John Murtha

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price). (Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt). (Mr. WATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MURTHA. Let me ask the gentleman, my good friend, how many more speakers he has?

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. I was just out to a hospital a week or so ago, and a young woman whose husband was in the bed right next to her, and she said, I didn't join the Army to fight for Iraq. He joined to fight for the United States. We don't send people to fight for other countries. We send them to fight for the United States' national security. That is the first lesson we learn, and then we send them with overwhelm force and then we have an exit strategy. What we are looking for is all the same thing. All of us want the same thing. We want a resolution. We want a positive resolution to what is going on in Iraq. We want a plan. We want a plan that we can live with. It is not enough to say stay the course. We need somebody to tell us exactly how we are going to do this. When you talk about the amount of money this is costing us per month, and I think about $8 billion, which almost as long as I have been on the Defense Subcommittee, and all of the money that I have seen in the Defense Subcommittee, and I can't recognize what $1 billion is, $450 billion at the end of this year. Then I think how long did it take us to pay for the Vietnam War? It took us almost 18 years at 18 percent interest rates to pay for the Vietnam War. There were a lot more people, a lot more of a cross- section of people fighting in the Vietnam War, and yet a plurality of people still supported the Vietnam War to the very end. Let me read something. People say they don't want a time schedule. Nobody has said they don't want a time. Let me read these comments from some of the people that traveled back from the President from Iraq recently. She says in her news release, here is Bush Tuesday night on the way home on Air Force One discussing his conversation with Iraqi leaders. There are concerns about our commitment and keeping our troops there. They are worried almost to a person that we will leave before they are capable of defending themselves. I assured them they didn't need to worry. That is what we hear back here all the time. But apparently what he says almost to a person, not including the President and the Vice President, the President and Vice President of Iraq. The Associated Press reports this morning, Iraq's Vice President has asked President Bush for a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. The Iraqi President's office said, the Vice President, a Sunni, made the request during his meeting with Bush on Tuesday when the U.S. President made a surprise visit to Iraq. I supported him in this. This is the President of Iraq. I supported them, said the President, in a statement released Wednesday. Now, 80 percent of the Iraqis want us out of there, 62 percent of the people in the United States want us out of there. It is not surprising to me that they are going to offer amnesty to some of the Iraqis who are killing Americans, because 47 percent of the Iraqis think it is all right to kill Americans. We have diverted ourselves away from the war of terrorism. All of us agree about the war on terrorism. All of us have the same goals in the war on terrorism. What we are concerned about is we are caught in a civil war in Iraq. There is only 1,000 al Qaeda or less in Iraq. We destroyed the leader of al Qaeda. What we are worried about is the Sunnis and the Shiias. The Shiias are 100,000, and there are 2,000 Sunnis fighting with each other. The way we have to do it is one of the biggest problems we have. When you fight a military operation, you have to destroy everything. Fallujah, for instance. We put 300,000 people outside their homes and only 100,000 came back. That is nation building. Yet we are trying to make friends in that country. You can't make friends if you operate the way the military does. And I agree with the military. To protect American lives, we have to go in with overwhelming force. When you go in with overwhelming force, you are going to inadvertently kill civilians. Then when you send in people who are untrained and they go into a country, into a job like a prison and they don't know what they are doing, they don't know how to handle it, untrained people that caused us a terrible public relations disaster. So you have this combination of untrained troops, inadequate forces, and then on top of that, you have no plan to remove the military. Every military leader I have talked to has said the same thing to me. They have said, we can't win this militarily. All of us want the same thing. We want a resolution to this thing. We want to not only bring our troops home. Internationally it is important we have stability in the Middle East. There is no question. All of us want the same thing. It is how we get it. And we have to have international cooperation. As I had mentioned, and I will end with this, in the first war we had international cooperation. We had 160,000 international troops and 400,000 American troops. And $60 billion came from the international community and we paid between 4 and $5 billion. In this particular war so far, we have spent $450 billion and not only the financial treasure but the human treasure that we have lost in the United States.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following letter for the Record. May 31, 2006. Representative John P. Murtha, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Murtha: I am a Florida Democrat who feels deeply in your debt for the campaign you are pursuing to get our troops out of Iraq ASAP. When a new Democratic Congress convenes early next year I hope its first order of business will be to present you with a well-deserved Congressional Gold Medal. I share your heartfelt concern over the situation in Iraq. It is a national disaster that is robbing our nation of the best of our youth and billions of our national treasure. In this regard I stand squarely behind you and your views of the war. In support of those views I have prepared a piece called Iraq: We Need a Strategy, Not Empty Slogans. It is based on your irrefutable arguments. Its thrust is to demolish the President's position that we must stay the course. (How I hate that phrase!) I believe I have made a cohesive, persuasive argument. Please take a few minutes to read this paper and hopefully have it inserted in The Congressional Record. In my judgment, it warrants the attention of every Member of Congress. Accomplishing this is my main purpose in life at the moment. Earlier I sent a copy of the enclosed piece to Senator Bill Nelson, my home-state senator, but subsequently learned he does not favor early departure. Here are my bonafides: I am an 85 year-old retired Army lieutenant colonel with 22 years of active service as an Infantry officer. I saw combat in World War II as a rifle platoon leader in the Pacific. I received the following decorations in the course of my military career: Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster, Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster, Army Commendation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. So you don't have to accept these claims at face value alone, I enclose a copy of my DD 214. I am confident that God will grant you the strength to carry on your fight. But all Americans should rise to your support. They need to cast aside complacency and lassitude. They need to stand up to an Administration hellbent on destroying the underpinnings of our democracy. In short, we must sound off. With admiration and respect, Sanford H. Winston, LTC, USARet.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I am nervous about the amendment. I am nervous because I am not sure, when we have got people out there making contracts for the troops out in the field, there is no question all of us want to take care of the fraud and abuse, all of us. Nobody's done more of a job than you have, the gentleman from California; but I get nervous when we are doing something prospectively. We are not sure of the impact. I think we would have to change this in conference anyway because we just do not know enough about the impact. You assure us. They are worried about it. So I am very worried about this amendment. I think we would be better off letting the system take care of it. I think when you have fraud and abuse, it has got to be taken care of. The Congress has the oversight responsibility, but I am not sure legislating for the future is going to solve the problem. That is the thing that worries me.

Mr. MURTHA. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I just worry when we do something like this prospectively, we might affect what is going on in the field. None of us want to stop a contract for services to the troops in the field right now, and I think you agree with that.

Mr. MURTHA. I know you believe that, but I would err on the side of trying to prevent it. So at this point I would be against the amendment.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the chairman. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. MURTHA. The words ``torture,'' ``cruelty'' and ``abuse'' elicit images of draconian and brutal dictatorship. These words are reserved for the worst of human rights offenders. It should never include the United States of America. The United States of America and the values we reflect abhor human rights violators and uphold human rights. No circumstance whatsoever justifies torture. No emergencies, no state of war, no level of political instability. According to Secretary Powell, in his letter to Senator McCain in support of the Senator's amendment, ``The troops need to hear from Congress, which has an obligation to speak to such matters under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.'' We have irrefutable evidence of widespread use of unlawful interrogation techniques by American interrogators at Abu Ghraib and other locations. This has been absolutely disastrous to our credibility and our reputation as a Nation that was built on the sanctity of individual rights. We have a legal and moral and ethical obligation to uphold the values of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Furthermore, torture, cruelty and abuse are not effective methods of interrogation. Torture may not yield reliable actionable information and can lead to false confessions. And we have an example of that not long ago, prior to the war. Torture may not yield information quickly. Torture does not advance our goals. It does not help us win the hearts and minds of people it is used against. It did not aid the cause of the Soviets in Afghanistan and the French in Algeria. Torture has a corrupting effect on the perpetrators. It has rarely been confined to narrow conditions. Once used and condoned, it easily becomes widespread. The same practices found their way from Guantanamo to Afghanistan to Iraq. Torture is not only used against the guilty; it often leads to unintentional abuse of the innocent. We cannot torture and still retain the moral high ground. Torture endangers U.S. service members who might be captured by the enemy. Torture brings discredit upon the United States. There can be no waiver for the use of torture. No torture and no exceptions. Gray areas in rules, lack of direction, training and supervision from superiors, lack of standards and clear guidelines from leaders are dangerous and led to the abuse at Abu Ghraib and other locations. During times of war, clear guidelines governing the treatment of prisoners is imperative, especially when due to the lack of manpower, people are put in jobs with little or no experience or people are put in jobs that are not appropriate. The alleged ring leader at Abu Ghraib had a history of domestic abuse and therefore, by law, could not carry a firearm in the United States. Yet, he was a prison guard at Abu Ghraib, and he was not suited for handling prisoners. It is now evident that abuse of prisoners took place because of lack of supervision, that our troops were given ambiguous instructions which, in some cases, authorized treatment that went beyond what was allowed in the Army Field Manual. The definition of abusive treatment cannot be a matter of subjectivity and ambiguity. The administration confused matters further by declaring that U.S. personnel are not bound by the Geneva Convention when interrogating non-U.S. citizens on foreign soil. Gross inconsistencies resulted: We followed the spirit of the Geneva Convention in Afghanistan, the letter of the Geneva Convention in Iraq. We had one set of rules for the prisoners of war, another for the enemy combatants; one set for Guantanamo, another for Iraq; one for the military, one for the CIA who were at times operating under the same roof. America does have clear guidelines as set forth in the Army Field Manual. A number of those who were involved told me they would ask their superiors and lawyers, do you think this was torture? Do you think we violated the Geneva Convention? The answers they got differed, as if something this important was a matter of opinion. In the case of one of these people, Captain Fishback, I believe he thought some of the troops clearly violated the Geneva Convention but that the administration and Congress knew, ``as if there was a special hand shake.'' In other words, when he came to see me, he thought we had something to do with this. He said they were not clear, and they thought that we were just winking at the regulations. And this is dangerous. We cannot tolerate a practice of saying one thing and doing another. Using the argument terrorists do much worse, that al Qaeda does much worse is a horrifying rationale. As Captain Fishback argues, ``since when did al Qaeda become any type of standard by which we measure the morality of the United States?'' And that is a quote from Captain Fishback. Captain Fishback wrote to Senator McCain, ``If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of that idea that is America.'' And Captain Fishback was in Afghanistan for 18 months and in Iraq. We cannot protect freedom abroad or at home while degrading our society and its political and legal systems. We cannot do it while trampling all over the values which have made this country strong, which define us all as Americans. These values do not belong to any party. They are not Democrat or Republican. They are American values. We cannot allow our Nation's moral and ethical standards to drift away from the Constitution. Congress is obligated to speak out. Congress cannot give its power to the Executive Branch. Congress is the people's branch. Thomas Jefferson said in 1814, ``How necessary was the care of the Creator in making the moral principle so much a part of our constitution so that no errors of reasoning or speculation might lead us astray from its observance in practice.'' He also said, ``Moral duties [are] as obligatory on nations as on individuals.'' And I have to say this. War is about killing. For those sent to fight an enemy, that killing will stay with them for the rest of their lives. It is in the faces of friends lost, in the shadows the soldiers feel on their souls for having killed. This is the nature of war. But when torture becomes a part of war, when torture is condoned, if we allow torture in any form, we abandon our honor and the last shred of humanity. Visions of abuse and torture chill our conscience and sear our souls. Torture scars not only its subject; it scars those who perpetrate it and those who are witnesses to it. Most military leaders know that allowing torture subjects our servicemembers to similar acts if captured. We in Congress must never forget this because we are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle. This responsibility is doubly heavy today when America is living in a time of great uncertainty and two wars. In the case of Iraq, we are unsure of the war's rationale and where it will lead us. In the war against terror, we are still struggling to fathom our enemy and are troubled by his tactics. It is all that more important now that we remember that America stands for the honor of those we have sent to fight this war. This amendment would restore our credibility, honors our war fighters and affirms the value of this great country, the values that belong to the United States of America.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Somebody walked by not long ago, and they said, I do not have to go to your funeral because I paid my dues today with all these people giving these accolades. I have to tell you this story. When you start getting all these accolades, you think you are a big shot. I remember one time President Carter asked me to go to the seventh game of the World Series with him. Tip O'Neill and I went down, and there were only 4 of us and 15 Secret Service people in the plane. We got in this helicopter and, of course, flew over all these other people going to the ballgame. Well, Carter was not the most pleasant guy to be with. He wanted to talk all business, and Tip O'Neill wanted to talk nothing but baseball. So we get about halfway there, and it is not a very long trip to Baltimore. Tip finally got him warmed up. We land, and we only land a block away from the stadium, but we had to have an armored car drive us in. So the President said, you sit in the middle there, Murtha, and Tip sat on the left side, and the President sat on the right side. Some guy yelled out some obscenities. He said, My God, they must have recognized Murtha in the car. Let me say, this resolution today is not what I envisioned, not what I introduced, and let me read what I introduced on November 17. ``Whereas Congress and the American people have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to `promote the emergence of a democratic government'; ``Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U.S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U.S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft.'' Now, let me say this. There were two of us who voted for a military draft, so I do not think that is an option. When you go to the high schools, they say, you are for a draft. I said, yes, but there is not too many of us, and I do not think you have to worry about it. ``Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan; ``Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom; ``Whereas U.S. forces become the target of the insurgency; ``Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80 percent of the Iraqi people want the U.S. forces out of Iraq; ``Whereas polls also indicate that 45 percent,'' this is a British poll, but the Defense Department support this British poll or confirm this British poll, ``of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified.'' Hear what I am saying. Forty-five percent of the Iraqi people feel it is justified to attack Americans. ``Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action.'' I did not say anything about intelligence. I did not say anything about the President. All these statements that have been made vilifying me today did not say anything like that. ``Therefore be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date. ``Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region. ``The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.'' That is what I said. I have never had in the 32 years that I have been in Congress such an outpouring from this country, four to one in my office. You cannot even call my office if you tried, an outpouring of people crying. People are thirsting for some direction. They are thirsting for a solution to this problem. They want to support the President. I want to support the President. Everybody does. We put into place in the Appropriations Committee a criteria for success because we were so unhappy. This was in May. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and I put a criteria for success in the bill, it was a Moran amendment, because we were not happy with the results. Nobody was talking to us. Nobody would tell us what was going on, and we felt it was absolutely necessary that we put this into writing. I went to Iraq about 2 months ago, and I talked to the commanders, and all of you know the commanders are very hesitant to say anything that is not in the policy of the White House, and I agree, that is the way it is run by the civilians. That is the way it should be, but I could tell how discouraged the commanders were. The one Marine commander said, I do not have troops to put on the border, the Syrian border. Now, why did they not have enough troops? Because of the deployment, because of the small number of people that are serving in our Armed Forces today. We told them, the Armed Services Committee, under Duncan Hunter's leadership, said you can take 30,000 more people. They cannot recruit to that. They have fallen 10,000 short; and not only have they fallen 10,000 short, they are now taking 20 percent category 4s, which they said in the voluntary Army would never happen. The war's not going as advertised. The American public is way ahead of us. If you heard the World War II veterans, if you heard the Vietnam veterans, the wives and the widows on the phone crying to my staff and myself when I am talking to them, if you heard them reaching out and asking for a policy, a bipartisan policy. When I introduced this resolution, I did not introduce this as a partisan resolution. I go by Arlington Cemetery every day, and the Vice President, he criticizes Democrats. Let me tell you, those gravestones do not say Democrat or Republican. They say American, and Dick Cheney's a good friend of mine. He was a good Secretary of Defense. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people and the Persian Gulf region. That is my opinion. General Casey said in a September 2005 hearing, the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency. Hear what I am saying. General Abizaid said on the same date, reducing the size of visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is part of our counterinsurgency strategy. For 2\1/2\ years I have been concerned about our policy and the plan in Iraq. I have addressed my concerns to the administration and the Pentagon. I have spoken out in public about my concerns in going to war. A few days before the start of the war, I was in Kuwait. They drew a red line around Baghdad; and they said when the American forces cross the red line, they will attack us with weapons of mass destruction, meaning biological and chemical weapons. I believed that. They believed it. The military commanders believed it. And when they went in, though, they felt they had sufficient protective gear that they could overcome it. The heat would dissipate some of the gas and so forth, and it would be no problem for our forces, they felt. They even thought they had cell phones monitored so they could tell that it was there. It turned out not to be true. Let me tell the Members this: Bill Young and I have been on the Defense Subcommittee for 25 years. We spend more money on intelligence than all the countries in the world put together and more on intelligence than most countries' GDP. But the intelligence concerning Iraq was wrong. It is not a world intelligence failure. It is a U.S. intelligence failure. I have been visiting our wounded troops at Bethesda, and only two people, I think, visit any more than I do, and that is Bill Young's wife and Bill Young. They go there as often as I do, and Beverly goes more often. Now, let me tell the Members what demoralizes the troops. Going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace, the devastation caused by IEDs, being deployed to Iraq when their homes have been ravaged by hurricanes, being under second and third deployment and leaving their families behind without a network of support. The threat posed by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to meet all these threats. The future of our military is at risk. Our military and their families are stretched thin. A very small percentage of people in this country are serving this country at this stage in this war. Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down. Defense budgets are being cut, $5 billion this year, $5 billion cut from the defense budget; and the chairman and I are concerned they are going to cut another percentage point, which is $4 billion more, from the defense budget. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. And choices have to be made. We cannot allow a promise that we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls in our bases in the United States. I visited four bases, four Southern bases, premier bases. Every one of them was short, short radios, short mortars, short ammunition even. Our troops were C-4, which means the lowest state of readiness, because they did not have the equipment to train right before they are deployed to Iraq. And much of our ground equipment is worn out and in need of serious overhaul. I have said to all these CEOs that come to see me, Folks, do not think about procurement. We about bought, what, five or six ships this year, something like that. They said they are going to build 12 next year. Do not believe that. But I will tell the Members one thing we have to do is rehabilitate this equipment. A $50 billion bill, in my estimation, and I do not know where the money is going to come from. George Washington said: ``To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.'' I do not know what the threat is, but I will tell you it takes 18 years to get a weapons system out there, and we had better well get those systems put together now. We had better start them right now because we do not have them. They have a system right now they are thinking of cutting back. The Europeans invested a lot of money in it. Billions of dollars have been invested in this weapon system, JSF. If they cut back the buy, the cost to increase, the Europeans will cut back on their buy, and it will skyrocket the price; and we will have to reduce the number of airplanes that we buy. We must rebuild our Army. Our deficit is growing out of control. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office recently admitted to being ``terrified'' about the budget deficit in the coming decades. This is the first prolonged war we have fought with 3 years of tax cuts, without full mobilization of American industry, and without a draft. The burden of war has not been shared equally, and the military and their families are shouldering this burden. Our military has been fighting a war in Iraq for over 2\1/2\ years. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. And you know the deaths and you know they estimate that not only do we have 15,500 that have been wounded, but we have 50,000 that we think may suffer from what I call battle fatigue. I just recently visited Anbar Province, as I said, and I became convinced that we had to take some action. I became convinced that I needed to say something about what was going on. I needed to introduce a resolution which would bring this to a head so we could come to a bipartisan resolution to fight this war together, to show our troops how we support them, and that resolution calls for a redeployment of our troops. I said over a year ago now, the military and the administration agree, Iraq cannot be won militarily. We can say it here in these air conditioned offices, but let me tell you something. It cannot be won militarily. It has got to be won politically, and we have to turn it over to the Iraqis and give them the incentive to take back their own country. Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces. We have become the catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, the Saddamists, and the foreign jihadists. I believe with U.S. troop redeployment, the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted shows 80 percent of the Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition troops. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis. I believe the Iraqi election scheduled for mid-December, the Iraqi people in the emerging government must be put on notice: the United States will immediately redeploy. All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free, free from United States occupation. I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process for a good and free Iraq. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Normally the soldiers cannot speak for themselves. I do not believe we are making the progress that is articulated in many cases. Everything I see, oil production is below prewar level; electricity production is below prewar level; incidents have increased from 150 a week to 770 a week in Iraq. But let me read a letter from a young soldier at Walter Reed. Everybody says when you go to Walter Reed, they all want to go right back, and they usually do not complain. Let me read this letter. ``I am sure you are extremely busy today with the announcement of your support for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. We have been trying unsuccessfully to reach you by phone. ``My husband is an injured Iraq soldier who so highly commends you for speaking out about this disastrous war and its aftermath on U.S. troops. Though we are now living in Washington, D.C., on the Walter Reed campus, we are originally from your 12th District in Pennsylvania. ``Congressman Murtha actually pinned my husband's Purple Heart. We are so proud that he was the man to honor my husband for what he did in Iraq. It may serve Mr. Murtha more to remind him that my husband is the 24-year-old guardsman who lost part of a leg in a suicide car bomb attack in April of this year. ``We were shocked and overjoyed that Murtha spoke out against the Bush administration's handling of the war. Unlike what many say is a blow to troop morale by questioning the war, his frank call for attention to the subject brought nods and applause from the injured soldiers at Walter Reed's Mologne House. It is the first that my husband and I feel that a politician has truly stuck up for the soldiers most personally affected by the war in Iraq.'' We send the soldiers to the war. We are the ones that make that decision. We also have to speak out when we do not think the war is going in the right direction. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me read another letter. ``We are Gold Star parents. Our son was killed October 18, 2003, south of Kirkuk with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. You and I talked for about 90 minutes on the phone in early 2004. I have spent the better part of 2 years lobbying for improved body armor.'' Do Members remember, we sent the troops to war without body armor? We found the body armor. We found the shortage and up-armored the Humvees. Congress found it, and we put the money in the bill. ``We believe the best way to support the troops is through a responsible and well-thought-out foreign policy.'' Not stay the course, but a thought out, and this is from a woman whose son was killed. ``We do not have that policy today in Iraq. By staying in Iraq, we have become occupiers instead of liberators.'' And 80 percent of the Iraqis think that. ``Today we are called un-American because we are obligated to disagree with the President. We want better for our son's comrades. It is our obligation to stand up and be counted to support the troops, to speak for those that are not free to speak for themselves, to use their bravery and sacrifice wisely. You, sir, are a man of our heart. God knows why the rest of the Democratic Party is not rallying around you, but we are. Even as we stand alone, it is the right thing to do. Our support is unequivocal for you on matter in this dangerous and lonely time.''

Mr. MURTHA. Let me read another letter. ``In 2004, my youngest son graduated from college and was already enrolled in the Marines. He was ready to help our country and others in whatever was asked of him. It was with great distress that we have watched the administration mishandle this war. There was no plan.'' What the gentleman from Indiana said about World War II, there was a plan. There was a plan when we went into Normandy. We landed 150,000 people in 24 hours. There is the conception at home that there is no plan. I hear this over and over again. That is why there was such an outpouring when I offered a plan, when people called me and said they wanted a plan. ``It was with great distress that we have watched the administration mishandle this war. There was no plan, no push to go in and win the war in total. Mission Accomplished was a joke, and even we the uniformed knew then that it was a misnomer. Losing Colin Powell from the administration was a deep blow to us. We respected his honor and his professionalism. His soldier inside. Our son has had one deployment to Iraq. He came home safely this time, and awaits his second deployment in July. Congressman Murtha, we are a patriotic family, but I cannot abide by sending my son back into a war where there is no goal, no plan, and a war being planned by Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney. We would feel differently if we felt our son was being used in the proper manner, and for a valiant effort. But we feel that they are clay pigeons in a carnival, just waiting for the next suicide bomber or IED. My husband and I did not feel this way 6 months ago. We thought the administration had realized their inadequacy and were making changes, and that we should stay the course. That has not happened. Things continue in disarray. This is not the best use of our military, nor respectful of the values and ideals of the servicemen and women within it. We support your views and we feel that there is a need for change.'' That is what I am saying. We need to change direction in Iraq.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MURTHA. Who has the right to close?