Ted Strickland

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me, and as we stand here and talk this evening, there may be those listening who wonder why are we talking about the past. I think there is a very good reason for us to talk about the past and to remember what has happened, because the very people who are responsible for having made these erroneous decisions in the past are the same people who are in positions of power and even being promoted in the present. That means that they will be in a position to make decisions about the future. Now, many of the decisions that have been made have been deadly decisions, and lives have been lost as a result of decisions that were based upon false information or distorted or twisted information; quite frankly, I believe information that was purposefully manipulated in such a way as to try to get the support of the American people for carrying out this President's foreign policy. I just want to share with my colleagues some human consequences of what has happened. About 3 weeks ago, I received nearly 20 letters from various members of a family support group. This family support group consists of family members whose loved ones are part of a transportation reserve unit that has been activated and is now in Iraq. And at the time they wrote me, they told me their loved ones were around the Fallujah area, which is one of the most dangerous places in which to be in Iraq. The people who wrote me indicated at the time that they wrote that out of this one reserve unit that is headquartered in Cadiz, Ohio, that they had lost three of their loved ones. They have since lost a fourth. So four soldiers have been lost out of that one reserve unit. It is a transportation unit. The letters told me that they were getting messages from their loved ones, these troops, telling them that they were not being adequately supplied with proper life-saving equipment. They were driving around in vehicles that were not armed, for example. And we know that if you are a member of a transportation unit and you are on patrols and you are delivering supplies and so on, one of the great dangers in Iraq is driving over these explosives that have been placed in the roadways. So out of this one unit, four have already been lost. And these letters that I received from the loved ones said to me, when we gave our precious soldiers to go fight this war, we trusted our government to provide them with every protection possible. Now they are deeply, deeply disturbed and concerned that their loved ones are not being adequately cared for. Now, I believe that part of the problem in the execution of this war has been the fact that it was initially based upon these false assumptions and this false information. We were told basically this was going to be a piece of cake; that we were going to be welcomed as heroes; and there was not adequate planning, not adequate preparation. It took the Pentagon, it took this administration, this President, because he is the Commander in Chief, more than a year to be able to say that all of our troops, each of our troops in Iraq was equipped with basic body armor. Now, I think that is absolutely shameful. I wonder how many of our troops have lost their lives because they were not properly equipped, and how many of our troops right tonight, as we stand here in the Chamber of the people's House, how many of our troops are in danger tonight simply because this administration has failed to properly plan and provide them with adequate materials. There is a consequence to the kind of behavior that we have been describing. There is a consequence when people use false information or distort information or make such unrealistic assumptions, and it is absolutely tragic. In my congressional district, the Sixth Congressional District in Ohio, we have lost five soldiers, a 20-year-old, a 21-year-old, and three men who were in their late 30s. One of those men left five children ages 3 through 12. We are talking here about real consequences. We are talking about real people, real families. And there are Americans tonight who are worried sick because they have loved ones over there fighting this war, and they are doing the very best they can under very difficult circumstances, and we honor our troops, but that is one of the reasons that we stand here and advocate that they be cared for in a way that is befitting a great Nation. We should never send one of our soldiers into harm's way without them having proper armor and equipment. And tonight I can say, based on what I have heard from my constituents and some of the soldiers who are currently in the field, we are not doing all that we can to keep them as safe as they can possibly be kept. I yield back to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Washington will yield just on that point, the last thing this country needs is for our intelligence, our CIA to be politicized, to have decisions made, conclusions reached that are based on political considerations rather than on factual, objective data. This memo from a newly appointed CIA director, Mr. Goss, is a blatant attempt to politicize our intelligence operations, to politicize the CIA. What that will do is place this country at great risk. Because if we cannot trust the intelligence to be based on actual fact, actual objective data as best we can collect it, but make decisions based on political considerations, then that will put the American people at risk, and it will put our troops at risk. That is absolutely almost unthinkable, that a newly appointed director of the CIA would be so insensitive and out of touch that he would actually put such a directive into a written memo and have it circulated. And I yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my strong support for provisions in the Department of Defense conference report which reform the Energy Employees Occupation Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. First, I would like to thank my friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the committee, for his leadership. I also would like to say a special thanks to Hugh Brady of the Committee on Armed Services staff, Cindy Blackston of the Committee on the Judiciary staff, and Peter Rutledge of the Committee on Education and the Workforce staff. In addition, I would like to commend the hard work of the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), along with a bipartisan group of Senators, including Senators Bunning, Bingaman, Kennedy, Voinovich, DeWine, Clinton, Cantwell and others. Despite opposition from the administration, Members in both Chambers rolled up their sleeves and on a bipartisan basis did the hard work and included an amendment in this conference report which makes significant and greatly needed reforms to the Energy Employees Occupation Illness Compensation Program. Now, in the year 2000, we passed landmark legislation establishing a program to compensate our nuclear workers made sick while toiling in the Nation's atomic weapons factories. For the first time, the Federal Government acknowledged that it placed its cold war veterans in harm's way. Unfortunately, the Department of Energy has fallen down on the job to run its part of the compensation program. With more than $90 million appropriated to DOE for administering the compensation program, a mere 31 claims of over 25,000 have been paid in the last 4 years. That track record is not acceptable. The Department of Labor, on the other hand, has successfully processed 95 percent of its more than 55,000 claims. The amendment included in today's Defense conference report will shift DOE's responsibilities to the Department of Labor, provide for a Federal willing payer, establish guaranteed funding for payment of claims, and create a Federal benefit structure for all of those workers injured and made ill due to the exposure to hazardous materials and toxic substances while working in our nuclear arsenal. We promised to compensate these injured veterans, and now we are fulfilling that promise. Although I wish we could have passed such an amendment years ago, I am very pleased that today we are doing the right thing and we are honoring a national commitment to assist these veterans of the cold war.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 1194, the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act. As the sponsor of H.R. 2387, the companion House bill to S. 1194, I am very pleased to have this legislation on the floor, and I would like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on the Judiciary and their staff who have been instrumental in moving this legislation. S. 1194 was introduced and shepherded through the Senate by Ohio Senator Mike DeWine, and I would like to thank him for his leadership and friendship. Senator DeWine and I have worked together to end the criminalization of the mentally ill since the 106th Congress when we introduced and passed into law a bill that established a small demonstration program to help communities begin and operate mental health courts. Response to the mental health courts program has been tremendous, with the Department of Justice receiving applications from far more communities than they could fund with the small appropriations allocated for the program. I am fortunate that two of the mental health courts grants have been awarded to jurisdictions that serve my constituents in Youngstown, Ohio and Athens, Hocking, and Vinton counties. To build on the success of the mental health courts, Senator DeWine and I introduced the bill before us today. As a counseling psychologist who has worked at a maximum security prison, I know how important this legislation is for improving mental health treatment. This bill addresses one small part of the mentally ill population's complex treatment system by seeking to treat mentally ill individuals who are or who become involved in the criminal or juvenile justice systems. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, over 16 percent of adults incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons have a mental illness. In addition, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reports that over 20 percent of the youth in the juvenile justice system have serious mental health problems, and many more have co- occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders. If a person with mental illness does not receive treatment, his or her condition almost certainly will worsen when he or she is in custody. Generally, the criminal justice system is not equipped to identify and ensure that people with mental illness find appropriate treatment programs, either through diversion into community treatment or within a jail or prison. The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act addresses the needs of both the criminal justice system and the mentally ill offender population. The bill creates a grant program for communities that will provide resources for diversion programs across the spectrum of the criminal justice system. Communities will also be able to design programs that provide mental health treatment in jails and in prisons. And, finally, grants will be available for transitional and aftercare programs that seek to ensure offenders are provided appropriate treatment and care when they transition from jail back into the community. They transition from the jail or prison back into the communities when they have completed their sentences. In addition, the bill calls for an interagency task force to be established at the Federal level. Task force members will include the Attorney General, the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Labor, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development and the Commissioner of Social Security who will be charged with identifying ways that Federal Departments can respond in a collaborative way to the needs of mentally ill adults and juveniles. I believe that encouraging collaboration at the Federal, State, and local levels of government is essential to ensuring that people with mental illness are able to access appropriate treatment. Again, I would like to thank the chairman of the committee and the staff of the committee, as well as Members on my side of the aisle and for Senator Mike DeWine's heroic efforts in the Senate for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I have a message for America's veterans and the families who love them. As reported in Sunday's Washington Post, Staff Sergeant Gene Westbrook, 35, of Lawton, Oklahoma, was deployed to Iraq in January as a drill sergeant, sent to train Iraqi Army recruits. While on duty on April 28, south of Sadr City in Baghdad, he was hit by a mortar shell, and the shrapnel severed his spine. He is now paralyzed from the chest down, has limited movement in his right arm and battles constant infections. His wife takes care of him full-time. ``I love the military,'' said Staff Sergeant Westbrook. ``That was my life. But I do not believe they are taking care of me now.'' He has received no disability benefits because his paperwork is missing. He is supporting his wife and three children on his regular military pay of $2,800 a month as he awaits a ruling on whether he will receive $6,500 from the VA for his disability. At the same time, President Bush's budget for 2005 calls for cutting the Department of Veterans' Affairs staff that handles disability claims. What is the President thinking, cutting the budget for this vital function while our disabled servicemen wait for justice?

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, tonight there is going to be a debate in Cleveland, Ohio, my home State. I believe probably millions and millions of Americans will be watching. One of the things I hope they listen for is a question that I feel certain the Vice President will receive. The Vice President, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, continues to say that there was a link between Iraq and Saddam Hussein and the attack upon our country. That is a very fundamental thing for the American people to consider, because I believe most Americans, if they believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking our country on September 11, 2001, they would feel that what we have done by going into Iraq was totally justified. But all of the evidence from really authoritative sources, and I am talking about the 9/11 Commission and most recently I am talking about the FBI, has indicated that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein, Iraq and the attack upon America. Just yesterday, the FBI indicated that as far as they can tell, there was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorism network. And so we find ourselves tonight bogged down in a war that has consumed over 1,000 American lives, has resulted in the injury of nearly 7,000 American soldiers, and we are finding ourselves unable to establish any connection between Iraq and the attack upon our country. And so while we are losing soldiers, while we are spending billions of dollars, while we are seeing the terrible injuries to our soldiers in Iraq, Osama bin Laden, the individual who was in fact responsible for attacking our country, the al Qaeda terrorism network, is now spreading throughout the world. What we have done in Iraq is not unlike what some of my friends used to do as young kids, going into the woods and finding a hornets' nest and throwing rocks or walnuts at it and stirring up the hornets and then having to suffer with the consequences of that. There is a way you can capture the hornets' nest as a trophy to hang in your barn or in your garage, but you need to use your head, you need to be prepared, you need to take equipment, you need to have a screen to put over yourself, you need to go to that hornets' nest when there is not a lot of hornet activity around it. You need to plug the hole where the hornets go in and out of that nest before you attempt to take it from the tree. But, no, that is not the way we attacked or planned the attack on Iraq. It was like a kid taking a stick and starting to beat a hornets' nest. The hornets are now out there. Iraq has become a hotbed for terrorism. The President says Iraq is the central part of our war on terrorism. It may be now, but it was not before this war started. There is no evidence that the terror network was operating in Iraq. But now we have created a situation where terrorists from all over the world are gathering in that country, and they are fighting and they are killing our people. Our resources are being consumed. And the President has no plan to free us from this morass and the Vice President continues to say to the American people that there was a connection, in spite of the 9/11 Commission report, in spite of what the FBI says. I believe the American people want us to fight the terrorists. I want us to fight the terrorists. That is why nearly all of us, save one, voted to support the war in Afghanistan. And as Senator Kerry reminded the President in the debate a few nights ago, it was Osama bin Laden who attacked us. It was the al Qaeda terror network that attacked us. It was not Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The American people need to be aware of that as they decide who they want to be the person that makes the decisions regarding our foreign policy in the years ahead of us.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in support of H.R. 3015. I would first like to thank the Energy and Commerce Committee staff for their great work on this bill. I would also like to thank my colleagues Mr. Pallone, Mr. Norwood, and Mr. Whitfield and their staff for their hard work. H.R. 3015 includes prescription monitoring provisions similar to those included in H.R. 3870, a bill Congressman Norwood and I introduced earlier this year. While, H.R. 3870 is a more comprehensive effort to close loopholes in current law that lead to prescription drug abuse, I am very pleased with the progress that has been made in H.R. 3015 on prescription drug monitoring. I am particularly interested in deterring prescription drug diversion because of the immense problem of OxyContin abuse in many of the rural Appalachian Ohio counties I represent. I have received letters from constituents whose sons and daughters have died after taking a crushed OxyContin tablet. These tragedies cannot go unchecked. I am sure that OxyContin is not the only prescription drug that is abused in Appalachia, but its abuse is the most obvious example of the devastating consequences of prescription drug diversion. H.R. 3015 would build on existing State prescription monitoring programs by providing grants through the Department of Health and Human Services for States to establish, operate, and update prescription monitoring programs. These grants are meant to ensure State monitoring systems can share information with other States, and our intention is to expand and improve current State monitoring programs without eliminating the work that, for example, Kentucky or Nevada has already done. I believe that drugs like OxyContin are important advances in pain management, but we must work to stop the dangerous abuse of such drugs. H.R. 3015 is a positive step in that direction. Again, I thank my colleagues and congratulate them on this compromise legislation.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about a matter that is of very grave importance to the veterans of our country. I am referring to an article that was in The Washington Post this past Sunday. The article mentioned that thousands of U.S. troops are now returning to this country from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical injuries and mental health problems. They are encountering a VA benefit system that is already overburdened, and officials and veterans groups are concerned that the challenge could grow as this Nation remains at war. Currently, we have had well over 1,000 of our soldiers killed in Iraq, and we have had 6,000 to 7,000 of our soldiers seriously injured. Many of those soldiers have lost limbs, they have been blinded, they have sustained brain injuries and terrible disfigurements. Many of those injuries are occurring as the result of roadside bombs which explode as these soldiers are out on patrol. The disability benefits and health care system, as noted in The Washington Post article, this system that provides services for about 5 million American veterans, has been overloaded for decades. We know that. The current backlog consists of more than 300,000 claims. That is 300,000 of our veterans who are waiting to get their claims adjudicated. Mr. Speaker, because we have mobilized so many of our Reservists and National Guard persons to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly 150,000 have become eligible for health care and VA benefits as of August 1, and that number is rising. But this is the alarming information that is contained in The Washington Post article. It says: ``At the same time, President Bush's budget for 2005 calls for cutting of the Department of Veterans Affairs staff that handles benefit claims, and some veterans report long waits for benefits and confusing claims decisions.'' Think of that. At a time when we are at war, when more and more of our soldiers are being terribly injured and are in need of the VA health care system, when claims are backlogged amounting to 300,000, the President sends this Congress a budget that actually calls for cuts in the number of people who are responsible for processing these claims. The article that I am referring to makes reference to one particular soldier. ``I love the military. That was my life,'' says this soldier, ``but I don't believe they are taking care of me now.'' He is Staff Sergeant Gene Westbrook, 35, of Lawton, Oklahoma. He was paralyzed in a mortar attack near Baghdad this past April, but he has received no disability benefits because they say his paperwork is missing. Now he is trying to support himself, his wife and his three children on his regular military pay of $2,800 a month as he awaits a ruling that could provide him up to $6,500 a month in terms of VA disability benefits. Mr. Westbrook was deployed to Iraq in January where he served as a drill sergeant. He was sent to train Iraqi Army recruits. While on duty on April 28, south of Sadr City in Baghdad, he was hit by a mortar shell and the shrapnel severed his spine. He is now paralyzed from the chest down. He has limited movement in his right arm and he battles constant infections. His wife takes care of him full time. Sergeant Westbrook praises the Army for the medical care he has received, but is it not shameful that this veteran would be waiting for benefits, and that we would have a President who would cut the budget for those who are charged with processing these claims?

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, I just want to thank my friend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and my friend the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) for participating tonight. What we are talking about is quite serious, it involves life and death, it involves the future of our Nation, and the American people need to be paying attention, because this war could drag on for 50 years or more. We have unleashed a hornet's nest in the Middle East and I see no plan to bring it under control. All we are promised by this administration basically is more of the same or something worse, out- and-out civil war, with our troops caught in the cross fire. So it is important that we talk about these matters, it is important that the American people pay attention to these matters, because we are going to be making a decision in 32 days, or something like that, regarding the future of this Nation, and I believe under the current administration we will have nothing but more of the same.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, I like that suggestion from my friend from Washington State, that we need to convey to Iraqis that we do not intend to stay there. A second suggestion I would like to make is we need to convey to the world community that this is their problem, not just an American problem. Stability in the Middle East, access to the resources, the oil resources in the Middle East, is important for so many countries, not just us. But the fact is that this President and this administration really have stuck their thumbs in the eyes, figuratively speaking, of so many of our traditional allies. The fact is that we had this administration announcing right off that the work to do the reconstruction in Iraq would only go to certain companies, Halliburton being the primary one, and no other countries could or would be involved. So we basically said we do not want you involved, because, as was said earlier, we thought it was going to be easy sailing. We would go in there, they would love us, democracy would bloom, we would have access to oil, and we did not want the help of other countries. Now it has gotten pretty tough, and we find more and more of even the coalition partners pulling back, pulling away. Some countries have pulled out entirely. Even Great Britain, they are talking about the possibility of reducing their force in Iraq by one-third. So I believe we do need to internationalize the effort in Iraq. We need to go to the UN, we need to go to NATO. We need to say this is a problem that is of importance to all of us, the solution must come from all of us, and the burden must be borne by all of us. Now, can President Bush do that? I doubt if he can. I think he has so poisoned the water in terms of our international relationships that it is highly unlikely that we will ever be able to develop the kind of international cooperation and coalition that will enable us to extricate ourselves from Iraq in a timely manner with honor. So that is why I believe we need a change in administration. Now, our traditional allies, and I am talking about the Europeans that have fought wars with us and been our partners, I do not think they like to be alienated from us. I do not think they like a division between our country and their country. I believe they would welcome an opportunity for a rapprochement, for a coming together, even to deal with this most difficult issue. But I do not think it will happen under the leadership of this President or this administration. So my suggestion, in addition to the one I have heard from my colleague and friend from Washington State, is that we move forward with a renewed effort to internationalize the conflict in that part of the world, and I think it can be done, and I think it will be done under new presidential leadership.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, to make an effort just to clarify what I am saying, the President has made every attempt to convince the American people that the war in Iraq is the war against terror, and he has tried to blur the distinctions between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He has tried to imply that al Qaeda, this terrorist network, was operative in Iraq. The fact is that the American people know better. They know the war on terror is the war against Osama bin Laden and against those who attacked our country. And the fact is that when the President tries to blur that distinction, I think he is doing a disservice to the American people. There is a war in Iraq, a preemptive war which we initiated. There is a war against terror, against those who were associated with Osama bin Laden and who are determined to once again strike our country. And I would just remind the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) that the leader of the war against us in terms of a terrorist network is Osama bin Laden. And Osama bin Laden is alive and well somewhere. And this President spoke for 63 minutes at the Republican convention and never once mentioned his name.

Mr. STRICKLAND. On this question, this ninth question, I think the President is partly right. I think he is mostly wrong because as my friend from Washington has indicated, the people in Iraq simply do not want us there. All the opinion polls indicate that. When you see the people dancing in the streets when one of our tanks has been exploded or something, oftentimes you see young Iraqi children. These are not foreigners that have invaded Iraq. But I will admit that the President is partly right, because some of the people in Iraq now are in fact terrorists from outside the country. But that leads to another question. When did they come there, and why are they there? The evidence is that Iraq was not a country that was filled with al Qaeda terrorists prior to this war, but in fact since this war has started, now Iraq is becoming a haven for terrorists. Terrorists are in fact coming. Some of the Taliban, we are even being told, the former Taliban terrorists that were in Afghanistan are now finding some haven for themselves in Iraq. Some of the large cities in Iraq are havens for the terrorists. These are the so-called no-go zones where our troops cannot go and say they are places which are really breeding terrorists. So I do think that we have created a mess in Iraq. We have taken a country that was not an imminent threat to us, we took a country that was controlled by an authoritarian, despicable dictator who abused his own people, that is true. That is Saddam Hussein. Are we glad he is gone? Absolutely. He was a terrible human being, a terrible person. But the fact is that does not cover the problem we have of justifying invading Iraq as the President indicated because they were connected to the attack on our country or they were somehow an imminent danger to us or were developing nuclear weapons or had weapons of mass destruction. None of those things are true. So what I am trying to say to my friend in regard to his ninth question, which I think is a thoughtful question, we have created in Iraq, or this administration has created in Iraq, a breeding ground for terrorists, and many of those terrorists are homegrown Iraqis. Some of them are the result of outsiders seeing an opportunity now to go into Iraq because of all the chaos that exists there and join this effort against the United States.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, I know something about body armor. There have been accusations that one of the candidates for president voted against an $87 billion supplemental request, somehow deprived our soldiers of body armor. I know something about this because, early on in the conflict, a young constituent of mine, a graduate of West Point and a gung-ho Army guy, wrote to me and said, my men wonder why they do not have this body armor protection. The fact is I started writing letters to Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers. I got letters back, and basically, they said to me, we did not plan adequately, we do not have the materials that are necessary to provide this body armor. So the truth is, in answer to the gentleman's question, the President was wrong because the President chose to send our young soldiers into battle without body armor. It took this administration an entire year from March of 2003 until March 2004 to protect all of our soldiers with individual body armor. And the body armor I am talking about is referred to as the interceptor vest. It costs about $1,500 a piece. It is composed of a vest made of Kevlar with pockets in the front and back for the insertion of ceramic plates. This vest is capable of stopping an AK-47 round. I believe to the core of my being that we have had soldiers lose their lives and be unnecessarily injured simply because this administration prematurely sent our soldiers into battle without this vital equipment. The President was wrong when he sent our troops into battle without adequate body armor.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, he was wrong again. The fact is that this question points to the fact that the civilian leadership within this administration really discounted the professional military advice coming to us from the military folks who had given their lives to studying and having knowledge about these issues. The fact is that General Shinseki, they say he was not fired, but he was pushed aside. He was forced into retirement because they did not want to hear what he had to say. When he gave advice that they found inconsistent with their own predetermined notions of what they wanted to do, they forced General Shinseki into retirement. Once again, the President was wrong.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I would like to answer that question. He was absolutely wrong. And in spite of all the evidence, the evidence, for example, that is coming from the 9/11 Commission, this bipartisan commission that found that there was no credible relationship between Saddam Hussein and the attack upon our country, in spite of that evidence, the Vice President continues to try to mislead the American people and to cause the American people to see a connection that did not exist between Saddam Hussein and the attack upon our Nation. So the answer to the gentleman's second question is, the President was wrong.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Before the gentleman asks those questions, Madam Speaker, if he will continue to yield, I would like to make one further comment. I would hope every parent in this country would ask themselves, as they contemplate this war and the situation in which we find ourselves, do they believe that this President's leadership is such that his wisdom, his maturity, his judgment is such that they would entrust their son or their daughter to go fight this war in Iraq? And the reason I think that is a relevant question is because the President is asking no one to sacrifice for this war save the soldiers who are there risking their lives, in too many cases dying and being injured, and the people who love them back here at home. No one else is being asked to participate in this war. We are not being asked to pay taxes to pay for the war. We are not being asked to in any way discipline ourselves by saving energy so that we are less reliant on the Middle East for oil and gasoline and such. The President is not sacrificing for this war. It has not touched his life in any direct way. Members of this House, our friends in the other body, by and large, are not sacrificing for this war. I believe there are maybe two Members of the 435 Members of the House and 100 Senators who actually have a child, a son or daughter, who is a part of the active military now. So we are not sacrificing during this war. The American people generally are not being asked to sacrifice. Are we being asked to pay taxes so that the cost of this war will not be passed on to future generations? No. No. That is not happening. So it seems appropriate that as we contemplate the fact that some moms and dads are sacrificing and have sacrificed, some husbands and wives have sacrificed, this very night they go to bed wondering whether or not their loved one is going to be safe, it seems that we should reflect upon what is happening here with regard to the fact that we have entered a war of choice. Iraq did not attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. The al Qaeda network attacked us. Iraq was not an imminent threat, yet we find our sons and daughters fighting and dying in this war. So I think it is appropriate to pause and say to the mothers and fathers in this country, do you think this war is worth the sacrifice of your son or your daughter? And if the people who are listening cannot answer that question in the affirmative, it seems to me then that they should start to question whether or not the sacrifice of some other moms' or dads' sons or daughters is worth the sacrifice.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, my understanding is that those people, those citizens out there, are now being considered deserters because they have not reported. This is a serious matter. I think the President should be talking to the American people in a very straightforward way about how he intends to meet our military personnel manpower needs without a draft. Just simply saying we are not going to have a draft is not an answer, because we have the need. What happens, for example, if something were to break loose on the Korean peninsula? What happens? North Korea is basically thumbing their nose at this administration and basically saying, what are you going to do to us? You are bogged down there in Iraq. Your military is stretched thin. What are you going to do to us if we decide to continue to pursue our efforts to acquire nuclear weapons? Then there is Iran. Iran is saying basically the same thing. Do they feel intimidated by us? Well, apparently not, because they are indicating they are going to go right ahead with their nuclear program. And we are bogged down in Iraq. Now, the fact is that Iraq did not have a nuclear program. Iraq was not an imminent threat to this country. Iraq did not present a danger to the American people, but we have diverted our resources and our military capabilities to Iraq, and now we are bogged down there. It is a quagmire. The President wants to avoid that word, but when you have large geographic areas and huge cities in Iraq that are off limits, that are ``no-go zones,'' where our soldiers cannot even enter, then you are living in a make-believe world to say things are going well; that we are going to have elections in January; that democracy is on the march. It is not. We are not winning in Iraq. And it is not the fault of our soldiers. We honor the service of our soldiers, all of us in this chamber do. But we are just sick and tired of the lack of candor coming from this administration.

Mr. STRICKLAND. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Washington State for yielding. Why do we stand here and talk about this subject late at night? The reason is because the people who have made the decisions which have brought us to this current situation, this mess that we face in Iraq, where we have lost well over 1,000 of our soldiers' lives, where approximately 7,000 of our American soldiers have been injured, these same people, and I am talking about from the President to the Vice President Cheney on down to Secretary Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others, the so-called ``neo cons,'' they have made the decisions which have led us to this place where we are tonight. We are in a mess. We are in a quagmire in Iraq, and we talk about what has happened in the past because the same people who have brought us to this point want to remain in positions of decision-making. They want to remain in power, and they want to make decisions for what we do in the future. I just a few moments ago left a dinner that I had with some of my friends from Ohio. These are people who have children and young relatives, and we were talking about the fact that we are in a situation in this country where our military is stretched so thinly that we are literally extending Reserve and National Guards persons well beyond any reasonable length of service in Iraq. They have been jerked out of their communities, away from their families, away from their jobs and professional responsibilities, and they find themselves now in Iraq. We have a situation where we have instituted the so-called backdoor draft where those who had felt that they had long since fulfilled their military obligations to this country, some in their forties, even I believe many in their fifties, are being pulled out of their communities, away from their families, sent to Iraq. We are taking our troops away from other really troubled spots in this world, and I would especially mention South Korea. We know that North Korea has stated they are going to go ahead and pursue their nuclear strategies. We are bringing troops away from South Korea simply because we cannot meet our military obligations. We have got about 135,000 to 140,000 American troops in Iraq tonight. The next country that has a significant number of troops in Iraq is Great Britain. They have got somewhere in the vicinity of 6,500. We have got 135,000 to 140,000, and the reports are that even Great Britain is considering withdrawing up to one-third of their troops from Iraq. So what do we have? We have a situation where every mother and father in this country should pay attention if they have a child and they do not want that child facing a military draft and being forced to go fight this war that George Bush has started in Iraq. I do not care if a parent's child is 10 years old or 14 years old or 18 years old. If they do not want that son or daughter to be subject to a military draft, they should be paying attention, because although the President says he has no intention of instituting a mandatory draft, if you look at the situation, you look at our manpower needs, you look at the fact that the National Guard is currently having difficulty recruiting sufficient numbers, that they are even taking people who are pre-enlisting, they may still be completing their education, for example, and will not actually be eligible to enter the military for another year or so, they are counting those people as new recruits in order to at least pretend that we are meeting our current manpower needs. That is happening right now.

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, in just a few short days, the American people will make a decision that will determine the future of our Nation for at least the next 4 years and maybe for the next four decades. We find ourselves in a situation where more and more Americans are losing their health insurance, more of our retirees are in fear that their retirement benefits will be reduced or eliminated, more of our young people are finding it increasingly difficult to afford a college education, more of our senior citizens are finding it impossible to buy the medicines they need, and, sadly, more and more of our American troops are losing their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and literally thousands of our troops have been and continue to be wounded in that war. We find ourselves with the situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban is reconstituting its authority and power and we face the situation where long after our country was attacked by the terrorists, the mastermind of those attacks that took the lives of our citizens in New York and Pennsylvania and here at the Pentagon in Washington, the mastermind of that attack, of those attacks, Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose. We know not where he is. He is seldom mentioned. Yet the President claims that we are winning the war on terror when the major terrorist has not been apprehended and continues to be free to plan the next attack whenever or wherever that may occur. The President spoke at the Republican Convention for 63 minutes, quite a long time, and yet he never once mentioned the name of Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden, the man who orchestrated the attacks upon our country. Osama bin Laden. Not Saddam Hussein but Osama bin Laden. It is almost as if the President has forgotten how to pronounce that name. I point this out for I think a very legitimate reason. As long as the person who was responsible for attacking our country is still on the loose, has not been apprehended, is it not reasonable to assume that the American people would conclude that we are still threatened by this man? That regardless of what we have been able to claim in Afghanistan, we have failed in the primary mission? The President told us shortly after September 11 that Osama bin Laden could run but he could not hide. Those were the President's words. He can run but he cannot hide. The sad truth is that he ran and he has successfully hidden and this night he is somewhere planning the next attack. Symbolically, he is the hero to the terrorists. And as long as Osama bin Laden is on the loose, the terrorists can say they have not yet defeated us. I get a little tired of hearing the rhetoric that is coming from the White House, that is coming from Secretary Rumsfeld and occasionally from Colin Powell, although he tends to be a little quieter about it. I get a little tired of hearing from Vice President Dick Cheney that things are going well, that we are winning in Iraq. The fact is that much of Iraq is off limits to our soldiers. They are called no-go zones. Our soldiers cannot go there. Well, they can only go there if the Iraqi interim governmental leadership wants them to or says they should, and in those cases they may wander into those no-go zones. They tell us we are going to have elections in January. Yet with much of Iraq off limits, I wonder, and I think it is a legitimate question to ask, how can we have elections when we cannot even enter large cities in Iraq? The President needs to come clean with the American people. He needs to tell us the truth. We are capable of dealing with the truth. We are not capable of dealing with misleading deceptions and what I consider manipulation and deceit on the part of this administration.

Mr. STRICKLAND

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

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, what I think I heard the gentleman say sounds almost unbelievable.

Mr. STRICKLAND. If he would, Mr. Speaker, but what I think I heard him say was that the pharmaceutical companies are offering a senior citizen $4,000 if they will be willing to say something positive about this benefit?

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