Mr. Speaker, certainly the last 2 weeks we have seen a great deal written and spoken about the conflict in the country of Iraq. The middle of this month we will see the third popular election held in the country of Iraq this year.
Stay the course or pull out now, these seem to be the two recurrent themes debated in this House and on the editorial pages across the country.
Our military action was really never popular with the press here at home, and it has been portrayed in the most negative possible fashion for the past 2 1/2 years. The result, predictably, is declining popular support for military activity in Iraq in this country and the very real possibility that the United States will lose its political will to complete the mission in Iraq. This would be truly tragic as we are so tantalizingly close to success in this effort.
I was not a Member of Congress when the vote was taken to provide the President the necessary authority for military action in Iraq. I do believe it was the right decision, and I believe I would have voted affirmatively had I been here. I do not recall ever believing that it would be easy, but I do recall believing that it was justified and necessary.
When the House and the Senate considered and approved the resolution authorizing the President to use military force to bring Saddam Hussein in compliance with the United Nations resolutions, several strong reasons were made for the foundation of this decision: weapons of mass destruction, to be sure; a gathering threat; violation of the no-fly zone; targeting our aircraft; endangering our pilots; violations of U.N. sanctions; violations of the terms of surrender from the first Gulf War in 1991; failure to account for Kuwaitis taken prisoner in the first Gulf War; failure to make restitution to the country of Kuwait; mass murder; mass graves; and the only world leader to have ever used weapons of mass destruction in an offensive fashion.
These were the details of the resolution supported by a bipartisan majority of Members of Congress. The policy of the United States as laid out by law in 1998, passed by the Congress, signed by the President was to effect regime change in the country of Iraq. In 2002, by approving this resolution, the Congress and President Bush were finally enforcing this long-standing U.S. foreign policy goal in an environment radically changed by September 11, 2001, and the gathering threat that Iraq and other rogue nations represent to the safety and the security of the American people.
The failure to find warehouses stockpiling weapons of mass destruction has now somehow morphed into allegations that the President misled the American public.
Opponents of this war argue that President Bush and other leaders misled the American people through dishonorable misrepresentations of the Iraqi intelligence; but those allegations are, in fact, themselves lies, refuted and discredited; and this type of representation has only emboldened our enemies to target the United States personnel overseas. Debating how the war has been executed is a debate that we should be having in this country, but attempting to change the facts in the lead-up to the war is disingenuous and has more pernicious ramifications than temporary political advantage.
I have been to Iraq four times in the past 2 years. It is my impression that one day the big story will be that the press missed the big story in Iraq. What you see in the country of Iraq and what is reported by the press in this country are two completely different worlds.
Every time I have been there, I have been struck by how much progress has been made by American troops. Each time I have traveled to Iraq, I have been moved by the dedication of our military and their commitment to the completion of this mission.
My first visit to the Baghdad airport in August of 2003 left me thinking that the place looked like the city dump. During visits in January and August of this year, the airport was a clean environment, with obvious evidence of commercial aviation having resumed.
This is a picture of the Baghdad power plant in August of 2003. This is a rusted, burned up generator that Saddam Hussein had charged his engineers with keeping running under pain of death.
Contrast that to August of this year, 2005. This is a generator in the city of Kirkuk called the ``mother of all generators.'' This generator was taken across the desert at great risk to our Marines and has been installed in the city of Kirkuk. It is now providing about 12 percent of Iraq's generating power, truly an amazing success story by our Marines. I do not recall having read about it in the press back home here.
Another picture, flying over the town of Kirkuk, and I was taking pictures randomly out the window of our Black Hawk helicopter and did not notice until later, there are two small figures here. One is waving at the helicopter; and if you look very closely and I have done this, she is waving with all five fingers but, very importantly, next to her is a small male child, probably her brother. Think of this, Mr. Speaker, in the city of Kirkuk, prior to our taking out Saddam Hussein, this sister could not mention the fact she had a brother. In fact, her family probably has a crawl space in the wall of this house where the boy could be hidden when Saddam's conscriptionists came through town.
It truly is an amazing transformation in that country. We are very close to having the third and final election for this year. We are close to having sufficient Iraqi forces trained and equipped to participate in their own security operations. Our soldiers are very close to having completed their mission. Congress should not desert them now.
