Date: 2006-09-12
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Madam Speaker. it is a privilege and an honor to join my 30Something col.leagues for this next hour to talk about the new direction for America. that Democrats want to take this country in. and what we would implement were we to have the opportunity to take the majority after November 7 of this year. We have been talking about the Republican leaderships security failures and the fact that while they talk real nice about how they are committed to homeland security and improving our security measures nationally. that is all it appears to be amounting to. is talk. Let us walk through. my colleagues. what the reality is in terms of where Republicans have taken us oh security. Let us look at the Iraq war. Right now. under the Bush administrations policy of "stay the course." our Republican colleagdies have essentially been continuing to be a rubber stamp for a "stay the course" policy. even though that has strained our military. cost nearly 2.700 United States lives. and diverted attention and resources away from the real war on terror. There has been article after article. Madam Speaker. that has come out that has clearly indicated. and the American people know this. that the war on terror is not going on in Iraq. It is going on in pockets throughout the world where. if we actually devoted our resources and our intelligence capabilities to the true war on terror and shored up our borders and made sure they were not as porous as they are. then we would be able to feel more secure and I wouldnt get questions like I got yesterday all day when I participated in 9/11 commemoration events: Are we really safer? People are really concerned. They are concerned in their hearts. Mr. DELAHUNT. They want to feel safer. They want the answer to that question to be yes. but they know that the answer is not yes. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are rolling out the same tired baloney. Mr. RYAN. about how they are going to be the ones that can be counted on for homeland security and protecting Americans in this hour of strife. Well. that is not the reality when we look at the facts. Look at the Iraq war. We could not be in worse shape. Look at the war on terrorism and there isnt anyone that could examine the war on terrorism and say that we are winning right now. that we have been successful in our fight. We have not captured or killed Osama bin Laden. Terror groups and the number of global terror attacks are on the rise. Five years after 9/11 we have still failed to capture or kill bin Laden. And in a survey of Americas top national security experts. 84 percent of them said that America is not winning the war on terror. What we are calling for. Mr. DELAHUNT. is to finish the job in Afghanistan. which we should never have abandoned in the first place. The Taliban insurgency is on the rise. It is getting. worse and worse there. Mr. DELAHUNT. reviewed that in the last hour. Democrats would double the size of our special forces. increase our human intelligence capabilities. secure all loose nuclear materials by 2010. and implement our real security agenda. which those are all components of. When it comes to homeland security. we would implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. unlike the Bush administration and this Republican Congress who have gotten D and F grades by the 9/11 Commission. We would implement their recommendations and fund them. This is a really interesting fact. Mr. MEEK. If Democratic amendments. like that which we detailed in the last hour had been adopted. there would actually be 6.600 more Border Patrol agents. 14.000 more detention beds. and 2.700 more immigration enforcement agents along our borders than now exists. We only check 6 percent of the containers that come through our ports. Most air cargo that goes in the belly of our passenger airplanes is still not being screened. and there is still not a unified terror watch list for screening airline passengers. What we are doing is having people remove their shoes before they go through a metal detector and now we make them throw away their Coke. If we are resting the sum total of our national security on those two things. then no wonder people ask the question like I got all day yesterday: Are we really safer? I wasnt able to answer that question.yesterday the way I really wanted to be able to. Mr. DELAHUNT and Mr. MEEK.