Christopher Murphy

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, we have been in this fight over timetables, and so many of us believe that we have got to start setting a deadline on when the Iraqis are going to have to stand up for themselves. Okay, so we passed that, and the President vetoed, and we came back and said, all right, let's talk about something a little bit less than that. Let's talk about what you outlined. Let's give you all the money you want and more for the next several months for the conduct of this war, and then after that's done, let's see if it's working. That's a revolutionary concept here. Before we authorize the next round of several dozen billion dollars for the conduct of this war, let's just ask some questions. Is it working? Are the Iraqis doing what they need to do to achieve a political settlement? And guess what, the message is to that idea as well, that's not acceptable either; it is going to get a veto just like the first one. There was a word that was just lost here for a long time. You and the 30-somethings talked about it night after night, but it was a foreign phrase to people and it is accountability. It is accountability. Guess why the Iraqis consider going home for the summer? Why the parliament thinks it is okay to stand down? Because they know they have a crutch to rely on. They know that the Americans will be there as long as they continue to refuse to stand their military up, to stand their political institutions up, to stand up their ministries. They know that, in fact, we're going to reward their incompetence. Enough is enough. I got to spend a couple of days there, and in addition to spending some time with the troops you get to spend a little bit of time with the Iraqi military, and you can see that there's potential there. You can see that they are ready to do this mission but you can also see that there's no incentive there to do it right now. And so that word ``accountability'' which has been lost here for so long is I think a large reason for why Congress looks a little bit different now, why you have a whole bunch of new Members who were sent here, not just to wrap up this war, not just to bring our troops home but to also instill in this government a sense that if we are going to spend taxpayer dollars, we better have some accounting for how it is done. The two bills that we have passed, both the first bill that set a timetable to wrap up this war; the second bill, frankly, is as reasonable as you can get in trying to provide some benchmarks for success, they are both about that missing word missing here for a long time. It is accountability.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. We talk about the enormous and unconscionable level of American casualties there, and the number that we focus on are the number of men and women who don't come back, and not enough focus gets put on the number of American soldiers who come back with grave, crippling injuries. But we don't talk at all about the number of Iraqis who have been killed, the immense civilian casualties that mount not by the two or three or four a day but mount by the dozens every day. And so when you see what we are seeing now, which is an Iraqi parliament standing up and saying enough is enough, we need the Americans to go home, what you're hearing is a bunch of people who are realizing that the best way to keep their own people safe is to have the Americans stand down because, on more days than not, we are drawing additional fire into the chaos there. We went over and asked the generals there, we said, listen, tell us how much of the fire that you are seeing in and around Baghdad is a result of Shia and Sunni violence and tell us how much of the fire is directed at American forces. And the stat was pretty amazing. Ninety percent of the fire there is fire directed from one religious civil group to the next, from one sect to the other. Ten percent of it is directed at American forces. It's an inexcusable 10 percent, but to think that we are asking our men and women to stand in the middle and be a human shield between Shia and Sunni fighting each other, in fact sometimes Shia and Shia, Sunni and Sunni fighting each other, is a miserable way to conduct foreign policy. And I asked one of those soldiers, I said, you know, you're being asked one day to try to negotiate some political settlement between religious groups, when the day before they were shooting at each other; how on earth do you tell who's shooting at who? And the soldier looked at me inquisitively, sort of shocked that I would ask the question. He said, we don't know who's shooting at us; if they are shooting at us, we shoot back. That's their job. That's their job, to protect them, to protect the people around them. But as you said, the fact is when you can't tell who it is that's doing the shooting how on earth the next day are you going to be expected to sit down and try to mend the fences that gave rise to that violence in the first place? Like I said, if anybody can do it, I think that these guys and women can do it. They are the most amazing, capable people that I have ever met in my life, but the fact is that if you don't know who's perpetuating the violence, it's very hard to heal those wounds the next day. And to my mind, if the Iraqis are telling us that what they believe is necessary to make their country safe is a precipitous withdrawal of American forces, if our own intelligence community is telling us that we are less safe because of what's going on there, the Iraq Study Group, retired generals, American public, Iraqi parliament, intelligence community, there's a wall around Pennsylvania Avenue right now, and none of that seems to be going in there. And if we don't change course sooner or later, we're going to do damage that is not going to be even reversible by this Democratic Congress.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. This place has been a one-horse show for a real long time. You talk about the Constitution. It's kind of been a document that's been dead and buried for a long time. People say the United States Congress here is to be an equal branch of the United States Government, to be able to operate within a structure that recognizes that not every single decision gets made by one man sitting in a house up the street; that people go out to elections in record numbers like they did last November and they should think, rightfully so, that what they say and the votes they cast are going to have some impact on what happens down there. And I understand that the President's version of working together is us agreeing with whatever he asks us to agree with, but that's not what the American people sent us here to do. I certainly didn't get sent here to do this as a new Member, and the sooner that we recognize that you have a Congress for the first time in a long time that is going to stand up and speak for the people that sent us here, the sooner that happens the better.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Speaking of props, I think by displaying that rather thin wallet before, I inadvertently started to make a case for an increase in congressional pay, for staff members here. So, we are on honored to be able to have this opportunity that the Speaker has given us, Mr. Altmire and I, certainly to be able to join our colleagues who have been up here for the last few years beating the drum. You can e-mail us at 30somethingdems@mail.house.gov or you can visit us on the web at www.speaker.gov/30something. We hope that people will share their thoughts with us

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. On the heels of introducing some of our colleagues and members of the administration to a gas pump, and I think you are right, it is hard to understand how people can be so indifferent to the rising costs. Maybe they haven't seen a gas pump I want to introduce them to something else. This is a wallet. If you are an oil company executive, your wallet is busting at the seams. So your wallet is going to look different. This is a thin wallet. This is what the American people, working-class individuals throughout this country are dealing with. They are dealing with wages that have been pretty much flat for the last 5 years. Oil company profits over the last 5 years have gone from $6.5 billion in 2002 to $30.2 billion in 2007. I want to make sure that while we are introducing some of our colleagues and some people in the administration to a gas pump, let's also introduce them to the thin wallet. If the average worker's income doubled from 2001 to 2007, I would say no problem, you can handle gas prices that doubled over that time. But the fact is that wages for average Americans have remained flat. Why? Because we have set up an economy that is designed to fail for regular, working-class individuals in this country, the folks that we represent, the people working in small businesses, who are living from paycheck to paycheck and can't take these increases at the pump. As much as we have to introduce people to the notion that we have to start redirecting our energy policy, we also have to reintroduce people to the fact that there are millions of Americans out there playing by the rules who simply don't have the means to deal with these increased prices.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I would like to welcome my colleagues to another addition of the 30-Something's hour. I would like to thank the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for allowing us the opportunity to get together and talk not only about some of the most important issues that face this hall this week and at this moment but also talk a little bit about how these issues are of particular concern to people of younger generations in this country. We are going to be joined today, I know, by Mr. Altmire, who just gave a very compelling 5-minute address to the House and, hopefully very soon, by Ms. Wasserman Schultz, one of our favorite members of the 30-Something Group. Madam Speaker, hopefully we will get to touch on a few different topics, but I think we need to touch on at the beginning of this hour the subject that really dominates the debate in Washington, D.C., right now, that dominates most of the discussion out in the coffeehouses and pancake breakfasts and pasta dinners happening across this land, and that is, what is happening in this town? What is happening in Washington, D.C., inside the beltway? And that is, why can't government figure out what everyone else has figured out across the country, that we need to set a new direction when it comes to this country's policy in Iraq. Now, I am certainly starting to feel that frustration. People thought when they weighed in on the national elections in the beginning of November of last year that they were actually saying something; that when they stood up in record numbers in some parts of this country and made courageous decisions district by district to replace long-time incumbent Members this Congress with relatively new Members, such as myself, such as Mr. Altmire and some 40-odd number of our friends on this side of the aisle that became new Members this January, they thought that it meant something. They thought that that voice that they spoke with in the beginning of November was going to be heard down here. And I can tell when I go back to my district, and I just came back this last weekend and I have been back every weekend since we have been down, that the patience of the American people is starting to wear thin. Now, it is not necessarily directed here. I think some people are still in some sort of sense of euphoria that we finally have a Congress that is listening to the American people again. Their anger is directed at the President of the United States. Their anger is directed at an administration that just doesn't seem to get it, that refuses every step of the way to step up to the plate and have some type of accountability for what is happening here, refuses to listen to the American people. And the American people have spoken in the election, and they continue to speak today. A CNN poll that came out just a short while ago said a majority of Americans, 65 percent, oppose the Iraq war, and a full 54 percent disapprove of the President's decision to veto the Iraq accountability bill last week. Nearly six in ten Americans, in a recent Gallup poll, support setting a firm timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops out of Iraq; 61 percent of Americans, in another CNN poll, favor a bill that sets benchmarks that the Iraq government must meet to show progress that is being made in Iraq; 55 percent of Americans think it was the wrong thing for the United States to go to war in the first place. That is an amazing number, Madam Speaker; 55 percent of Americans, the majority of the Americans, now today believe that it was the wrong decision to go into Iraq in the first place. Before the time of Mr. Altmire and me, the 30-Something Democrats, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek and Ms. Wasserman Schultz, liked to point out third-party verifiers. It is not just our saying it. Things that we stand here and say have actually been said time and time again by people who know what they are talking about and the American people. Here is third-party verification: The American people by large numbers support not only the actions of this Congress when it comes to setting firm benchmarks for the Iraqis to stand up for themselves but also to set firm timetables by which we would start to redeploy our troops. Now, the American people join a growing hegemony of opinion within our foreign policy community. There are very few times when Republicans and Democrats outside this hall decide to agree on a course forward on something as weighty as the foreign policy issues that confront us in the Middle East. But the Iraq Study Group, five Democrats, five Republicans, Mr. Altmire, came together and told us, it is time to set a new course. It is time to start bringing our troops home, start redeploying them to fights that matter. Record numbers of retired generals. Now, it has become kind of de rigueur to see on a daily basis retired generals from across America to come out and start to criticize the President's policy. This didn't happen before in these numbers. This is not the normal course of business for the men and women who have spent their lives fighting and leading American troops to then turn around after they have left their military service and criticize the very government that they have worked for, fought for and bled for all of those years. But that is what is happening today because the stakes are so high. The American public, bipartisan leaders on foreign policy issues and former military leaders are standing up and saying enough is enough. We need to set a new course. Now, there seems to be a very powerful sound barrier that has been built around the White House. Because for as many voices, the multitudes of American people, the multitudes of foreign policy experts, of retired generals, many of which ended their careers on the ground in Iraq, for all of those people throwing the might of their collective voices at the White House, a deafening silence. Madam Speaker, I got the chance to go over and visit our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the first thing you're struck by is the unbelievable and unconditional bravery that they show this Nation. The capability of these forces is almost beyond explanation, and I got the chance to come back and talk to the President very briefly about it in a visit to the White House. Those troops know that the situation on the ground has changed dramatically, that the fight that began as a battle against the autocrat that was Saddam Hussein now has become a civil war. The troops know it because they're right in the middle of it. We asked our military leaders, how much of the fire that is being directed at American troops is the result of insurgent forces and al Qaeda forces firing at Americans and how much of it is simply a sectarian war that we find ourselves in the middle of? And the answer was the same no matter who you asked. Ninety percent of the fire directed at American forces are Sunni and Shia fighting each other, sometimes Shia and Shia fighting each other, that we are caught in the middle of. This President, for some reason, refuses to understand how things have changed on the ground in Iraq and how things have changed when it comes to the opinion of foreign policy leaders, military leaders and the American public. I think many of us were very proud to stand together, certainly the freshman class and as a caucus, to support our leadership's position to set a new course; and we were dismayed to see a President who is unwilling to work with this Congress. We will take another shot at that this week by presenting the President with another alternative on his desk once again to set that new direction. And from what we hear today, it will be met with the same resounding deafening silence and indifference to the will of the American people. I am so glad to be joined here by one of my great freshman colleagues, Mr. Altmire from Pennsylvania, who I think shares with me, as new Members, as two young guys who have only spent about 4 or 5 months down here, that sort of growing sense of frustration when we go back to our districts and we hear people who wanted that change feeling like they're not getting it here because there is an administration that simply won't join that growing unanimity of opinion to set a new course. I would like to yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Your question is a perfect one: When will this madness end? When will we recognize that we need to set a new course, that we need to start paying attention to not just what's happening within the borders of Iraq but what's happening in Afghanistan, what's happening on our own shores, where we still haven't appropriated the amount of money to devote to the resources that we should in order to secure our own borders and our own ports? And here is what it comes down to: If the Democrats weren't in control, the madness would never end; it would go on forever. There is absolutely no commitment, no willingness, no one on the other side of the aisle, very few at least on the other side of the aisle and certainly very few in the administration have woken up to the new reality here. And to me, I won't say who it was, but a member of the Republican leadership the other day was quoted in the paper as saying this. This person said, you know what? The President, we are going to give him some time to put forth this plan to escalate the war in and around Baghdad. But if it doesn't work, he is going to have to tell us what plan B is. Guess what. We are not on plan B we are on plan like double R. We have tried everything. We have been in there for longer than we were involved in World War II, and we still haven't found out what works. Well, at some point, we are going to have to wake up to the notion that nothing that our military may try is going to work. Now, if anyone can do this job, I think our military can do it. The problem is that we have gotten ourselves into a political quagmire, and the sooner we realize that plan A and plan B and plan C and D and E and F all didn't work, in large part because we have gotten ourselves into a mess that has probably, we hope, a political and diplomatic solution but may not have a military solution. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, I just want to talk for a minute, I know we really want to talk about some domestic issues here, but I want to talk about some of the stress we have put on our forces here at home. Because I have to tell you, as we watched some of the tragedies unfold in the Midwest, in Kansas, and we saw the inability of our National Guard in that State to respond, unfortunately, it took that incident for a lot people to finally wake up to the notion that our Reserve units and our National Guard units, the very troops that we relied on for years, decades, to provide us with security when tragedy befell our compatriots here at home, aren't there any longer. We heard it from Governors in Iowa, Minnesota and, of course, now in Kansas. The administration, as usual, seems to be more interested in throwing around blame than they seem to be interested in actually solving the problem. When the Governor of Kansas came out and said, listen, here you see it; we don't have the resources to respond to this devastating crisis because our National Guard units have been deployed over and over again overseas in a way that we never asked our National Guard and Reserve units to be deployed in the past, the White House came back and said, well, you know what? That is not our fault. That is the Governor's fault for not telling us that she had problems. If she had just told us she had problems, we would have done something about it. Well, guess what? She did. Last year, quoted in the New York times, the Governor of Kansas said, we are not only missing National Guard personnel, we are also missing a lot of the equipment that is used to deal with situations at home, day in and day out. Well, you know, we have heard a lot about how folks in the White House don't read newspapers with the rigor that some of us do. They certainly did not read The New York Times that day when the Governor of Kansas almost a year ago sounded the bell and said, if we don't start replenishing our units here at home, we are going to be in big trouble. And we are.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, let me set the stage to kick it over to Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Here it is. The President took office January 22, 2001, $1.47; $1.47, that is like sort of a mystical number now. I can't even fathom when we were paying $1.47 for gas. Today, the average price for a gallon in the United States, $3.05. Now, I am going to admit that in my part of the world, in northwestern Connecticut, probably like everybody's district, we have a couple of conspiracy theorists up there. We have a couple of people that are not actually willing to believe that the best of intentions are always at the root of decisions made in our political and economic system. I have to tell you, the cynic in me and the conspiracy theorist in me, and there is a little bit of it, wonders a little bit why gas prices dipped down, curiously, right about the time when we were all up for election and reelection. Just when there was this sort of wave of economic discontent swinging across the country and all of the people were talking about finally taking our economy back from the oil companies. Just as this country was poised to make a decision to finally end, as Mr. Altmire said, our firm decades-long dependence on oil and foreign oil in large part, why did gas prices just dip right then? And then as soon as January, February came around, creeping up and up, a little bit more and a little bit more. Now as we head into the summer, into the prime driving months of the year, we are at $3.05 a gallon. Now, I am not willing to say that is just politics, but the cynic in me has to wonder sometimes whether or not our gas and oil companies were just hoping, hoping that they could stem the tide and that they wouldn't have a Democratic majority here who would make a difference.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I would like to think that miracles do happen when it comes to energy policy, but unfortunately, I think that may be a little naive.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I always think there is this pyramid of political influence out there. For a very long time, the only people that really mattered in this system were the people gathered at the tip of the pyramid, the people with the big political action committees and who could afford to hire 10 lobbyists to patrol the halls of Congress. And all of us, you know, that exist down at the bottom of that pyramid, and when we come here we get to be closer to the top than the bottom, but the regular folks who sit wondering, and even if they don't wonder if they can afford to fill their tank, they wonder whether increasing gas prices means they can save less, whether this will have some impact on their retirement savings. All of those folks that exist at the base of that pyramid didn't matter any longer. As much as for me and Mr. Altmire, as much as we care about setting a different course in Iraq and taking on the hegemony of the oil companies and setting a new course for health care policy, I think for us this election was as much about sort of flipping that pyramid on its head and saying we have got to start taking the time to form consensus back at the base of that pyramid and having those decisions be the ones that matter here in Washington. I have to tell you, standing here as a member of the 30-Something Working Group, nobody knows more than we do about how many Americans now stand on a precipice of jumping off a cliff to having faith in their government. Young people, whether in their 20s or 30s, but people now in their 40s, 50s and 60s have just lost any faith that what they care about will actually be reflected in what happens in Washington. Guess what, in January, when a new Congress got sworn in, it all changed. Now, it may not change so much that things happen here with the alacrity that people may like. This government is still designed not exactly to respond overnight, but you would not be seeing the policy proposals that you are outlining, whether it is taking on the royalties and the tax breaks, whether it is taking a look at antitrust provisions, whether it is passing a strong price-gouging bill. You just would not see that. You would hear a lot of bluster, but you would not be seeing action if we did not flip government on its head in January and start once again listening to people out in communities rather than just listening to the conversations that happen perpetually within the halls of government. All those conversations are focused on one thing, the status quo.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 303, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Chair, my thanks to my friend, Mr. Wu, for leading this debate today. I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1868, the Technology Innovation and Manufacturing Stimulation Act. The time has come for our country as a whole to stop ceding progress in science and technology to our competitors overseas. As one of the younger Members of this Chamber, I know that it is this generation's responsibility to keep our country competitive with countries like Japan, China, and India, whose young scientists and engineers are making new technological discoveries every day. H.R. 1868 is part of the Speaker's Innovation Agenda to address how the United States should create a new generation of innovative thinkers and an educated, skilled workforce in science, math, engineering, and information technology. This bill makes a sustained commitment to Federal research and development, and will promote private sector innovation and provide small businesses with the tools to encourage entrepreneurial innovation and job creation throughout the country. The Innovation Agenda is of particular importance to me as the Representative to Connecticut's Fifth District. We used to be the vanguard of manufacturing in the Fifth District; it is the home of Stanley Tool, of Scoville Brass, Torrington Ball Bearing Company, the fashioner of ball bearings where my grandfather and great-grandfather worked. The days of those large manufacturing plants, at least in the Fifth Congressional District, are days of the past. However, my district now stands at the precipice of a new manufacturing era. As I travel around my district, I am struck by how many small, high- tech manufacturers are setting up shop in this corner of the world. For example, in Torrington, high-tech companies are sprouting up on the grounds of the former Torrington Ball Bearing plant. In Danbury, in the shadow of a deserted hat manufacturing plant, a company that specializes in homeland security devices is growing. And in Waterbury, at an old brass factory, Luvata is making wire for an international consortium creating the world's first nuclear fusion device. These small manufacturers are struggling every day with rising electricity costs and a lack of qualified workers to fill their growing job demands. This is why the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, a national network of local centers that are set up to help these small manufacturers, are so critical to my district and districts like mine. This program is an effective public-private partnership that helps to leverage State and Federal dollars into private investment funds for these smaller manufacturers. The importance of small manufacturers to America cannot be overstated. It is these small manufacturing plants where the most innovative work is being done. That is why I am so proud of where the Fifth District stands as it is ready to lead in this new era. Lastly, I just would like to voice my support for the Baldrige National Quality Program, named for former Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige. The awards given by the President to businesses that live by Mr. Baldrige's strong belief and quality of performance standards, his widow, Midge Baldrige of Woodbury, Connecticut, and a friend. It is an honor to represent her. I thank the gentleman for the time, I thank his efforts on this measure, and I urge passage this afternoon here in the House.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from New York and the gentlemen from Pennsylvania and Louisiana for bringing this resolution before us. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution to recognize the contributions of charter schools to education. So often we talk about the crisis of America's schools and our educational system, but it's equally important to take some time to recognize the good that's being done. That's why I welcome this opportunity to acknowledge the impact that charter schools are making in our education system nationally. In congratulating charter schools, I want to also acknowledge the work of all of our administrators and our educators in our public school system and our public charter school system as well. Noncharter public schools remain the bedrock of our educational system, and we need to make sure that we are doing everything here in Congress and at our State level to make sure that our public schools have the opportunity to succeed. But charter schools are growing because, when done right, they're working. They represent a network of committed and innovative administrators, teachers and parents whose great determination and resolve complement the public education system. This national network of 4,000 charter schools infuses hope and possibility into communities. In Connecticut alone, there are 16 charter schools educating over 2,500 students. Charter schools are infused with an imagination. Moreover, these schools are effectively engaging students around innovative and aggressive curriculum. They are setting the bar high and they are getting results. As we consider solutions for improving math and science education and increasing the number of high school graduates and students matriculating to colleges and university, we should remember the contributions that charter schools are making to the education of our Nation's children. Again, Madam Speaker, I commend the tremendous dedication of all educators. Their unsung sacrifices are critical to ensuring the success of America's youth today and the skill of tomorrow's workforce. I urge all Members to support this resolution.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you very much. I thank the Speaker for giving us this opportunity once again.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Well, it pains me to admit that I spent far too much of my life watching this House from a distance. And so I share those thoughts and I am so glad Mr. Altmire would bring that up on this day. With that, before we end our hour, we're going to allow our honored guest, who we hope is joining us for the first of many visits with the 30-Somethings. As our veteran Members abandon us, our new Members step up. And Mr. Hodes, if you might inform folks how they might find us via e-mail and via the Web.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to kick off what I hope will be a very interesting hour. Every week we try to get together at least once as members of the 30- Something Working Group at the pleasure of the Speaker of the House to talk about some of the most pressing issues, not only to this country at large, but in particular to the young people of this country. I appreciate the Speaker giving us this opportunity. We are hopefully going to be joined today by some of the veteran 30- Something Members, but we are going to kick today off with Mr. Altmire of Pennsylvania and myself and our special guest today from New Hampshire, young-at-heart Paul Hodes. Madam Speaker, I think the gentleman from Georgia is right on one point at least, that this is a sobering week here in the halls of Congress. We have had a lot of bad news this week. We have mourned the death of far too many young people at Virginia Tech. We have mourned the loss of one of our own here on the House floor. We are wrapping up a month in which we have seen 86 more soldiers die on the battlefields of Iraq amidst a growing civil war, a war now that has cost over 3,300 lives, 24,000 wounded and $379 billion spent. Our friend who just gave the final 5-minute speech on the other side of the aisle suggested that the silence was deafening from the Democratic side tonight in this Chamber. Well, we were talking all day. We were talking last week and the week before. There was no silence on this side of the aisle. For the first time, for the first time, this Congress picked its head up out of the sand to realize what is really happening over in Iraq. You can talk all you want about failure and defeat and victory, but you have got to be a little bit clear about what we are talking about over there, because maybe we entered into a fight with an army commanded by Saddam Hussein, but we have now got ourselves mired in what is a civil war. Madam Speaker, I got the chance, along with five other Members of this body, three Republicans, three Democrats, to go over to Iraq and Afghanistan a few weeks ago, and we asked the generals on the ground a very simple question: Of all of the fire that you find yourselves in the middle of on the streets of Baghdad, tell us what percentage of that which is directed at U.S. forces is a fight from insurgents directly against the United States, and tell us what percentage of that fire is sectarian strife, Sunnis and Shia fighting each other. I have to tell you, listening to the other side, you would have no clue that the answer was 90 percent. Ninety percent of the fire directed at U.S. forces is simply by virtue of us being in the middle of what has become a civil war there. So you can continue to bury your heads in the sand while we talk about this tonight, but we choose not to. We chose to side with the American people, 60 percent of whom say unequivocally that they want a timetable to bring our troops home. We sided with the Iraq Study Group, some of our top foreign policy leaders in this country, Republicans and Democrats, who unanimously stood up to say it is time to redeploy our forces. We stood with some of the brightest and most courageous military generals. We have come to the position that it is de rigueur for generals to speak out against the war, because it seems that there is a new one coming out and talking about the tragedy of this war every day. Well, this didn't happen up until the Iraq conflict. You have never seen this number of former military men standing up and suggesting we need to set a different course. So maybe this is a little bit of a quiet room tonight after a very long day, but, yes this was a loud and boisterous hall earlier tonight, because for the first time in a long time, this Congress stood up and excerpted the will of the American people. Before I kick it over to Mr. Altmire and Mr. Hodes, let me just quickly talk about what we did here today. You want to talk about supporting the troops. Let's talk about the fact that this bill had every dollar that the President asked for in it, and more. And more. We put in more money to make sure that every single troop has the equipment, the protection, the armor that they need. This bill has $1.7 billion in additional money beyond what the President asked for for veterans, $1.7 billion beyond what the President asked for for healthcare for our existing armed forces. You want to talk about supporting the troops, then you better look at the words and the numbers in this bill, balls what the President wanted, he got, and we put more on top of it to make sure that every single soldier is taken care of on the battlefield, and when they return to this country, they are not just given average healthcare, but they are given the gold standard of healthcare when they come back here. What we did on that bill was for the first time suggest that this commitment cannot be open-ended. For Mr. Hodes and Mr. Altmire and myself, we have gotten the opportunity over the last few weeks to go back and talk to our constituents, and you are having to turn over a bunch of different rocks as time goes on to find people who are still willing to say that we should have absolutely no end to our commitment there. That we should do virtually nothing to force the Iraqis to stand up for themselves. Let me give you one important quote from this week. Folks on the other side of the aisle will say that this timetable is somehow harming our efforts there. They maybe should speak to our own Secretary of Defense, who just this week said this: ``The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably have had a positive impact in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment.'' Our own Secretary of Defense, the spokesman on matters of war for this President, says that our discussion here about ending our open- ended commitment, about forcing the Iraqis to stand up for themselves, has had a positive effect. So to our friends on the other side of the aisle, they might want to check with the administration before they cast aspersions on the work that we are doing here. The last thing to say. The last thing to say. We better put some definition on what war we are fighting here. I know Mr. Hodes wants to say something about this as well. This is not a war for us that needs to be fought between two sectarian parties in Iraq. This is a war on the people that attacked this country. Maybe some people on the other side of the aisle haven't noticed, but the people that attacked this country came from Afghanistan, a country that we have left behind. We had a chance to visit Afghanistan just a few months ago, and we found that the Taliban is in a resurgence there. We found that the new power player in the Middle East, Iran, is starting to meddle in the affairs of Afghanistan, in part because we haven't put the money and the troops and the resources and the infrastructure dollars behind our effort there to make sure that it is a self-governing country. We have got fights all over the globe that this country needs to be a part of if we really want to talk about making this country safe. So when we talk about redeployment, we mean it. It is not just about withdrawal. It is not just about taking every single troop who is over there and bringing them home to their families. We would love to do that. There is not a single one of us who hasn't spent an amount of time with the National Guard and the Reserve troops that have been so heavily stressed by these multiple deployments. There is not one of us who has not sat with active duty families who have seen their family members deployed once, twice, three times, over to Iraq and Afghanistan. We would love to bring every single one of them home. But we know that the reality of this new world order is that we have got to have a much more global view. We have got to make sure that we have the troops necessary to be committed all over the globe, to make sure that we recognize how broad the threat to this country is today. That is not what we are doing right now. That is not what we are doing. In fact, what we have done is created a safe haven for terrorists. We have created what our own intelligence community calls the cause celebre for the Islamic extremist movement in this world, to find shelter in Iraq, to breed, to train, and then to present an even greater threat to this country. So, yes, Madam Speaker, there was a little bit of celebration on this side of the aisle when we passed this bill tonight. Not because this isn't the most serious subject that this House will face over the next 2 years. It certainly is. We take that as a grave responsibility that it so deserves. But because it is about time that we picked our heads up out of the sand and said in our gut, in our conscience, we cannot allow our military forces to continue to be the referee of a civil war. And in our gut and in our conscience and in our head we know that this fight is broader than just what happens on the streets of Baghdad. This is a global fight against the people that took us on, and by redeploying those forces, by doing the right things by the soldiers who are on the ground in the middle of this civil war, by making a commitment as strong as ever to our troops and to our veterans, we finally, we finally, started imposing a foreign policy that will guarantee the security of this country, not just for the next week or the next month, but decades and hopefully centuries. Madam Speaker, I would like at this point to yield, if I could, to a good friend and one of our new 30-Somethings, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Altmire.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I want to read it one more time, Mr. Altmire, just because it backs up everything you said. I want to read it one more time. Secretary Gates. ``The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably have had a positive impact in terms of communicating to the Iraqis this is not an open ended commitment.'' I mean, that's worth saying again, because for all the rhetoric that we get about what we are doing here and what kind of impact it has in Iraq, we have our Secretary of Defense telling us exactly what has been our intuition for years; that the only way, Mr. Altmire, just like you said, the only way for us to exert any pressure on the Iraqis to stand up for themselves, to get their military shop in order, to get their civil shop in order, to get their political stop in order, is to tell them that we are not going to be the crutch that they can rely on in the long run. We've recognized that here for a very long time. Our Secretary of Defense now joins us in that. And at this point I would like to turn it over, yield to Mr. Hodes.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Hodes. The three of us are new Members. We came here on that tidal wave of increasing popular angst against this war. And this place shouldn't be dictated just by what happens in elections, but elections have to mean something. When the people get a chance to go out there every 2 years and weigh in on the direction of their Federal Government, they have to feel, at some level, like what they say matters. And, Mr. Hodes, I mean you are right. When they pick up the paper whatever day it is going to be when he actually vetoes this, the feeling inside, that voter who thought they went out and cast a courageous vote for Mr. Altmire or Mr. Hodes or Mr. Murphy who decided to make a change when it doesn't happen very often that you have a change like this, maybe once every decade or every two decades, well, they are going to lose just a little bit of faith in this process. And every day that we continue to have an administration that refuses to honor where the American people want the course of this war to go, which, as we have said over and over again, it is not just the American people but it is the American people being backed up by generals, being backed up by the foreign policy community, the Iraq Study Group, there is a little piece of democracy that dies every day that that happens. Let me just bring up an additional topic here. When I got out into Baghdad on the day that we were in Baghdad, what we saw was the escalation in progress. What the escalation essentially is, is it is asking these soldiers who are on their second or third tour of duty over there, who would normally do 12-hour shifts patrolling these incredibly dangerous streets, trying to dodge sniper fire, trying to keep clear of the increasing number of IEDs, roadside bombs, now those troops, after the 12-hour shift, aren't going back to safe barracks; they are lodging themselves in the neighborhoods, in some of the most dangerous, war-torn neighborhoods of Baghdad. They are living in bombed-out buildings with little or no electricity or running water, in squalid conditions. That is what the escalation is. Now, if this was a fresh round of troops, if this was a group of young men and women who were there for the first time, maybe you could understand putting them in that position. But that is not what this is. Twenty-three percent of all the troops who are being deployed right now are National Guard and Reserve troops. Eighty-eight percent of those National Guard and Reserve troops are so poorly equipped that they are rated not ready right now. That is from the Washington Post, about a month back. We know that the number of Active Duty and Reserve brigades in the United States that are considered combat-ready, zero. None of them. We have maxed out our military. We have asked, Mr. Hodes, as you said, our men and women to do everything we have asked them to do, and we have got to start asking ourselves the question, have we asked them to do too much? One day they are in the middle of a firefight. The next day they are sitting down and trying to mediate a dispute between two rival neighborhood groups. The day after that they are overseeing the construction of a water filtration plant. They are, within a 3-day period, being asked to be fighters, diplomats, and civil engineers. Having gotten to spend a couple days on the ground with these folks, they are by all measure the best people that we could send over there, the bravest, the most capable. If there is anyone in this world that could do this job, I know it is them. I knew it intuitively from back here in the United States. Having spent a few days on the ground, you know it from the moment you talk to them. But we have maxed them out. And why I try to get here as often as I can to hear Mr. Murtha speak here on the floor is because there is no better in talking about this subject than Mr. Murtha. He said it here tonight: There is no one more in touch with the troops than he is. And our danger is not just in asking them something they may not be able to do, but permanently damaging the capability of this military going forward.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I want to yield to Mr. Altmire in a second. But let me just underscore this to say none of us are happy to be in this situation. Myself, I think that this is the best course. I think that we need to set in law a sense of when our commitment is going to end there. The only way we will finally complete the training of our military and our Armed Forces within the Iraqi community is to give them a sense of when they will have to stand up for themselves. Now, at the same time, there is no perfect option. In fact, there may be no good option here. We all have to admit at some level, Republicans and Democrats, that we have gotten ourselves into a mess here that there is no pretty way out of. And that is part of what government hasn't been pretty good about talking about. This administration, it is all about black and white to them. It is good or evil. It is right or wrong. There is a lot of gray, and we created most of that gray by being the bull in the china shop there. But what we put forward today, what the majority of this caucus supported this afternoon and this evening is not the perfect, and it is probably not even the good, but it is the best that we can do in a very bad situation. And it is certainly the best that we can do by the brave men and women who are fighting. So as proud as we are, I think, Mr. Hodes and Mr. Altmire, standing up today and finally getting our head out of the sand and putting some direction in what has been a directionless conflict, at the same time it is a sobering day because we all admit, especially as new Members who didn't participate in the lead-up to this very troubling time, that getting ourselves out of it isn't going to be an easy process and it is not going to be a very brief process. With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Altmire.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to make sure everybody knows that there are no hard lines in the sand in this House. And, in fact, the bill that we voted on today is different from the bill that we voted on about 2 weeks ago. In fact, what this House voted on, and what many Members insisted upon several weeks ago, was a hard deadline in the sand that said that we had to be out of Iraq by next spring or, at the latest, next fall. And many of us stood up and said, for the reasons we talked about tonight, that in order to get the Iraqis to finally stand up for themselves, we have got to give them that sense. The bill that we voted on today in an effort to bring the President to the table, to get him to sign a bill that puts every dollar he asked for, and, more for troops and veterans was a goal. It was a goal. Now, there are a lot of us who wanted to see more than a goal. All of this is an effort in compromise. But that goal even is apparently objectionable to this President. And I have a feeling that this House will move again and will try to come up with yet another means of resetting our policy and our course in Iraq that is acceptable to this President. So if anybody has any idea out there that the House of Representatives is just saying X and the President is just saying Y, no, we're trying to make that effort. And you know what? People are going to look in the paper this morning and see a vote that has a lot of Democrats voting for it and a lot of Republicans voting against it. Lest they think that that's been the case day in and day out here, in fact, it's been the exception to the rule in how we have conducted ourselves in this House. The 100 hours agenda, making changes on our economic policy, our health care policy, our national security policy, our homeland security policy had record numbers of Republicans. We stood together and we have stood together on everything from the minimum wage to stem cell research to even the budget. So we have made great progress, I think, in this House on bringing back together some of that partisan divide. Lest people look up at the vote that we took tonight and think that we didn't honor our pledge to really start to bring that back together, I think we have in large part. And I think that's important to say because I know, Mr. Hodes, that as important as it is to the new Members to get Iraq right, to get health care right, to get energy right, it's also really important for us to start bridging some of the gaps here. And it pains us when these things do hit party lines, but on something as important as Iraq, the vote is what the vote is. And we'll get back to building those bridges as soon as we get beyond it.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That doesn't sound like pork.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That doesn't sound like pork either.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. We've got a few minutes left, so I'm going to throw it over for some closing remarks to Mr. Altmire.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That doesn't sound like pork to me, Mr. Hodes.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 218, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''