Statement on Iraq War Resolution

June 15, 2006

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution before us today, despite the fact that it barely touches on the war in Iraq, which is the stated purpose of our debate, and makes some claims I do not agree with. While I will vote yes, I want to be absolutely clear that I am doing so to emphatically support our troops and the bravery they display every day in fighting the war on terror. I did not vote to authorize the Iraq War and continue to believe it was a mistake. I do not agree with parts of this resolution that misstate the original administration arguments for invading Iraq. The heart of this discussion needs to be that the Bush administration has been almost totally inept in its planning and prosecution of the war and occupation of Iraq.

Time and again, the Bush administration has been wrong. Before invading Iraq, we were told that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States. After attending the briefings provided by the administration, I did not feel that administration officials made this case, and the lack of weapons of mass destruction certainly undercuts this argument. Even worse, we were given a stream of incorrect assumptions of the costs of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz testified before a Senate Committee and predicted that the monetary cost of the war to the United States would not exceed $2 billion. Including money to be appropriated this year, we are approaching $400 billion, and continue to spend $8.1 billion every month in Iraq. Wolfowitz also said Iraq had no history of ethnic strife.

It is important to remember that the Bush administration assertions were not conventional wisdom at the time. Both then-Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, and then-Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey, soon left their positions after publicly stating, respectively, that the war would take large numbers of troops and hundreds of billions of dollars to prosecute.

Further, it quickly became clear that the planning of the occupation of Iraq was woefully inadequate, placing our soldiers in increasing danger. Stories of inadequate supplies of bulletproof vests and armor for humvees documented this fact. The outspoken concern of former generals in regard to these preparations further underscored the problems. The intensity of the insurgency caught the administration by surprise.

The United States has allocated $50 billion to private contractors for reconstruction and rebuilding efforts in Iraq since the beginning of the war. Nine billion dollars in reconstruction funds are unaccounted for, while the Defense Contract Audit Agency has deemed that $1.47 billion spent by the Halliburton Corporation was excessive or insufficiently documented. Oil production is at 2.2 million barrels per day - down from 2.6 million barrels per day prior to the war.

The resolution we are debating also says “…the terrorists have declared Iraq to be the central front in their war against all who oppose their ideology.” This is true only because we gave them the opportunity to do so. Iraq clearly was not the central front before the U.S. invasion – another unfortunate outcome of poor planning.  

I continue to believe that part of our decision making process concerning how to move forward in Iraq must include an analysis of how we got there. It is not enough to say that since we are there, we have to make the best of it. I agree that we cannot just walk away, and do not support a date certain for our exit, but we still do not have any framework for evaluating our progress there. While the death of Al Zarqawi is great news, and it seems that Iraqi security forces are taking on more responsibility, does anyone really believe that in one year, or two years, or even five years, that Iraq will be able to defend itself?

I said at the outset of this war that the United States was going to pay the vast majority of its costs, in both lives and dollars, and this has clearly been the case. We must reengage the international community to take on more of the burdens of the occupation, and seek to bring our troops home as soon as possible.

Today, I join my colleagues in celebrating the extraordinary efforts and accomplishments of our troops. But I do not celebrate our country's undertaking of the invasion and occupation of Iraq . It was a bad decision followed by numerous other bad decisions, and while I hope it ends well, we will feel the ramifications in many ways for years to come.