Time for Congress to Authorize War in Iraq and Syria

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, Mr. McGovern, for always being out front on this issue, and I am delighted to join him. As he said in many of his comments, the House has a responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American people.

I have the privilege to represent Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. I have over 70,000 retired veterans in the Third District of North Carolina. They are frustrated too. They believe sincerely that we must meet our constitutional responsibility and have this debate. And as you have said, Mr. McGovern, be for it or be against it, but have the debate. That is what is absolutely frustrating.

I joined you and Barbara Lee in a letter to Mr. Boehner in September. On August 27 we wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House asking him to please allow a debate on reauthorization of our involvement in the Middle East. Then on September 25 I wrote by myself to the Speaker of the House and asked again for the debate.

As you have stated, he did say publicly that because of the forthcoming election in 2014, that he thought it would be proper to have the debate in 2015, which you have already stated.

In 2015, the Speaker of the House said he was waiting for the President to submit the AUMF. As you have stated, the President did submit an AUMF, which many of us in both parties for different reasons were dissatisfied with, but it was the vehicle with which to go to the committee, to have the debate, and then to bring to the floor for a debate of the full House.

I quote frequently down in my district what James Madison said: ``The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.''

He didn't say the executive branch. He said the legislature, we in the House and we in the Senate. He didn't say the President. He said the legislature. If we don't bring it forward ourselves and if the Speaker wants the President to submit the AUMF--which he has already done, but now, as you stated, he is asking for another AUMF.

I do not understand. Our Nation has spent $1.7 trillion or $1.8 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. This is the first war in Iraq, not the continuation that we are into now. We are spending billions and billions of dollars every day. As you say, we have cut programs left and right. Even our veterans are concerned about their benefits being cut, and many of them did serve in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I take it upon myself to go to Walter Reed. I will go to my grave regretting that I voted to send our kids to Iraq, which was an unnecessary war initially, very unnecessary, but we went; 4,000 of our kids died, and 30,000 were wounded, and 100,000 Iraqis were killed. Anyway, that is history now. I know we can't change history, but, hopefully, we can learn from history.

The people are frustrated. I talk about this down in my district, Mr. McGovern. That is why I support this H. Con. Res. 55. I don't know how many billions of dollars we are expending in Afghanistan. I know that that is a different subject, but I want to make my point.

The billions of dollars that we are expending in Afghanistan is just so ironic that John Sopko, who is the Special Inspector General of Afghan Reconstruction, talks about how the waste, fraud, and abuse is ongoing. We have had marines from my district who were sent to Afghanistan to train the Afghans to be policemen and soldiers, and the people they were training turned the guns on them and killed them.

We are sending our young men and women into these Middle East countries and other countries, and we don't have an end to the plan. I am not a military person, but I have heard from military leaders. If you have a strategy, that means you have an end point to your strategy, but we don't have an end point to our strategy. That is why it is so important that we bring it up.

What you are trying to do is to force a debate on an AUMF to get this Congress to reengage itself. I am like you, sir. I get tired of funding all of these programs. In fact, on FOX today, they were talking about the weapons that we have given to the Iraqis, and their army is disbanding half the time. The weapons that we have given them--from machine guns to Humvees--are now in the hands of ISIS, and we are now bombing the equipment that we sent to the Iraqi Army. It does not make any sense.

Just a couple more points, and then I am going to yield back to you your time.

I want to thank you and Barbara Lee--and that is why I joined you--because I see the frustration of the marines down in Camp Lejeune. They have been deployed three, four, five, six, seven times, and they know that they might be called upon again, and they will go.

Just like all of those who serve in our services, they will go back and go back and go back; but, as you have said many times and as James Madison said, it is our responsibility, not the President's responsibility, to initiate these AUMFs.

I hope that the President will follow with what the Speaker has asked him for, which is for a second AUMF. If he sends a second AUMF, then there is no excuse that our leadership of the Republican Party has--and I am a Republican--to not bring it to the floor.

Mr. McGovern, I thank you again. I am pleased to have thought to join you in this effort. We need to meet our constitutional responsibility. I go to Walter Reed. I see the broken bodies, and I see the amputated legs.

I have signed over 11,000 letters to families in this country who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. I want to fulfill my duty as a Member of Congress and follow the Constitution and have the debates on spending blood and money in these foreign countries.

Thank you for allowing me to be a small part of this.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source