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“PRESIDENT BUSH'S SUPPLEMENTAL $200 BILLION REQUEST IS A STEP IN THE WRONG DIRECTION” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H12209 on Oct. 30, 2007.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S SUPPLEMENTAL $200 BILLION REQUEST IS A STEP IN THE
WRONG DIRECTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, October 22, 2007, President Bush requested an additional $46 billion for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is on top of the original $150.5 billion requested at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2008, bringing the total amount requested to $196.4 billion, more than 10 times the original 50 to $60 billion cost estimated by the White House in 2002.
A Congressional Budget Office, CBO, estimate that was released on October 24 determined that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost more than $2.4 trillion, amounting to nearly $8,000 for every American through the next decade. Notably, the war in Iraq accounts for about 70 percent of the $2.4 trillion cost estimate.
Meanwhile, the administration is satisfied with continuing our military operations in Iraq, functioning on borrowed time and largely borrowed money. The result is a limited budget to advance our priorities at home, like aiding the increasingly unstable real estate market and providing adequate health care for our children.
Mr. Speaker, the war in Iraq continues to be mismanaged. As a senior member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I received testimony from Secretary Rice on October 25 regarding corruption in Iraq, private contractors and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Unfortunately, I must say that I walked away with very few answers.
There were very few, if any answers at all, for why President Maliki issued an executive order to stay the corruption investigation of his cousin, the Minister of Transportation.
There was no answer for why individuals in Secretary Rice's own department, such as Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, have described U.S. anticorruption programs as lacking a strategic plan and corruption levels amounting to a
``secondary insurgency'' that threatens to undermine U.S. and Iraqi efforts to build a stable democracy.
There was no answer for why, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report, the United States Embassy in Baghdad,
``does not have a firm plan or strategy for addressing the next steps in the development of the system,'' despite the substantial U.S. investment.
There was no answer for why Secretary Rice has permitted contractors in Iraq, such as Blackwater, to escape justice for crimes they have allegedly committed, blaming it on simply a hole in the United States law, while providing them with the stamp of impunity.
And finally, Mr. Speaker, Secretary Rice provided us with no answer for why, despite the United States spending over $300 million in taxpayer dollars during the course of 2 years to improve the capacity of Iraq's ministries. And with $255 million more sought for next year, progress has been stalled, not only by poor security, but also by pervasive corruption, a shortage of competent personnel and sectarian and political control of appointments.
Yet, despite all of these shortcomings, despite State Department's lack of ability to forestall corruption in the Iraqi Government, despite its mismanagement of paramilitary contractors, and despite the President's overall failed policy in Iraq, the President has come to Congress once again in the 11th hour requesting billions of dollars more in funding for the wars both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Speaker, under the presentment clause of the United States Constitution, Congress, having the power of the purse, has the responsibility to execute fiscal constraint and fully investigate such war funding requests, not to act with a rubber stamp, especially when the President refuses to provide adequate health care funding for our Nation's neediest children.
Therefore, as we consider the President's war budget request, we must listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people and challenge President Bush to shift from failed policies in Iraq to a strategy that is fundamentally diplomatic and weighs heavily on the assistance of the international community. We owe this to over 3,800 brave soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq to date. We also owe this to our hardworking constituents whose tax dollars have in part continued to fund the war in Iraq.
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