Adam Schiff

Mr. SCHIFF

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

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I will be very quick. Two final points in response to what the chairman and the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee had to say. First, there is legislation on this subject, bipartisan legislation, that was introduced on March 16. We have had no oversight hearing on it, no markup on it, nothing, zero, zilcho, nada, which is why we are on the appropriations bill, the only vehicle in which we could raise this issue. Second, both Members have said that this amendment would somehow jeopardize an existing NSA program. What that means is that far from my colleague from California's point, that the program does not comply with FISA. Otherwise, how could it be jeopardized? So there is an admission by the chair of the committee that the existing program does not meet the requirements of FISA. What still has gone unanswered is why can we not make changes to FISA and the existing law? If this is such a vital program, why does it have to be done outside of the law?

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

Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The amendment says that there is a prohibition on using funds to fund this program unless it meets the requirements of FISA. Any part of the program that does meet the requirements of FISA, meet the existing law passed by the Congress, could continue to be funded. Those parts that don't meet the requirements of FISA, the administration will have to go back.

Mr. SCHIFF. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I just point out to the chair and ranking member, I know my bill, and I assume that the gentlewoman's also, has now been referred to both Intel and Judiciary, and without a similar commitment from Judiciary, there is really no commitment that would come to the floor.

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

Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to get to one question that has I think not been answered to the opposition to this amendment. And that is, the suggestion is by those who know the program better than I do that parts of it don't meet the requirements of FISA. And my question is, Why can't this program be authorized by law? Why can't we change the law to authorize it?

Mr. SCHIFF. That is absolutely right. The only thing that the amendment does is it says that when you are surveilling people on our home soil here in the United States of America, it has to be authorized by FISA. If it is not authorized by FISA, if it is outside of FISA, you cannot use the funds in this bill. The gentleman from Illinois says, ``Trust us. There are some of us that know the program, trust us. We can't disclose information about the program here on the House floor.'' I am not asking anyone to disclose information about the program on the House floor. The only question raised by this amendment is are we funding programs that are in contravention of existing law, FISA. I think you are exactly right about my colleague from California's argument, which is basically the President has the inherent authority to do anything he wants when he wants, surveil who he wants when he wants, how he wants, for whatever reason he wants. In fact, this is why I made the point. When the Attorney General testified in committee, he said he believed, as evidently my colleague from California does, the President has the inherent authority to tap calls between two Americans on American soil, that he wouldn't rule that out. Well, I am not satisfied by an argument that says, trust us. We are from the government.

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

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend Chairman Young and Ranking Member Murtha for forging a strong bill to fund our Defense Department and DOD entities, and I applaud them for their hard work and dedication. As we consider this important bill today, I appreciate the opportunity to address a crucial issue. At the outset, I want to thank my colleague Mr. Inslee for all of his leadership on this issue, which has been tremendous. We have been working side by side on this amendment today. I would also like to thank Mr. Flake that I have introduced legislation along with for his tremendous leadership. This amendment is, in fact, based on legislation that I have offered with Mr. Flake. I also want to thank Mr. Van Hollen for all of his leadership. The bill that I introduced with Representative Flake several months ago was a bipartisan bill of five Democratic Members and five Republican Members, and addresses the NSA surveillance program that almost every Member of this body learned about in the morning newspaper. This amendment recognizes two important principles: First, that the government must have all of the tools necessary and all of the authority required to pursue al Qaeda and other terrorists who would seek to harm our country. And second, this amendment recognizes that we are a Nation of laws. While the President possesses the inherent authority to engage in electronic surveillance of the enemy outside the country, Congress possesses the authority to regulate such surveillance within the United States, and, in fact, Congress has spoken in this area through Title III and through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. When Congress passed these statutes, it intended that they provide the sole authority for surveillance on American soil. Our amendment simply reinforces existing law that the government must obtain a court order when U.S. persons are targeted or surveillance occurs in the United States of America. Recently when the Attorney General testified in the Judiciary Committee, I asked about the limiting principle of the NSA program; was it restricted only to international calls; what if the administration decided tomorrow it had the inherent authority to tap purely domestic calls between two Americans, did it feel it could do so without court order; and the Attorney General said that he would not rule it out. He would not rule out having the pure authority without going to court to tap the calls between two Americans on American soil. So what is the limiting principle if this program can change from day to day without the input of Congress? The only limiting principle is the good faith of the executive, which, when the executive shows it is infallible, might be a sufficient limiting principle, but the executive is no more infallible than we are here in Congress, and so we have a role to play. In enacting FISA, Congress specifically sought to balance our national security interests with legitimate civil liberty concerns. In so doing, Congress expressly permitted surveillance without court order for 15 days after the declaration of a war. Additionally, Congress provided the authority to engage in electronic surveillance for up to 72 hours without court order. Furthermore, after the September 11 attacks, the administration came to Congress and asked us to modify FISA to respond to the new challenges in the war on terror, and Congress responded by making those changes. Electronic surveillance of al Qaeda operatives and others seeking to harm our country must continue; it simply can and should comply with the law. We stand ready to work with the administration if further statutory revisions to FISA or other authorities are required to meet the new challenges in the war on terrorism. Until then, we must restore the rule of law. I urge the House to do so today. I know my colleagues Mr. Sherman, Mr. Inslee, and Mr. Van Hollen will want to strike the last word to speak on this as well.

Mr. SCHIFF. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your thoughts and I appreciate your yielding. And we are up against a vicious enemy, and we ought to have every power of intelligence and every tool in the tool box and I completely agree with that. I think we can do that within the laws that the Congress has passed. And the gravamen of my concern is something that took place in the Senate, when one of our GOP colleagues asked the administration, during the debate over the PATRIOT reauthorization, which I supported, do we need to change FISA. We were making modest changes to FISA, and the Republican Senator said, Do we need to do something larger? And the administration response was no, that FISA is operating just fine as it is. Now, if there are changes that need to be made, there is a 72-hour after-the-fact authorization. If that window is too short, it can be lengthened. If there are other problems, they be changed. And all that can be changed without disclosing to the public the nature of the program itself. I haven't been briefed on it. I am not one of the lucky few, or maybe I am lucky. But it concerns me when the administration says we don't need to change existing law, when I think we can retain all of these tools, but the Congress can play its role in making sure that these programs are authorized by law, that they are not being conducted extralegally.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Very quickly, the only thing the amendment provides is that surveillance on American soil cannot be funded if it is not in compliance with FISA. So if you are in compliance, if this program complies with FISA, it could go on. Just to address the chairman's point, and this is on the same point you are making, too, which is we should not be debating this on the House floor, that you should introduce the bill, and it should be heard in committee. Mr. Chairman, we have introduced the bill. I along with Mr. Flake, Mr. Inglis, Mr. Leach, and others have introduced the bill. We have not been able to get a hearing in committee, and so the only opportunity for us to raise this issue is on the House floor

Mr. SCHIFF. Will the gentleman yield so I can respond to the question?

Mr. SCHIFF

Mr. SCHIFF. With all due respect to my colleagues in the majority, Mr. Speaker, I think the question posed by this resolution is whether you support accountability and oversight by this body of the war in Iraq or whether you do not. This resolution is not a substitute for oversight and accountability. Our brave men and women in Iraq deserve more than this rhetorical pompom. Even as we celebrate the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the completion of the Iraqi cabinet, we cannot turn away from the grim reality that the war President Bush declared over in the spring of 2003 has been bloodier, costlier, longer and more difficult than the administration anticipated or planned for. We need a new way forward in Iraq, a fact that seems glaringly obvious to everybody but the President, his advisers and the majority in this House. Last fall the Senate voted 79-19 for a resolution sponsored by Senator John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which stated that 2006, quote, should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with full Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq. At a time when Congress needs to inject itself forcefully into the process of determining what our course of action in Iraq should be, the Republican majority is again prepared to rubber stamp a policy that national security experts across the spectrum recognize as plagued with misjudgment and malfeasance. We owe our men and women more, and more than any other variable under the control of Congress, our failure to perform oversight has been a major contributing factor to these failures and to the difficult situation we find ourselves in. Regrettably, I must vote ``no'' on this resolution. Mr. Speaker, even as we celebrate the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the completion of the new Iraqi cabinet we cannot turn away from the grim reality that the war that President Bush declared over in the spring of 2003 has been bloodier, costlier, longer and more difficult than the Administration anticipated or planned for. We need a new way forward in Iraq--a fact that seems glaringly obvious to everybody but the President, his advisors and the majority in this House. Last fall the Senate voted 79-19 for a resolution sponsored by John Warner, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which stated that 2006 ``should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq.'' Earlier this year, House and Senate Democrats unveiled our ``Real Security'' agenda that lays out a blueprint for protecting our nation in the 21st Century. Our plan calls for the establishment of full Iraqi sovereignty during 2006, provides for responsible redeployment of our forces to better protect our troops and facilitates the transfer of authority, and holds the Administration accountable for the terrible mistakes that have been made in the prosecution of the war and the reconstruction of Iraq. In response to our plan and the overwhelming bipartisan majority of our colleagues in the Senate, the Republican majority in the House has tabled a blank-check resolution that endorses the President's ``stay the course'' policy in Iraq--a policy that he has reiterated in recent days. At a time when Congress needs to inject itself--forcefully--into the process of determining what our course of action in Iraq should be, the Republican majority is again prepared to rubber-stamp a policy that national security experts across the political spectrum recognize as plagued with misjudgment and malfeasance. I have been to Iraq three times to visit with our troops there and I have spent time with our wounded here and in Germany. They have done everything that we have asked of them and they have done it magnificently. Whatever success we have had in Iraq--every village that is secured, every public works project that is completed, every school that is reopened--is due to the efforts of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. We owe our men and women serving in Iraq lot more than this rhetorical pom-pom. Most glaringly, this resolution does nothing to hold the administration accountable for its conduct of the war. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, the former commander of the 1st Marine Division. General Newbold is one of a growing number of general officers who have courageously voiced their concerns about Iraq. General Newbold told me what he told Time Magazine in April when he said, ``What we are living with now [in Iraq] is the consequence of successive policy failures.'' More than any other variable under the control of Congress, our failure to perform oversight has been a major contributing factor to these failures and to the difficult situation in which we now find ourselves. That failure of oversight and the need to hold people accountable has plagued the Iraq war from the beginning. And because this Congress-- this Republican-controlled Congress--refuses to hold the President to account, we keep making the same mistakes over and over. For years the administration and the majority have tried to cow into silence anybody who dared to question the conduct of the war by calling them unpatriotic. That's the subtext of the resolution that we are debating today. It is not disloyal to ask these questions; oversight is a core responsibility of Congress. The great strength of a democratic system with built-in checks and balances is that mistakes are caught and corrected. Every member of this House, Republicans and Democrats, wants a stable and representative Iraqi government. But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot hope to change course in Iraq until and unless we are willing to acknowledge mistakes and until the administration is held to account and forced to change. Devising and implementing a successful endgame in Iraq will be difficult, but the President's open-ended commitment to remain in the country is untenable and unwise. The American people want Iraq to succeed, and for representative government there to survive and lead to a better future for the Iraqi people, but that success requires a new direction. This empty resolution fails to provide that and, accordingly, I will oppose it.

Mr. SCHIFF

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark the 18-month anniversary of a tragic event that is symptomatic of the deterioration of press freedom in the Gambia and elsewhere. On December 16, 2004, one of the most respected journalists in West Africa, Deyda Hydara, was shot in the head and chest by unidentified gunmen. He died instantly, but the repercussions of his murder sent a shock wave through media and human rights advocates throughout the region. Mr. Hydara co-founded the Gambia's first independent newspaper and served as a foreign correspondent for a French newspaper and the media rights organization, Reporters Without Borders. Hydara's murder is just one incident in an alarming crackdown by Gambian authorities on the independent press. In July 2002 the government passed legislation requiring journalists and media organizations to register with a media commission for one-year renewable licenses. In September 2003, Hydara and three other independent journalists filed a lawsuit challenging the law in a case that is still pending before the Gambian Supreme Court. Two days before Hydara's murder, the Gambian National Assembly passed a new round of repressive media legislation that imposed mandatory prison terms of six months to three years for any published work judged to be ``seditious'' and increased the scope of what might be deemed libelous. Hydara and other independent journalists had publicly opposed the law and Hydara had published an editorial denouncing it the day before he was killed. In the 18 months that have elapsed since Deyda Hydara was killed, Gambian authorities have ignored calls for a thorough investigation into his murder. It is widely believed to have been politically- motivated and related to a string of similar attacks. Meanwhile, at least 3 journalists are currently detained in Gambia in violation of regional and international human rights law. I will be sending a letter to Gambian President, Mr. Yahya Jammeh, urging him to appoint an independent board of inquiry to investigate the murder of Deyda Hydara and improve protections for journalists and the principle of press freedom in his country. I would like to submit this letter for the Record. Resistance to impunity is essential to maintain civil peace and demonstrate a commitment to democratic values. In a time when repeated anonymous attacks against media professionals have created tense relations between the state and the media in many countries, Deyda Hydara's unrequited murder is deeply worrisome to those who are committed to democracy and justice in Africa. I hope that the Gambian Government will take this occasion to reverse its record on press freedom and set an example for the rest of the region.

Mr. SCHIFF

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Metropolitan Baptist Church in Altadena, California. Metropolitan Baptist Church is one of the oldest congregations in the Altadena/Pasadena area and will celebrate 100 years of dedicated service to the community this month. Founded on June 6, 1906 by Reverend J.D. Bushnell and 13 members, the church was located at 134 Waverly Drive in Pasadena. In 1911, the cornerstone was laid and articles of incorporation were filed with the Secretary of State. For many years, the church was located in Pasadena on Waverly and Bellevue Drive and then on Mentone and Claremont Streets. About 40 years ago, Metropolitan Baptist Church built their current church on N. Fair Oaks Avenue in Altadena. Some of the programs that the church established over the last century include Music Ministry, Home Mission Society, Young People's Union, Mother's Board, Day Nursery, a Boy Scout Troop, Young Adult Choir, Bible Study, Children's Church, Prayer Warriors, Prayer Line, Hospitality Ministry, Senior Citizen Luncheon, and Health Fair. In 1990, Reverend Tyrone Skinner began his tenure with Metropolitan Baptist Church. Reverend Skinner has been instrumental in establishing many new ministries, such as Praise Team, Praise Dancers, Petals Ministry, 40 Stomp Team, and Mass Choir within the church, as well as establishing the Metropolitan Community Action Services Corporation. The church also serves the community by feeding and clothing the homeless at Union Station, and the Pantry and Covered Dish Ministries. Metropolitan Baptist Church is a place where the community at large is warmly welcomed. Many local religious, educational, and civic groups, such as the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, the NAACP, and the Pasadena Association of African American Educators use the facilities. In addition, the Young African American Male Conference and numerous community events honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. are held at Metropolitan Baptist Church. It is my great honor to recognize Metropolitan Baptist Church upon its 100 years of ministry to the people of Altadena and Pasadena. I ask all Members to join me in wishing Metropolitan Baptist Church many more fruitful years of service to the community.

Mr. SCHIFF

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and today I rise in strong support of the 2007 foreign operations appropriations bill. I want to acknowledge the fine work done by the chairman, Mr. Kolbe, who I had the honor to travel to Indonesia with as part of the House Democracy Assistance Commission and also the superb work done each and every day by our ranking member, Nita Lowey. We are very grateful for your fine work. There is a lot to applaud in this bill, and I want to recognize a couple of areas worthy of specific mention, funding in Darfur and funding for the state of Israel among others; but before I do, I want to express my regret and concern about the fact that this bill is still $2.38 billion below the President's request. That significant cut in foreign assistance, given all the problems around the world, should be concern to all of us. Some of the areas of particular significance that have been cut: refugee assistance is being reduced; debt relief is being cut; peacekeeping is being reduced. The Peace Corps funding is being reduced. Funding for democratization efforts in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union countries is being reduced. Global environmental facility funding and economic support funds, all those are being reduced from the President's proposed budget at a cumulative cost in cuts in those areas and others of $2.3 billion; and that is, I think, a considerable concern. In other areas, I want to acknowledge and applaud the work that we are doing in Darfur and the Sudan. More needs to be done. At least 300,000 people are estimated to have died in Darfur in what has remained a largely neglected tragedy and genocide. Currently, more than 3.5 million Darfurians depend on international aid for survival. Another 2 million have been driven from their homes. The $450 million in humanitarian relief efforts to the Sudan provided in this bill will help meet this rapidly growing need and lend credibility to American calls for other countries to follow our example. I also applaud the legislation for the groundwork it does for vital improvements in global health and AIDS funding which also are very significant. Again, I congratulate our Chair and our ranking member for their superb efforts.

Mr. SCHIFF

Mr. SCHIFF. I want to thank both my colleagues for joining me this evening and helping to further elucidate the Democratic plan for the way forward in Iraq, for talking about the sacrifice our troops are making, for being there for our troops, and also raising the call that this be a shared sacrifice in the war on terror; that we not force those who have borne the battle to look out for themselves and to pay off our national debt when they get back; that we heed the injunction of Lincoln that we ``look after him who has borne the battle and his widow and his orphan.'' I want to thank you again for all your leadership.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, there have been too many dark days in Iraq of late, but today is not one of them. The removal of Abu Musab al Zarqawi is a welcome event. Zarqawi was a blood thirsty thug and an indiscriminate killer of innocent men, women and children. All Americans join in congratulating the American military and the Iraqi people for their success in tracking, finding and eliminating the most vicious terrorist in Iraq. It is too early to predict what the effect of the elimination of Zarqawi will have on the counterinsurgency effort that the Iraqi and coalition forces are engaged in. On the one hand there is ample historical evidence that eliminating terrorist and insurgent leaders does not necessarily cripple their movements. New leaders rise up to take their places. In the Iraqi case, however, Zarqawi's form of jihad, which has resulted in the slaughter of so many innocent civilians has alienated most Iraqis and helped to foster reported back-channel negotiations between the U.S., the Iraqi Government and some of the insurgent groups over the past few months. Whether the confluence of Zarqawi's death and the completion of the new Iraqi cabinet can accelerate the prospects for some kind of more open negotiations remains to be seen. Especially as the sectarian violence that Zarqawi sought has continued to grow in recent months. Even as we celebrate Zarqawi's death and recall the horrors he perpetrated, the videotaped beheadings of helpless hostages, the mass casualty suicide bombings of Shiite mosques, and the horrific destruction of the UN headquarters, we cannot turn away from the grim reality, that the war the President declared over in the spring of 2003 has been bloodier, costlier, longer and more difficult than the administration anticipated or planned for. We need a new way forward in Iraq, and that is what we would like to talk about tonight. The Democratic ideas for a new way forward in Iraq are part of an overall effort to reconfigure America's security for the 21st Century, a plan we call Real Security. Earlier this spring, Members of our party from both the House and the Senate unveiled a comprehensive blueprint to better protect America and restore our Nation's position of international leadership. Our plan, Real Security, was devised with the assistance of a broad range of experts, former military officers, retired diplomats, law enforcement personnel, homeland security experts and others, who helped identify key areas where current policies have failed and where new ones were needed. In a series of six special orders, my colleagues and I have been sharing with the American people our vision for a more secure America. The plan has five pillars, and each of our special order hours have been addressing them in turn: Building a 21st Century Military, Winning the War on Terror, Providing for Our Homeland Security, A Way Forward in Iraq, and the Achievement of Energy Independence. Tonight we address a New Course in Iraq, to make 2006 a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country with a responsible redeployment of U.S. forces. Democrats will insist that Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to unite the country and defeat the insurgency, promote regional diplomacy and strongly encourage our allies and other nations to play a constructive role. I have been to Iraq three times to visit our troops there, and I have spent time with our wounded here and in Germany. They have done everything we have asked of them, and they have done it magnificently. Whatever success we have had in Iraq, every village that was secured, every public works project that was completed, every school that was reopened, is due to the efforts of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. But, Mr. Speaker, these heroes are still being killed and wounded daily. Over 2,450 American troops have been killed and thousands more have been injured. American taxpayers are paying approximately $194 million a day for the war, according to the CBO. That is more than $1 billion a week. A recent Congressional Research Service report puts the current cost of continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at close to $10 billion a month, with most of that money going to Iraq. This is a conflict that has come to grief in so many ways. In the fall of 2002, Congress voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq because of the threat that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and because we were told he had an active nuclear weapons program. If you go back and look at the debate in the House and Senate, this was a decision taken by the Congress to prevent Iraq from acquiring and using or transferring nuclear weapons. Months later as American forces pushed across the Kuwaiti frontier and into Iraq, we were told by the President that our troops were on a hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Delivering the Iraqi people from the brutality of Saddam Hussein was a noble act, but the promotion of democracy in Iraq was not our primary reason for going to war. Similarly, we knew that the Shiite majority had suffered terribly under the Ba'athist regime, and freeing them from the oppression of the Sunni minority was an added benefit of the invasion. But reordering the ethnic balance of political power in Iraq was not our primary purpose for going to war. Soon after the fall of Baghdad, it became clear that many of the prewar assumptions that had guided the President and his advisors were wrong. There were no chemical or biological weapons. There was no nuclear program. And while many Iraqis celebrated the ouster of Saddam Hussein, they did not line the streets of Baghdad to greet our troops with flowers. In fact, within days, there emerged the beginnings of what would be an organized, deadly insurgency that would quickly put an end to General Tommy Frank's plan to pare down the 140,000 troops in Iraq in April of 2003 to 30,000 by September of 2003. In recent months, the nature of the struggle in Iraq has changed yet again. Long-simmering ethnic tensions which had been suppressed under Saddam's totalitarian regime have threatened to tear the country apart. While the full-scale civil war that many feared in the wake of the bombing of Askariya mosque in Samarra has not come to past, not yet, most observers believe the country is currently in the grip of a low- level civil war that could erupt into full-scale conflict at any time. As first, much of the sectarian violence was perpetrated by Sunni insurgents who saw continuing violence and instability in Iraq as their best hope to gain power in a country dominated by Shiia Muslims. Shiite political factions have responded by creating militias, and these have become more active in targeting Sunnis over the past few months. In recent weeks I have been concerned by media reports that Shiite militias have been deploying to Kirkuk, Iraq's third largest city, in a bid to forestall any attempt by Kurds to assert control over this major center of Iraq's oil-rich north. In Baghdad, Shiite units, some of them nominally under the control of the Ministry of Interior, have acted as death squads, and the streets of the capital have become a dumping ground for bodies. We have a moral obligation to do what we can to avoid having Iraq spiral into all-out civil war. But now is the time for Iraqis themselves to decide whether they wish to be one country. That is the decision we cannot make for them. Accordingly, the first element of the Real Security Plan for Iraq calls for the United States to take the necessary steps to ensure that 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty. There is a broad consensus among experts here and abroad that Iraq's future will be determined politically and not by force. The formation of a permanent Iraqi government, one that will have power, legitimacy and vision, to assume primary responsibility for securing and governing the country is a necessary precondition to ending the insurgency, preventing civil war and allowing large scale reconstruction to begin. Consequently, our role in Iraq must become more political and less military for if there is one thing that Iraqis of every religious, political and ethic stripe can agree on, it is that they do not want foreign troops in their country indefinitely. The second element of the Democratic Real Security plan for Iraq is a responsible redeployment of our troops during the course of 2006 so that we are not drawn into sectarian conflict, and so that Iraqis are forced to take primary responsibility for securing and governing their country. The process of training Iraqi security forces has gone more slowly than many had hoped and few Iraqi units are capable of taking a leading role in combating the insurgency and remain almost wholly dependent on coalition forces for logistical support. We must redouble our efforts to train Iraqi forces in order to allow for the responsible redeployment of American troops without a consequent loss of security in the areas we leave. A responsible redeployment of American coalition forces will have to be done in stages to build greater Iraqi sovereignty and control over security, not civil war. In the first phase of redeployment, I believe our forces should be gradually withdrawn from urban centers where their mere presence in large numbers has earned the animosity of the local population. Our troops should be moved to smaller cities where reconstruction is supported by the local population and to remote bases where our troops will be able to support Iraqi units if necessary but will not become a buffer between warring sects bent on killing each other. Over time, these troops will be withdrawn from Iraq altogether and redeployed outside the country, either in the region or back to the United States. We should publicly declare that the U.S. does not seek to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq and many of us have co-sponsored legislation to prevent the establishment of bases which can only serve as a catalyst for the insurgency and for foreign jihadis. A redeployment of American troops cannot succeed if the Iraqis themselves are not willing to find the political solution to counter the forces that threaten the unity of the country. There is to doubt that Iraq's ongoing sectarian strife has been exacerbated by the protracted struggle among and inside Iraq's political factions over the formation of a permanent government. The real key to a better future for the Iraqi people and the third element of the Democratic Real Security plan for Iraq is the promotion of political compromise to unite the country. The recent formation of a national unity government by the prime minister is a positive step. While Zarqawi's death has grabbed most of the headlines today, the prime minister's announcement that he has filled the crucial vacancies in the interior defense and national security ministries may prove more important to Iraq's future, which will be determined politically and not by force. The Iraqi government must demonstrate to its people that it can actually bring Iraq's rival factions together in a common effort to confront the foreign jihadis and bring the insurgents into the political process. This is the best hope for maintaining the unity of Iraq. But Mr. Speaker, we can not do it alone. American soldiers, American diplomats and American reconstruction experts are shouldering almost the entire burden in Iraq. This is unfortunately a problem wholly of our making. The President made little effort to bring others on board before we went into Iraq. And after the fall of Baghdad, he rebutted an offer by the United Nations to assume a central role in rebuilding the country. Finding a way to internationalize the struggle to stabilize Iraq is the fourth element of the Democratic Real Security plan for Iraq. It is not surprising our allies and others are reluctant to send their solders and contractors to help us. It is dangerous and we have not been amenable to listening to the suggestions of others. Unfortunately, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to the extent that the world must reengage if only because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. At a minimum, our allies should be willing to assume a greater role in training Iraqi security forces, as well as provide long-promised economic support. Finally, the last element of the Real Security plan is the need to hold the administration accountable for its conduct of the war. More than any other variable under the control of Congress, our failure to perform this oversight has been a major factor contributing to the difficult situation in Iraq. The failure of oversight and the need to hold accountable people that are responsible for those failures has plagued the Iraq war from the beginning. And because this Congress, this Republican-controlled Congress refuses to hold the President to account, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. For years, the administration and majority tried to cow into silence anyone who dared to question the conduct of the war by calling them unpatriotic. It is not disloyal to ask these questions. Oversight is a core responsibility of Congress. The great strength of a democratic system with built-in checks and balances is that mistakes are caught and corrected. Every Member of this House, Republican and Democrat, wants a stable and representative Iraqi government. But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot hope to change course in Iraq until and unless we are willing to acknowledge mistakes, until we hold the administration accountable and force change. Devising and implementing a successful end game in Iraq will be difficult, but the President's open ended commitment to remain in the country is untenable and unwise. The American people want Iraq to succeed and for a representative government there to survive and lead to a better future for the Iraqi people, but that success requires a new direction. I now yield to two of my colleagues, my fellow co-chairs of the Democratic Study Group on National Security their thoughts on the way forward in Iraq. First, I would like to turn to Mr. Israel of New York who has been a great leader on this issue, who is the Chair of the Democratic Task Force on National Security. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. SCHIFF. The gentleman and I were talking just this morning, all three of us, about the need to sacrifice, the need to have leadership in this country, and ask the American people to make a sacrifice. Right now, the people sacrificing are the people in uniform and their families, but the rest of us can contribute, too. I know you have been at the forefront of calling for our national sacrifice, and we could start by balancing the budget so that these young soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen do not come back, in addition to having to try to put their lives back together, have that huge national debt hanging over their heads.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia. I think most of the American people really do not have a firsthand sense of the kind of sacrifice that our troops are making, which is nothing short of extraordinary, with the multiple deployments that you mentioned, with the uncertainty for their families of when they will come home, if they will come home and in what condition they will come home, the economic sacrifices the families make. One of the concerns I have is not only the problem making sure that there is enough coagulant bandages while they are there, but what about when they come home? Our VA system is already over capacity. The administration is talking about closing Walter Reed. I do not know how that can be done. Every time I have been there it is been brimming with patients. We, I do not think, have even begun to think about the demands on our health care system for veterans. This young Guardsman that I mentioned earlier, he told me that he still has to resist the impulse to drop to the deck when he hears someone close the door behind a Civic. There is something about the closing of a door behind a Civic that sounds a lot like a mortar going off at 2,000 meters. He said he was pretty well-off in Iraq; he was not one of the people who had to bust down doors every day and go through that kind of stress. Imagine the mental health care needs, the physical health care needs. I do not think we are prepared yet to meet them, and I want to ask my colleague from New York, a member of the Armed Services Committee, someone who is a military historian and studied the kind of strain we are placing on our active duty and our reserve, what are your thoughts on this subject?