Progress in Iraq

PROGRESS IN IRAQ -- (House of Representatives - September 21, 2005)

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Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa and the gentleman from Pennyslvania, also the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) who joined us, also. I also want to thank you for your leadership, taking us, this particular delegation, the delegation that you took us on took us to different parts of Iraq that other delegations had not gone to, especially the southern part of Iraq.

I would like to talk about three things that are really what I would call snapshots of this particular trip that I think are important to share with us here today. The first one, of course, has to do with the reconstruction projects. Sometimes I believe the media does not give it enough time to focus on the reconstruction work, the schools, the clinics, the hospitals, the electrical plants, the water plants that are built, those types of projects that really have changed the daily lives of the Iraqi people. When you are talking about a child that for the first time sees a board that you can actually get some sort of stick and write on, the blackboard, it is something they have seen for the first time, you are changing the lives of those young Iraqi children that will really make a big difference. I think you would agree with me that as we are able to get them educated, as we are able to see them, able to teach them the principles of democracy, the principles of being able to associate, that we really are making some changes that will transform not only Iraq but the Middle East and that will have a ripple effect to the other countries. I think you would agree with me on that particular point.

The other point that I would like to talk about is also the commitment of the Iraqi people. I think the gentleman from Pennyslvania did a great job when he talked about the Iraqi businesspeople, men and women. All they want to do is they want to be able to have a business, be able to secure a future for their children and for their families. They want to be able to send their children without having to worry about being blown up in some bomb going to school. They just want to make sure they have a normal life just like you and I and a lot of folks want to have. I think seeing that in those Iraqi businesspeople, both men and women, was something that was very enlightening.

The other thing that the gentleman from Pennyslvania touched upon which I think is important is the commitment of the judiciary. Having an independent judiciary is extremely important. If you recall when we were talking to the judges and we talked to three different judges, what we call the investigating judge, the judge that will do the trial work and, of course, the appellate judge, that gave us a pretty good sense of the work, the very difficult work that they have to do. I remember one of the comments they said. They said, all we want is we don't want the Iraqi politicians to get involved in our job. We want to make sure we do our job in an independent manner. That is important, because think about this. Those judges are probably targeted. They are people that do not want them to do their job. They do not want them to try Saddam, the evil dictator. They want to make sure that they don't do their job. But what they wanted, these jurists, all they wanted to do was to be free from any influences and do their job. I think that has to be admired, especially under those very difficult circumstances.

The last point that I want to mention is also the commitment of our soldiers. When you think about it, when we were at that hospital in Germany, we had soldiers that had been injured, soldiers that were hurting. When we asked them what they were thinking about, the first thing they wanted to say was, I want to get well so I can go back and take care of my buddies and be with my buddies and my friends. That is a commitment of the U.S. military, that even when they are down, they are ready to get back and go back in the field so they can finish their job and the mission because they believe in what they are doing there.

The last point that I want to bring about is, I have been in different town hall meetings and people asking us when are our American soldiers coming back. As I told them, and I think we all realize this, we need to finish the mission. We need to make sure that that country is stabilized, because we took out a power structure that was not taking care of its people, and we cannot leave that vacuum there. We need to make sure that we put a structure there, a structure of government, a constitution, the rule of law, the principles of a constitution so the people can follow the rule and the laws there. Once we establish that law there, then I think we can start bringing our soldiers home. I think the constitution and especially that election or that vote on October 15 is going to be extremely important. The elections on December 15 when they elect their representatives, that will be extremely important. But also the building up of the Iraqi military is important.

I remember when I started back here with the gentleman from Pennyslvania back in January, we asked the question of the Department of Defense, how many soldiers do we have, Iraqi soldiers? At that time I recall it was about 120,000. We were informed last month that they had about 180,000. Sometime by the end of the year they should have over 200,000 soldiers, Iraqi soldiers. As one of the generals told us, when one Iraqi soldier stands up, one American soldier can go ahead and sit down.

It means that the faster we can build the Iraqi military security forces then the faster they can start taking care of their homeland, and that is extremely important.

So I certainly want to thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) very, very much for the opportunity that he provided the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) to go down there to see, first of all, the morale of our soldiers, to see the commitment of the Iraqi business people, the jurists, the people that want to have normal lives so they can have a future there. Certainly I want to thank him for giving me an opportunity to see the reconstruction projects, the schools, the clinics, the hospitals, the water plants, the electrical plants, to make sure that they can have the basic utilities that sometimes we take for granted.

I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) for the opportunity and certainly the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), one of my freshmen colleagues, for having an opportunity where we are able to ask the questions and share our thoughts and ideas in a bipartisan way. Because, again, we want to do the best thing for our country, and we certainly want to do the best thing for the Iraqi country over there, also.

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Mr. CUELLAR. If the gentleman does not mind me interrupting for a second, I am from Laredo, Texas. It is one of the hottest places in the country, 104, 105, 107 degrees, but I have to say that being there at a place where it was 125 degrees, and I think that was a cool day compared to some of the days, that has to tell us that our soldiers have to go through very difficult times, but at the same time, the morale was good. They were doing their job, and they believed in what they were doing.

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Mr. CUELLAR. Just one minute more, and I thank my colleague for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker, and then I will let him close after this. Thanks to my colleague from Iowa and also to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

And my colleague was right, the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Dean Popps, we all had different conversations; and if you will recall, one of the conversations that we had was how do we get the free enterprise system to work? How do we get foreign investment to come in? It is hard to attract foreign investment to Iraq if they do not have a constitution or the basic laws, if they do not have some of the basic things we take for granted. In other words, who is the owner of the property? Where is the title to the property? How do you borrow money if you do not have collateral to go in?

So there is a lot of work that needs to be done. But I have a lot of faith in the Iraqi people, and especially having had that opportunity to talk to some of the business people and some of the folks there. It gave me the optimism and the faith that we are doing the right thing. And I think once we finish this mission, then we need to do everything to bring our soldiers back safely to the United States, the men and women from all across the United States.

And, of course, I have to say that Texas had a large delegation there from San Antonio, Laredo, a couple of the places, New Braunfels. But again I do want to say thank you to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) for this opportunity, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), and of course our doctor, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), who also went with us.

This is something that allows us to make better decisions here in Washington, being able to go and see what is happening in Iraq firsthand. So I thank my colleagues.

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