U.S. House of Representatives
Speech of Congressman Barney Frank
June 15, 2006

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first let's note what a degradation of democracy is taking place here.

The majority party has put forward a resolution that allows no amendment. There will be a debate in which those of us who think some things are good and some are bad, contrary to every reasonable democratic procedure, will have no opportunity to say so.

Here is the tactic that is being used: they take a number of things that people agree with, they mix in with them things which are quite controversial. They treat them as if they were not separable.

Let me say what I have said again before. The majority party thinks the way to legislate is the way you feed a pill to a dog: you take the unpalatable with the popular.

Now I will have to say this: one of the things we are trying to do is to persuade the people in Iraq to be able to work together and make democracy work. We are trying to persuade, we are told, the Shiia and the Sunni to work together. We are trying to tell the majority Shiia to share power.

Mr. Speaker, how can you and your party believe that we inspire people to share power by giving the example of its monopolization in an abusive fashion?

I just hope that the members of parliament in Iraq who may hear about this will remember a very important point: please do not try this at home.

Now let's get to the substance.

This war in Iraq came after September 11. It was not the response to terrorism the war in Afghanistan was. I am struck in listening to the Members on the other side of the aisle that Afghanistan appears to have too many syllables for them to pronounce. What is in fact happening is that the war in Afghanistan, which was the response to the terrorist attack, which was almost unanimously supported here and by Democrats in the Senate, is in fact not going as well as it should.

One of the prices we are paying for the war in Iraq is the deterioration in Afghanistan. Now, the war in Iraq was launched based on a couple of lies we were told. And I am struck to hear people still defending the arguments about the weapons of mass destruction. It seems my colleagues on the other side have decided to adopt a Marxist idea. The Marx in question, of course, is Chico, and the mantra is: Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? Having been repudiated overwhelmingly by the facts, they stick to the rhetoric.

Here is the price we are paying. We shouldn't have gone in. Of course having gone in, we are victimized by one of the most incompetently administered examples in American national security history. But here is the price we pay: the war in Afghanistan deteriorates our ability to protect ourselves at home. Every time you hear that we can't afford communications, we can't afford more people at the border, we can't afford port security, every time people hear that we can't afford something that would enhance our security at home, understand that it is the war in Iraq that makes it impossible for this Nation to afford it. If we did not have these hundreds of billions being drained there, we could take care of the agenda.

Finally, it constrains us elsewhere in the world. It has led to an increase in anti-Americanism which I deplore, with which I disagree, but it is a fact.

Our ability to deal with the potential Iranian nuclear weaponry is constrained by the fact that we are in Iraq. In fact, the Iranians have been among the major beneficiaries of what we have done in Iraq.

So you went into a war on the basis of two lies. You have handled it incompetently. We are now at the point, well, does that mean you pull out? And here is the point. You tell us on the one hand that there is great success. We have built a government, et cetera, et cetera. But also, you tell us simultaneously that if we withdrew American troops the house of cards falls. Well, which is it? Have you built a successful entity in Iraq? If you have, why can't we pull out? Why can't 28 million people in Iraq, with a couple of hundred thousand Iraqis under arms deal with 15 or 18,000 terrorists?

The fact is that this is a failed policy that gets worse every day.