Iraq Supplemental and Troops
IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL AND TROOPS -- (House of Representatives - January 25, 2005)
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burgess). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, today we learn the Bush administration plans to ask Congress for another $80 billion in emergency funds for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This $80 billion comes on top of an additional $200 billion that we have spent in Iraq since the beginning of the war 2 years ago.
Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration never leveled with the American people about the kind of sacrifices they would have to make in order to fight this war. You will remember that before the war, President Bush and his war cabinet said the sacrifices would be minimal. They falsely claimed the majority of the war costs could be paid for by the royalties Iraq received on the sale of its oil. Nearly 2 years have passed since the beginning of the war, and we have yet to see one cent from the sale of Iraqi oil.
You would think my Republican colleagues, particularly the ones who repeatedly come to the well of the floor to rail against the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Federal Government, would be demanding some accountability from the administration about the cost of the war. You would think they would be calling for congressional hearings demanding to hear from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on exactly where the Pentagon spent the $200 billion Congress already appropriated for the war.
Unfortunately, Republicans have abdicated their oversight responsibility and are giving the Bush administration a free ride on the enormous miscalculations we have all witnessed in the Iraq war.
Mr. Speaker, during World War II, then Senator Harry Truman created a war investigating committee charged with exposing any fraud or mismanagement in our Nation's war efforts in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. Truman was, of course, a Democratic Senator serving in a Democratic Senate majority, overseeing the Democratic administration of President Franklin Roosevelt. Truman never worried about the fact he was investigating a President of his own party. He refused to allow politics to get in the way of good government; and as a result, his investigations saved the American taxpayer more than $15 billion.
Now, that was a lot of money back in the 1940s, and it is still a lot of money today. But I wonder just how much more money we could save the American taxpayer if congressional Republicans took their oversight responsibility seriously.
Where is the Republican Party's Harry Truman? Why are congressional Republicans so worried about asking the Bush administration for specifics on where it is spending the $200 billion Congress has already appropriated? Could it be that congressional Republicans are afraid of what they would uncover if they looked too closely into the administration's handling of the war?
The Bush administration has awarded Vice President Cheney's old company, Halliburton, billions of dollars of no-bid contracts since the beginning of the war. Despite the lack of congressional oversight, we discovered that Halliburton was charging for meals it never served our troops. Obviously, that is a waste of America's taxpayers' money. How many other examples of fraud and abuse are out there?
Mr. Speaker, I opposed giving President Bush the authority to begin this war. I also opposed the $87 billion emergency supplemental because I believed the administration had to explain to those of us in Congress exactly how it planned to spend the money.
The days of handing a blank check to the Bush administration should be over. It is time for Republicans to realize that our Founding Fathers gave Congress oversight responsibilities for a reason. We are not here to be lap dogs to any administration. As we prepare to debate another Iraq supplemental, I would hope congressional Republicans would keep that in mind.
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