Nothing Conservative About War in Iraq

June 15, 2004
United States House of Representatives

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the biggest news story concerned a car bombing in Baghdad which killed 13 people. Almost all major news outlets reported that immediately following this bombing there was a large anti-American demonstration by Iraqi citizens. They somehow were blaming the bombing on the U.S. and they burned an American flag.

A few weeks ago, just before the release of the Iraqi prison pictures, CNN released a poll of 3,000 Iraqis. That poll found that only 19 percent of the people of Iraq view us as liberators, while more than 70 percent viewed us as occupiers.

CNN found that 78 percent of Iraqis had an unfavorable view of the U.S.

Even worse, at about that same time in another poll taken before the release the prison pictures, the survey found that 82 percent of Iraqis had an unfavorable view of the U.S. This poll was taken by the Coalition Provisional Authority, our own government. In other words, our own poll. It said 82 percent of Iraqis had a bad opinion of the U.S.

This is a country, Mr. Speaker, where we have spent almost $200 billion in the last couple of years. This is a country for which we have done more than any other country has done for another nation in the entire history of the world.

When I led a delegation to Iraq at the end of January, we were proudly told by one general he would have 110,000 Iraqis working for him, or, more accurately, for our taxpayers by July 1, and he controlled only about one-eighth of the population there. Apparently the only Iraqis who have a favorable view of the U.S. are the ones we have working for us.

These people do not appreciate what we have done and are doing for them, and because we have such a huge national debt and such a huge deficit we are borrowing all these billions we are spending there. Some try to say that only a small portion, about $20 billion, is being spent to rebuild Iraq. This is false, or at least very misleading.

Most of what the military is doing there, building roads, bridges, schools, setting up free health care clinics, fixing airports and telephone and power and water systems, would be called foreign aid in any other country. In fact, our operation in Iraq is the most massive foreign aid program in history.

Saddam Hussein was an evil man, but his total military budget was just two-tenths of 1 percent of ours. He was no real threat to us. Harlan Ullman, a columnist for the Washington Times, who started out favoring this war, wrote a few days ago: ``Compared to Hitler and the might of the Third Reich, Saddam was a relatively minor villain. The original reasons for war; namely, weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda, have drifted out of sight.''

Anyone who says it is isolationist to oppose this war is resorting to childish name-calling, rather than a mature discussion of the issue on its merits, or lack thereof.

We should be friends with all nations and help out, in fact lead the way, during humanitarian crises, but we should not get involved in every political, ethnic or religious dispute around the world. This just creates more enemies for us and makes terrorism more likely.

We need to follow a foreign policy of enlightened neutrality that relies on war only as a last resort when there is no other reasonable alternative.

At the first of last week, the Chicago Tribune had a story about a young soldier who had just been killed in Iraq. Just a few days earlier he had called his mother and told her, ``This is not our war. We should not be here.''

When our handover of sovereignty comes on June 30, we should make this a real handover, not just in name only. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the main architect of the war, told the Committee on Armed Services a few months ago we would be in Iraq for 10 years.

I hope not.

Some big companies and some military leaders want us to stay there that long because it means more money for them, but this decision should not be dictated by money. We should declare victory, Mr. Speaker, and begin a phased, orderly withdrawal. We should slowly bring our boys and girls home. We should all hope and pray that no more are killed or maimed for life.

This should not be our war.

Columnist Georgie Ann Geyer wrote recently: ``Critics of the war against Iraq have said since the beginning of the conflict that Americans, still strangely complacent about overseas wars being waged by a minority in their name, will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home or one that seeks empire across the globe.''

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing conservative about this war in Iraq. We need to start putting our own people first once again and turn Iraq back over to the Iraqis.