Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

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Madam Speaker, in 2011, former Secretary Robert Gates, as he was departing office, gave a speech at the West Point academy in which he said:

In my opinion, any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined, as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

I think Secretary Gates spoke for the entire country in terms of that sentiment, which, after a long, bitter experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, speaks to the weariness that many feel today in terms of those conflicts, and, certainly, with the motion that is before us this afternoon, it still rings in people's ears. I think it is important therefore to sort of measure what we are voting on with what Secretary Gates, I think, so accurately stated.

The motion before us is to provide for title 10 authorization to allow the U.S. military to train and equip forces in Saudi Arabia to take up arms against ISIL. I checked with the Congressional Research Service yesterday to determine how many title 10 operations over the last 3 years have been conducted by the U.S. military. In 28 countries all across the world, the U.S. military has been involved in training and equipping operations, from the Philippines to Yemen to Poland.

For those who argue that what we are about to engage in is a slippery slope or that this authorization somehow broadly confers on the administration the ability to conduct a land invasion or a large military force, the fact of the matter is that the long and broad experience of title 10 that we have tells us exactly the opposite. In fact, what title 10 seeks to do is to stand up indigenous forces in those nations of allies to avoid what Secretary Gates warned about in 2011, which is to, again, not get this country involved in a large land invasion.

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Madam Speaker, one healthy thing has occurred over the last few days, which is that folks on both sides of this measure, I think, have come to the realization that we as a Congress need to be engaged in terms of these types of decisions.

To their credit, Mr. McKeon and Mr. Smith have fashioned a resolution which requires by December 11 our revisiting this motion, to have regular reporting from the Department of Defense, and it requires us, I think, at some point, to take up the broader question of authorization of military force, reaching back to 2001 and 2002, in terms of limiting the scope, which, again, has been supported by this administration and which we have discussed in the House Armed Services Committee. It is also to focus on what exactly is the end game for our efforts in Syria and Iraq.

Again, the measure that is before us today, though, is simply about title 10 authorization between today and December 11. I think people should not overthink and overstate the consequences of this vote. What it provides is for America to stand up with regional allies and European allies to begin the process of degrading and, ultimately, destroying a barbaric force, which threatens stability both in the Middle East and, ultimately, America's national interests.

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