John Murtha

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to restore funding for an important national program known as PASIS, Perpetually Available and Secure Information Systems program.

Mr. MURTHA. I appreciate it.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, nobody has worked harder than Bill Young, his wife and myself in taking care of these troops at all the hospitals, all over the country. Just last year we put in money to start a new center for rehabilitation of people that had lost their limbs and so forth. We appreciate your recommendation. We hope you withdraw the amendment, and we will continue to work toward full funding, as much as we think is absolutely necessary for all these hospitals.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I think that this amendment does the opposite of what he would hope. It sends a signal to the American public: we expect to spend time there forever. Permanent bases can be negotiated at any time with the government. What we are saying with this bill is that at this point in time there shouldn't be any permanent bases in Iraq. And when you strike this language, it does the opposite of the impact the gentleman wants to have. As I travel around the country, I hear this all the time. I hear the President say no permanent bases, I hear the Secretary of Defense say no permanent bases in Iraq. I am just reiterating what the policy of this country is, that we shouldn't have permanent bases in Iraq. Once we start down this road of permanent bases, I remember reading something where Harry Truman said we would be out of Germany in two or three years; we were there for 50 or 60 years. We are spending almost $8 billion a day, or a month, in Iraq. And I think one of the bases that we were going to build, the construction costs were almost double what they anticipated the permanent base we were looking at or at least the temporary base we were looking at would be. I can't imagine what a permanent base would cost if you are going to build it. You have got to have permanent security. There are all kinds of things that have to be built in. This is not the time to eliminate a provision like this, and I would hope that the gentleman would withdraw this amendment because it is very disruptive to what our troops are doing. We are trying to figure out a way to solve this problem. And when the gentleman offers an amendment like this, I think it has the opposite impact of what he is trying to do.

Mr. MURTHA. I can see some merit to what the gentleman is recommending, and certainly I will bring it up to the conferees when we get to conference, and we will see what they say and get some expert opinions. I can see some merit in what the gentleman is proposing, and I will certainly do my best to work something out.

Mr. MURTHA. If the gentleman would yield, is it the gentleman's understanding that such interrogation is not currently being videotaped?

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I think you are absolutely right. Matter of fact, 10 years ago, we put language in that would allow them to produce jet fuel from coal. The Air Force did not particularly like it, did not particularly agree with it, but now this particular year they said to me this could reduce the cost of their fuel substantially. So I agree with you, and we will do everything we can to work this thing out.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and ask for a ``no'' vote.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment. There are a lot of ideas that Members of Congress come up with that the Department of Defense initially opposes, and then they find out all at once they work. For instance, some years ago we came up with a research project to produce fuel for jets out of coal, and now you would think it was the Air Force's idea, and we will save as much as 50 percent of oil costs for the jet fuel. This is something where the commercial side is way ahead, and we certainly ought to be trying to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I would ask for a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. The problem we have here is those of us who have been briefed on the program, even though admittedly we were not briefed until it became public, can't talk about the program. I was briefed for an hour and 45 minutes, and I feel comfortable that there are adequate safeguards. But we can't talk about the safeguards. I asked NSA, what can we say about the program and not violate the security? And they said, well, you have to look at what the President said. Well, I looked at what the President said, and he didn't say very much. This is a real problem we are getting into, and the more we talk about it, the more difficult it makes it. Now you are actually authorizing this program. If you vote for this, you authorize this program. You say you have safeguards. That is what you are going to have. If this passes, this authorizes this program. At one point we couldn't even say that this program existed. So I think this is a very difficult time for those of us who have been briefed about it. And I know there are a lot of people in the executive branch that know about it. But the way I read this amendment, you say follow the proper procedure and you agree with the amendment. You agree with the procedures. I think that there is some real benefit if they do it right. But if this passes, I think you ought to know this is authorizing the program. And if it fails, you are saying, in fact, let them go ahead and not pass. So we are in a catch-22 position here, Mr. Chairman. And we can't talk about it at all. And I think we have to be careful that more and more people don't talk about it so that more people don't know the value of the program. We have got a heck of a problem here. And I recommend we vote against it. But if we vote against it, then we actually are saying, well, you can go ahead with the program as it is. And yet I believe there are enough safeguards. But if we pass it, we actually are authorizing the program. I don't even know if we can work it out, Mr. Chairman, because there are so few people that really know about the program.

Mr. MURTHA. I agree.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I think at times we have an arrogance in the Defense Department when they ignore not the regulations, but what we are trying to do in this legislation. We expected them to talk to the people working in the Defense Department. I have never seen a better workforce than we have in the United States when it comes to the civilians who support our troops out in the field and civilians who work for the Defense Department, and we have tried several years now to get them to do more negotiations. They have continually ignored our advice, and I am very nervous about the way they have handled things. I have never seen so many union representatives come to me and say, we have asked them for this, and then the court, the court itself, says they are not being treated fairly. So I would hope we could accept this amendment or at least vote this amendment. It is a little broader than I would like, but we can always adjust that if we have to at some other point. I would advise, recommend the Members they support the amendment.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will yield, we have no problem with the amendment on our side.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and ask for a ``no'' vote.

Mr. MURTHA. I appreciate what the gentlewoman from Texas said, and I hope we can work something out. It is always a delicate situation where one family, maybe more than one soldier or service person comes in at the same time. But I hope we can work something out in line with what she is talking about if the family is interested in doing this. I appreciate what she is saying and the statement and sentiment behind what she is trying to do. Amendment Offered by Mr. Flake

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and ask for a ``no'' vote.

Mr. MURTHA

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I have three unanimous consent requests. I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks). (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous-consent request to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me go over what I said before. All of us applaud the elections. All of us applaud the fact that Zarqawi was caught and the way he was caught, using Iraqis, giving information to Iraqis, and the United States operating and going in and eliminating Zarqawi. The problem is because of the way we handled this at first, it got out of hand, and United States forces had to use overwhelming force in many cases. Fallujah, for instance, they went in and put 300,000 people outside their homes. Only 100,000 have come back. Now, in Anbar Province they have no electricity at all. They have 2 million people there. They have zero projects in Anbar Province. That is the province where we had the most trouble. And then as I go through the liturgy of things that have happened with 130,000 troops there, this is the point: in May of 2003, we had 3,000 insurgents. In May of 2006, we have 20,000 insurgents. Now, we are there. The United States forces are occupying Iraq. The estimated number of foreign fighters in 2003 was 100. This comes from our intelligence people. And today there is an estimated 1,500. I think it is a little less than that, but it is estimated at 1,500. Now, think. We have got 130,000 troops. They supposedly have 265,000, police and army trained. They have more confidence in their army than they have in the United States forces; yet there are only 1,000 foreign fighters. We have sectarian violence which is, in my estimation, a civil war and we are caught in between. Our troops have become the targets in a civil war. All of us want this thing to be resolved. This is absolutely essential to stability in the free world because of the energy that comes from the Middle East. But how we do it is what we disagree with. As long as American troops are there, we actually are attracting terrorism. Do you know who wants us in Iraq? al Qaeda wants us in Iraq. Iran wants us in Iraq. North Korea wants us in Iraq. Russia wants us in Iraq, and China wants us in Iraq. Why? Because we are depleting our financial resources and our human resources. Because we are destroying the future viability of the Army. We have $50 billion in backlog right now for the Army, equipment that needs to be repaired. We have had to lower the standards for the Army, taking category 4s, which we did not take for a long time. We have had Air Force people and Navy people we transferred over to the Army because they do not have enough people. And we can talk about reenlistment, but they had no reeinlistment bonuses that I know of during the old days. They now have up to $150,000 that they pay people in reenlistment bonuses. So we are having real problems. I agree the troops are doing everything they can. Their mission is actually accomplished. But let me go on. Monthly attacks on oil and gas assets: there were five in 2003, and it has gotten worse in 2006. Oil production is less than the prewar level. Oil production. Somebody complained not long ago that electricity doesn't make any difference. Let me tell you something. If you have ever gone without electricity in your house, you know that it makes a difference. I am just saying that we have 130,000 troops there, and it is not going well. That is what I am saying. I am saying we have a problem, and our troops are not able to solve the problem. We have become the enemy. It has got to be won on the ground. We are giving a microphone to be people like Zarqawi. We talk about Zarqawi. We talk about all these foreign leaders and what they say. Why should we pay attention to what they say? Why should we pay attention when Zarqawi says they are going to drive us out of there? That is just rhetoric. That is only rhetoric. The only way it is going to be won is a change of direction. I gave some examples before. When President Reagan went into Beirut, he went in with 1,400 people, and he decided he needed to change direction. When he had the biggest tax cut in history at that time, he decided he had to make some adjustments later on. He changed direction. When President Bush went into Somalia, President Clinton changed direction in Somalia because we made a mistake and we went after Adid. There are times in our history when we have to be big enough as a country to change direction. All of us want the same thing: stability in the Middle East. All of us want to find a way to stabilize the Middle East. If we stay, we are going to pay; and we are going to pay long term. After the Vietnam War, it cost us through the Reagan administration to pay for it. Now, I voted against every tax cut because I felt very strongly that we couldn't fight a war and cut taxes. Now, there is an argument about that and you can argue about the benefit of the tax cut. But you cannot fight a war and have tax cuts. And we will have spent $450 billion by the end of this fiscal year. My proposal, if anybody has read, is to redeploy and be ready. Redeploy to the periphery. Now, we went after Zarqawi. What happened when we went after Zarqawi? The Iraqis reported to the Iraqis, and then the Iraqis reported to the United States forces and they worked together. This did not come from inside Iraq. This came from outside Iraq. This was the periphery. The F-16s came from outside of the country to go after him. And this was not something that just happened overnight. This was a long-term thing that they had been working on for a long time. So in my estimation, the only way we can change things in Iraq is to change direction. It has to be changed on the ground. What we say here today, as President Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, is going to mean very little. It will get lost in the rhetoric. What means something is what happens on the ground. All of us support the troops. If you vote for the appropriation bill, the defense appropriation bill, you vote to support the troops. If you voted for the Armed Services bill, you voted to support the troops. I believe this resolution, if you vote for it, you are voting to support a failed policy wrapped in illusion. And I would recommend to the Members they vote against this resolution.

Mr. MURTHA. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), who, on her first trip overseas went with me to Iraq to talk to the troops and tell them how much she supported the troops.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) for a unanimous consent request. (Mr. FATTAH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MURTHA. I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).