Iraq War Resolution

Floor Speech

IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION -- (House of Representatives - February 14, 2007)

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Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon among a sea of voices that I quickly confess I do not understand. Now, some of them are my friends and some of them are very good people and I don't want to make any mistake about it. I understand the pressures they are under. I understand what it is like when you have major news media outlets who will not even take individuals who attack innocent civilians in the United States and destroy our property and they won't even call them terrorists. I understand the pressure when they control much of the media that we get across the country.

I also understand what it is like, Mr. Speaker, when we have Web sites that are filled with hate, that spew poison out throughout all of our congressional districts, and I understand the pressure that we get when we have people who don't want to listen but simply want to scream, who stand outside and protest at our offices. I understand those pressures. What I don't understand is the response that I am seeing here today on this floor.

Just a few years ago, I had the privilege of traveling with then Speaker DENNY HASTERT to the 60th anniversary of one of the greatest military achievements the United States has ever seen, and that was the invasion of Normandy. Almost every historian agrees it was the battle that literally saved the world. It was of particular importance to me because my dad had died just a few months before and he was there during World War II. Mr. Speaker, I sat that day in the sun among a sea of heroes who didn't come up to the microphone and pound the desk and they didn't speak in shrill voices. They sat with quiet silence because they had done the hard work and they had literally saved the world. And after that ceremony, I had the honor of just walking with them, in the same presence with them, as we walked down on the beach at Omaha Beach and stood there literally speechless as the military historians first told us that that was a victory that didn't necessarily have to be a victory, that we could have easily lost that battle. And if we had lost Omaha Beach, we would have lost that invasion. If we had lost that invasion, Germany would have signed a treaty and Europe would have looked much different than it looks today.

And they told us about the guns that were pointed up and down Omaha Beach, huge cannons and the machine guns locked on the front that created virtually killing fields for our young men that would have to come on that beachhead.

And then, Mr. Speaker, they told us about the very first Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, who had warned against doing exactly what we are doing today when he said this: ``Do not have efforts that end in the production of nothing but paper, but we must contrive to produce action, not paper, if our goal is victory, not defeat.''

Mr. Speaker, they described how when General Eisenhower, one of the most beloved generals of our time, when he was strategizing that great vision, his own generals disagreed with him on many issues. In fact, some of them threatened to quit because there were different strategies. Some said don't go today, some said go today, some said do it a different way.

But then as they watched that invasion, greatest victory of all times, let me tell you what happened early that morning. Our airborne men, some of them were dropped into the flooded lowlands, and they drowned without a bullet ever being fired on them because we dropped them in the wrong places. Some of them were dropped in the midst of German positions, and they were captured or they were killed.

Less than a half of the 82nd Airborne's gliders ever reached their assigned landing fields. By early morning, 4,000 men of the 82nd and 60 percent of their equipment was unaccounted for.

The high seas that day swamped many of our boats, and we lost our radios in the bottom of the sea, and only three out of 16 of our bulldozers survived. But what was worse, in the first 4 minutes we had 97 percent casualties on that beach. The Germans were elated.

Mr. Speaker, as I have listened to this debate, I could only think what would happen if the leadership controlling this floor had been on the command ships sitting off of Omaha Beach, because you and I know what would have happened. One by one, they would could came up to the podium, they would have grabbed a microphone, they would have pounded, and they would have looked at all the things that happened. At the end of all that, do you know what it would have resulted in?

It would have had a note that they would have passed to the 29th Division, and those young boys on that beach, some of them 17, 18, 19 years old, who were hunkered down on that beach in the sand, some of them paralyzed with fear not knowing what to do. That note would have said, we love you, we support you, we just want to let you know we disagree with the action that you are taking. We don't know what to tell you, we just disagree with the action that got you here.

But fortunately, that was not the leadership that governed that day. The leadership that governed that day was people like Brigadier General Cota who went up and down that beach and he looked at those young boys and he said, essentially, don't look at the beach. Don't look at the bullets that are flying here at you, because if you do you are going to die on this beach and you are going to lose everything you believed in.

What he told them to do, he said, Look at that hill. We have got to take that hill. He said, Rangers, lead the way. Americans, lead the way. You know what? They took that hill, and they won the greatest military victory in the history of this country. As a result, they saved the world.

Mr. Speaker, I hope and I pray that we will continue to birth voices that say don't look down, don't look at the mistakes, look at that hill. We have got to take this hill, and we have got to save the world from this threat of terrorism that so threatens us.

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