Our Greatest Resource

OUR GREATEST RESOURCE -- (House of Representatives - July 06, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

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Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chairman's leadership so much. We can all be proud of the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), as the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services. With his perspective as a veteran and with his devotion to the military, having a son serving in Iraq now, by his extraordinary leadership, I appreciate his coming and visiting Ft. Jackson last December. That was a highlight of my brief career here in Congress, to see the gentleman firsthand meeting with troops getting ready to deploy overseas. They were so honored to have the gentleman come and show his interest.

Mr. HUNTER. I want to thank the gentleman. I just want to remind the gentleman that my job here is lots of inside work and no heavy lifting.

It is interesting, we do a lot of things here that have some import and affect the ways our troops operate. But seeing those guys and ladies in 120 degree heat in Iraq and cheerful is an extraordinary experience.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. They can be cheerful because they know they have a chairman of the Committee on Armed Services who is personally interested in their safety and security and in promoting democracy and protecting the American people.

Additionally, I am very grateful to be here with my colleague from the north, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes).

I had an opportunity to visit with the gentleman at Ft. Bragg and visit with the Special Forces. It is so reassuring to see this new generation, to see how dedicated they are. Many of us had somewhat dismissed them as the Nintendo generation. Well, that is actually very positive because the equipment that they use is so high tech, it is crucial that they be able to operate equipment that is almost inconceivable in terms of advances in just a few years, and particularly even over the first Persian Gulf War, and the success of our troops and dedication is so heart warming.

Additionally, I was happy to hear the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes) reference Pope Air Force Base. I have a nephew who is currently still in the Air Force, and I am really proud that he served at Pope. But the perspective I would like to make tonight is indeed as a veteran, I retired after 31 years of service, it was last July, with my service with the Army National Guard, and I saw again firsthand the capable people who are protecting our country, because my job was as pre-mobilization legal counselor and additionally mobilization counseling. People did not whine. They knew, men and women, that they would be serving to protect the American people.

Additionally, I am happy to be the parent of three sons who are serving in the military. My oldest son is a young attorney from Lexington, South Carolina. He has been mobilized. He is serving in Iraq. I am in touch with him virtually every day by BlackBerry, by satellite phone. It is very reassuring.

My second son is a graduate of the naval academy, an ensign in the Navy. I am very proud of him being in medical school.

My third son was just commissioned a month and a half ago at Clemson University, in the Army ROTC; and he will have a career in the signal corps with the Army National Guard.

I am just so proud that they have on their own seen that one of the best ways to promote our country is to serve in the military; and then, finally, as a Member of Congress, it has already been referenced by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), I am very grateful to represent Fort Jackson, ably commanded by General Abe Turner.

General Turner is so well known here in Congress because he was Army liaison to Congress and did a masterful job. I then ran into him, of all things, in Kuwait where he was one of the leaders there and helping us protect and promote our troops.

Additionally, I represent the Marine air station at Beaufort. We are very proud of their service. It is a joint Navy and Marine facility with squadrons of both; and I also represent Parris Island, where the training takes place of our troops on the east coast, and I have been there in 3 days of parallel training; and it was an extraordinary opportunity again to see the dedication of these young people.

I also represent the Beaufort Naval Hospital adjacent to McIntyre Air National Guard Base, Sully Air Force Base. I, again, over and over again, had the opportunity to meet young people, to meet people who are so dedicated in protecting our country.

Indeed, it was 2 weeks ago today that I had the opportunity to go on a delegation with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) with the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and we had the opportunity to meet with the incoming Iraqi police being trained. We had the opportunity to meet with the new government officials, the Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, and also President Ghazi al-Yawer. It was very encouraging.

The Prime Minister is a real hero. He himself was a victim of Saddam Hussein's attempted assassination a number of years ago. I have heard it described he was virtually cut in half, but he recovered. His wife, though, did not. She had a permanent nervous breakdown. And so we have a very brave person serving as Prime Minister in Ayad Allawi promoting the people of Iraq to build a civil society.

Many of us had the opportunity, thanks to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), to meet with President Ghazi al-Yawer. He is a graduate of George Washington University; and he announced to us that he is an optimist, that he believes a civil society can be established in Iraq, and I believe that we have seen in the past 10 days, since he took power and since the Prime Minister took power on the 28th, that, indeed, they are working to rebuild a civil society in Iraq.

Mr. HAYES. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) and I were in on the same meeting, and that was a wonderful opportunity. What he and I heard in terms of the appreciation of the Iraqi people, the desire of their people and their government to be free, the incredible gratitude that they feel towards our soldiers. Does the gentleman read anything like that in our national media?

Does the gentleman hear that on the news at night?

What my colleague and I heard both there and in Iraq, we do not hear it. That is what the people of America need to hear and see, because that is true. That is what is happening in Iraq. That is the contribution. That is how the people who are receiving this help, particularly from men and women in uniform, that is the true response.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. It really is, and particularly with President al-Yawer. He was so outspoken in his appreciation for the dedication of our young people, of families who have lost heroes, who are protecting American people; and it was just heartfelt. It was the same heartfelt feeling that we actually did see, thank goodness, with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who was here about 3 weeks ago to express the appreciation of the people of Afghanistan for their liberation and their ability now for probably the first time in history to establish a civil society.

When I say "civil society," I am talking about one that looks out for the people and the country, and one of the highlights was to meet with the minister of health in Iraq. He had previously been the minister of education, and he was telling us one by one of the progress being made in regard to education.

Thousands of schools have been renovated. These are not elegant schools with gymnasiums. These are largely one-room schoolhouses that have been repainted, many of them by the American military, with desks and with blackboards. In fact, 1 ¼ million book bags were distributed to the young people of Iraq from the United States Agency For International Development.

Additionally, he told us that there are 293,000 teachers in Iraq. What we hear when we read the paper is that people are unemployed. That is all we hear; but there are 293,000 teachers, and it was incredible to me.

I asked the minister what is the percentage of young people who are school age going to school; and he told us it was around 90 percent, maybe exceeding 90 percent, and that, in fact, in April when there was an upsurge in violence, the young people still came to school, and they were brought by their parents.

I find this encouraging because we know another fact is that there were 60 million new textbooks distributed in the last year. This is incredibly important. The textbooks previously had been idolatrous of the dictator Saddam Hussein. They had virtually identified him as a reincarnated Nebuchadnezer. That was an insult to their intelligence; but if that is all they read, that is all they read, that is all they heard.

Now, of course, we have all seen, as we have visited, the satellite dishes. Those were illegal under the Hussein dictatorship. Those of us who have visited, everywhere we look we see satellite dishes where it may not be all we want them to see, but they do have choices that they did not have before. So a civil society, I think, is being established.

Then the bravery that is exhibited. The gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) was very interested that we visit a hospital; and we visited a hospital, and we visited with the American troops, and we visited with Iraqi patriots. In particular, there was a city councilman who was there who had been severely injured and his young son was there, and he was telling us that his brother had been killed in the same attack a week ago prior to us meeting with him and that another son, somebody had left a package at their home and when he picked it up, it was a small bomb that blew his right hand off. How brave that he persisted in trying to build a civil society.

It just brings to mind, particularly here in the week of the 4th of July, of the sacrifices of the persons who signed the Declaration of Independence. They were not greeted with riches and with a warm response by the ruling elite at that time. They lost so much, and now we have got people who are indeed promoting the establishment of a democracy.

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Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, it should be pointed out that, indeed, a certain gas projectile was discovered, that is a chemical weapon, and, additionally, mustard gas has been discovered, projectiles in the country of Iraq, which had previously been in the jurisdiction, obviously, of Saddam Hussein. It was clearly indicated that, of course, chemical weapons were being used against the Kurdish population by Saddam Hussein.

It is equally significant that the anthrax that was never explained as to what happened to it or where it may be, could fit in the back of a medium-sized U-haul, but yet it would be sufficient to have a horrible impact. More than the known population on the East Coast could have been killed by such an attack if it were widely dispersed, which would be difficult, but we would not want to find out. That is why we took this action. And this war in Afghanistan, the conflict in theater in Iraq, this is to protect the American people.

My colleague from California brought up our allies, but this needs to be brought out. We have 32 nations that have sent troops to Iraq. I am particularly grateful that 2 weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet a soldier from Latvia. Not in our lifetime would we ever dream that we would be meeting with a soldier from the Independent Republic of Latvia, which is now a free republic. Not any longer is it a forced member of the U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union. Now Latvia itself is a member of NATO.

It should also be noted, and it is just amazing how this is not picked up, when we express concern about NATO's involvement, we should be pointing out that 16 of the 26 members in NATO have troops serving in Iraq today. I want to particularly congratulate, because I have worked very closely as the co-chair of the Congressional Bulgaria Caucus, I want to thank the Republic of Bulgaria. I had the opportunity in Kabul, Afghanistan, to meet with the Bulgarian ambassador and commander of Bulgarian troops serving in Afghanistan.

I am very pleased there is a battalion of 495 Bulgarians serving in Iraq today. That is the largest foreign placement of troops in the nearly 1,300-year history of Bulgaria. For the first time, Bulgaria has invited a foreign country, the United States, to establish a base in their country, an air base at Burgas.

This is incredible, because every other base that has been established in Bulgaria has been done involuntarily, not at the request of the national assembly.

So this is an historic time where, because of the veterans who have made this possible, I believe there is a greater spread of democracy today than in the history of the world. The way I phrased it, too, I have had the opportunity to visit with our troops, and Dutch troops and Australian and Polish troops at Bishkek, Kyrgystan; at Kharshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan; and Bagram, Afghanistan, and all of these are former Soviet air bases that had been built to fight the United States, which are now American and coalition air bases fighting the terrorists and winning the war on terrorism.

I think it is a remarkable time for us to celebrate the successes of the American military that are unparalleled in history, and I am very proud of what is being done. I am very proud of the successes, and I am confident the young people who are today on the front lines are going to persist and, with the resolve of the American people and around the world, succeed

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Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to also join in thanking the gentleman from Hawaii for his constructive suggestion.

But I want to reiterate again too that the war we are into, this global war on terrorism, is not something the United States sought. It is my humble opinion that the first attack was really in 1979, with the attack on our embassy in Tehran. We can all remember the signs that were carried at that time were "death to America." It does not need a discussion. That is what the intent is. And the reason for this feeling is because the United States represents freedom of association, of speech, as we just saw, freedom of women to participate in society, and freedom of media. All of this is being opposed by people who want to construct a 14th century life-style.

This is not a religious war. To me, it is a group of extremists who, as we saw last week, there was a heinous suicide bomber who attacked a Shiite mosque in Pakistan. Imagine just going straight into a mosque and killing 20 people. This is just something that has to be faced, and we either face the enemy overseas or we will again see them here in the United States, as we did on September 11.

September 11 was the culmination of a direct attack on the United States in 1993 on the World Trade Center, a direct attack on our embassies in 1998, at embassies all throughout Africa, and then, of course, the infamous attack on U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in the year 2000, and finally the attack of September 11, 2001. America is responding.

And I am very grateful that just as after World War II we helped rebuild Germany so it would not be a breeding ground for communism, we are helping to rebuild Iraq. I am sorry that it does not get the attention it should. It is probably just dull to hear that there is freedom of the press and media in Iraq. It is dull to hear the schools have been reopened. It is dull to hear the hospitals have all been reopened and the health clinics are available. But it is not dull. It is creating a civil society that protects the American people. We were able to protect the American people and defeat communism, and I am confident we can do the same thing in defeating terrorism.

I am so happy the gentleman brought up Ronald Reagan. It was 20 years ago virtually this minute that he was attempting to win the Cold War by putting Pershing missiles in Western Europe. Millions of people demonstrated against that in the United States and Western Europe. It ultimately led, again, to our victory.

I had the extraordinarily opportunity Sunday to meet with people at our church who are from Russia, and I was telling them how incredible it was for me to be there with them, because 15 years ago we were told that they like living under communism; that due to their serf background, they liked being slaves; that they really did not want to have to make decisions of who to elect and how to elect, what jobs to take, how much money to earn, whether they could buy a car or not; that they really enjoyed living in oppression.

We know that is not true. The dear Russians that I met with on Sunday said how much they appreciated what President Reagan and the American people have done to provide for their liberation. The same analogy applies to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is such a positive time to see what our troops are doing.

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Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate some other heroes who are serving our families, and that is the families and employers. The families are so dedicated to our servicemembers who are serving overseas, men and women. We all know first hand of circumstances where families are making sacrifices. Additionally, we have got family support groups that we have community support for. Anyone who wants to help members of our Guard and Reserve, in any phone book will be the listing of an armory. They can contact the unit clerk or the AST and offer to assist in some way.

Also, employers. We were very fortunate 2 weeks ago to have a hearing put together by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), himself a retired Marine colonel. It was brought to our attention how employers are coming to bat for the people who have been mobilized and deployed. There are some indications of obvious problems; but I was told, and during the hearing it came out, for every one problem, there are nine good stories of where businesses have come forward to assist their employees who have been deployed.

They know the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act, now the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, will protect our servicemembers. Additionally, there are reemployment rights that will accrue to the people in the Guard and Reserve. We are all here to help make sure that they have the jobs that they had when they left, they have their seniority, that they have the ability to blend back in and assimilate right away into American society. But it is the employers who are doing this voluntarily.

Again, families and employers deserve a great deal of credit in helping us win the war on terror.