Dennis Kucinich

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield myself such time as I may consume. We keep coming back to 9/11. We're near the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, and which was predicated on a lie, no weapons of mass destruction. The war in Afghanistan is based on a misreading of history. The Soviet Union understood that at hard cost. The occupation is fueling an insurgency. Now, Jeremy Scahill in the Nation points out that Taliban leaders have said they've seen a swelling in Taliban ranks since 9/11 in part attributed to the widely held perception that the Karzai government is corrupt and illegitimate, and that Afghans, primarily ethnic Pashtuns, want foreign occupation forces out. They're only fighting to make foreigners leave Afghanistan. Occupation fuels insurgency. That is an ironclad fact. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. KUCINICH. The 2001 authorization of military force and the justification for our continued military presence in Afghanistan is that the Taliban in the past provided a safe haven for al Qaeda or could do so again in the future. General Petraeus has already admitted that al Qaeda has little or no presence in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is an international organization, and, yes, they are a threat to America. The Taliban is only a threat to us as long as we continue our military occupation in Afghanistan. After more than 9 years of military occupation of Afghanistan, can we really continue to claim to be acting in self-defense? The premise that the presence of our troops on the ground keeps us safer at home has been repudiated by recent terrorist attacks on the United States, all done by people other than Afghans outraged at continuing U.S. military occupation of predominantly Muslim countries. That is not to justify what they do, but it is to clarify the condition that we have in Afghanistan. For how long are we going to continue to dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives before we realize we can't win Afghanistan militarily? At the end of the year, the administration and U.S. military leaders were touting peace talks to end the war with high-level Taliban leaders. These Taliban leaders turned out to be fake. A November 2010 article in The New York Times detailed joint U.S. and Afghan negotiations with Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, a man the U.S. claimed was one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban. According to the New York Times, ``the episode underscores the uncertain and even bizarre nature of the atmosphere in which Afghan and American leaders search for ways to bring the American-led war to an end. The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid.'' How can we claim that a cornerstone of our counterinsurgency strategy is to take out Taliban strongholds across the country while at the same time conducting negotiations with the Taliban in an effort to end the war? This episode further underlies the significant weakness in our strategy. We think we can separate the Taliban from the rest the Afghan population. Our counterinsurgency strategy fails to recognize a basic principle: Occupations fuel insurgencies. Occupations fuel insurgencies. Occupations fuel insurgencies. The Taliban is a local resistance movement that is part and parcel of the indigenous population. We lost the Vietnam war because we failed to win the hearts and minds of the local population. Without providing them with a competent government that provided them with basic security and a decent living, we're committing the same mistake in Afghanistan. News reports indicate the Taliban is regaining momentum. The increase in civilian casualties due to higher levels of violence by insurgents further undermines the assurances of progress. As we send more troops into the country and kill innocent civilians with errant air strikes, the Taliban gains more support as resistors of foreign occupation. If we accept the premise that we can never leave Afghanistan until the Taliban is eradicated, we'll be there forever. I would like to insert into the Record an article from The Nation, ``America's Failed War in Afghanistan--No Policy Change Is Going to Affect the Outcome.'' That's by Jeremy Scahill. [From The Nation, Mar. 17, 2011] America's Failed War in Afghanistan--No Policy Change Is Going To Affect the Outcome (By Jeremy Scahill) At the end of the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal this weekend, the leadership of the Afghan Taliban issued a statement characterizing the alliance's adoption of a loose timeline for a 2014 end to combat operations as ``good news'' for Afghans and ``a sign of failure for the American government.'' At the summit, President Barack Obama said that 2011 will begin ``a transition to full Afghan lead'' in security operations, while the Taliban declared: ``In the past nine years, the invaders could not establish any system of governance in Kabul and they will never be able to do so in future.'' While Obama claimed that the U.S. and its allies are ``breaking the Taliban's momentum,'' the reality on the ground tells a different story. Despite increased Special Operations Forces raids and, under Gen. David Petraeus, a return to regular U.S.-led airstrikes, the insurgency in Afghanistan is spreading and growing stronger. ``By killing Taliban leaders the war will not come to an end,'' said the Taliban's former foreign minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, in an interview at his home in Kabul. ``On the contrary, things get worse which will give birth to more leaders.'' Former and current Taliban leaders say that they have seen a swelling in the Taliban ranks since 9-11. In part, they say, this can be attributed to a widely held perception that the Karzai government is corrupt and illegitimate and that Afghans--primarily ethnic Pashtuns--want foreign occupation forces out. ``We are only fighting to make foreigners leave Afghanistan,'' a new Taliban commander in Kunduz told me during my recent trip to the country. ``We don't want to fight after the withdrawal of foreigners, but as long as there are foreigners, we won't talk to Karzai.'' ``The Americans have very sophisticated technology, but the problem here in Afghanistan is they are confronting ideology. I think ideology is stronger than technology,'' says Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former senior member of Mullah Mohammed Omar's government. ``If I am a Taliban and I'm killed, I'm martyred, then I'm successful. There are no regrets for the Taliban. It's very difficult to defeat this kind of idea.'' But it is not simply a matter of ideology versus technology. The Taliban is not one unified body. The Afghan insurgency is fueled by fighters with a wide variety of motivations. Some are the dedicated jihadists of which Zaeef speaks, but others are fighting to defend their land or are seeking revenge for the killing of family members by NATO or Afghan forces. While al Qaeda has been almost entirely expelled from Afghanistan, the insurgency still counts a small number of non-Afghans among its ranks. Bolstering the Taliban's recruitment efforts is the perception in Afghanistan that the Taliban pays better than NATO or the Afghan army or police. The hard reality U.S. officials don't want to discuss is this: the cultural and religious values of much of the Pashtun population--which comprises 25-40 percent of the country--more closely align with those of the Taliban than they do with Afghan government or U.S./NATO forces. The Taliban operate a shadow government in large swaths of the Pashtun areas of the country, complete with governors and a court system. In rural areas, land and property disputes are resolved through the Taliban system rather than the Afghan government, which is widely distrusted. ``The objectives and goal of the American troops in Afghanistan are not clear to the people and therefore Afghans call the Americans `invaders,' '' says Muttawakil. ``Democracy is a very new phenomenon in Afghanistan and most people don't know the meaning of democracy. And now corruption, thieves and fakes have defamed democracy. Democracy can't be imposed because people will never adopt any value by force.'' The U.S. strategy of attempting to force the Taliban to surrender or engage in negotiations rests almost exclusively on attempts to decapitate the Taliban leadership. While Taliban leaders acknowledge that commanders are regularly killed, they say the targeted killings are producing more radical leaders who are far less likely to negotiate than the older school Taliban leaders who served in the government of Mullah Mohammed Omar. ``If today Mullah Omar was captured or killed, the fighting will go on,'' says Zaeef, adding: ``It will be worse for everyone if the [current] Taliban leadership disappears.'' In October, there were a flurry of media reports that senior Taliban leaders were negotiating with the Karzai government and that U.S. forces were helping to insure safe passage for the Taliban leaders to come to Kabul. The Taliban passionately refuted those reports, saying they were propaganda aimed at dividing the insurgency. Last week the Taliban appeared vindicated on this point as Karzai spoke in markedly modest terms on the issue. He told The Washington Post that three months ago he had met with one or two ``very high'' level Taliban leaders. He characterized the meeting as ``the exchange of desires for peace,'' saying the Taliban ``feel the same as we do here--that too many people are suffering for no reason.'' Update: [On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that NATO and the Afghan government have held a series of ``secret'' peace negotiations with a man who posed as a senior Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour. A Western diplomat involved in the discussions told the Times, ``[W]e gave him a lot of money.'' It is unclear who, if anyone, the impostor was working for, though the Times speculated that he could have been deployed by Pakistan's ISI spy agency or by the Taliban itself. ``The Taliban are cleverer than the Americans and our own intelligence service,'' said a senior Afghan official who is familiar with the case. ``They are playing games.'' Last month, the White House asked the Times to withhold Mansour's name ``from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized--and Mr. Mansour's life put at risk--if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansour's name,'' according to the paper. This incident is significant on a number of levels. If true, it underscores the ineffective and inaccurate nature of U.S., NATO and Afghan government intelligence. It also confirms what Taliban leaders have stated publicly and to The Nation, namely that it has not negotiated with the Afghan government or NATO and that it will not negotiate unless foreign troops leave Afghanistan. The fake Mullah Mansour, according to the Times, ``did not demand, as the Taliban have in the past, a withdrawal of foreign forces or a Taliban share of the government.'' In October, a U.S. official said that reports in U.S. media outlets of senior Taliban negotiating are propaganda aimed at sowing dissent among the Taliban leadership. ``This is a psychological operation, plain and simple,'' the official with firsthand knowledge of the Afghan government's strategies told the McClatchy news service. ``Exaggerating the significance of it is an effort to sow distrust within the insurgency.'' Today on MSNBC, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell continued to insist that U.S. and NATO forces have facilitated safe passage for Taliban leaders for reconciliation meetings in Kabul. The Taliban maintain there have been no meetings. The Taliban impostor incident also calls into question scores of deadly night raids that have resulted in the deaths of innocent Afghans. Several survivors of night raids recently told The Nation that they believed they were victims of bad intelligence provided by other Afghans for money or to settle personal grudges. Contrary to the rhetoric emanating from NATO and Washington, the Taliban are not on the ropes and, from their perspective, would gain nothing from negotiating with the U.S. or NATO. As far as they are concerned, time is on their side. ``The bottom line for [NATO and the U.S.] is to immediately implement what they would ultimately have to implement . . . after colossal casualties,'' stated the Taliban declaration after the recent NATO summit. ``They should not postpone withdrawal of their forces.'' Depending on who you ask, the fact that Gen. Petraeus has brought back the use of heavy U.S. airstrikes and is increasing night raids and other direct actions by Special Operations Forces could be seen as a sign of either fierce determination to wipe out ``the enemy'' or of desperation to prove the U.S. and its allies are ``winning.'' Over the past three months, NATO claims that Special Operations Forces' night raids have resulted in more than 360 ``insurgent leaders'' being killed or captured along with 960 ``lower- level'' leaders and the capture of more than 2400 ``lower- level'' fighters. In July, Special Operations Forces averaged 5 raids a night. Now, according to NATO, they are conducting an average of 17. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the raids ``intelligence-driven precision operations against high value insurgents and their networks,'' adding, ``There is no question that they are having a significant impact on the insurgent leadership.'' The raids undoubtedly have produced scores of successful kill or capture operations, but serious questions abound over the NATO definitions of Taliban commanders, sub-commanders and foot soldiers. Most significantly, the raids consistently result in the killing of innocent civilians, a fact that is problematic for NATO and the Karzai government. ``A lot of times, yeah, the right guys would get targeted and the right guys would get killed,'' says Matthew Hoh a former senior State Department official in Afghanistan who resigned in 2009 in protest of U.S. war strategy. ``Plenty of other times, the wrong people would get killed. Sometimes it would be innocent families.'' Hoh, who was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold, describes night raids as ``a really risky, really violent operation,'' saying that when Special Operations Forces conduct them, ``We might get that one guy we're looking for or we might kill a bunch of innocent people and now make ten more Taliban out of them.'' Hoh describes the current use of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan as a ``tremendous waste of resources,'' saying, ``They are the best strike forces the world's ever known. They're very well trained, very well equipped, have a tremendous amount of support, and we've got them in Afghanistan chasing after mid-level Taliban leaders who are not threatening the United States, who are only fighting us really because we're in their valley.'' In an interview with The Washington Post in mid-November, President Karzai called for an end to the night raids. ``I don't like it in any manner and the Afghan people don't like these raids in any manner,'' Karzai said. ``We don't like raids in our homes. This is a problem between us and I hope this ends as soon as possible. . . . Terrorism is not invading Afghan homes and fighting terrorism is not being intrusive in the daily Afghan life.'' Karzai's comments angered the Obama administration. At the NATO summit, President Obama acknowledged that civilian deaths have sparked ``real tensions'' with the Karzai government, but reserved the right to continue US raids. ``[Karzai's] got to understand that I've got a bunch of young men and women . . . who are in a foreign country being shot at and having to traverse terrain filled with IEDs, and they need to protect themselves,'' Obama said. ``So if we're setting things up where they're just sitting ducks for the Taliban, that's not an acceptable answer either.'' Republican Senator Lindsey Graham blasted Karzai's statement calling for an end to night raids, saying, ``it would be a disaster for the Petraeus strategy.'' Along with Afghan government corruption, including a cabal of war lords, drug dealers and war criminals in key positions, the so-called Petraeus strategy of ratcheting up air strikes and expanding night raids is itself delivering substantial blows to the stated U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and the much-discussed battle for hearts and minds. The raids and airstrikes are premiere recruiting points for the Taliban and, unlike Sen. Graham and the Obama administration, Karzai seems to get that. In the bigger picture, the U.S. appears to be trying to kill its way to a passable definition of a success or even victory. This strategy puts a premium on the number of kills and captures of anyone who can loosely be defined as an insurgent and completely sidelines the blowback these operations cause. ``We found ourselves in this Special Operations form of attrition warfare,'' says Hoh, ``which is kind of like an oxymoron, because Special Operations are not supposed to be in attrition warfare. But we've found ourselves in that in Afghanistan'' I would like to put into the Record an article from Aljazeera.net, which points out that for all practical purposes, Washington has given up on its counterinsurgency strategy. [From Aljazeera.net, Mar. 7, 2011] Failing in Afghanistan Successfully--Despite Hundreds of Billions of Dollars and Thousands of Troops, the U.S. Is Unable To Conclude Its Longest War (By Marwan Bishara) While we have been fixated on successive Arab breakthroughs and victories against tyranny and extremism, Washington is failing miserably but discreetly in Afghanistan. The American media's one-obsession-at-a-time coverage of global affairs might have put the spotlight on President Obama's slow and poor reaction to the breathtaking developments starting in Tunisia and Egypt. But they spared him embarrassing questions about continued escalation and deaths in Afghanistan. In spite of its international coalition, multiple strategies, hundreds of billions of dollars, and a surge of tens of thousands of troops, the U.S. is unable to conclude its longest war yet or at least reverse its trend. Recent ``reports'' from the war front have been of two kinds. Some official or analytical in nature and heavily circulated in Washington portray a war going terribly well. On the other hand, hard news from the ground tell a story of U.S. fatigue, backtracking and tactical withdrawals or redeployments which do not bode well for defeating the Taliban or forcing them to the negotiations' table. For example, while the U.S. military's decision to withdraw from the Pech valley was justified on tactical need to redeploy troops for the task of ``protecting the population'', keen observers saw it as a humiliating retreat from what the Pentagon previously called a very strategic position and sacrificed some hundred soldiers defending it. Likewise, strategic analysts close to the administration speak triumphantly of U.S. surge and hi-tech firepower inflicting terrible cost on the Taliban, killing many insurgents and driving many more from their sanctuaries. But news from the war front show the Taliban unrelenting, mounting counterattacks and escalating the war especially in areas where the U.S. has ``surged'' its troops. And while the majority of the 400 Afghan districts are ``calmer'', they remain mostly out of Kabul's control. What success? Those with relatively long memories recall the then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's claims that most of Afghanistan was secure in early 2003 and that American forces had changed their strategy from major combat operations to stabilisation and reconstruction project. But the Taliban continued to carry daily attacks on government buildings, U.S. positions and international organisations. Two years later, the U.S. was to suffer the worst and deadliest year since the war began. Today's war pundits are in the same state of denial. For all practical purpose, Washington has given up on its counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy devised under McChrystal and Petreaus. Instead, it is pursuing a heavy handed and terribly destructive crackdown that includes special operations, assassinations, mass demolitions, air and night raids etc. that have led to anything but winning the country, let alone its hearts and minds. The killing of nine Afghan children last week--all under the age of 12--by U.S. attack helicopters has once again put the spotlight on the U.S. military's new aggressive methods. The results are so devastating for the conduct of the war and to Washington's clients, that President Karzai not only distanced himself from the U.S. methods, but also publicly rejected Washington's apology for the killings. Nor is the recruitment and training of the Afghan forces going well. Indeed, many seem to give up on the idea that Afghan security forces could take matters into their hands if the U.S. withdraws in the foreseeable future. Worse, U.S. strategic co-operation with Pakistan--the central pillar of Obama's PakAf strategy--has cooled after the arrest of a CIA contractor for the killing of two Pakistanis even though he presumably enjoys diplomatic immunity. Reportedly, it has also led to a ``breakdown'' in co- ordination between the two countries intelligence agencies, the CIA and the ISI. But the incident is merely a symptom of a bigger problem between the two countries. A reluctant partner, the Pakistani establishment and its military are unhappy with U.S. strategy which they reckon could destabilise their country and strengthen Afghanistan and India at their expense. That has not deterred Washington from offering ideas and money to repair the damage. However, it has become clear that unlike in recent years, future improvement in their bilateral relations will most probably come as a result of the U.S. edging closer to Pakistan's position, not the opposite. All of which makes one wonder why certain Washington circles are rushing to advance the ``success story''. Running out of options The Afghan government's incapability to take on the tasks of governing or securing the country beyond the capital, and the incapacity of the Obama administration to break the Taliban's momentum does not bode well for an early conclusion of the war. To their credit some of Obama's war and surge supporters realise that there is no military solution for Afghanistan. Clearly, their claims of battlefield successes help justify the rush to talk to the Taliban. But it is not yet clear whether the presumably ongoing exploratory secret negotiations with the Taliban are serious at all, or will lead to comprehensive negotiations and eventually a lasting deal. The last ``Taliban commander'' Washington dialogued with in the fall turned out to be an impostor--a shopkeeper from Quetta! If the Taliban does eventually accept to sit down with Obama or Karzai envoys, the U.S. needs to explain why it fought for 10 years only to help the group back to power. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton has begun the humiliating backtracking last month: ``Now, I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace.'' Facing up to the reality The mere fact that the world's mightiest superpower cannot win over the poorly armed Taliban after a long decade of fighting, means it has already failed strategically, regardless of the final outcome. The escalation of violence and wasting billions more cannot change that. It is history. The quicker the Obama administration recognises its misfortunes, minimises its losses and convenes a regional conference over the future of Afghanistan under UN auspices, the easier it will be to evacuate without humiliation. Whether the U.S. eventually loses the war and declares victory; negotiates a settlement and withdraw its troops, remains to be seen. What is incontestable is that when you fight the week for too long, you also become weak. All of which explains the rather blunt comments made in a speech at the end of February, by U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates when he said ``. . . any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should `have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.'' Amen. I would like to insert into the Record, from AlterNet, an article by Derrick Crowe and Robert Greenwald posted on February 6, 2011, titled Damning New Report Shows U.S. Strategy is Blocking Chance for Peace in Afghanistan. [From AlterNet, Feb. 6, 2011] Damning New Report Shows U.S. Strategy Is Blocking Chance for Peace in Afghanistan (By Derrick Crowe and Robert Greenwald) See: http://www.alternet.org/story/149815/ The new report from NYU's Center for International Cooperation is a damning description of the U.S. policies in Afghanistan since 2001, and a warning that the escalated military strategy blocks the road to peace while making the Taliban more dangerous. Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan is the latest in a continuous string of statements from Afghanistan experts that the U.S. war policies that were launched a year ago aren't making us safer and aren't worth the substantial costs: $1 million per U.S. troop in Afghanistan per year, for a total of more than $375.5 billion wasted so far. The report is written by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, Kandahar-based researchers who've spent more than four years researching the Taliban and the recent history of southern Afghanistan. I would like to place into the Record an article from ABC News titled Afghan Security the Worst in a Decade, according to the U.N. ABC News--Afghan Security the Worst in a Decade: UN The security situation in Afghanistan has worsened to its lowest point since the toppling of the Taliban a decade ago and attacks on aid workers are at unprecedented levels, a United Nations envoy said. Robert Watkins, the outgoing UN deputy special representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, says from a humanitarian perspective, security ``is on everyone's minds''. ``It is fair to say that security in the country is at its lowest point since the departure of the Talibans,'' he said. Mr Watkins says before last year's surge in NATO military forces, the insurgency was centred in the south and south- east of the country. ``Since the surge of NATO forces last year, we have seen the insurgency move to parts of the country where we've never seen before,'' he said. ``We've now confronted with security problems that we'd never dream that we'd have. ``While NATO is claiming that it has turned the corner . . . we still see these very difficult security problems.'' UN relief agencies now have regular access to just 30 per cent of the country. Access is mixed for another 30 per cent while there is hardly any access to the remaining 40 per cent. Mr Watkins says a key issue is the ``conflation of political, military, developmental and humanitarian aid''. ``Because of the way aid is dispersed in Afghanistan . . . it has contributed to perception in parts of the Afghan population that somehow humanitarian work is lumped into this political and military effort,'' he said. ``We have to emphasise that we recognise that there has to be separation and we have to be very careful to try to address this perception.'' But he pointed out that a positive development was that the international and Afghan military have publicly acknowledged that some kind of negotiated settlement was necessary to end the instability. ``[This year] can be a crucial year if there is a breakthrough in finding some kind of reconciliation efforts,'' he said. The Taliban, a hardline Islamist movement, was forced from power in late 2001 after a US invasion launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. I would like to place into the Record an article from The New York Times discussing the counterintelligence strategy titled U.S. Pulling Back in Afghan Valley it Called Vital to War. [From The New York Times, Feb. 24, 2011] U.S. Pulling Back in Afghan Valley It Called Vital to War (By C. J. Chivers, Alissa J. Rubin and Wesley Morgan) Kabul, Afghanistan.--After years of fighting for control of a prominent valley in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the United States military has begun to pull back most of its forces from ground it once insisted was central to the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The withdrawal from the Pech Valley, a remote region in Kunar Province, formally began on Feb. 15. The military projects that it will last about two months, part of a shift of Western forces to the province's more populated areas. Afghan units will remain in the valley, a test of their military readiness. While American officials say the withdrawal matches the latest counterinsurgency doctrine's emphasis on protecting Afghan civilians, Afghan officials worry that the shift of troops amounts to an abandonment of territory where multiple insurgent groups are well established, an area that Afghans fear they may not be ready to defend on their own. And it is an emotional issue for American troops, who fear that their service and sacrifices could be squandered. At least 103 American soldiers have died in or near the valley's maze of steep gullies and soaring peaks, according to a count by The New York Times, and many times more have been wounded, often severely. Military officials say they are sensitive to those perceptions. ``People say, `You are coming out of the Pech'; I prefer to look at it as realigning to provide better security for the Afghan people,'' said Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander for eastern Afghanistan. ``I don't want the impression we're abandoning the Pech.'' The reorganization, which follows the complete Afghan and American withdrawals from isolated outposts in nearby Nuristan Province and the Korangal Valley, runs the risk of providing the Taliban with an opportunity to claim success and raises questions about the latest strategy guiding the war. American officials say their logic is simple and compelling: the valley consumed resources disproportionate with its importance; those forces could be deployed in other areas; and there are not enough troops to win decisively in the Pech Valley in any case. ``If you continue to stay with the status quo, where will you be a year from now?'' General Campbell said. ``I would tell you that there are places where we'll continue to build up security and it leads to development and better governance, but there are some areas that are not ready for that, and I've got to use the forces where they can do the most good.'' President Obama's Afghan troop buildup is now fully in place, and the United States military has its largest-ever contingent in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama's reinforced campaign has switched focus to operations in Afghanistan's south, and to building up Afghan security forces. The previous strategy emphasized denying sanctuaries to insurgents, blocking infiltration routes from Pakistan and trying to fight away from populated areas, where NATO's superior firepower could be massed, in theory, with less risk to civilians. The Pech Valley effort was once a cornerstone of this thinking. The new plan stands as a clear, if unstated, repudiation of earlier decisions. When Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former NATO commander, overhauled the Afghan strategy two years ago, his staff designated 80 ``key terrain districts'' to concentrate on. The Pech Valley was not one of them. Ultimately, the decision to withdraw reflected a stark--and controversial--internal assessment by the military that it would have been better served by not having entered the high valley in the first place. ``What we figured out is that people in the Pech really aren't anti-U.S. or anti-anything; they just want to be left alone,'' said one American military official familiar with the decision. ``Our presence is what's destabilizing this area.'' Gen. Mohammed Zaman Mamozai, a former commander of the region's Afghan Border Police, agreed with some of this assessment. He said that residents of the Pech Valley bristled at the American presence but might tolerate Afghan units. ``Many times they promised us that if we could tell the Americans to pull out of the area, they wouldn't fight the Afghan forces,'' he said. It is impossible to know whether such pledges will hold. Some veterans worry that the withdrawal will create an ideal sanctuary for insurgent activity--an area under titular government influence where fighters or terrorists will shelter or prepare attacks elsewhere. While it is possible that the insurgents will concentrate in the mountain valleys, General Campbell said his goal was to arrange forces to keep insurgents from Kabul, the country's capital. ``There are thousands of isolated mountainous valleys throughout Afghanistan, and we cannot be in all of them,'' he said. The American military plans to withdraw from most of the four principal American positions in the valley. For security reasons, General Campbell declined to discuss which might retain an American presence, and exactly how the Americans would operate with Afghans in the area in the future. As the pullback begins, the switch in thinking has fueled worries among those who say the United States is ceding some of Afghanistan's most difficult terrain to the insurgency and putting residents who have supported the government at risk of retaliation. ``There is no house in the area that does not have a government employee in it,'' said Col. Gul Rahman, the Afghan police chief in the Manogai District, where the Americans' largest base in the valley, Forward Operating Base Blessing, is located. ``Some work with the Afghan National Army, some work with the Afghan National Police, or they are a teacher or governmental employee. I think it is not wise to ignore and leave behind all these people, with the danger posed to their lives.'' Some Afghan military officials have also expressed pointed misgivings about the prospects for Afghan units left behind. ``According to my experience in the military and knowledge of the area, it's absolutely impractical for the Afghan National Army to protect the area without the Americans,'' said Major Turab, the former second-in-command of an Afghan battalion in the valley, who like many Afghans uses only one name. ``It will be a suicidal mission.'' The pullback has international implications as well. Senior Pakistani commanders have complained since last summer that as American troops withdraw from Kunar Province, fighters and some commanders from the Haqqani network and other militant groups have crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan to create a ``reverse safe haven'' from which to carry out attacks against Pakistani troops in the tribal areas. The Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups are all but certain to label the withdrawal a victory in the Pech Valley, where they could point to the Soviet Army's withdrawal from the same area in 1988. Many Afghans remember that withdrawal as a symbolic moment when the Kremlin's military campaign began to visibly fall apart. Within six months, the Soviet-backed Afghan Army of the time ceded the territory to mujahedeen groups, according to Afghan military officials. The unease, both with the historical precedent and with the price paid in American blood in the valley, has ignited a sometimes painful debate among Americans veterans and active-duty troops. The Pech Valley had long been a hub of American military operations in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces. American forces first came to the valley in force in 2003, following the trail of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-i-Islami group, who, like other prominent insurgent leaders, has been said at different times to hide in Kunar. They did not find him, though Hezb-i-Islami is active in the valley. Since then, one American infantry battalion after another has fought there, trying to establish security in villages while weathering roadside bombs and often vicious fights. Along with other slotlike canyons that the United States has already largely abandoned--including the Korangal Valley, the Waygal Valley (where the battle of Wanat was fought in 2008), the Shuryak Valley and the Nuristan River corridor (where Combat Outpost Keating was nearly overrun in 2009)-- the Pech Valley was a region rivaled only by Helmand Province as the deadliest Afghan acreage for American troops. On one operation alone in 2005, 19 service members, including 11 members of the Navy Seals, died. As the years passed and the toll rose, the area assumed for many soldiers a status as hallowed ground. ``I can think of very few places over the past 10 years with as high and as sustained a level of violence,'' said Col. James W. Bierman, who commanded a Marine battalion in the area in 2006 and helped establish the American presence in the Korangal Valley. In the months after American units left the Korangal last year, insurgent attacks from that valley into the Pech Valley increased sharply, prompting the current American battalion in the area, First Battalion, 327th Infantry, and Special Operations units to carry out raids into places that American troops once patrolled regularly. Last August, an infantry company raided the village of Omar, which the American military said had become a base for attacks into the Pech Valley, but which earlier units had viewed as mostly calm. Another American operation last November, in the nearby Watapor Valley, led to fighting that left seven American soldiers dead. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: February 24, 2011 An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a pullback of American forces in eastern Afghanistan. It is a pullback from remote territory within Kunar Province, not from the province as a whole.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to point out that for those Members who are concerned about the finances of this government, U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner economist, and his associate, Linda Bilmes, pointed out that at least a quarter of that increase is directly attributable to the war in Iraq. As a result of two costly wars, funded by debt, our fiscal house was in abysmal shape even before the financial crisis, and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn. The global financial crisis was due at least in part--this is a quote-- to the war. Now they continue. The Iraq war didn't just contribute to the severity of the fiscal crisis, though it kept us from responding to it effectively. So, my friends, finance is a national security issue. If we are broke, we can't defend ourselves. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez). (Ms. VELAZQUEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. KUCINICH. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to insert into the Record a recent report from The Washington Post that says that we've seen the steepest increase in lost limbs among soldiers and marines occurring in the last 4 months. [From the Washington Post, Mar. 9, 2011] Report Reveals Steep Increase in War Amputations Last Fall (By David Brown) The majority of American soldiers undergoing amputation for war wounds last fall lost more than one limb, according to data presented Tuesday to the Defense Health Board, a committee of experts that advises the Defense Department on medical matters. Military officials had previously released data showing that amputations, and especially multiple-limb losses, increased last year. The information presented to the 20- member board is the first evidence that the steepest increase occurred over the last four months of the year. In September 2010, about two-thirds of all war-theater amputation operations involved a single limb (usually a leg) and one-third two or more limbs. The split was roughly 50-50 in October and November. In December, only one-quarter of amputation surgery involved only one limb; three-quarters involved the loss of two or more limbs. The Marines, who make up 20 percent of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, were especially hard hit. Of the 66 wounded severely enough to be evacuated overseas in October, one- third lost a limb. In the first seven years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, about 6 percent of seriously wounded soldiers underwent amputation. Wounds to the genitals and lower urinary tract--known as genitourinary injuries--accounted for 11 percent of wounds over the last seven months of 2010, up from 4 percent in the previous 17 months, according to data presented by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel. The constellation of leg-and-genital wounds are in large part the consequence of stepping on improvised explosive devices--homemade mines--and are known as ``dismounted IED injuries.'' The data were assembled by Holcomb and two physicians at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where all seriously injured soldiers are taken on their way back to the United States. The steep increase in both the rate and number of amputations clearly disturbed both Holcomb and members of the board, which met at a Hilton hotel near Dulles International Airport. Holcomb, who spent two weeks at Landstuhl in December and is a former head of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, said he had heard of ``unwritten pacts among young Marines that if they get their legs and genitals blown off they won't put tourniquets on but will let each other die on the battlefield.'' Richard H. Carmona, who was U.S. surgeon general from 2002 to 2006 and is now on the board, said the information was ``very disturbing.'' He said it has made him ask: ``What is the endgame here? Is the sacrifice we are asking of our young men and women worth the potential return? I have questions about that now.'' Carmona, 61, served as an Army medic in Vietnam before going to college and medical school. He has a son who is an Army sergeant and is serving in Iraq. Jay A. Johannigman, an Air Force colonel who has served multiple deployments as a trauma surgeon, said his stint at the military hospital at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan last fall ``was different'' both personally and medically. ``We see the enormous price our young men and women are paying. It should not be for naught,'' he said. He didn't want to elaborate. Why amputation-requiring injuries increased so much in recent months isn't entirely understood. It is partly a function of tactics that emphasize more foot patrols in rural areas. Some people have speculated the mines may be constructed specifically to cause the devastating wounds. ``Do the Marines know? Probably,'' said Frank Butler, a doctor and retired Navy captain who has spearheaded improvements in battlefield first aid over the last decade. ``But they're not releasing a thing. And they shouldn't.'' I would also like to insert into the Record a report from the ``American Conservative'' which says that late last year IED deaths among our own soldiers were up, not down. [From The American Conservative, Mar. 10, 2011] How's That Population-Centric COIN Going? (Posted by Kelley Vlahos) If the success or failure of the Afghan military ``surge'' rests on whether the U.S. can bring down the level of violence and protect the civilian population from the Taliban--a metric that the now fading COINdinistas had once insisted could be achieved with the right strategy--then two new statistics to emerge this week don't bode well for the prospects of the nearly 2-year-old counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan. First, more of our soldiers today are coming home this year with amputations than in the previous year, according reports coming out of the Defense Health Board this week. According to The Washington Post, which was apparently the only mainstream news outlet to cover the board's meeting in Northern Virginia on Tuesday, the steepest increase in lost limbs among soldiers and Marines occurred in the last four months. The Marines, who make up 20 percent of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, were especially hard hit. Of the 66 wounded severely enough to be evacuated overseas in October, one- third lost a limb. In the first seven years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, about 6 percent of seriously wounded soldiers underwent amputation. Wounds to the genitals and lower urinary tract--known as genitourinary injuries--accounted for 11 percent of wounds over the last seven months of 2010, up from 4 percent in the previous 17 months, according to data presented by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel. The constellation of leg-and-genital wounds are in large part the consequence of stepping on improvised explosive devices--homemade mines--and are known as ``dismounted IED injuries.'' The data regarding the increased amputations were already reported in Friday's WaPo, but apparently the fact they spiked in the last few months only came out in the meeting. Who knows if that point would've ever seen the light of day if a reporter hadn't been there. A source close to the board told me that media rarely show up to cover the DHB, which is a pity, because its members, which include both civilian and retired military doctors and scientists, probably know more about the ``big picture'' regarding the health and welfare of our troops in the battlefield than anyone else and tend to talk candidly among themselves about conditions there. The data was presented Tuesday by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel. As a former head of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, he said he had heard of ``unwritten pacts among young Marines that if they get their legs and genitals blown off they won't put tourniquets on but will let each other die on the battlefield.'' New DHB member Richard Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General under Bush, apparently didn't get the memo about keeping his emotional responses in check. The Vietnam veteran called the new statistics ``very disturbing,'' and then asked, ``What is the endgame here? Is the sacrifice we are asking of our young men and women worth the potential return? I have questions about that now.'' He should definitely have questions, considering that Gen. David Petraeus, Lt. Gen. William ``svengali'' Caldwell and others have been all over the press in recent weeks talking about how promising it looks in Afghanistan the Taliban's ``halted momentum,'' and all that. Meanwhile, the other big news today is that civilian deaths in Afghanistan are up, too. According to a new U.N. report, civilian deaths as a result of war violence rose 15 percent from the year before in Afghanistan (some of the highest levels since the war began in 2001). More than two-thirds of those deaths--2,777--were caused by insurgents (up 28 percent) and 440 were caused by Afghan Army/NATO forces (down 25 percent*). While the Taliban is responsible for most civilian deaths, the U.S. has made ``protecting the population'' a major strategic goal for winning over the Afghan people, legitimizing the Karzai government and draining the Taliban of its authority. Instead, it's been publicly blamed and repudiated by Afghans for a number of civilian bombing deaths, the most recent being nine Afghan boys killed ``by accident'' in a U.S. air strike in Kunar province. This week, President Karzai, rejected an apology from Petraeus for the killings, and later accepted another attempt at apology from Sec. Def. Bob Gates. It didn't help that Petraeus' apology came a week after he suggested that the young victims of another NATO attack in Kunar had gotten their burn marks not from the strike, but from their parents, who might have hurt the kids themselves in disciplinary actions. It didn't go over so well, especially since Afghan authorities say 65 people were killed, many of them women and children. NATO has now admitted that some civilians may have been hurt, but insists the operation had targeted insurgents. Again, my mind goes back to the COINdinistas, many of whom remain delusional about the direction of the war, and others who might be furiously back-peddling or remolding themselves as we speak. In June 2009, Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was published by the pro-COIN Center for a New American Security (CNAS). In it, fellow Andrew Exum, CNAS CEO Nathaniel Fick, David Kilcullen and Ahmed Humayun wrote this (emphasis mine): ``To be sure, violence will rise in Afghanistan over the next year--no matter what the United States and its allies do. What matters, though, is who is dying. And here a particular lesson may be directly imported from the U.S. experience in Iraq. In 2007, during the Baghdad security operations commonly referred to as ``the surge,'' U.S. casualties actually increased sharply. What U.S. planners were looking for, however, was not a drop in U.S. casualties--or even a drop in Iraqi security force casualties but a drop in Iraqi civilian casualties. In the same way, U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan must be focused on protecting the population even at the expense of allied casualties.''. Afghan civilian casualties, whether at the hands of the coalition, the Taliban, or the Afghan government, will be the most telling measure of progress. Well, violence is up, and deaths among NATO and its allies are up. And so are civilian casualties. Meanwhile, while the CNAS team said in June 2009 that NATO/ Afghan soldier deaths were expected to rise, they also claimed that another metric of success would be an eventual flattening of IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) incidents. Another indicator of cooperation (with local Afghans) is the number of roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs) that are found and cleared versus exploded. IED numbers have risen sharply in Afghanistan since 2006 (though numbers are still low, and IEDs still unsophisticated, compared to Iraq). The coalition should expect an increase in numbers again this year. However, a rise in the proportion of IEDs being found and defused (especially when discovered thanks to tips from the local population) indicates that locals have a good working relationship with local military units a sign of progress. Despite all his spin to the contrary, Petraeus cannot hide the fact that late last year, IED deaths among our own soldiers were up, not down. A chart issued within its own November progress report to Congress last November shows that, and it shows that the found and cleared IEDs had not risen above the attacks in most areas of the country. Plus, metric or no metric, the recent data indicating serious injuries of U.S. soldiers this late in the game-- while every other assessment outside the military bubble says the Taliban are making more gains not less--should leave any thinking person at this point to question, ``is it really worth it?'' Not sure what it will take before the COINdinistas admit events on the ground are falling short of their own metrics. Sounds like a good follow-up to ``Triage,'' but will anyone there have the guts to write it? I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas, Representative Jackson Lee.

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis).

Mr. KUCINICH. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to put into the Record an article from the National Interest which states that many U.S. and western troops cannot leave their bases without encountering IEDs or more coordinated attacks from insurgents. [From The National Interest, Mar. 9, 2011] Pulling a Fast One in Afghanistan (By Christopher A. Preble) I have just returned from a discussion of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The meeting of 25 or so journalists, think tankers, and current and former government officials featured introductory remarks by Gilles Dorronsoro, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, and FDD's Bill Roggio. FDD President, Cliff May, moderated the session. The meeting was officially on the record, but I'm relying solely on my hand- written notes, so I won't quote the other attendees directly. I would characterize the general mood as grim. A few attendees pointed to the killing of a number of Taliban figures in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and reports of progress in Marja and the rest of Helmand province as evidence of progress. These gains, one speaker maintained, were sustainable and would not necessarily slip in the event that U.S. forces are directed where elsewhere. Dorronsoro disputed these assertions. He judged that the situation today is worse than it was a year ago, before the surge of 30,000 additional troops. The killing of individual Taliban leaders, or foot-soldiers, was also accompanied by the inadvertent killing of innocent bystanders, including most recent nine children. So there is always the danger that even targeted strikes based on timely, credible intelligence, will over the long term replace one dead Talib with two or four or eight of his sons, brothers, cousins, and tribesman. How many people have said ``We can't kill our way to victory''? For Dorronsoro, the crucial metric is security, no number of bad guys and suspected bad guys killed. And, given that he can't drive to places that he freely visited two or three years ago, he judges that security in the country has gotten worse, not better. Many U.S. and Western troops cannot leave their bases without encountering IEDs or more coordinated attacks from insurgents. U.S. and NATO forces don't control territory, and there is little reason to think that they can. Effective counterinsurgencies (COIN) are waged by a credible local partner, a government that commands the respect and authority of its citizens. That obviously doesn't exist in Afghanistan. The Afghan militia, supposedly the key to long- term success, is completely ineffective. Secretary Gates asserted on Monday that the draw down of U.S. troops would begin as scheduled this July, although, as the Washington Post's Greg Jaffe writes, ``he cautioned that any reductions in U.S. forces would likely be small and that a significant U.S. force will remain in combat for the rest of 2011.'' NATO remains committed to 2014 as the date to hand over security to the Afghan government. Whether the United States retains a long-term presence in the country is the subject of much speculation. For the people from FDD, it shouldn't be. Roggio stressed that the problem with U.S. strategy is that Americans were looking for an exit, when we should be making a long-term commitment to Afghanistan. May concurred. When I asked them to clarify how long term, both demurred (Roggio said ``a decade or more'' but didn't elaborate). I also inquired about the resources that would be required to constitute ``commitment''. Given that we have over 100,000 troops on the ground, and that we will spend over $100 billion in Afghanistan in this year alone, how much more of a commitment would they find acceptable? Again, no definitive answer. Roggio did claim, however, that a long-term commitment would increase the prospect of turning the Pakistanis. This is the crucial other piece in the puzzle. Nearly everyone in the meeting agreed that the unwillingness of the Pakistanis to cooperate with the United States had allowed a safe haven to be created in North Waziristan and elsewhere along the AfPak border. Most in the meeting admitted that Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan did not always align with our own. None had an answer for decisively changing this calculus, but some agreed with Roggio that evidence of progress in Afghanistan--combined with a credible commitment on the part of the U.S. to remain for the long-haul--would convince the Pakistanis to side with the Americans. If you're reading carefully, you can see a circular logic here, brilliantly encapsulated by Dorronsoro. I paraphrase: We cannot win Afghanistan without turning Pakistan, but we cannot turn the Pakistanis without warning in Afghanistan. It is no wonder that one attendee declared herself growing increasingly depressed as the meeting wore on. I would like to insert into the Record an article from Cato-at- Liberty's Web site entitled America's Aimless Absurdity in Afghanistan. America's `Aimless Absurdity' In Afghanistan (Posted By Malou Innocent On March 7, 2011) Rasmussen reports that 52% of Americans want U.S. troops home from Afghanistan within a year, up from 43% last fall. Of course, polls are ephemeral snapshots of public opinion that can fluctuate with the prevailing political winds; nonetheless, it does appear that more Americans are slowly coming to realize the ``aimless absurdity'' of our nation- building project in Central Asia. Earlier today, former Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said on MSNBC's ``Morning Joe'': ``I don't think we can afford Afghanistan much longer.'' He continued: ``The simple fact is that it's costing us. Good people are losing their lives there, and we're losing huge amounts of resources there. . . . So I think we should have a timeframe for getting out of Afghanistan, and it should be shorter rather than longer.'' Gregg is absolutely right. It is well past time to bring this long war to a swift end. Yet Gregg's comments also reflect a growing bipartisan realization that prolonging our land war in Asia is weakening our country militarily and economically. To politicians of any stripe, the costs on paper of staying in Afghanistan are jarring. Pentagon officials told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that it costs an average of $400 per gallon of fuel for the aircraft and combat vehicles operating in land-locked Afghanistan. The U.S. Agency for International Development has spent more than $7.8 billion on Afghanistan reconstruction since 2001, including building and refurbishing 680 schools and training thousands of civil servants. Walter Pincus, of The Washington Post, reported that the Army Corps of Engineers spent $4 billion last year on 720 miles of roads to transport troops in and around the war-ravaged country. It will spend another $4 to $6 billion this year, for 250 more miles. War should no longer be a left-right issue. It's a question of scarce resources and limiting the power of government. Opposition to the war in Afghanistan can no longer be swept under the carpet or dismissed as an issue owned by peaceniks and pacifists, especially when our men and women in uniform are being deployed to prop up a regime Washington doesn't trust, for goals our president can't define. I would like to put into the Record an article from Truthdig posted on AlterNet entitled Afghanistan: Obscenely Well-Funded but Largely Unsuccessful War Rages on Out of Sight of the American Public. [From AlterNet, Nov. 18, 2010] Afghanistan: Obscenely Well-Funded, But Largely Unsuccessful War Rages on Out of Sight of the American Public (By Juan Cole) Not only is it unclear that the U.S. and NATO are winning their war in Afghanistan, the lack of support for their effort by the Afghanistan president himself has driven the American commander to the brink of resignation. In response to complaints from his constituents, Afghanistan's mercurial President Hamid Karzai called Sunday for American troops to scale back their military operations. The supposed ally of the U.S., who only last spring petulantly threatened to join the Taliban, astonished Washington with this new outburst, which prompted a warning from Gen. David Petraeus that the president was making Petraeus' position ``untenable,'' which some speculated might be a threat to resign. During the past two months, the U.S. military has fought a major campaign in the environs of the southern Pashtun city of Kandahar, launching night raids and attempting to push insurgents out of the orchards and farms to the east of the metropolis. Many local farmers were displaced, losing their crops in the midst of the violence, and forced to become day laborers in the slums of Kandahar. Presumably these Pashtun clans who found themselves in the crossfire between the Taliban and the U.S. put pressure on Karzai to call a halt to the operation. That there has been heavy fighting in Afghanistan this fall would come as a surprise to most Americans, who have seen little news on their televisions about the war. Various websites noted that 10 NATO troops were killed this past Saturday and Sunday alone, five of them in a single battle, but it was hardly front page news, and got little or no television coverage. The midterm campaign circus took the focus off of foreign affairs in favor of witches in Newark and eyes of Newt in Georgia. Distant Kandahar was reduced to an invisible battle in an unseen war, largely unreported in America's mass media, as though it were irrelevant to the big campaign issues--of deficits and spending, of taxes and public welfare. Since it was President Obama's offensive, Democrats could not run against it. Since it is billed as key to U.S. security, Republicans were not interested in running against it. Kandahar, city of pomegranates and car bombs, of poppies and government cartels, lacked a partisan implication, and so no one spoke of it. In fact, the war is costing on the order of $7 billion a month, a sum that is still being borrowed and adding nearly $100 billion a year to the already-burgeoning national debt. Yet in all the talk in all the campaigns in the hustings about the dangers of the federal budget deficit, hardly any candidates fingered the war as economically unsustainable. The American public cannot have a debate on the war if it is not even mentioned in public. The extreme invisibility of the Afghanistan war is apparent from a Lexis Nexis search I did for ``Kandahar'' (again, the site of a major military campaign) for the period from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15. I got only a few dozen hits, from all American news sources (National Public Radio was among the few media outlets that devoted substantial airtime to the campaign). The campaign in the outskirts of Kandahar had been modeled on last winter's attack on the farming area of Marjah in Helmand Province. Marjah was a demonstration project, intended to show that the U.S., NATO and Afghanistan security forces could ``take, clear, hold and build.'' Petraeus' counterinsurgency doctrine depends on taking territory away from the insurgents, clearing it of guerrillas, holding it for the medium term to keep the Taliban from returning and to reassure local leaders that they need not fear reprisals for ``collaborating,'' and then building up services and security for the long term to ensure that the insurgents can never again return and dominate the area. But all these months later, the insurgents still have not been cleared from Marjah, which is a site of frequent gun fights between over-stretched Marines and Taliban. There is no early prospect of Afghan army troops holding the area, or of building effective institutions in the face of constant sniping and bombing. Marjah is only 18 square miles. Afghanistan is more than 251,000 square miles. If Marjah is the model for the campaign in the outskirts of Kandahar, then the latter will be a long, hard slog. Kandahar is even more complicated, since the labyrinthine alleyways of the city and its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants offer insurgents new sorts of cover when they are displaced there from the countryside. Counterinsurgency requires an Afghan partner, but all along the spectrum of Afghan institutions, the U.S. and NATO are seeking in vain for the ``government in a box'' once promised by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The people in the key provinces of Helmand and Kandahar are largely hostile to U.S. and NATO troops, seeing them as disrespecting their traditions and as offering no protection from violence. They see cooperating with the U.S. as collaboration and want Mullah Omar of the Taliban to join the government. Although the U.S. and NATO have spent $27 billion on training Afghan troops, only 12 percent of them can operate independently. Karzai and his circle are extremely corrupt, taking millions in cash payments from Iran and looting a major bank for unsecured loans, allowing the purchase of opulent villas in fashionable Dubai. It is no wonder that Petraeus is at the end of his rope. The only question is why the Obama administration is not, and how long it will hold to the myth of counterinsurgency. I would like to put into the Record an article published on AlterNet titled Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan, by Nick Turse at TomDispatch.com. [From AlterNet, Posted on February 10, 2010, Printed on March 17, 2011] Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan (By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com) In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country. Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega- bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base- building boom that began last year. Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan. 400 Foreign Bases in Afghanistan Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. In fact, Kandahar, which housed 9,000 coalition troops as recently as 2007, is expected to have a population of as many as 35,000 troops by the time President Obama's surge is complete, according to Colonel Kevin Wilson who oversees building efforts in the southern half of Afghanistan for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On the other hand, the Shinwar site, according to Sgt. Tracy J. Smith of the U.S. 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, will be a small forward operating base (FOB) that will host both Afghan troops and foreign forces. Last fall, it was reported that more than $200 million in construction projects--from barracks to cargo storage facilities--were planned for or in-progress at Bagram. Substantial construction funds have also been set aside by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade its air power capacity at Kandahar. For example, $65 million has been allocated to build additional apron space (where aircraft can be parked, serviced, and loaded or unloaded) to accommodate more close- air support for soldiers in the field and a greater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability. Another $61 million has also been earmarked for the construction of a cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron there. Kandahar is just one of many sites currently being upgraded. Exact figures on the number of facilities being enlarged, improved, or hardened are unavailable but, according a spokesman for ISAF, the military plans to expand several more bases to accommodate the increase of troops as part of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal's surge strategy. In addition, at least 12 more bases are slated to be built to help handle the 30,000 extra American troops and thousands of NATO forces beginning to arrive in the country. ``Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,'' says Colonel Wilson, ``and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we'll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].'' By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan. At the site of the future FOB in Shinwar, more than 135 private construction contractors attended what was termed an ``Afghan-Coalition contractors rodeo.'' According to Lieutenant Fernando Roach, a contracting officer with the U.S. Army's Task Force Mountain Warrior, the event was designed ``to give potential contractors a walkthrough of the area so they'll have a solid overview of the scope of work.'' The construction firms then bid on three separate projects: the renovation of the more than 30-year old Soviet facilities, the building of new living quarters for Afghan and coalition forces, and the construction of a two-kilometer wall for the base. In the weeks since the ``rodeo,'' the U.S. Army has announced additional plans to upgrade facilities at other forward operating bases. At FOB Airborne, located near Kane- Ezzat in Wardak Province, for instance, the Army intends to put in reinforced concrete bunkers and blast protection barriers as well as lay concrete foundations for Re-Locatable Buildings (prefabricated, trailer-like structures used for living and working quarters). Similar work is also scheduled for FOB Altimur, an Army camp in Logar Province. The Afghan Base Boom Recently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan District-Kabul, announced that it would be seeking bids on ``site assessments'' for Afghan National Security Forces District Headquarters Facilities nationwide. The precise number of Afghan bases scattered throughout the country is unclear. When asked by TomDispatch, Colonel Radmanish of the Afghan Ministry of Defense would state only that major bases were located in Kabul, Pakteya, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e- Sharif, and that ANA units operate all across Afghanistan. Recent U.S. Army contracts for maintenance services provided to Afghan army and police bases, however, suggest that there are no fewer than 300 such facilities that are, according to an ISAF spokesman, not counted among the coalition base inventory. As opposed to America's fast-food-franchise-filled bases, Afghan ones are often decidedly more rustic affairs. The police headquarters in Khost Farang District, Baghlan Province, is a good example. According to a detailed site assessment conducted by a local contractor for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Afghan government, the district headquarters consists of mud and stone buildings surrounded by a mud wall. The site even lacks a deep well for water. A trench fed by a nearby spring is the only convenient water source. The U.S. bases that most resemble austere Afghan facilities are combat outposts, also known as COPs. Environmental Specialist Michael Bell of the Army Corps of Engineers, Afghanistan Engineer District-South's Real Estate Division, recently described the facilities and life on such a base as he and his co-worker, Realty Specialist Damian Salazar, saw it in late 2009: ``COP Sangar . . . is a compound surrounded by mud and straw walls. Tents with cots supplied the sleeping quarters . . . A medical, pharmacy and command post tent occupied the center of the COP, complete with a few computers with internet access and three primitive operating tables. Showers had just been installed with hot [water] . . . only available from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. . . . ``An MWR [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] tent was erected on Thanksgiving Day with an operating television; however, the tent was rarely used due to the cold. Most of the troops used a tent with gym equipment for recreation . . . A cook trailer provided a hot simple breakfast and supper. Lunch was MREs [meals ready to eat]. Nights were pitch black with no outside lighting from the base or the city.'' What Makes a Base? According to an official site assessment, future construction at the Khost Farang District police headquarters will make use of sand, gravel, and stone, all available on the spot. Additionally, cement, steel, bricks, lime, and gypsum have been located for purchase in Pol-e Khomri City, about 85 miles away. Constructing a base for American troops, however, is another matter. For the far less modest American needs of American troops, builders rely heavily on goods imported over extremely long, difficult to traverse, and sometimes embattled supply lines, all of which adds up to an extraordinarily costly affair. ``Our business runs on materials,'' Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, told an audience at a town hall meeting in Afghanistan in December 2009. ``You have to bring in the lumber, you have to bring in the steel, you have to bring in the containers and all that. Transport isn't easy in this country--number one, the roads themselves, number two, coming through other countries to get here--there are just huge challenges in getting the materials here.'' To facilitate U.S. base construction projects, a new ``virtual storefront''--an online shopping portal--has been launched by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront website and a defense contractor-owned and operated brick-and-mortar warehouse facility that supports it aim to provide regionally-produced construction materials to speed surge-accelerated building efforts. From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing, rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building efforts. ``Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for warfighters by reducing logistics response and delivery time,'' says Chet Evanitsky, the DLA's construction and equipment supply chain division chief. America's Shadowy Base World The Pentagon's most recent inventory of bases lists a total of 716 overseas sites. These include facilities owned and leased all across the Middle East as well as a significant presence in Europe and Asia, especially Japan and South Korea. Perhaps even more notable than the Pentagon's impressive public foreign property portfolio are the many sites left off the official inventory. While bases in the Persian Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are all listed, one conspicuously absent site is Al-Udeid Air Base, a billion-dollar facility in nearby Qatar, where the U.S. Air Force secretly oversees its on-going unmanned drone wars. The count also does not include any sites in Iraq where, as of August 2009, there were still nearly 300 American bases and outposts. Similarly, U.S. bases in Afghanistan--a significant percentage of the 400 foreign sites scattered across the country--are noticeably absent from the Pentagon inventory. Counting the remaining bases in Iraq--as many as 50 are slated to be operating after President Barack Obama's August 31, 2010, deadline to remove all U.S. ``combat troops'' from the country--and those in Afghanistan, as well as black sites like Al-Udeid, the total number of U.S. bases overseas now must significantly exceed 1,000. Just exactly how many U.S. military bases (and allied facilities used by U.S. forces) are scattered across the globe may never be publicly known. What we do know--from the experience of bases in Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea--is that, once built, they have a tendency toward permanency that a cessation of hostilities, or even outright peace, has a way of not altering. After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases dot Afghanistan. Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few Americans outside the Pentagon. It remains to be seen, a decade into the future, how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar. General Petraeus and others in the administration continue their PR campaign. Overwhelming evidence is proving their upbeat assessments of our strategy is false. A recent article by the Los Angeles Times cited a report released by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the British Parliament that concluded that ``despite the optimistic appraisals we heard from some military and official sources, the security situation across Afghanistan as a whole is deteriorating. Counterinsurgency efforts in the south and east have allowed the Taliban to expand its presence and control in other previously relatively stable areas in Afghanistan.'' Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Charles Rangel. (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining for each individual.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, spending on the Afghanistan war is rising at an accelerating rate. Over just 3 years, in a period of 3 years--2010, 2011, and 2012--we will spend 45 percent more on the war in Afghanistan than we did in the preceding 8 years, $336.9 billion versus $231.2 billion. This is an example of out-of-control Federal spending. If Congress is serious about being fiscally responsible and about cutting the Federal budget by three figures, then cutting spending on the out-of-control $100 billion-a-year war in Afghanistan must be a serious consideration. This legislation, House Concurrent Resolution 28, gives those who are concerned about the costs of this war an opportunity finally to have a choice. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is it the province of the Chair to determine that closing statements are in order?

Mr. KUCINICH. Further parliamentary inquiry. Does the Chair have the right to determine that closing statements are the order of business here?

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. March 20, 2003, 8 years ago, the United States launched a full-scale attack on Iraq. Many of us remember watching the images of shock and awe as violence was wreaked against the people of Iraq and, in particular, the city of Baghdad. That moment at which America arrived to express its military might had antecedents that we should study this evening. I want to review, Mr. Speaker, the climate that was created for this Congress that caused this Congress to make a decision back in October of 2002 to go to war against Iraq--a war that was executed beginning March 20, 2003. It was 9 years ago to this date that Vice President Cheney said the following of Iraq: ``We know they have biological and chemical weapons.'' That was March 17, 2002. On March 19, 2002, Vice President Cheney said: ``And we know they are pursuing nuclear weapons.'' On March 24, 2002, Vice President Cheney said of Saddam Hussein: ``He is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time.'' Later, on May 19, 2002: ``We know he's got chemicals and biological and we know he's working on nuclear.'' That was Vice President Cheney on ``Meet the Press.'' August 26, 2002, speaking to the VFW's convention, Vice President Cheney said: ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.'' September 8, 2002, again, on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Vice President Cheney said this: ``Based on intelligence that's becoming available, some of it has been made public, more of it hopefully will be, that he has indeed''--he's speaking of Saddam Hussein--``he has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons; that he has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon; that there are efforts underway inside Iraq to significantly expand his capability.'' On September 8, 2002, on ``Meet the Press,'' Vice President Cheney went on to say of Hussein: ``He is in fact actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.'' March 16, 2003, a few days before the attack: ``And we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' I mention this, Mr. Speaker, because, for those Members who were not in the House of Representatives at the time of the October debate and at the time that the attack commenced and for those who are just citizens watching these events unfold, there was created in this country a climate of belief, a certainty, as to the grave peril which Saddam Hussein of Iraq was alleged to represent. That was the Vice President. Now, the President, in various appearances and statements and in the legislation he presented to this Congress, the President made the following material representations with respect to Iraq. He said that Iraq was continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability. He said that Iraq was actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability; that Iraq was continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States and international peace and security; that Iraq had demonstrated a willingness to attack the United States; that members of al Qaeda, an international organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq. That attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat that Iraq will transfer weapons of mass destruction to international terrorist organizations. President George W. Bush represented to this Congress that Iraq will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them through international terrorists who would do so; that an extreme magnitude of harm would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack; and that the aforementioned threats justified action by the United States to defend itself. Mr. Speaker, we have an obligation as a Nation to defend ourselves. To provide for common defense is one of the foundational principles of this country in the preamble to our Constitution. Those who are charged with the responsibility of guiding the affairs of our Nation, the President and the Vice President--in this case, President Bush, Vice President Cheney--had a responsibility to be totally clear and honest with the American people. It is to their shame that they were neither honest nor candid with the American people and with this Congress. Here we are on the eighth anniversary of the attack on Iraq. And I think, Mr. Speaker, it would be instructive for this Congress to have the opportunity to review what it is we were told in early October of 2002, when we voted as a Congress to authorize the President to take action against Iraq, action which commenced 8 years ago. Listen to some of these claims that were made. I will state the claims that were made and then I will rebut them. We were told that, in 1990, in response to Iraq's war of aggression against an illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq. Mr. Speaker, the thing that was said then at that time in response: I pointed out that, in the Persian Gulf War, there was an international coalition. World support was for protecting Kuwait. There was no world support for invading Iraq. The resolution that President Bush submitted to this Congress which resulted in the invasion of Iraq 8 years ago said: Whereas, after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations- sponsored cease fire agreement, pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them and to end its support for international terrorism; Whereas, the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large-scale biological weapons program and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence previously had indicated. In advance of any attack, to answer what the President was saying, I pointed out more than 8 years ago: U.N. inspection teams identified and destroyed nearly all such weapons that President Bush referred to in his resolution. A lead inspector, Scott Ritter, said that he believes that nearly all other weapons not found were destroyed in the gulf war. Furthermore, according to a published report in The Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency had no up-to-date accurate report on Iraq's WMD capabilities. The President said: Whereas, Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors, to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998. I pointed out back then, more than 8 years ago, that Iraqi deceptions always failed. Inspectors always figured out what Iraq was doing. It was the United States that withdrew from the inspections in 1998. The United States then launched a cruise missile attack against Iraq 48 hours after the inspectors left. In advance of a military strike, the U.S. continued to thwart the weapons inspections. President Bush went on to tell this Congress: Whereas, in 1998, Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction program threatened vital U.S. interests and international peace and security. It declared Iraq to be in ``material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations,'' and urged the President to take appropriate action in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States to bring Iraq into compliance with international obligations. The President went on to assert to this Congress: Whereas, Iraq both possesses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf, and remains in material and unacceptable breach of international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorists. It was pointed out back then, Mr. Speaker, that there was absolutely no proof that Iraq represented an immediate or imminent threat to the United States. A continuing threat does not constitute a sufficient cause for war. The administration refused to provide Congress with credible intelligence that proved that Iraq was a serious threat to the United States and was continuing to possess and develop chemical and biological nuclear weapons; and there was no credible intelligence connecting Iraq to al Qaeda in 9/11. Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with al Qaeda's role in 9/11. The President went on to assert to this Congress in the resolution which was a call to war against Iraq that Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in the brutal repression of its civilian population, thereby threatening international peace and security in the region by refusing to release, repatriate or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait. It was said at the time that the language of this resolution was so broad that it would allow the President to attack Iraq even when there was no material threat to the United States. The resolution authorized the use of force for all Iraq-related violations of U.N. Security Council directives, and the resolution cited Iraq's imprisonment of non-Iraqi prisoners. This resolution would have authorized the President to attack Iraq in order to liberate Kuwaiti citizens who may or may not have been in Iraqi prisons even if Iraq had met compliance with all requests to destroy the alleged weapons of mass destruction; though, in 2002, at the Arab summit, Iraq and Kuwait agreed to bilateral negotiations to work out all claims relating to stolen property and prisoners of war. So this use of force resolution enabled President Bush to commit U.S. troops to recover Kuwaiti property. The President told this Congress: The current Iraqi regime had demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people; that the Iraqi regime had demonstrated its continuing hostility toward and willingness to attack the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush; and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing a resolution of the United Nations Security Council. It was pointed out back then, prior to Congress passing the resolution to authorize an attack on Iraq, that the Iraqi regime had never attacked nor does it have the capability to attack the United States. They couldn't attack us. The no-fly zone was not the result of a U.N. Security Council directive. It was illegally imposed by the United States, Great Britain, and France and not specifically sanctioned by any Security Council resolution. The President went on to say: Members of al Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attack on the United States, its citizens and interests, including the attacks that occurred on 9/11, are known to be in Iraq. But back in October of 2002, when we were having the debate on President Bush's war resolution, there was no credible intelligence that connected Iraq to the events of 9/11 or to the participation in those events by assisting al Qaeda. The President told Congress back in 2002: Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of American citizens. It was pointed out back then, in response to President Bush's assertions, that any connection between the Iraq support of terrorist groups in the Middle East is an argument and was an argument then for focusing great resources on resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It was not sufficient reason for the U.S. to launch a unilateral preemptive strike against Iraq. The President went on to say that the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations. It was pointed out again that there was no connection between Iraq and the events of 9/11. Yet think about this: there was a consistent effort to try to link Iraq to 9/11 and to al Qaeda's role in 9/11, but there was no connection. The President kept on insisting there was, as did the Vice President. The President went on to say that Iraq demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the Iraq regime would either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces, or provide them to international terrorists who would do so. The extreme magnitude of harm that would result in the United States and its citizens from such an attack combined to justify action by the United States to defend itself. The picture that was painted for the American people, for the Congress at that time was that we had no choice but to get ready to attack Iraq; and yet, back then, prior to Congress voting on a resolution to authorize use of military force against Iraq, an attack having occurred 8 years ago, on March 20, 2003, we knew back then that there was no credible evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. There was no credible evidence that Iraq had the capability to reach the United States with such weapons. In the 1991 gulf war, Iraq had a demonstrated capability of biological and chemical weapons, but didn't have the willingness to use them against the U.S. Armed Forces. Congress was not provided with any credible information which proved that Iraq had provided international terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. President Bush went on to assert that the United States could unilaterally enforce U.N. resolutions and that we could do so with military force. He went on to assert a chronology of international process; and when you look at where we are today, $3 trillion, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, will be the minimum cost of this war. One has to ask, what was going on in this Congress at the time? When we were told by the President of the United States and by the Vice President of the United States that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it had the intention and capability of attacking the United States, the implication was that Iraq worked with al Qaeda to bring about 9/11. That's what they led this Congress to believe. That's what they led the American people to believe. But you know what, Mr. Speaker, way back then I didn't buy a word of it, and there are other Members of Congress who didn't buy a word of it either. We know that there was no proof. We knew that there was no proof offered by the administration at that time that would give us a cause to go to war against Iraq, but we executed the war against Iraq. This is a great tragedy upon the Iraqi people and upon the people of our Nation, too. We executed the war against Iraq that, according to Joseph Stiglitz, extrapolating from a study that was done by the Lancet organization, as many as 1 million innocent Iraqi people have died in that war. I want everyone here to wrap their thinking around this statement. Joseph Stiglitz in his book, ``The Three Trillion Dollar War,'' wrote it with his associate Linda Bilmes, citing the Lancet report on civilian casualties in Iraq, extrapolated from that report and the figure that comes up is approximately 1 million innocent civilians lost their lives as a result of the United States' attack upon, and occupation of, Iraq. People will criticize the Lancet study; and they will say, well, you know, that can't be true. But what they did was they looked at how many excess deaths occurred during that period, and they did a very comprehensive study; and they were able to come to this determination that these were all deaths that should not have occurred or they attributed them to the war. A million people. Why? Because this Congress was told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was going to use them against the United States of America. Could I ask how much time is left, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. KUCINICH. So I was saying, Mr. Speaker, over 1 million innocent Iraqis died pursuant to the bloodshed and chaos that occurred during the Iraq war. How can anyone in public life who understands that not come into public forums and demand justice? This Nation was led to war based on lies. The U.S. has already lost 4,439 of our brave men and women. We've had over 33,000 troops wounded. There are casualties on all sides here. And certainly some of the nations who closed ranks with the Bush administration, their sons and daughters also suffered as well. It's hard to believe, though, that we could have known all that we knew in advance of passing the legislation and it was passed anyway; know all that we knew in advance of passing the legislation, the legislation's passed, and we go to war anyway; know all that we know today back then and still be in Iraq today, March 17, 2011. And I quoted to you at the beginning of this from Vice President Cheney 9 years ago. The Iraqis are still paying a price and so are the American people. I'm going to say something on this floor, Mr. Speaker, that seldom gets discussed here, and that is, that I sincerely believe that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and others should be held accountable under international law for waging a war against people who had no quarrel with the United States of America at all. There have to be international laws that have to be followed by U.S. officials, and, in fact, there are: the Geneva Convention, the U.N. Charter. There are express prohibitions against waging aggressive war. It doesn't matter what this Congress blesses because of what we were told. The President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Defense, they all knew better. They are all trying to cover their tracks right now with various books and PR tours, but they knew better. They put the lives of our young men and women on the line for a lie. They put the lives of 1 million and more Iraqi people on the line for a lie. They put over $3 trillion of our precious resources here on the line for a lie. I challenge anyone in this Congress to prove me wrong on any of this, because it is impossible to prove to the contrary the statements that I have made today about assertions that were made to this Congress, to the American people for a cause of war against Iraq, and they were all lies. And now, Mr. Speaker, we are about to begin another year of occupation of Iraq. There is no question that occupation fuels insurgencies. There is no question that we are likely to be in Iraq for some time to come. Just in the last 24 hours, it was reported that while the U.S. troops who are there at this moment, 50,000 troops, are supposed to leave at the end of the year, there are problems with the negotiations, that Mr. Maliki, his government, is stalled on appointing ministers, that the U.S. wants a contingency force of 10,000 to remain, that the State Department is increasing contractor presence of 17,000 at the cost of $2.5 billion. We are not going to be done with this war for God knows how long. We know the war in Iraq is being privatized. We know that all these private firms that are lining up to provide security in Iraq will be there for some time. As a matter of fact, it's in their interest to keep the environment unstable because they will keep making money. So this handoff to the State Department occurs with much skepticism. But at this very moment, Mr. Speaker, it's not clear that we are truly going to be leaving Iraq. I mean, you are either in or you are out. You can't be in and out at the same time. You can't talk about going and you still have 10,000 troops there or 50,000 troops there. We are told that it's the end of combat operations. Well, some of the insurgents aren't getting that message, because they are still attacking our troops. There have been 4,439 U.S. casualties, approximately 33,000 wounded. I have been to a number of funerals of young people who believed in this country, who loved this country, who saw service to this country as the highest purpose of their lives. I remember all of them, but there is one in particular that I want to share with you. It was a young man who, when he died in combat, his mother was notified that he would at last be made a U.S. citizen. I grew up at a time when we were dealing with the Vietnam War. And years ago, before I got into politics, I was a copyboy at a newspaper in Cleveland called The Plain Dealer. My job at The Plain Dealer, among the things I had to do, I had to go out on what they called art runs to pick up pictures of young men, primarily, who were killed in Vietnam. I remember driving the company's car up to a house. And, Mr. Speaker, all these houses after a while, they look the same. The houses were wooden clapboard houses that needed a little bit of paint, and the front door was flapping a little bit in the breeze. There wasn't a latch on it. When you walked up the steps, the steps would creek, and you would see faded white curtains in the window with a shade pulled down and a blue star in the window, signifying that they had someone who served. When I knocked on the door, people would invite me into their house, and I would sit on a worn sofa, a threadbare rug. At that time, they would have a picture of the President of the United States, often a picture of President Kennedy, who, by then, had been deceased, and a picture of Christ, you know, around the TV. I would sit down on their sofa, and they would go over the pictures. Then I would take one of those pictures to the newspaper so they could print it the next day to announce that this young person had been killed. And I remember how incredible it was to be there at that moment when the family was in such incredible agony and grief and to get the feeling of their loss, just to feel it. Even thinking about it right now, I can feel it. I went out and picked up so many pictures over the course of a year or so, just while I was doing that job; and it was just the same thing over and over again, people talking about how proud they were of their young person who served and wanting everyone to know how much they loved the country and how much they loved service. Those memories stay with me. I mean, all of us who had friends who fought in Vietnam and didn't come back. They included people who I played baseball with, people who I just used to pal around with. And when you know people who get killed in war, it becomes personal. When you have family members who are out there and are exposed to that environment, it's very personal. So here I am in the United States Congress. Here we are, 2011. And I think back to those times, and I think, you know, if we're sending these young men and women to put themselves in harm's way, we had better be right. We cannot afford not just to not make a mistake, but there cannot be any deception involved in things like that. So, you see, when I talk about the importance of holding people accountable for the deceptions, I come from a place of great sadness about the tragedy of war generally, but the compounded tragedy of war specifically when it is based on something that is really not true. Whether those of us in Congress voted for the war or not, we all have grave concerns for the safety of our troops. But there's a sense in which the troops themselves become hostage to the war. We had so many moments where we were told that we should vote to continue to fund the wars to support the troops. Now, Iraq, March 20, 2011, the eighth anniversary. Afghanistan, already the longest war in our history, more than 10 years. How can we afford the lost lives anymore? How can we afford the deaths of innocent civilians? How can we afford the trillions upon trillions of dollars? There's a point at which we have to ask ourselves some fundamental questions. If we didn't go to war to make America safer, why did we go to war against Iraq? I maintained then and I maintain now that oil certainly had something to do with it. We have to ask ourselves, why are we still in Iraq? Why are we still in Afghanistan? Why are we continuing incursions along the Pakistani border? Why are we still debating whether to become involved militarily in Libya? Don't we, as Americans, get to the point where we just say maybe it's time we started taking care of things at home first? Fifteen million Americans out of work. Think of how many jobs you could create with trillions of dollars. Fifty million Americans still don't have health care. Over 10 million Americans have lost their homes. So many Americans go to bed hungry. So many Americans can't afford to send their kids to decent schools. So much of our public education system is failing because they don't have enough resources. And yet, we are spending trillions of dollars now on wars, one war based on lies, the other one based on a fundamental misreading of history. I mean, who in history has conquered Afghanistan? Well, maybe somebody can go back to Genghis Khan's time and answer that question, but you can't answer it in this century or the last century. Now, the House just had 2 hours of debate today on the issue of Afghanistan and the war powers resolution. I'm pleased to see that more voted in favor of withdrawal this year than voted last year. It's a good sign, particularly since about two-thirds of the American people favor getting out of Afghanistan in the near future. I mean, it's easy to understand why the American people feel that way. The American people have to be feeling, how can we afford these wars? How can we afford to spend $1 million a year to equip a soldier in Afghanistan, or Iraq for that matter? Don't we have things to take care of here at home? Mr. Speaker, I look at our cities, and all across this Nation, we have cities that are falling apart. Our infrastructure's falling apart. It's fair to say that we have trillions of dollars in infrastructure needs that are unmet. They're not being met because we're being told, well, we don't have enough money. As a matter of fact, some States are using the deficit to be able to crush workers' rights. But we know that when it comes to these wars, these wars are contributing to the deficit. In one way or another, we end up borrowing money to keep these wars going. How can these wars be more important than everything else in America? We know right now that occupations fuel insurgency in Afghanistan. Our presence there has caused the Taliban to become stronger. Our actions there help ensure the Taliban will have even more support. General Petraeus himself, with respect to Afghanistan said, well, al Qaeda doesn't have much of a presence anymore. What are we doing there? How can we keep affording the kind of money that we're spending there? The American people are saying it loud and clear. They want out. But what I wanted to do this evening, though, is to bring us back to the time that Congress was faced with the decision about going to war against Iraq; that we were told things by Vice President Cheney, we were told things by President Bush. Now they want to blame it on some character called Curveball. Look, when I was growing up if somebody was throwing you a curveball you knew what that meant. It meant that it wasn't coming at you straight. It was coming like this, okay? It was almost somebody in the CIA was telegraphing to all of us, hey, this guy's a curveball. Be very careful about this pitch that he's making. But anyhow, this character, Curveball, when it comes to WMDs, he said he made it all up. He said that he had a problem with the Saddam regime. He wanted to get rid of them, and he had the chance. Now, there are those who would say, well, see, it was this guy. He said this. We were fooled. Right. Yeah. No. Those who were charged with the responsibility of taking this country into war against Iraq, they weren't fooled. They cooked the books with respect to the intelligence. They had the intelligence shaped to fit their preconceived designs to go to war. For them to try to maintain they were fooled would be an interesting defense. The former head of the CIA in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, wasn't fooled. He warned against the reliability of Curveball. But the administration at that time, the Bush administration, offered no alternatives to the Congress. So instead of accepting the truth that Iraq didn't possess WMDs, the Bush administration decided to pick and choose their facts in order to sell a war to the American people, at a cost of trillions of dollars. When I think of the road that we have gone down, when I think, Mr. Speaker, that someone in the Bush administration, way back when we were about to attack Iraq, announced that he thought the Iraq war would cost $100 billion, Larry Lindsey, he was fired for that. One hundred billion. Imagine now, this war's going to cost 30 times that, if not 50 times it, when you look at the long-term effect of caring, for the rest of their lives, for the soldiers who come back maimed. Let's bring it back. On March 20, 2003, the United States Armed Forces at the direction of President George W. Bush commenced a very vigorous and violent attack upon the nation of Iraq and its people. That was the beginning of the Iraq war, and it was the beginning of the United States assault on and subsequent occupation of Iraq. And he did it because this Congress approved of it; and this Congress approved of it because we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq had the intention and capability of hurting the United States, and Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and al Qaeda's role in 9/11. Mr. Speaker, all false. Now, the Bible says you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. We are taught that truth crushed to the ground will rise again. We are waiting to be freed from the lies that took us into war, but we cannot be free until we have a reconciliation with the people of Iraq. And we can't do that until we have truth. America is going to have to go through that period. We will never recover from 9/11 if we continue to move down the rabbit holes of war that were based on lies or based on a misreading of history and a misapplication of power. So where do we go from here? Well, we have to get ready to leave Iraq and we have to get ready to leave Afghanistan, and we have to stop bombing the borders along Pakistan. And we have to start working with the international community on matters of security. And if we need to continue to track down anyone who is associated with mass violence against the people of our country or any other country, that should be a matter of international police action. And we must stop the policies of interventionism. We must stop the reach for empire. It is destroying our Nation. It is destroying us morally, and it is destroying our capacity to be able to meet the needs of the American people for jobs, for housing, for health care, for education, for retirement security. We have to challenge the underlying premise about war being inevitable. Because as soon as people start beating the drums of war, there is an entire marching band and Shouter Society at the Pentagon and their people in the contracting business who are ready to try to make a case for war at any time and any place. We have to begin to critically analyze the mentality that issues forth that causes us to put so much of our resources on the line. General Eisenhower warned about it. He served as President of this United States two terms, and he recognized in his valedictory that we should beware of the military-industrial complex, we have to be careful about what we are being told and the motivation of those from outside this Congress who are telling us certain stories about why we should go to war. It is time for us to try to come into resonance with our power to achieve diplomacy. I am not naive about the world, but I also understand that if we do not try to exercise our capacity to relate to people in other places, people who may have different ideologies, different religions, different colors, creeds; if we do not try to pursue that, then we are destined to have more wars. But if we pursue what President Franklin Roosevelt called the science of human relations, then we have the possibility that we can move toward making peace, not war, inevitable. It is that type of thinking that led me to bring forward a proposal to create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. I know there are people who say, ``Oh, peace. Right. Okay, Dennis. We got it. You want peace. Next.'' And they try to project peace as impractical. Mr. Speaker, you want us to talk impractical? How about a war based on lies that cost this country over $3 trillion? That is impractical. How about a war that cost the lives of over 1 million innocent Iraqi civilians, a war that cost the lives of thousands upon thousands of our troops, and tens of thousands of our troops injured? That's impractical. We need to summon our capacity and our capabilities to be able to take this Nation in a new direction that does not include a quest or reach for empire; that pulls back its military resources which are spread all around the world to the cost of tens of billions of dollars annually, and we need to start coming home, create peace at home. Let's look at gun violence in our society. Let's go to domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, violence in the schools, gang violence, racial violence, violence against gays. If we started to focus on addressing violence in our society, the causal nature of it, not just the symptoms of it, not just the effects of it, we may put ourselves on a path where we could in our Nation create what many years ago people called a New Jerusalem, a shining city on a hill, the potential to be able to have all of our material concerns met, and be able to have peace. Frankly, I don't know any other way that we can do it except working towards peace. But we have to build structures of peace in our own Nation, in our own neighborhoods. That is what legislation to create a Department of Peace is about, not creating a new bureaucracy. Think about it. If we spend more than $1 trillion every year for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Pentagon budget all combined, wouldn't you think we ought to have a few bucks available to talk about how we can create a more peaceful society so we don't doom future generations to continue to support these endless wars? We have to start redefining who we are as a people, and this is as good a time as any to begin to do it. We are on the eighth anniversary of the initiation of the war against Iraq, March 20, 2011. In the last hour, Mr. Speaker, I have sought to create a review of the record of what was said at the time to bring about the war, how the President and the Vice President at that time did not tell the truth to the American people, did not tell the truth to Congress; how the consequences have been extraordinary for the people of Iraq, for the people of the United States; how many innocent civilians died; how we have to find a way to reconcile with the people of Iraq, how we will have to find a way to reconcile at some point with the people in Afghanistan the innocents who have died. How we have to recognize that there are some things in the world that are beyond our control, that we can't tell other people what kind of political system they should have. We cannot try to redesign the world according to what our idea of a democracy is. Wouldn't it be nice if here in the United States we actually focused on creating the fullness of the democratic process, which we were assured would have the chance to unfold with the independence of the United States and with the creation of our Constitution? Mr. Speaker, I intend to keep bringing forth the truth of what happened that resulted in the United States being taken into war against Iraq based on lies, and I intend to keep bringing forward alternatives so that we can not just get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but stop this reach for power abroad which comes at the expense of our vital needs at home.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker and my friends on both sides of the aisle, we could very easily come up with money to save this program if we would just put a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. I'm here today to point out the critical importance of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and to urge my fellow Members to vote against cancelling it. Over the past decade, the people of my State in Ohio, and my district in particular, have weathered a terrible storm of foreclosures, devastating entire communities. While some neighborhoods in my district have been hollowed out by the effects of this storm, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds have made neighborhoods and communities safer. Those communities faced the constant risk of crime and vandals taking advantage of empty structures, and Neighborhood Stabilization funds have been used to demolish hundreds of abandoned homes in the neighborhood, to help protect existing home values, and prevented neighborhoods from falling apart. But the Neighborhood Stabilization Program has not just financed demolition of abandoned structures. In Cuyahoga County alone, this program funded the creation of 237 units of affordable rental housing and 25 single-family home renovations and neighborhood green space improvements. It has also been used to leverage non-Federal money to fund the innovative Land Bank, a public entity that buys vacant and abandoned land and puts ownership of that land back in the hands of the public so that it can be used again, often in conjunction with private development, to renew and revitalize communities. Anyone who has ever spent any time in blighted communities knows that they cry out for innovative solutions like the Land Bank. When NSP was first being developed, I held hearings to find out how specifically HUD planned to allocate the funds. I convinced them of the wisdom of using U.S. Postal Service and census tract data on residential home vacancies. Because of that, they adopted a need-based formula for allocating the money to neighborhoods and communities that needed it most. Vote against this bill.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the 163rd Anniversary of the 1848-1849 Hungarian Revolution and the valiant contribution of the Hungarian people to those efforts. The European revolutions of 1848-1849, known as the ``Spring of Nations,'' will always remind us that independence, self-rule, and democracy can never be permanently extinguished in any society. The year 1848 marked a momentous occasion for the nations of Europe. All across the continent, oppressed people rose up to attempt to secure their liberty and freedom. The people of Hungary followed suit and attempted to overthrow the oppressors in the Habsburg monarchy. March 15th marked the day that the Hungarians made their stand. They marched, collectively as Hungarians, to demand their rights. In solidarity, they marched and demonstrated until their ruling governors had no choice, but to relinquish to them their freedom and liberty. Today, we see Hungary as a regional success story for democracy and civil society. This eventual, if delayed, victory shows us that though the road to democracy is not always an easy one, the spirit of people will ultimately prevail in the determined march toward democracy. Mr. Speaker and Colleagues, please join me in honoring the values of freedom, independence, and democracy that the Hungarians demanded in 1848. The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 stands as a reminder and inspiration of the undying desire of any society to be free and independent.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, Congress heard from General Petraeus today that significant progress is being made in Afghanistan. We've heard that before. Military and civilian leaders have for years told lawmakers and the public that we're making progress in Afghanistan. We heard it here 7 years ago when President Karzai of Afghanistan talked about our presence there as being a journey of success and victory. President Bush at the same time was saying that a revival was under way. In another joint press conference in 2006, President Bush says progress is being made. In 2007, Lieutenant General Eikenberry says we're on a steady path. In 2008, President Bush says we're making good progress. In October 2008, General McKiernan says we're not losing, and President Bush says there has been progress. We keep hearing the same story over and over again. Now President Obama has requested another $113 billion to continue the war in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2012. That sum will be on top of the $454.7 billion that has already been spent. It is time that Congress stepped up, denied the money, and got out of Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, we have a vote coming up this Thursday to accomplish that.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the National Association of Parliamentarians. I would also like to welcome the Robert Rocks in Cleveland biennial District Four Conference to Cleveland, Ohio. The district four region consists of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada. The National Association of Parliamentarians advocates the studying and teaching of the philosophies and principles of various legislative bodies. The Association, based in Independence, Missouri, is currently entering its 80th year of existence, a monumental occasion for the organization. In addition, the current congregation of the fourth district is only the fourth time the conference has taken place in the state of Ohio. This year marks the first time that Cleveland has been chosen as the host city. The goal of this conference is to educate the public about meeting management and various other parliamentarian procedures. Educational workshops will be open to the public and the election of a new district director will take place. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, join me in honor of the National Association of Parliamentarians as they gather in Cleveland, Ohio for their District Four Conference. This conference is a benefit to both those in attendance and the community as a whole.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Joseph Melenick, a 17 year-old man who has dedicated his adolescence to finding a cure for Crohn's disease. Five years ago, Joe was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a disorder that causes swelling in the digestive tract, severe pain, and gastrointestinal complications. Since being diagnosed, Joe has remained committed to raising money to find a cure for the disease, to helping others with his condition, and to keep fighting for the benefit of others. On his twelfth birthday, Joe decided to host a fundraiser at a bowling alley, with the hope of raising $1,000 for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation for research. With over 100 participants in the fundraiser, Joe well surpassed his goal and raised approximately $4,700. Since that first fundraiser, he has made this an annual event and has raised close to $50,000. In addition to his annual bowling fundraiser, Joe often speaks to groups in the Cleveland area about the disease and how he copes. His presentations show the group that they are not alone in battling this terrible disease, and that there is hope for a cure. Joe has facilitated other events to raise awareness and gather donations for the foundation in collaboration with a team he formed, called the ``GI Joes.'' Events include a 2-mile walk around Progressive Field with the Bay High School drum line and the GI Joes. The team has collected sponsorships from local companies, friends, families and concerned citizens. As a result of his hard work and dedication to finding a cure for the disease, the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation chose him as the 2010 Honored Hero for the Cleveland area. In addition, Joe was recently named one of the top two youth volunteers for 2011 by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, please join me in honoring Joseph Melenick as he strives to raise funds for finding a cure for Crohn's disease, and for acting as a role model for Cleveland's young people.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome the Honorable Justice Nial Fennelly, Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland, to Cleveland as a guest of honor at the Collins and Scanlon annual St. Patrick's Day Party on March 17th, 2011. A graduate of University College Dublin with a degree in economics, the Honorable Justice Fennelly completed his studies of law at King's Inns, and was formally called to the Bar in 1964. He practiced law from 1966 to 1995, becoming Senior Counsel, working in commercial and constitutional law with a specialty in European Community law. Justice Fennelly became the first Irish lawyer to be appointed Advocate General at the European Court of Justice in 1995, and served in this capacity until 2000. His rulings dealt with issues regarding the free movement of persons, goods and services, as well as tax and competition. In 2000, he was appointed to be a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland, where he has served since. In addition to these achievements, he is also a Bencher of the Honorable Society of King's Inns and of the Middle Temple in London. He is President of the Irish Society for European Law, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of European Law at Trier in Germany, and is a former Chairman of the Irish Centre for European Law. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, please join me in welcoming our distinguished guest from Ireland, the Honorable Justice Nial Fennelly, to Cleveland, as the city celebrates St. Patrick's Day.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Arizona. (Mr. PASTOR of Arizona asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)