Anthony Weiner

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Madam Chairman, I doubt I will take the full 5 minutes. As remarkable as it might seem to anyone who is listening to these remarks, there is one national park in our country that was closed after September 11 that remains closed to this day. We all remember that after September 11, there was kind of a general lockdown. We weren't sure what was going to happen next. National parks throughout the country were closed. That included this building. It included the White House. It included, frankly, monuments, memorials, and parks throughout the country. Almost immediately thereafter, with some changes to security, some more enhanced like this building, some less so like some national parks, every single one of the national parks and institutions was reopened, except for one: the Statue of Liberty. Perhaps the single most symbolic of all parks, the Statue of Liberty remains closed to this day. It is true you can take a ferry and go around the Statue of Liberty. It is even true that you can go to its base, walk inside, and tap Lady Liberty's toes. But the Statue of Liberty and its iconic stairway that leads to the very top, to the crown, where all of us or so many of us remember standing on our tiptoes to see that regal view, remains closed today. Now, my colleagues, you might be wondering how could it be nearly 7 years after September 11 the park is still closed? Let me tell you a few reasons why it is not the case. First of all, there has been plenty of money. This committee and private beneficiaries have raised over $20 million for security enhancements, for changes. In fact, we all remember after September 11 a foundation was formed, Folger's and American Express and all kinds of institutions, the Daily News, my hometown newspaper. Kids were gathering up pennies and dimes and nickles. So there was no shortage of money. But we do know what there appears to be a shortage of, and that is imagination or courage on the part of the National Park Service. We in this House, by a resounding fashion last year, 266 of us voted to say open up Lady Liberty to her crown. But the National Park Service, after years of kind of thinking about it and scratching their chin and twiddling their hair and flipping through papers, last year, at the urging of Mr. Dicks and others, finally sent this body a letter that said, ``we have concluded that the current access patterns reflect a responsible management strategy in the best interests of all our visitors.'' Well, that is bureaucratic speech, saying to Congress and the American people, take a hike, we're going to do what we want. Saying to the chairman of the committee, the ranking member, 266 of us, We don't care what your views are, we don't care about the private donations, we don't care about the reasonable accommodations that can be made, we're not opening up the Statue of Liberty. And I say reasonable accommodations because there are things that can be done. Look, there is no doubt about it, there are narrow staircases, there are narrow passageways, not as narrow as this building, and there are sensitive locations, not as sensitive as the White House, but we've figured out ways to accommodate visitors, although in a limited fashion, in those places. My colleague, Congressman Sires, who is here today to offer this amendment with me and who I, regretfully, have to admit, according to the Supreme Court, that the Statue of Liberty is in his district. Although I would point out that Lady Liberty's caboose faces New Jersey, not her proud crown. But I want to thank him for all that he has done and for seeing that this is a national issue. Let me just say this in closing: you know, we have heard it thrown around a lot, We mustn't let the terrorists win, We mustn't let the terrorists win. Can you imagine the symbolic sacrifice and the symbolic surrender we have made by saying that, because there are security concerns, we're not going to reopen the Statue of Liberty? How many of us don't remember the experience of climbing those narrow staircases? So what does this amendment do? This amendment says, you say you can't do it? We're going to give you another million dollars to do it. It takes $1 million and strikes it from the administration's account, puts it in the National Park Service account and says, if you need more money, here it is. I also want to thank my colleagues on the Resources Committee, subcommittee Chairman Grijalva, full committee Chairman Rahall, for considering and tentatively agreeing to do hearings to look into this. This is simply wrong. And to my chairman, Mr. Dicks, and to my ranking member, Mr. Tiahrt, there are no stronger advocates for the National Park Service than they, no stronger protectors of the national budget than they. This is not a frivolous idea. This is Lady Liberty. This is making sure we restore the dignity of our National Park Service everywhere, but particularly in this most symbolic place.

Mr. WEINER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WEINER. I want to offer my gratitude to the chairman, who has been helpful to us all throughout, and the ranking member, Mr. Tiahrt, for all that they have done.

Mr. WEINER. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, tell them this. We will wait. We will wait because this is too important, if you want to trivialize the process. I don't blame you for not wanting to debate this bill because the leadership of the previous Congress was shameful. There was no oversight. There was no questioning. There was no sense of what the responsibility is of this Congress. And your vision, or absence thereof, was rejected by the American people. Now, my colleagues on the other side, the colleagues that my back is facing, are destined to be in the permanent minority because the American people want us to achieve things. We are committed on this side of the aisle to doing it. And if you think that you have problems with this bill, make an amendment to it. Make 10 amendments. Make 30 amendments. We are going to be here because we believe in something else: Having an open rule to allow you to do this.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, we think that more and more it is becoming clear that we have a good portion of this institution that wants to solve these problems in a bipartisan way if we can, and as Democrats alone if we must. But one way or another, if you think, as one of the previous speakers said, ``You are going to do it our way or we are going to keep making motions to rise,'' keep doing it. We are not going anywhere. We are here to fight for the American people for 2 years, and we are not giving up. There are people making much bigger sacrifices than we are. What we are here to do is to try to honor their sacrifice, honor the things the American people are going through. And that is why the American people turned to a Democratic House; a Democratic Senate; and in a matter of months, a Democratic President of the United States.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, it is----

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, it is gratifying to hear so many of my colleagues express their understanding of what happened in the campaign of 2006 and why a majority party on that side turned into a minority party. They are right. Some of it was because of the abject abuse of the earmark process. Some of it was about the abject abuse that resulted in people being indicted and people going to jail. But that was only part of it. We on this side of the aisle got that message. That is why we have a transparent process that is going to open up all the earmarks to scrutiny. But that was only part of it. The fact that some commentators have referred to the previous leadership of the party of this House as the most ethically bankrupt in our Nation's history, that was only part of the reason that the American people rejected the Republican mission. They also rejected it because they ran up the largest deficits in recent memory. They rejected the Republican rule because there was a war that was being prosecuted without any oversight on that side of the aisle. The fact that wages were stagnant and the minimum wage hadn't been raised; that it was more and more difficult for the middle class and those struggling to get into the middle class to send their kids to college. Well, on the Democratic side, we said we are going to work late into the night past the dilatory efforts of our colleagues because we are here to fight for the American people. You say, one way or another you are going to get your way by doing motion after motion after motion. I have got to tell you something. It is worth it. It is worth it. This fight is important enough that we are prepared to stand here and try to get a Homeland Security bill to protect the American people. We are prepared to do it. We are prepared to stay here all night for a transparent process that allows us to assess some of these thousands of earmarks submitted by both sides of the aisle. Mr. Chairman, do you know how I know with certitude that we are going to pass this bill to protect the American people by having a Homeland Security bill that is sound? Because we said we were going to make it easier for parents to send their kids to college, and we did it. We said we were going to raise the minimum wage, and we did it. We said we were going to crack down on these oil companies getting tax breaks for doing nothing more than gouging the American people, and we did it. We have done the things the American people have sent us here to do. The only way that my colleagues on the other side can think from stopping us to achieve the agenda of the American people is every couple of minutes saying, We want to go home. We have worked hard enough. We want to rise. We are not going anywhere. You can do it again and again and again. And we will wait you out. Announcement by the Chairman

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise today, first of all, to express my gratitude to the chairman for crafting a bill which tries to do what we want to do, which is to take seriously the admonition by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge that homeland security starts in our hometowns, and tried to officially get homeland security funds to our neighborhoods. Congressman Cantor and I were going to be offering an amendment on the floor to address a program that has been funded in the last couple of years, albeit inefficiently, by the Department of Homeland Security, to deal with the problem that local neighborhood nonprofit organizations, churches, synagogues, civic institutions, are being visited by local law enforcement all the time saying, here are the things you need to do to make your institution more hardened for the challenge of homeland security. Yet, with all the things they are being told to do, unlike a business that can pass along its expenses to stockholders, or unlike a government entity that can raise taxes or make choices on what they want to allocate, these nonprofit organizations really have no way to find the funds for things like security cameras, for emergency escape hatches, for communication devices within their facilities. The nonprofit Homeland Security grants have done that. They have done it in a relatively efficient way. You haven't read the stories about great waste because they are relatively small amounts of money to pay for the things like I described. This section of the bill, the administrative section, was where we thought maybe we could take some of the money to allocate for the nonprofit grants. The other body, an earmark, is going to take $20 million and allocate it for that purpose. It's only a $25 million program that we have allocated for the past couple of Congresses. I think that, frankly, the knowledge that this is going to be worked out in conference is comforting. But we need to realize that one of the things we need to do, and frankly, it's a program that has been administered in a remarkably democratic, with a small D, way. It has been distributed to small towns, big cities, nonprofit organizations. They get visited by local law enforcement: These are the things you do to become more safe. They have gone out and done it. They have made applications to the States that have then funded these programs as they see fit. We are not going to be offering the amendment, although I am grateful for the bipartisan work that we have done on this. I would like to ask the chairman, as this moves forward to committee, in the interest of time in moving the program forward, I just want to make sure that you are mindful of our concerns about making sure that these nonprofit grants continue to see the light of the day. I yield to the chairman.

Mr. WEINER. If I could reclaim my time, I would express my gratitude to the chairman and also to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) who has been so helpful with this.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. And I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, I think one of the many reasons that the American people have turned the Congress over to Democrats is that we have said, like so many Americans, that we don't want to hear just more talk and rhetoric and posturing; that we want to start to actively solve the problems that people face in communities around this country. And whether it be a sheriff's department of two or three officers, or the NYPD which has some 36,000 officers, after today's vote and after it gets passed in the other body, God willing, and signed by the President, we are going to start to do what we need to do to improve homeland security, to reduce drug crime, to reduce the amount of the day-to-day challenges that people face; to hire more officers to go into schools, to get technology so officers can be out on the beat and doing it more. This is a program that, frankly, never should have died. It is a program that I think too many of my friends on the other side just got blood in their eyes over the idea that it was offered under President Clinton, passed under President Clinton and single-handedly brought down crime during those years. That is not a good enough reason. Let us get past that kind of political haze and just realize that sometimes things are successful, even though they are the ideas of someone else. John Ashcroft dissented on several occasions. He said, ``I think the COPS Program has been successful.'' Alberto Gonzales, someone whom I am not prone to quote very often, has said, ``The COPS Program has been beneficial.'' The Oneida County Executive, the former Mayor of Rome, says, ``This program has made a difference,'' a tiny city. John Ashcroft said when testifying before the House of Representatives, ``It has been one of the most successful programs we have ever worked with.'' This is a bipartisan success, because every once in a while around here we get it right. We design a program with a goal in mind, and in this case it was to get the Federal Government off the sidelines. There are many in this body who hold this kind of old-fashioned federalist notion that, you know what, protecting citizenry is something that only localities do. Well, we realize now in the post-9/11 world that has changed. We are doing something about it, and I commend my colleagues of all stripes for finally joining that bandwagon.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for both his confidence and his leadership of our committee, and I also want to thank Bobby Scott, the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee. We are really here for three reasons. We are here because the COPS program has been a singular success. It has been a success because we identified in the 1990s that crime was not a program that only localities could get a handle on, that we had a Federal role. It is a success because it was a singularly democratic, with a small ``d,'' program. And small towns and big cities throughout all 50 States wound up benefiting from the over 118,000 police officers that were put on the street because of this program. We know, for example, that 82 percent of the grants went to cities with 50,000 people or less. And while cities like mine did very well because there were more police on the beat, we know that there were a large number of very small towns that benefited. We know, as you can see, that the COPS program provides resources to all 50 States. This wasn't a political program. If you were a police department and you showed a way to get more cops on the street, the Federal Government wasn't going to sit back; they were going to be actively involved. And we know that it was successful. We know it because the Government Accountability Office looked at the connection between police officers and the reduction in crime and found a correlation. We know the University of Nebraska looked at a very similar thing and said, with all the varying elements that go into reducing crime, was the fact that there are over 110,000 new police officers on the street funded by the COPS program a correlative effect? And the answer was yes. We are also here for another reason. We are here because crime has started to creep back up. We are starting to see index crimes in cities around the country start to rise again. After years of decline, we are seeing it go up. And we are also here because there is even more law enforcement burden being put on localities and States than arguably any time in American history. Tom Ridge once famously said that homeland security starts in our hometown. And when we were talking about the cuts that were being made to homeland security, we were reminded that actually it is the localities that we are asking to do more and more of these things. So we are here in acknowledgement that localities need the help. Localities now have to do more than they ever had to do before, and that's why in this program for the first time we are funding T-COPS, cops that are going to be hired to do antiterrorism work. But particularly the reason that we're here is a third reason, that my colleagues on that side of the aisle eliminated the hiring component. President Bush eliminated the hiring component. This is a visual about how many police officers were hired under the COPS program from 1995 to 2005. This is what has happened under President Bush and under our Republican leadership. This many police officers. Zero. Zero. Zero in Virginia. Zero in South Dakota. Zero in California. The program was eliminated under my Republican friends. And as they stand up here today, and you're going to see them vote in large numbers for this program, they're going to wrap themselves around the idea that they support the COPS program when in fact overwhelmingly it was quite the opposite. Let me show you the abandonment that's going on in the COPS program. This is the number of cops that were hired in 1998. Look at the decline. Look at how many were hired in 2005 and 2006. So the third reason we are here is we are taking up the gauntlet that was, frankly, laid down, put in a box and sealed away by my Republican friends. They said, you know what? Law enforcement is not a local job, it's a national job, we heard in committee. We heard, oh, the program hasn't worked the way it was intended. The fact of the matter is, had it not been for the Democrats taking over this body, had it not been for the chairmanship of Mr. Conyers, this program would be zeroed out this year, too. You know how I know? Because we've had many years where those of us have stood up trying to change this where we were rebuffed again and again. Now, I can't say all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We've got many, including the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller) who is an original sponsor of this. But it is stunning to me that anyone can stand up and say that they support this program after supporting this. In conclusion, I want to thank the chairman and my colleagues for passing this. We're going to ask for a recorded vote, and we're going to watch the large number of folks who helped write bills to zero out the COPS program suddenly embrace the idea that we have to put cops on the street. And I welcome my friends on the other side of the aisle to the cause of providing help for local law enforcement. Mr. Speaker, I rise today at long last. Under new Democratic leadership, the Congress will take up my bill, H.R. 1700, to bring the COPS program back from the scrap heap, back from a point where the program's hiring component has been zeroed out, and restore it to be what it proved to be during the Clinton administration: one of the most successful law enforcement programs in the history of the United States. We are facing a rise in crime in the United States. In a survey of cities large and small, released last month, the Police Executive Research Board found that 71 percent of cities had seen an increase in homicides, 80 percent had seen an increase in robberies, and 67 percent had seen an increase in assaults with guns. Moreover the FBI recently reported that nationwide figures showed that last year, homicides, assaults and other violent offenses grew by 4 percent, and robberies, which are often interpreted as a precursor to more serious crime, jumped by 10 percent. Democrats faced a similar challenge in 1993 when asked about the rise in drug-fueled street crime. Then, Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, answered with the most far reaching and innovative Federal anti-crime initiative ever--the COPS program. It did the most intuitive thing--it hired more than 100,000 beat cops. It worked. It put police in every neighborhood, town and city. Sure, big cities like Chicago and L.A. hired officers with Federal help. But so did small towns like Marengo, IL, and Plano, TX. Now, as crime rises and we work to combat the new challenges our country faces in the wake of 9/11 the COPS program is again the solution. The background is this. The COPS program works. A study by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office recently stated, ``COPS- funded increases in sworn officers per capita were associated with declines in rates of total index crimes, violent crimes, and property crime.'' According to the study, between 1998 and 2000, COPS hiring grants were responsible for reducing crimes by about 200,000 to 225,000 crimes--one third of which were violent. Studies done by the Brookings Institution, the University of Nebraska, Yale and Georgetown Universities, the University of Maryland, and the Urban Institute-- among others--found similarly that COPS works. When John Ashcroft spoke about this during his confirmation hearings for Attorney General, he said, ``Let me just say, I think the COPS program has been successful. The purpose of the COPS program was to demonstrate to local police departments that if you put additional police, feet on the street, that crime would be affected and people would be safer and more secure. We believe the COPS program demonstrated that conclusively.'' That is John Ashcroft. When Tom Ridge was sworn in as the Secretary of Homeland Security, he said homeland security starts in our home towns. Over the course of the last 5 years, local law enforcement has become deeply involved in homeland security. Big cities have been forced to upgrade not only their equipment and training but also the type of personnel they hire. Some cities have hired officers exclusively to focus on homeland security--police who work to gather intelligence, analyze terror threats, and monitor our most vulnerable targets. And how have Republicans in Washington responded since coming to office? They have eliminated the program police departments big and small had grown to depend on: COPS Funded at over $1 billion a year at the end of the Clinton administration, President Bush has zeroed out the hiring component of what some believe to have been the most successful law enforcement program in the Nation's history. The bill we are considering today would restore the COPS program and update to the challenges local law enforcement agencies face in the post 9/11 world. This bill breathes new life into the COPS program by authorizing $600 million per year for hiring grants, which could fund up to 50,000 new cops on the beat over the next 6 years. And in an effort to make sure that police departments around the country can use this funding as they need--as terrorism becomes a greater burden on their limited budgets-- this bill explicitly enables COPS to provide funding for officers who perform ``intelligence, anti-terror, or homeland security duties.'' The bill also authorizes $350 million per year for COPS technology grants. These grants will allow police agencies to purchase things like laptop computers for patrol cars, crime mapping software, and interoperable communications equipment. And the bill explicitly enables COPS to use funding for ``Troops to Cops'' programs that help returning veterans find employment as law enforcement officers. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers, the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, Mr. Scott, and the Democratic leadership for bring this bill expeditiously to the floor for passage. I also want to thank Joshua Fay-Hurvitz, Bobby Vassar, Greg Barnes, Mike Volkov, Caroline Lynch, Karas Pattison, Molly Lothamer, and other members of the Democratic, Republican, and Legislative Counsel staffs who have worked so hard to make this day possible. I urge passage of the COPS Improvement Act.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify some of the mistakes made by the previous speaker, at least the misimpressions left. One, technology grants cut under the previous Republican Congress; two, alternatives to incarceration cut under the previous Republican administration; three, police officers, I have already talked about, cut. Just about all of the elements of a comprehensive package were eliminated under the leadership of your party. So if you care about reducing crime, this is a better day than it was a year ago.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend my colleagues for their work on the SAFETEA-LU technical corrections bill. After extensive conversations with the local transportation authority in New York City, it has become apparent that several changes are necessary in order for very important transportation infrastructure improvements to be implemented in New York City. Included in this bill are a number of projects that will enhance transportation throughout New York City and in my district in particular. At my urging, the technical corrections bill includes: $1,100,000 for the New York City Department of Transportation to design and rehabilitate roads commonly known as step streets, which connect streets on steep grades, in Bronx County in coordination with my colleagues Mr. Engel, Mr. Crowley, and Mr. Serrano; $2,500,000 to design and construct school safety projects in New York City to be used as part of the recently launched Safe Routes to Schools project, spearheaded by the New York City Department of Transportation; $1,300,000 for the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority to install security cameras at the Steinway Street, Broadway, 30th Avenue, and Astoria Boulevard subway stations in Astoria, New York, at the suggestion and urging of New York Assemblyman Michael Gianaris; $100,000 to provide for an independent study of the Newtown Creek oil spill in coordination with my colleague Ms. Velazquez; $500,000 for the New York City Department of Transportation to study and implement transportation improvements in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens County; $500,000 for the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority's interagency task force on fencing to fence exposed track along the Long Island Railroad. These high priority projects will make a considerable contribution to the lives of New York City residents. Chairman Oberstar, Mr. Mica, Chairman DeFazio, and Mr. Duncan deserve the thanks and appreciation of every Member of this House for their tireless efforts to improve America's transportation system. I also could not have secured these and other programs within TEA-LU without the help and counsel of individuals here in Washington, and New York City. I would like to thank Joshua Fay-Hurvitz of my staff. I would also like to thank both the Democratic and Republican staff of the Transportation Committee. In particular, I would like to thank Jackie Schmitz and Ward McCarragher of Mr. Oberstar's staff. I would also like to thank Commissioner Iris Weinshall, David Woloch, and Andra Horsch at the New York City Department of Transportation. Additionally, I'd like to thank Derrick Douglas with the State of New York, and Judy Chesser and Bill Daly with the City of New York. Finally I'd like to thank Lee Sander and Chris Boylan with the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, Mike Weiss at the Federal Highway Administration, and Jessie Torres at the Department of Transportation.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman will yield further, I thank the gentleman very much. I think what you have just described is a military stretched thin, my friend. I think when you have people in the Reserves doing three tours, that are being taken away from their communities, I think that is a military stretched thin.

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman will further yield, is it not your view that that has a dramatic toll only those families and communities who are not regular army who are there as Reservists and are being called back tour after tour? You don't think that is stretching those communities thin?

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman will yield for a further question, are there any there doing second or third tours of duty?

Mr. WEINER. Madam Speaker, I honor the gentleman for his mastery of the numbers. Perhaps you can enlighten me, what is the number of Reserves that are in country now?

Mr. WEINER. Madam Speaker, first of all, I think that I speak for all of our colleagues and all of us here in paying tribute to the 137,000- some-odd American men and women who are fighting in Iraq, the 25,000 or so that are fighting in Afghanistan. We are here to do what we can to honor them. We are trying to express our patriotism. We are trying to do what we are obligated to do by standing up here. The notion that it is our patriotic duty, our obligation to sit silent and to do whatever the President thinks is best and blindly walk in that direction, that is not the way to honor the troops that are there. I can imagine the challenges that they face every single day, and would the message going back to them be most appropriate that just as often as they wake up in the deserts of Iraq trying to figure out why people are shooting at them and what they can do to stop it, they should know that every single day we here in Congress are trying to think about ways to make their mission safer and make it more possible for them to accomplish their mission and to extract them as soon as possible. We pray that they are successful. Although I strongly oppose the President's initiative, that I am going to vote ``yes'' on this resolution, I pray that they are successful. I pray we don't lose another life. We want them to be successful. But it is not enough just to be silent and to be prayerful. We also have to act. Some in this Chamber have objected to this resolution because what it seeks to do is to do two things: one is the thing that I have done already, which is to pay tribute to the troops, something we all share in doing; and two is begin on a path of oversight. It is not surprising at all to hear my friends on the other side of the aisle have such a difficult concept with this idea of doing oversight over something the President proposes. They have done no oversight over how the money has been spent over there, and so as a result, we found out in the first month of the Democratic Congress that a $12 billion pallet of currency was delivered to Iraq and promptly disappeared. We had hearings last week that showed that even Mr. Bremer and officials on the ground from the administration have no idea where $12 billion disappeared to. So it is not surprising that my Republic friends have a difficult time figuring out what it is we are doing here. We are doing oversight, and we are going to do more of it. We are doing oversight over the equipment that the troops had. This weekend there were stories coming outside of Iraq that Iranian-built armor-piercing projectiles were being used in roadside bombs. It reminded us again that the troops had been sent there without sufficient hardware, without sufficient protective gear, without sufficient armor-plated vehicles to be able to do their job. We are going to do oversight on that as well. And I have to say that as part of the oversight that we are doing today, we are doing oversight on how the troops are being used. And let us not kid ourselves. The troops have done a remarkable job. They have done just about every single thing we have asked. They brought down a dictator. They set up a trial. They allowed a government to be stood up. They built roads and bridges. They have done an extraordinary job, and we in this House support them in that work. But now what is their mission? Their mission is essentially to stand in the middle of a shooting match of the worst order. It is not over a patch of land. It is not a shooting match over what a border is going to be. It is not a shooting match even over oil. It is a shooting match of the most ingrained type between Shia and Sunni that goes back hundreds of years. Are our troops going to solve that conflict with 20,000 troops or 40,000 troops? I don't believe so. And even worse, I believe it is an untenable mission to be giving them. They are essentially in a schoolyard where everyone wants to fight. And I have to say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, over and over and over again today I have heard this dynamic being described that if we were to leave or to support this resolution, we would let down our allies, we would embolden our enemies, and we would betray the Iraqi people. In fact, this policy does all of those things. Let us look at it. What does this policy say to our allies? Well, it says to our allies in Afghanistan we are not going to devote the resources there necessary for you to do the job. This isn't an abstract notion. You can watch it happen every single day. So long as we have 140,000 troops or 130,000 troops in this shooting match largely in Baghdad, we are watching as Afghanistan slips further and further back into the hands of the Taliban. We have heard, for example, from our so-called ally the Saudis, and what have they said? They have been most telling. They said recently, well, to you, the citizens of the United States, if you pull your troops out, we are going to be forced to put resources in to support our Sunni brethren. So the Saudis have said if the American troops leave, we are going to have to jump in on the side of our Sunni brethren in Baghdad. What does that say? What does that say? That says they will jump into a blood-letting, but they won't come in now to help us stabilize Baghdad. They have argued, essentially, that the only reason they are not involved is our troops are. Some ally. Some message we are sending to our ally Saudi Arabia. What they are saying is, You had better keep your boys dying because otherwise we are going to have to send ours in. That is exactly what we want. We want them to send they resources in. We want them to take ownership of this. And the same is true with Egypt and other allies in the region. They have said to us, You had better keep doing what you are doing, Mr. President. We are getting exactly the wrong message. And I have also heard my colleagues speak frequently today about emboldening our enemies. Well, it seems like just about anything Democrats propose is emboldening our enemies. Let us take a closer look at this. Is Iran truly upset about what is going on in Iraq? Are the Iranians truly wringing their hands every day saying, Boy oh boy, I hope the United States does not pull out of there? No. They have never been happier with this existing policy. Their worst elements, their worst Shia elements, are crossing over the border practically at will, joining the fight. The President of the United States himself has said it. I have heard people here on the floor say it. They like this confrontation that is going on. They want it to be like this. But they are happy for another reason, and I say this particularly to my friends on the other side of the aisle. They are happy because I am truly concerned about the threat that Iran poses not only to the United States but to the world. Do you think we are in a position right now with our military stretched so thin that if we needed to act against Iran, we could? No. Our engagement in Baghdad, adding more and more and more troops, has stretched us thinner and thinner and thinner. And the most happy people in the world are the tyrants in Iran because they know they can get away with just about anything. And if you think I am wrong about that, take a look at the war back last year on the northern border of Israel. Hezbollah felt completely unencumbered, which is essentially, as we all know, an agent of Iran. They felt completely unencumbered again just to attack a democracy in the region because they knew that all of us were stretched entirely too thin to be able to respond. So this notion that we are going to send the wrong message to our enemies is completely wrong. Do you know what would send the right message to our enemies, I say to my colleagues? You take some of those troops out of Baghdad, you put them on the Iranian border. That is how you send them a message. You get them out of the shooting match, but you keep them in the neighborhood. You keep them right on the border of Iran and you say, We don't need 140,000, but we are going to make sure you don't export any more problems. We are going to seal off the schoolyard. And, finally, I have heard it said that this will be an abandonment of the Iraqi people. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there is no element here that I am more disappointed with, and I think I speak virtually for all of us. Our troops are in there trying to create stability in Iraq, and for some reason, overwhelming numbers of Iraqis say that they think it is okay to shoot at our troops. It is outrageous. It is outrageous. Our troops are in there trying as best they can to build this country, put it back together, and the Iraqi people over and over again are saying, You know what, it is kind of okay when I read stories about snipers shooting at our troops. The Iraqi people have to have a moment where they confront the reality of the situation. Everyone agrees, I think, and whenever I say that, I hear someone come to the floor and think that everything is going just fine in Iraq, but just about everyone agrees that the Iraqi people themselves ultimately have to take responsibility for their own country. Are we creating an environment that is more likely to happen or less likely to happen? Well, there is no sign that it is happening; so the de facto response to my own question is that it is not happening. But I would argue that every time we stand up and put additional troops in, we push the Iraqi people further from the point where they have to confront that they have to take control. Might it be messy? Yes. Might it even be bloody? Yes. But one thing is for sure: up to now the Iraqi people have simply said, We are not going to. We don't have to. We have got our boys from the United States of America, and now we have another 20, 30, 40,000 that are going to be rolling into town. My colleagues, I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle complain, and I have to say, present company excluded, it sounded a little like whining most of the day. I have heard, well, we need more choices. I have heard we need more bills. I have heard we need more language. There are going to be plenty of opportunities to confront these issues, but today my colleagues have to confront the choice in front of them. Sometimes in this job you have to say ``yea'' or ``nay.'' And this week what you have to say ``yea'' or ``nay'' on is a resolution that is exquisite in its simplicity. It says two things and two things only. It says we support the troops. We are going to keep them safe. We are going to keep them secure. We are going to do anything that they need to show our support. And, two, we disapprove of the way the President wants to increase the number of troops going there. That is it. You are going to get to vote on other things later on because we are not done. Many of us believe very strongly that we need major tactical changes, and I know Mr. Murtha has a plan. The Blue Dog Caucus has a plan for more transparency. There are going to be plenty of choices. You are going to get oversight. I know it has been years, I say to my colleagues, since you have seen any around here, but you are going to get it. But today what we have is a simple proposition. It is the same proposition that is being discussed in coffee shops, in church socials, in corner stores all around this country, and that is: Do we support what the President is doing by increasing our engagement rather than reducing it? That is what this is about. And all of the foot stamping and all of the complaining and all of the whining, I want another bill, I want different language, I want to deal with something different, I want a hug, well, for the time being this is the choice that you are confronted with. If you believe that this surge is the right policy, you have a simple vote. You can vote ``no.'' If you believe that you don't want to support the troops, and there is no one like that, you can vote ``no.'' But this resolution is the beginning of finally starting to do what the American people are thirsting for, and that is this Chamber is a place where we stand up and say whether we support these things or not. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. WEINER. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. First of all, let me just say your eloquent explanation of this amendment, perhaps you weren't here for all the discussion. We accept the amendment.

Mr. WEINER. If I could just further answer your question, because you asked a good question about the schedule; the gentleman asked a good question about the schedule. I just want, on behalf of all of us on this side of the aisle, to express our apologies for making you all work so hard. It wasn't our intention to inconvenience anybody. We are just trying to get the people's work done.

Mr. WEINER. Sure.

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

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