Date: 2005-03-15
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to this bill. One of the solemn honors that I have had as a Member of Congress is to visit our soldiers who have been wounded in Iraq. I have visited with them at Walter Reed Army Hospital here in Washington and at the Veterans Hospital at Palo Alto. California. It is rewarding and shocking to meet our troops under these circumstances. Theirs are the stories of courage under fire. Their wounds are almost unimaginable to those of us who are not sharing their world of combat. The treatment that they receive from the moment they are attended to on the battlefield. taken to battlefield hospitals. transported to Germany and stabilized and brought home to the United States for specialized care and rehabilitation is a tribute to our magnificent military and veterans medical system. Each time that I have left these brave men and women. I have had to confront my. role as a policymaker and whether or not I have done all I can to serve and protect them in their mission. I voted not to go to war in Iraq because I believed at the time of the vote. and I believe now. that the oase had not been made. that the intelligence we had did not support what the Bush administration was telling the American people was the threat that we faced from Iraq. Tragically. since that time. it has become clear that there was not only no imminentthreat to the United States from Iraq. but there was no plan for what our troops would encounter after the war was supposedly won. The duty this government owed to its soldiers when they were sent into combat was not met: not in the justification. not in the preparation and not in the planning. Our obligation to them was simply not met. All Americans now understand that the reasons that the Bush administration gave to go to war in Iraq were not true. The evidence did not exist. In spite of the advice of many in our military. in our State Department and among our allies. the administration remained determined to wage a war in Iraq. In short. the administration failed to be truthful with the American people and with the Congress. As a result. since the first day of that war. Americans have been paying 90 percent. of the costs and suffering 95 percent of the casualties beyond those of the Iraqi people. Today. we are being asked to vote for another $81 billion for the war in Iraq. This is the third supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq since the war started. totaling nearly $200 billion. and without a change in course. the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost an additional- $458 billion over the next 10 years. Astoundingly. this additional request has no change in strategy forthcoming from the President to address the absence of control and continued violence against our troops and the Iraqi people. The President and his advisers cling to the idea that America is just one major battle away from victory. or that with just one more capture of a significant insurgent leader we will break the back of the opposition to our occupation and to the formation of a democratic government in Iraq. Those who continue to attack our troops and the Iraq people have beeii described in many different ways as the war has dragged on. First. we were told the resistance was under the command and control of Saddam Hussein. Then they were described as disaffected Baathists. and later they were just a bunch of "bitter enders." We were told that a heavy battle attack of Fallujah would break the back of the resistance. What happened instead was that we made 300.000 people homeless by flattening their city with little or no impact on the resistance. In fact. the violence rapidly spread to other major cities. While it has become clearer to those with both diplomatic and military experience that we must now develop a new strategy for success. it is resisted by the very same top command in the White House and the Pentagon who have made so many errors and so many miscalculations that have continued to place so many of our military in .circumstances in which they are not able to prevail. The opposition to change comes from the very same people that failed to carry out the due diligence to properly plan and prepare for the war and its aftermath. Their failure to anticipate. plan. and train for the mission that our soldiers were faced with was a failure of the first duty of care owed by the Commander in Chief and the Defense Secretary to our troops. the duty to provide for the protection of our forces. This was not done. and the results have been thousands of wounded and killed. at the same time that the Pentagon resists change and fails to transform its approach to fighting terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. So. today. nearly 3 years after 9/11. we still have no comprehensive policy to support the war on terror declared by the President. As a result. both our Nation and our troops continue to face an unacceptable level of threat and danger. Today. as we consider this request for supplemental appropriations. the dishonesty by the Bush administration We support our troops by arguing against continues. the Presidents budget that dishonors our vetThis request itself is dishonest. It is erans by undermining the system of care and labeled as an emergency. as if somehow benefits they need and deserve. the administration did not know what But we do not honor our troops simply by money it was going to need for the war approving yet another allegedly emergency bill in this years budget or in next years that offers no promise of success in an area budget. of the world where success is not just critical. Yet we know the war has been cost- it is literally a matter of life and death. ing between 5 and $7 billion a month We can provide for the needs of our troops and is likely to continue to do so under in a bill that also provides for success in this the current policy. war. Tragically. that bill is not before us today.