fallen in Iraq. They shouldn't stand here and pat themselves on the back. They should be covered in shame for their failure to hold this President accountable for the competence we need in Iraq.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I think when we talk about the wrong country, it has been the wrong country in two different ways. First, the President has united Iran, part of the ``axis of evil,'' with Iraq, rather than uniting America. He got the countries wrong in that regard. But, more importantly, he got the countries wrong about which country is a nuclear threat to the United States of America. He invaded Iraq, when the nuclear threat to the United States of America is Iran. As a result of Mr. Bush's war, he has made the nuclear threat to the United States of America, Iran, more powerful by uniting it with Iraq, making Iran a more powerful figure in the Mideast by taking our eye off the ball, reducing our ability to build an international consensus to impose sanctions against Iran, because he invaded the wrong country. Do you know what? I was so astounded that the Vice President of the United States made a statement last weekend that made me think there is some hallucinogen in the water that people are drinking in this administration when he said, and this is a paraphrase, it is not an exact quote, even if we knew that the weapons were in Iran, not in Iraq, that there was no relationship between Saddam Hussein and the attack on 9/11, that we were going to lose 2,600 troops dead and 15,000 injured, the destruction of our international coalition, even if I knew that all the things we told Americans were misstatements, were falsehoods, even with all of those falsehoods, I would have done just the same thing again. That attitude, as long as that attitude prevails in this country, as long as we don't have a Congress to ride herd on those people in the White House, including the Vice President, our people are going to be in a dark, dark hole in Iraq. That is why we need a new Congress and a new government, to get a policy in Iraq, to get our people home.

Mr. INSLEE. It is not us asking where Congress has been challenging these failures by the administration, it is our constituents. I went for a walk last weekend, and I ran across an old friend whose son is serving in Iraq today, and he has just been moved to Baghdad because we have stripped our forces from Al Anbar Province where they are needed to put them in Baghdad, because we have never had enough troops there to get the job done, the President has never been willing to do it. The mother of their child is also serving in Iraq, so they are essentially raising this 1-year-old. He asked me this question: Why isn't anyone in Congress insisting that the President get serious about telling the Iraqi Shiites to strike a deal about oil with the Sunnis so they can finally form a real government and our troops can come home? Why isn't there anybody in Congress asking that question? I said, Hal, I am happy to ask that question. He said, go do it. Be vocal about this. Make sure the administration gets their feet held to the fire, for my son and everybody else serving in Iraq. So we are doing this tonight. But, frankly, we need a new majority in this House to do it with hearings. That is what we really need.

Mr. INSLEE. After this conference of Tehran between the axis of evil and the new government the President has created in Iraq, one of the leaders described the other leader as their, quote, good friend. I don't know if it was the President of Iran, the axis of evil describing the new government created by George Bush in Iraq or vice versa. Do you know which one it was?

Mr. INSLEE. Well, you pointed out something that I just realized. President Bush, when he ran for office back in 2000, said he would be the great uniter. Many of us have been disappointed, in fact, that he has divided the country like no President in modern history. When we were united after September 11 with us and the whole world, he has now divided the country. But I think finally he has united two ununitable, intractable foes, one, an axis of evil, Iran, who we are trying to defeat, in some way to prevent them from having nuclear weapons. He has united Iraq and made Iran a more fundamentalist Islamic government, a more powerful entity on the world stage, more powerful, as he describes them, axis of evil, and the President finally fulfilled his destiny of being the great uniter.

Mr. INSLEE. I want to point out something, why this is such a diabolical development that the President has given to the world and the United States, and that is it is very simple. We have folks in harm's way today, we have lost 2,600 of our finest men and women in Iraq, and it is very clear that we are not going to get those people out unless the leadership of Iraq and the Shiite factions finally reach an agreement regarding oil revenues with the Sunnis and the Kurds in Iraq. This picture is a picture of the friendship of the Shiite-led fundamentalist Iranian government essentially signing up with the Shiite-led faction of the government in Iraq, and this President has refused to drop the hammer on the government of Iraq to tell them that they have to make a deal about oil revenues right now and refusing to continue to keep our troops there in harm's way unless they do. Because it is clear that unless this President makes very clear to the Shiites and the Sunnis and the Kurds that if they don't reach an agreement about oil revenue, which they are arguing about today, and have been arguing about for 3 years, we could be there for 500 years and not solve the problem. This President has simply allowed them to shake hands and not put pressure on them, not drop the hammer on them. That is what he has got to do, and he hasn't done it.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. I think it is important to note that before we do violence to the existing situation here that there has been substantial success. In the existing relationships, we have had only three essential tribes, all of which have been done with largely local jurisdictions' approval. To do significant changes to upset that balance would erode, and I do believe this bill as currently written does erode, to a degree, tribal sovereignty in this regard. For that reason, I don't believe it is necessary at this time, and there can be and should be improvements. It is disappointing again that democracy isn't functioning here in this body in that we are not allowed to offer amendments on the floor to a very critical issue involving tribal sovereignty. We have seen tribes abused historically in this country. I think that is happening again today where this bill is not allowed to be subject to the amendment process on the floor that it should. But I also want to note that I believe that somehow the gaming process has not assisted folks in these tribes. I just want to attest, having seen boys and girls clubs established, in fact, first boys and girls club on a reservation in the Toledo reservation in the State of Washington, as a result of this economic activity, there are a lot of good economic activities happening in these communities. I think this bill will not foster them and we should oppose it.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, what we want to point out and we want to make sure, because I think I have confirmed this with the Republican staff, the way this works, if this bill passes, in the State of Washington the minimum wage goes down the next day $1.78 an hour. The gentleman is correct. If the State legislature got together and essentially overrode the Republicans in Congress, they might be able to get it back up where it was. But you know what? You Republicans in the State legislature, I say ``you,'' Republican-controlled legislators, I will give you a clue: it is not going to happen. That is why we object to cutting the minimum wage in any State by any Congress of any party. Unfortunately, that is what you are doing. You can confirm it with counsel. That is why we think it is an abomination.

Mr. INSLEE. The only people in the State of Washington whose wages will be affected by this bill, should it pass, will have their minimum wage decreased. Every single worker who receives tips in the State of Washington will have their minimum wage decreased $1.78 an hour as a result of this ridiculous bill. Seven States are in the same position: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. In seven States in this country, the only people who will be affected by this bill are those who will get their minimum wage slashed. Where is the Republican desire to slash the minimum wage and call it an increase in the minimum wage? That is what you have written into this bill. Now, we realize this bill isn't going to pass, and you think you are going to get relief from the voters because you voted for this when it isn't going to pass. Well, if it did pass, you would be cutting the minimum wage in the State of Washington by $1.78 an hour. The people who feed you, when you take your $30,000 pay increases we all have had over the last several years, you take your $30,000 pay increases, and you tell the people that serve your tostadas and your spaghetti that you can cut their minimum wage by $1.78 an hour. If you doubt me, ask Molly on your staff. She will tell you I am right. I don't know who the brilliant guy was who thought that that is good policy in this country. We Democrats think it is a very bad idea. The situation is, you're not going to deliver a minimum wage of any dimension because of the way you packaged this, because you don't want to see a minimum-wage increase. That is why you packaged this with a poison pill. And this is not going to work for you, because mailmen who don't deliver the mail get punished. And you will be punished for this this November. I will just say one thing: when you cut the minimum wage for restaurant tip workers in this country, I will say this, it is bad enough when you don't do a minimum-wage bill; it is worse when you do. The point I want to make is this bill is not going to pass because they put a poison pill in it. But I want to make sure people understand in the States of Washington, Montana, Nevada, California, those States, that if it did pass, they would be cutting restaurant workers. Do you want to challenge that, Mr. Hayworth? I will yield to you. If you think that is wrong, you can walk up to your staff member and she will tell you that you are cutting restaurant workers $1.78 in the State of Washington. If you disagree with that, I will show you page 181 of your bill.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

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

Mr. INSLEE. I am.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, you have to ask why Members of the U.S. Congress would hold working families ransom for a very modest increase in the minimum wage after so much time has passed. Why would Members of Congress do that? How could they possibly deny people who work in our nursing homes and care for our families, people who work cleaning up our schools, people who work laboring under the hot sun on various sites, how could Members of the U.S. Congress hold them hostage? To get what their special interests, the wealthiest among us, what they want: these million dollar tax breaks. How could they possibly do that? Well, the best explanation I can come up with is that those same Members who are holding these working families hostage tonight have had over $30,000 pay raises in the last several years themselves. Eight times they have received pay raises. Eight times their families have been well clothed and well fed. Eight times they have gone on trips on airplanes. Eight times they have had their health care needs met without worrying how they are going to pay for their kids' appendectomy. They are conditioned to be able to allow their families, the working families of this country, to tell them to go fish. It is a moral outrage to tell the working families of this country tonight, in the darkness of night, where evil is traditionally done in human affairs, that you can tell these families that they can just go fish and not get a tiny little raise in the minimum wage unless these, the well-heeled, the special interests, those who have influence in here get their piece of the action. Well, let me tell you, there is something in the Good Book that says by their acts ye shall know them. And by your votes you shall know them. There is a group here in Congress that thinks there is only a special group that counts in this country, and that our genius is only the wealthy. We are the group who believes that working people are just as entitled to the respect of this Congress as those who are well off. Reject this rule and pass the minimum wage as we should.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I hate to spoil this garden party, but this is not, in truth, suburban legislation, it is substandard legislation. And the reason for that is that it is, in effect, a good press release, but it is not effective legislation addressing a huge problem threatening our children. The reason I say that is, after sitting through many hearings in the Commerce Committee about this enormous problem, I reached one conclusion. After listening to those thousands of children who are being abused on these horrendous occasions across this country, I concluded that this legislation would not save one single child one single time. What we learned is that the problem is not in our schools. These kids are not hanging in the library with these sexual predators. They are hanging around in their dens, in their basements, in their living rooms, and in their upstairs bedrooms. That is where we have to get to the problem. If you look at the problem here on this chart, only 10 percent of the abused kids are online and hardly any of them from schools. A tiny, tiny, infinitesimal portion. This will not solve the problem. Now, there are things we can do, but, unfortunately, this legislation doesn't do a single one of them. I used to prosecute cases, so I know a little bit about law enforcement. I raised three kids, so I know a little bit about the terror of worrying about your children. But what this legislation does not do is the three things we need to do. Number one, we have to give resources to law enforcement to prosecute these horrendous monsters. We had detective after detective come to our hearings and say, give us some money; we can prosecute these people. This doesn't give them a penny. Number two, we need to protect the data. What the detectives told us is that this data, once it disappears, they can't find the culprits. Now we could require the data to be maintained for a year or two, like we are trying to do. This bill doesn't do that. Third, what this bill could do is provide some real meaningful tools for our schools to educate our children on how to avoid these monsters on the Internet. This doesn't do that. The three effective things that we could do to really save our kids is not done in this legislation. Now, why is this such a pathetic wave at trying to do something? Why has Congress failed so miserably here? There is a reason for that. The reason is we want press releases, without having to do the hard work to do legislation. That is why we didn't go through the Commerce Committee to have a markup on this bill so they could rush this thing to the floor and have their suburban agenda. Well, speaking as a parent who represents 650,000 people, and probably 200,000 parents in suburbia, I think suburban parents, urban parents, rural parents, big-city parents and little-city parents deserve real legislation to stomp out the monstrosity that is going on on the Internet and not these little press releases. We can't go home and just say that we are heroes without having really done something. When I go home, I am going to tell my constituents that, yes, maybe there are some headlines, but there wasn't real relief. And I look forward to the day when this Congress gets down to the nitty-gritty and really does something about this terrible problem.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a very important part of this bill that increases Americans' access to reverse mortgages. Reverse mortgages are a tremendous vehicle by which Americans can get access to the equity in their home to make it available for health care, for assistance, for travel, for education; and now this bill will take three big steps forward to make reverse mortgages more available. First, it will do so by having a uniform national cap so that it will remove this cap in a lot of areas in the country that have prevented Americans from having reverse mortgages. Secondly, it will make it available for, essentially, homeownership, which might be in the best interests of senior citizens. Third, it will remove the cap on the number of reverse mortgages that essentially can go through the FHA home equity conversion program, which now issues 90 percent of the reverse mortgages in the country. So this is a fantastic opportunity, particularly for our seniors to be able to have access to the equity in their homes. It is a big stride forward. I know a lot of seniors are going to take advantage of it to make sure they can stay in their homes, to use their equity to finance having health care and assistance in their homes to give them their liberty. I want to thank the bipartisan effort to put this together. I also want to thank noted author Tom Kelly who has been a great advocate for getting these reverse mortgages used by more Americans.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I was absent from the House floor during yesterday's votes on H.R. 2389, which amends the Federal judicial code to deny jurisdiction to any Federal court, and appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of the Pledge of Allegiance or its validity under the Constitution. At that time, the House also considered H. Res. 911 pertaining to deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai and H.R. 5683 regarding the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial. Had I been present, I would have voted against H.R. 2389, and I would have voted in favor of both H. Res. 911 and H.R. 5683.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, when I voted to override President Bush's veto of stem cell research, I was thinking of ex-Governor Booth Gardner of Washington State. I saw Governor Gardner in the Sea-Tac Airport Monday as I was flying back here. He was flying to San Francisco for advanced treatment for Parkinson's, a disease he has been battling for some time with great courage and grace. And yet this promising research, we have a President who decided he is not going to let Americans have because he, from his exalted realm on Pennsylvania Avenue, has taken it upon himself to dictate to Americans what our morals should be. Let me suggest that the President who started the war in Iraq based on false information, the President that mishandled Hurricane Katrina relief, the President who has created the largest deficit in the history of the solar system, is not entitled by any law, religion, morality, ethics or common sense to dictate to the American people one sense of morality, much less any others. It was wrong for him to deny Booth Gardner treatment, it is wrong for him to take it away from millions of Americans.