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The Speaker pro tempore: Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

Mr. Kingston: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight.

I wanted to talk on the eve of what may be the most controversial bill that we have voted on since I have been a Member of Congress, and I have been a Member of Congress now for 16 years. In fact, sometimes I don't like to admit that in public because everybody gets so concerned about term limits, I don't want to be the poster child for my enemies on that subject. But I have been in Congress for the NAFTA vote, for the renewal of GATT, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. I have been here for the impeachment vote. I was here for welfare reform, some very significant pieces of legislation, the Contract With America, and recently with the Democrats' 6 for 06 plan. Yet in all my years of Congress, I can say that this week, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps Friday, we will have what is the most controversial bill that I ever voted on and the largest supplemental appropriation bill in the history of the United States Congress, a bill which the President requested for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and the war on terrorism in general. His request level was $101 billion, but it is actually going to be about a $124 billion bill, because there are many things that aren't even related to the war that have now got stuck in the bill.

There are a lot of different views on this that I wanted to talk about. I have my friend, Mr. Carter from Texas, who is a fellow appropriator on this Special Order. The thing that is interesting, though, is that a lot of the traditional allies of the Democrat Party, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and sometimes in fact those two newspapers are inseparable from the Democrat talking points, but they are squarely against this bill. The editorial pages have gone out of their way to say what a bad bill this is, to say do we really need a General Pelosi, which is what the Los Angeles Times said. And to quote the Los Angeles Times, "After weeks of internal strife, House Democrats have brought forth their proposal forcing President Bush to withdraw the troops from Iraq, 2008. This plan is unruly, bad public policy, bad precedent and bad politics. If the legislation passes, Bush says he will veto it, as well he should." That is the Los Angeles Times.

Here is the Washington Post. The Pelosi plan for Iraq. "The only constituency House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ignored in her plan for amending Bush's supplemental war funding bill are the people of the country that the U.S. troops are fighting to stabilize." That is real important.

"The Democratic proposal doesn't attempt to answer the question of why August 2008 is the right moment for the Iraqi Government to lose all support from U.S. combat units. It doesn't hint as to what might happen if American forces were to leave at the end of this year, a development that would be triggered by the Iraqi Government's weakness. It doesn't explain how continued U.S. interest in Iraq, which holds the world's second largest oil reserve and a substantial cadre of al Qaeda militants, would be protected after 2008. In fact, it may prohibit U.S. forces from returning once they leave." That is the Washington Post.

These are not what I would call mainstream moderate newspapers. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post are out there drumming the drums for the liberal causes, time and time again, and they are both squarely against this plan.

You know, I think one thing Americans have to ask themselves is, is there U.S. interest in Iraq? Rhetorical question. Is there U.S. interest in Iraq? Now, if there isn't, and the war is in fact in the tank as Speaker Pelosi and many of her followers believe, get out tomorrow. Get out. Get out yesterday. Now, this bill doesn't say that. It is more of a slow-bleed, sure-formula-for-defeat plan. But if you really think the war is in the tank, why spend another nickel there?

Now I understand, I haven't spoken to him, that my colleague from Georgia, John Lewis, has made that philosophical and principled position. John is a liberal senior Member from Atlanta. And he says, I am against the war. Why should I vote to spend $100 billion more there? I respect that position. But if you are going to spend the money and give the troops some assistance, why are you tying their hands at the same time? Again, if there is a U.S. interest, then is there not a U.S. interest in victory? Is there a U.S. interest in defeat? And so often the critics of the war always dodge those important questions.

And you can go back to 2003 and cite many things that have gone wrong. I am a Republican and I will tell you what, there have been many things that we have misjudged and done wrong, and it is regrettable. And I would also say that even prior to 2003, maybe some things should have gone in a different direction. I will say, as a Member of the House at the time, we were driven by the 17 United Nations resolutions, which the Iraqi Government ignored. We were driven by the best intelligence estimates at the time, which said that there were weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein would use them. That was a view that was shared by Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and all the other leading Democratic critics of this war. But they all had the same conclusion in 2001, 2002 and 2003, leading to our resolution to give the President the use of force to go into Iraq. But I understand politics. Backseat driving and revisionist history just comes with the turf.

So we can politically revise history. I understand there is a short- term memory and a convenience factor, and if you are running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, you have got to be dodging and weaving, as John Kerry did last time, voting for it and then against it and having positions all over the court.

But we are here now. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, the last election, November 2006, put the Democrats in charge. They are no longer in the back seat of the car. The President may have driven the car to where it is, but the Democrat Party now has its hand on the steering wheel. And you can steer good policy. And this, as the Los Angeles Times says, is bad policy, very bad policy.

If you believe there is a U.S. interest and you think, what would happen with the U.S. out of Iraq suddenly? There would be chaos, there would be civil war, and it is quite likely that the second largest oil- producing nation in the world would fall into the hands of anti- American, anti-Western terrorists and become a nation state of terrorists, a haven for more terrorists.

I don't know of anybody in the Congress that thinks it is a good idea to ignore terrorism the way we did prior to 9/11, when the two embassies were attacked in Africa, when the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, and when the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center happened. We are not going to let that happen again. We understand that you just can't ignore terrorism, that you have to be engaged with it.

So if you believe there is an interest and there is a huge downside in sudden withdrawal, why would you vote for a bill that says we are going to withdraw but we are going to withdraw slowly? We are going to let our troops stay over there, but we are not going to give them the backup that they need.

Now, I have the honor of representing the 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Fort Hunter, Georgia. I also have a couple other military bases. But Fort Stewart leaves this week on its third deployment there. And I don't see how I could be expected to represent those soldiers and tell them, you know, ma'am, your son is patroling the streets of Baghdad and I had the opportunity to send him 20,000 troops to cover his back and I voted no. Because it is a fundamental question. If you are in Iraq, do you want 20,000 more troops helping you or not? How can you say you support somebody if you are not going to give them additional troops to back them up?

Now, I don't believe this is a status quo vote at all, because General Petraeus, who is now our commander over there, has designed this plan as a way to ramp up our forces and clamp down on the violence and the attacks, train the Iraqi troops, and then stabilize the country and come home. I believe that that is an exit and a victory plan, and it is changing the status quo.

So why would you put the general in charge, who I think was approved by the Senate by a vote of 80 or 90 to zero, I don't think there was a dissenting vote, and then say to him, good luck, but we are going to micromanage the war because we have 435 Members of Congress who, General Petraeus, are mighty good military folks in own right. Maybe we should in fact move Congress to Baghdad, since all the generals seem to be in this room who have all the answers.

Mr. Carter: Would the gentleman yield? I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Very good description of what we are looking at this week. And you are right; this may be one of the most critical votes that the people that hold these valuable seats that our people back home gave us are going to cast in their lifetime, because they are going to cast a life- and-death vote here.

You know, as you mentioned, the troops and the 1st Infantry Division that you represent over there in Georgia, I am very blessed to represent the folks at Fort Hood, Texas. We are the only two division posts in the entire world, as I understand it, and I am very proud to represent the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division and III Corps.

As we meet here tonight, the 1st Cavalry Division is in Baghdad, and General Odierno and III Corps are in command.

Now, I have my soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, and I call them mine because I care about every single solitary one of those soldiers as they serve our country. I have them in harm's way tonight as we stand here, with great generals who know what they are doing, know their mission, and are ready to accomplish it.

I don't think the American people have really understood what General Petraeus is trying to do with what some are calling a surge, but more familiar to our soldiers is a call for more boots on the ground; or as Jack said, for somebody to take your back.

But the real issue here is what is the plan for victory that General Petraeus has painted for us. Well, the plan is to involve Iraq in their own defense. The plan is for one battalion of American soldiers to back up a brigade of Iraqi soldiers as they go in and execute a new policy in the neighborhoods of terror in Baghdad. The Army will be backing up a brigade with a battalion. There are five battalions in a brigade. So that means it is a 5 to 1 ratio is the plan for the Iraqis to be in the fight versus the Americans. The Americans will provide all of the great resources, all of the know-how, all of the skill, all of the training, all the can-do that our American forces provide to the fight. But the Iraqis will go in and they will take care of cleaning out the neighborhoods in Baghdad. They speak the language. They know the culture and the religion. They know the various groups. They can do this in a much more effective way, with the support of General Petraeus' troops. And he has told us that he needs the additional boots on the ground to make this plan work.

Now, I think the American people are a people that believe in winning. You know, I sit around this House in our off time, and what are we talking about, who is going to win the next basketball game competition that is going on in this country? And we are talking about who is going to win, not who is going to lose.

When it is football season, we are looking for a winning season. When we have a baseball team, we want them to have a winning year and to win the pennant. We are a Nation that likes winners. We have the most effective fighting force in the history of man on the ground today, and they can win. And they are telling us we have a plan.

One of the problems that we have run into in Baghdad, and I have learned this by visiting with these generals. I visited just recently with the general who brought the 4th Infantry Division back, and they are ready and training to deploy again next fall for their third or fourth deployment.

What was said was we have demonstrated we can clear out an area like Sadr City, for instance. The 1st Cavalry Division went in 2 years ago and cleaned out Sadr City, redesigned the sewer system, got the electricity system working slightly, got the garbage that had been in the streets for years under Saddam Hussein cleaned out, and they did this under fire. And they also killed or captured the bad guys that they found, and ran the rest of them out of Sadr City. But they didn't have the resources to hold Sadr City.

This plan is to clear, hold, and rehabilitate. That's the plan that General Petraeus talked to the Senate about. That's the plan he has, as I understand it.

And the Iraqis will set up like stations in the various neighborhoods to do the clear with our help; they will do the hold with our help; and then teams will come in from the Army and the Marine Corps and like from the State Department to do the rehabilitation of the area and give them services they practically haven't had under Saddam Hussein, and some have never had in their lifetime.

This is a plan that I think we owe to our soldiers and their sacrifice, to give them a chance to get done. I am heartsick that we have a plan that is supposed to be funding these troops to get this job done that is coming to the floor of the House, and it has provisions in that plan which it looks like to me are saying we don't think you can succeed. Therefore, we are setting up kind of a track to get you out because by a vote for the bill in its present state, we are saying to our soldiers overseas, we don't think you can get the job done and so here is how we are going to get you out, and here is the drop-dead date, August of next year, when you are getting out, like it or not.

You mentioned General Pelosi micromanaging. I have real problems with this bill, and I hope every Member of Congress will look at this bill and look at it in terms of human beings, i.e. our soldiers. It has a provision, and it has a provision which says no unit can go to the fight unless they are certified by someone, that they are fully trained, fully equipped before they are allowed to go. And if they cannot meet that certification on their demarcation date they will be by this bill defunded because they are not certified to go to the fight.

Meanwhile, there are troops in Iraq who are expecting to have a replacement coming in. They have been there for a year. But what does this bill say about those troops in Iraq? In this case, the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, next fall under this bill, once they reach 365 days in theater, this bill defunds those soldiers.

Now, if we fail to certify their replacements and we have defunded the soldiers and now you have a 1st Cavalry Division soldier who is short on gasoline and ammunition in the war, is that where we want that soldier to be? Is that caring for the American troops? And all of this is being managed from here, not from the generals that are in the fight?

I think it is a tragedy that we would even consider doing something like this, thinking we as a body have the military knowledge, superior to the people we just, by the example you gave, by a unanimous vote of the Senate hired a man to do the job.

Mr. Kingston: I think the genius of the U.S. Congress is not only can we solve health care and education and agriculture and transportation, but on the side, we can run a war. I am just saying, hey, with this kind of brain power, we all ought to go to Baghdad and put on a uniform.

Mr. Carter: You go ahead. I have been there three times, and let me tell you, I like the professional soldier and the job he is doing.

Another interesting thing that is not being said that you need to know, and I think it is important and if you talk to the soldiers you will learn this, in the Anbar Province where the marines are operating with some of the airborne folks, and that is where the marines asked for 4,000 more troops to help them, for the first time we have had a change of support from the populace in Anbar Province. Al Qaeda is there. That is where our enemy that blew up our country, that is where they are. The marines are hunting them down, capturing or killing them. They are saying give us 4,000 more, and we will get this job done. Why is that? Because the sheiks are now cooperating. They are now saying to the marines, we will tell you where these guys are.

Mr. Kingston: Something curious is that the Speaker of the House said we need to get out of Iraq and go to Afghanistan where the real war on terrorism is.

It is kind of scary to think that someone who is third in line to the President would have that kind of a naive misunderstanding of the world we live in.

We have been joined by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer), and I want to hear what he has to say.

Mr. Neugebauer: I was listening to my friend from Texas's analogy about the sporting events, since that is on everybody's mind right now. I was thinking about two things. One, the proposal that is being put before this Congress, possibly this week, is to say, you know what, let's let the fans do the coaching. We hired us a head coach, but you know what, we have decided the fans know more about how to win this basketball championship, and so we are going to let the fans do that.

But the most compelling thing that I heard, and I want to talk a little bit about this trip, and the gentlemen both know, I just returned 10 days ago from being in Iraq for the third time. I was in Fallujah, was in Ramadi, and talked to General Petraeus, a four-star general who we have tasked to finish and win the war in Iraq, all of the way down to the privates. And one of the privates said to me, Congressman, it is like this. In sporting events, we have home games and we have away games. We lost one of our home games; let's win this away game.

He was referring to the attack on 9/11. That wasn't the first attack on home soil. So we have lost a couple of home games, we want to win the away games.

Also, the gentleman from Texas is exactly right. What we saw in Fallujah and Ramadi is that the sheiks are not only telling us where the bad guys are, but in one case, one of the sheiks from his particular tribe sent 400 or 500 of his young people from his tribe to enlist in the police force in the Iraqi Army, saying not only do we want to tell you where they are, but we want to help you take these people out of our neighborhoods.

I believe one of the turning points that is going on in Iraq today is the fact that the Iraqi people are tired of what these terrorists are doing to their own country. They are tired of the killing. And I notice the gentleman has a picture of a street scene. I know what that father and mother are thinking: Will my children ever be safe to walk the streets of the neighborhood they were raised in?

The good news is the answer to that is going to be yes.

Now, is it still dangerous over there? Absolutely. But we are at war. I think some people are under the misconception that one day we are going to wake up and we are going to have some utopic situation in Iraq. The Israeli people have been waiting for that utopic situation for many, many years. There is still going to be violence.

We have violence in our own country. We have violence in our own cities. But one of the things I felt was most compelling when I was over there, and I was visiting with all of the way from General Petraeus down to privates to boots on the ground, and each one of our stops in Fallujah, in Ramadi, in Baghdad, we had lunch or dinner with the troops. Those are the people that really will tell you how things are going.

What they said is what the gentlemen both have been saying: Things are getting better. We are able to go into these neighborhoods, and we have a different tactic. We used to have a post and we would go in with a convoy and we would tour that area, and at the end of the day we would go back out. Now we are putting security posts inside the communities. I call it kind of like community policing. Now we have a presence there.

And one of the things that people don't realize, for example, in Baghdad, that presence looks like this. There are three Iraqi security force officers, whether they be police or army, to every one American. So what is happening, those people are coming up to those people that are in their neighborhood and saying, Down the block two ways is a bad person. And you know what? On a number of occasions we have gone down to where the people say they were, and not only did we find some high- value targets, we also found huge caches of weapons and IED-making things.

So now I think the hearts of the Iraqi people are in this. I know that the hearts of our troops were because, as I shared with the conference, I believe, 2 weeks ago, those soldiers looked me right in the eye, and they said, Congressman, nobody has more invested in this war than we do.

One young man, this is his third tour. He said, sir, I have been in harm's way three times for this country and for my country, and he said, nobody has more invested than I do. He said, Congressman, please go back and tell your colleagues, let us finish this job. This is a fight we can win.

And anybody that voted to send those troops over there just to go over there and play Army for a while and then come home with defeat made the wrong vote. When we send our young men and women in harm's way, we need to be sending them to win, not to place. We need to win those away games so that we do not have to fight any more home games.

I also shared with the conference, I believe, this week the story about a gentleman that joined me in the State of the Union for this year. His name is Roy Vallez, and Roy was sitting right back over here in this corner in a seat that my wife gave her ticket to Roy, and why Roy is so special is Roy has the distinction, unfortunately, of being the only father in America that has lost two sons in Iraq.

While Roy was here, he was going around telling everybody about how important it is for us to finish this war so that his sacrifice, his extreme sacrifice, that he made and his sons made was not all for naught. He had an opportunity to talk to the President of the United States who called him on his cell phone, and he and the President had a wonderful conversation. That is the message he said to the President. Now, if there is anybody that has a right to question whether we ought to pull out right now or quit or come home, I believe Roy Vallez probably gets a place at the top of the list.

Mr. Kingston: I do not think you will find Hollywood or the media clamoring around Roy Vallez the way they have Cindy Sheehan. I wonder what the difference is.

Mr. Neugebauer: I think it is a very good point. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not get to hear the good stories.

Mr. Kingston: I have found the same way. I have been to Iraq twice, and when I go there to talk to the troops, their biggest enemy is the American media. They will tell you it is so frustrating, and they never would have believed the media was so bad.

I want to show you some statistics that I think are important because you have just been there, but this was a poll that, again, good old American media covered up that was actually in Sunday's London Times, a British company, the largest poll in the history of Iraq, over 5,000 people were surveyed.

Now, I think so often when we hear polls that CNN reports, they poll their newsroom, 25 people, all whose minds have made up against the war and against George Bush. But this was the largest poll in the history of the country, largest poll during the war, of over 5,000 people.

They found this: That al-Maliki's, as a Prime Minister, approval rating is 49 percent. In September, it was 29 percent. That is a significant statistic.

The other thing is we keep hearing that we are caught up in a civil war. Well, the flip side is this: It is 70 percent of the people do not believe that they are in a civil war.

Now, is it not strange that the Iraqis do not believe they are in a civil war, but if you poll the Democrat Members of Congress, I bet you 90 percent would say they are in a civil war, and yet somehow the folks who live there do not believe they are in it. I find that a strange, just a very big difference, but, you know, who knows? I mean, we are politicians. We know everything. So certainly we know what the Iraqis are up to, and maybe they do not.

The other thing that that poll, and it is not on my chart, but the other thing that the poll showed is that 66 percent of the people say they are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein, conveniently unreported in American news, but I would recommend to you all to check out Sunday's London Times.

One other statistic that was not in the poll, but this is just a fact. But the month before we started the surge, and the surge officially started the 14th of February, the month before, there were 1,440 civilian casualties. Since that time there have been 265. You cannot ignore that statistic.

Now, I also want to give everybody a homework assignment. This is just for the folks back home. I would love you guys to see what the Democrat leadership says about the bill they are introducing tomorrow. Remember, this is a bill that is their official war plan.

Go to www.gop.gov/news/documentsingle, and what do we have? Aspx? This, if we can get this on camera, if anybody would come call me, I would love you to see the Democrat leadership explaining their plan. I am telling you, it is absolutely, it is almost right out of Comedy Central. Are they really saying this? Because everything is, well, what date y'all call getting out? Well, I do not know, let me ask my colleague here. Well, I do not know, let me ask my colleagues. It was kind of like, okay, can anybody tell us the capital of Iraq? This is, yes, it is on a GOP Web site. That is the only thing partisan about it. It is absolutely not touched up one bit.

I want to be sure everybody has an opportunity to look this up, but go to www.gop.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx? And ask for the document ID is 60396, and if you cannot find it, just call my office and we will give it to you, but it is scary. It is on one hand hilarious. On the other hand, it is scary that here is a leadership of a party saying here is our plan, and they cannot even explain it on prime-time television.

I wanted to say the scary part is these are high-stakes stuff, but please, look this up and watch this news conference. If you still think that this is the right thing to do, well, you are seeing something I am not seeing.

Mr. Neugebauer: I want to make the point, but I think that is one of the things that concerns me most is that this global war on terrorism is a real war. So when we talk about bleeding out or getting out or whatever you want to call it of Iraq, the thing that the other side has not brought to us is what they are going to do next, what is next on the agenda, what are they going to do if they pull out of Iraq, then how are we going to continue to keep these bad people from following us back to the U.S.?

I think that is a real concern, and I think that the fact that the gentleman, I did the see the copy of the press conference, and it is disconcerting that those folks that are the folks that have the next plan.

Mr. Kingston: The gentleman also knows, both you guys being from Texas, that last year the Border Patrol, I believe, caught 115,000 people coming through the Mexican borders who were OTM, other than Mexican, and the concern of terrorists coming over here is real because we do have terrorists right now inside the United States border. We do not know how many cells or what they meet or what their intentions are, but we do know that they are here.

Mr. Carter: I think that is a very good point. I also think it is a very good point to note that we are talking about, we need to get back to what we set out to do here in Congress with this supplemental bill. I mean, what did the President and the generals who are in charge of this fight ask us to do as a Congress? Did they ask us to load up a bill with pork so that folks back home would have all kinds of pork projects? No. They asked us to give them what it takes for them to do their job. They did not ask us to run the war. They asked us to help them do their job.

People love to quote generals around here, and, in fact, today I have heard twice quoted generals. Of course, these were all generals that are no longer in the fight, but they quote them, and they are certainly valid sources, and I do not criticize the opinions of those generals. They love to quote them. But I do not hear anybody quoting the opinions of the generals that are in the fight today, and yet they are giving us their opinions.

One of the things that some folks back home ask me, and I think this is a valid thing to pass on to everyone here in the House and to whoever may be listening, General Petraeus was asked about an exit strategy from Iraq. He said, let us get this deal to work because we think we have the right formula to make it work, and as we stand up the Iraqi troops and they show what they are showing us in preliminaries right now that they are now ready to participate, as we have these successes, we can start drawing down the troops.

So he told an exit strategy. How many of us have heard that in the media? All we hear is we are going to war, it is never ending, and there is no exit strategy, and the man that we just elected or voted for in the Senate unanimously to be in charge has told us, this is not a never-ending situation. It is all about standing up the Iraqis and standing down the Americans, and we can get there if we do this thing well.

This man is considered by everyone in the military as the counterinsurgency expert of the Army. That is why we have got him over there.

So let us get back to what we are doing here. American soldiers, one of the things that just amazes me what the soldiers and marines do, they strap on between 80 and 100 pounds of stuff, sometimes more than that, and they go out in 140-degree temperature in metal vehicles and fight for the freedom of those people in Iraq. But this Congress and this bill wants to load on their shoulders an additional $24 billion worth of pork, and it is a shame.

And why does this bill have this pork in it? What I mean by pork is things that have nothing to do with what we were asked to do, which is help our soldiers do their duty.

Mr. Kingston: Let me talk to you, for the $23 billion extra that are not related to the war but are on this bill, designed to bring in more people to support it, this is what it includes: avian flu, $969 million. We have already spent, I believe, $5.6 billion on avian flu. We have already spent $5.6 billion, but it is an emergency, we have got to spend nearly another billion.

Spinach, spinach recall, not spinach disaster, but recalling to the private sector, $25 million.

Minimum wage, well, we know that is an emergency. Hurricane citrus program because of Katrina and Rita, I guess like avian flu, Katrina's the gift that keeps on giving in terms of any time you need to pass something.

NASA, $35 million for exploration capabilities. Well, that is certainly emergency. We better deal with that on the backs of the soldiers.

Corps of Engineers, more repair to the levee system in New Orleans. I do not know how many times we are going to repair that levee system, but maybe the Corps of Engineers cannot get it right, and who knows, maybe we need to bring in the private sector.

And, of course, FEMA is going to get more money. I mean, what would an emergency bill be without the FEMA bureaucrats getting more money?

And then there is rental assistance for Indian housing, another emergency; crop disaster assistance, shrimp, $120 million; frozen farm land, $20 million; aquaculture operations, $5 million for aquaculture for shellfish, oysters and clams. It does not have to do with Katrina, to my knowledge.

Of course, the emergency at the FDA, $4 million for the Office of Women's Health. Big emergency. I guess you guys have been getting a lot of letters about that one.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $60 million for fishing communities, Indian tribes, individual, small businesses, fishermen and fish processors, $60.4 million.

And then there is the emergency of Secure Rural Schools Act, $400 million for rural schools to offset revenues lost by the Bureau of Land Management owning timber.

And then low-income energy assistance program, a little confused about this one because, you know, with global warming, and it already being March, well, who knows? I digress.

Vaccine compensation, $50 million to compensate individuals for injuries caused by the H5N1 vaccine. Now, as you know, that is avian flu. And so of the $5.6 billion we have already spent, and of the $900 million we are about to spend, we still have to give $50 million extra on that.

Then, $50 million for the Capitol Power Plant. I mean, we have got to get that building renovated.

Mr. Neugebauer: That and the Visitor Center are somehow tied together. I think they are having a race as to who can finish that project last.

Mr. Kingston: Yes, I think so. Then the children's health care program, the SCHIP program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, there is a shortfall. But we have to ask ourselves, what is the shortfall? The gentleman Mr. Carter knows, one of the big reasons is because the children's health system has been abused in many States because they have insured adults.

Mr. Carter: We did discuss this last week, and this plan was good hearted. It was designed to help children. But some of our States said, wait a minute, here is our chance, this is free health care from the Federal Government for our State. Let's just include children and their parents, and maybe their brothers and sisters.

Mr. Kingston: And the grandparents.

Mr. Carter: And the grandparents. In fact, let's just make it health care for everybody in our State that falls in this category. This is like the Federal Government, and now they have got a shortfall, which that is not kind of hard to figure out if you calculate it, what it costs to take care of the kids, and then you added all their extended family to the program, yes, they will have a shortfall. This isn't rocket science here.

Mr. Kingston: The gentleman will remember in committee last week, when we debated this funding, Dr. Weldon and I had an amendment. I pulled out a chart that showed the number of States that had put the majority of their money into adult health care rather than children's health care.

You know, if there is a problem out there, that should be addressed. I want to say for the record, these things aren't programs that don't have merit. All of these things that I have listed are, I think there are some valid arguments for them. Some reforms are certainly needed in many of them, but they don't belong in a war bill, a funding war bill.

Mr. Carter: That's the key.

Mr. Neugebauer: Doesn't the gentleman find it ironic, both of you, that in order to get support for this flawed plan where we are basically saying to our troops, we don't think you can get the job done, we are going to cut and run, we are going to slow-bleed this, that they have got to go out and start buying votes from their Members by offering up these projects, some of these pet projects from some of these Members in order to get support. Something as important as our national security is being bartered in the halls of the United States Congress.

I don't believe the American people think that's the way we ought to be doing business here. I don't think they think when we are making policy about keeping America safe, keeping America secure, making sure that when we send our troops somewhere, we support them 100 percent so that we can bring home the victory we send them to.

Now we are bartering for that progress with these projects. As the gentleman said, many of these things are worthwhile initiatives, but this is not the time nor the place nor the forum for those to be talked about.

Mr. Kingston: I want to read you this statement by the Speaker of the House, third in line for the President, March 19. This is Nancy Pelosi talking, "When we do this, when we transition, when we change the mission, when we redeploy the troops, build political consensus, engage in diplomatic efforts and reform and reinvigorate the reconstruction effort, then we can turn our attention to the real war on terror in Afghanistan. I hear the voice of the future in the Chamber. What a beautiful sound. What a beautiful sound."

Now, I guess that qualifies you to micromanage the war in Iraq because you have acknowledged there is no terrorism in Iraq, that it's all in Afghanistan. I guess if the real war is in Afghanistan, then the fake war is in Iraq. Therefore, it's okay, at the hands of the troop.

Mr. Carter: We are sitting here with a concern that goes back 1,000 years between the Sunnis and the Shiites. That is why people talk about civil war.

Now, has anybody read what has been put in the Middle Eastern newspapers about if the Americans pull out, and it blows up in Iraq, the countries that will come to the aid of these two groups? The Iranians have said, we are not going to let Shiites be put down, we will come to their aid. The Saudis have said, we are not going to have genocide for the Sunnis who are the minority party, we will come to the Sunnis' aid.

I think Americans know that if you take Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that is the basic oil production region of the entire Middle East who could become involved in a region-wide conflict because of America's early pullout, as recommended by Speaker Pelosi. Then you know how upset folks got about $4-a-gallon gasoline? So what happens when over two-thirds of the world's supply is involved in a civil war or region-wide war in the Middle East if you don't care about doing the right thing? We certainly know people care about having $10-a-gallon gasoline. It's kind of a sad, tragic thing to argue.

But let's get realistic about this. If we get stability in Iraq where there is not going to be this threat of genocide, if we can get there by them turning to their government for assistance rather than to militia and terrorists, that is our goal. If we get there, we keep a stable region, and America is affected by having stability in that region.

Mr. Neugebauer: We are talking about this civil war. One of the interesting things in Fallujah is we sat down, and at the table, across the table, was the police chief of Fallujah. Sitting next to him was a colonel in the Iraqi Army. The interesting thing about that meeting, one is Sunni, the other is Shiite. Yet they are working side by side to make sure that Fallujah, the streets of Fallujah, are again a place where families can walk and commerce can take place.

One of the interesting things that I saw on this trip, each trip I have seen progress. On this particular trip, I saw a lot more people out in the farmlands. What a lot of people don't know about Iraq is that at one time they were an exporter of agricultural products. This is a region of the world that is rich in a lot of natural resources. One of those is water.

But more people were engaged in the streets. We flew at night. We flew from Ramadi into Baghdad, flying over the city, a lot more lights, a lot more electricity on, not just in the city but out in the countryside. These are the kinds of things that are going to build that Nation.

To pull the plug after we have invested all of the lives and the resources into this initiative at this particular point in time is really unconscionable for our country even to consider that. I am concerned that a lot of people don't realize, as you said, what is really at stake here.

Mr. Carter: I think that Americans clearly have a stake in a stable Middle East. If they don't realize they have a stake, they will know it when they go to the pump, if that region goes into turmoil. They will know it. You know, it's sad to have to talk in those terms, but it's the truth.

Let's get back to why we are here. We are here to give our troops the tools they need, the weapons they need, and the fuel they need to continue this fight and to see if this new direction will bring victory for a bunch of folks that deserve a victory.

Mr. Kingston: Let's also say that the supplemental is needed for a lot of needed equipment for these troops, and there is a lot of good in this supplemental.

Mr. Neugebauer: There is.

Mr. Kingston: I want to say also on a bipartisan basis, you have a lot of support for the good that is in the supplemental. I will hand it to the Democrat leadership, the Democrats on the Appropriations, for putting in things that we know the troops need such as the MRAPs, the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Humvees the troops want; more money for the joint IED defeat fund. We had some really good testimony on that. Increases for the defense health care program, that is important; more money for equipment and training, more money for Afghanistan to counterterrorist-laden regions, money for a shortfall in the theater. There is some very good things in this bill that we believe, on a bipartisan basis, that the troops need.

But the part which requires the Iraqi Government to do certain things, which they may or may not be able to do by a deadline of July 1, really does tie up the Commander in Chief. I will say we are an equal branch of government, but the Commander in Chief is in charge of wars, not Members of Congress.

Just to give you an example, to rewrite the Iraqi hydrocarbon law, which has to do with revenue sharing of the oil, I think it's a good thing to do. But I think if you say it has to be done a date certain, July 1, they might not be able to do that.

Here we are in the United States Government, last year we could not pass a budget. Right now, we are having trouble passing a budget. Sometimes these things take longer than they do shorter.

We got to give a new government the opportunity to get things done and not micromanage their government. But I think the biggest concern is, among other things, that there is still a pullout. There is still a date certain for a pullout, August 2008, and it's possible Iraqis won't be ready. It's possible we could do it before then.

What General Petraeus has outlined for us is to go full-fledged with this troop surge, bring stabilization while ramping up the training of our Iraqis, so that we can hand them the baton in a way that we have continued stabilization, and then we can go home. I think letting General Petraeus call that shot in Baghdad is far more important than 435 wannabe generals here in the United States Congress and in Washington.

Mr. Carter: I agree with you wholeheartedly. That is our issue here tonight. I agree with you. They worked hard to put a lot of the needs in here. Let's not say that these other things that have been, in my opinion, wrongly added to this bill in the way of pork, those things are still very important to this country. Many of those things are important to my district, but I would tell my folks back home, as important as some of those things are, our kids have enough to carry on their shoulders in Iraq without carrying the burden of these projects which can be dealt with in the regular appropriations process which is still to come, and the regular budget process which is still to come.

You know what? If passing legislation, if there were a drop-dead date we were told, we would be voting on this bill today. So if we were going to be having a drop-dead event in world politics today, it would drop dead today, because we didn't pass what we were promised we were going to pass today.

To put a time limit, to do it by the 1st of July or everybody comes home, when we are talking to them, that's the voice of a legislative body talking to another legislative body. And they know they can't meet deadlines in their Congress. We can't meet absolute deadlines in our Congress. Things happen. This is what's wrong with micromanaging from 6,000 miles away.

Mr. Neugebauer: The gentleman is exactly right. I think the point was made, this is a young government. This is a young government that is basically about 8 months old. Basically they are learning how to govern because they have been an oppressed people for so long.

I think about our Nation, we are going to celebrate over 230 years of history of this country, this Republic. We are still learning how to govern in many ways. I think talking about drop-dead dates, wouldn't it be nice if we had a drop-dead date to go to a balanced budget in this Congress?

The gentleman talked about the splitting of oil reserves, and I think some of the positive things are there has been a tentative agreement reached within some of the Iraqi leadership, and they are going to hopefully bring that to a vote here fairly quickly. Prime Minister Maliki is making it very clear that there is no one that is a sacred cow in this war. If there are bad people out there, no matter what their affiliation is, that they have permission to go and do that.

And the list goes on and on of the positives. Yes, we still have fatalities; yes, we still have people being killed in that country. But we have never, I don't know of a war we have fought that there weren't those costs.

Mr. Kingston: I wanted to point out one more time: Civilian casualties a month before the surge, 1,440; casualties after the surge beginning February 15, 265. Bombings have dropped 40 percent, from 163 to 102. And that would just be general bombings, IEDs. And then car bombings are down 35 percent, from 56 to 36. That is progress we are already seeing because of the surge.

And I want to get the guys home, but you need to complete the job, you need to have victory and make sure that we do not have to go back, and an arbitrary pullout date would cause that.

I also want to say this: I really do believe the Democrats are right in having more oversight. Frankly, I think that, as Republicans, we did not get the oversight that we should have. We should have been tougher on some of the testimonies that we received. And I think that their suggestions of what the Iraqi Government should do aren't far off. But I think giving them deadlines when we have trouble passing legislation ourselves, I think that is a little unreasonable.

But then the biggest part is the arbitrary pullout date of March 2008. And I think you are setting up failure when you are doing that. That decision has got to be made by our generals in Baghdad.

Mr. Carter: I thank the gentleman for letting us have this discussion tonight and allowing us to participate in this discussion. It has been a good one. I hope that the folks that are looking at this bill very hard and trying to decide how they will vote, I hope that they will vote to give our American soldiers all the resources they need, and give the trained professionals the opportunity to direct the fight, not certain Members of the United States Congress. And if that happens, I believe that we are on the road to success.

But we will have to have oversight, and we will have to watch it closely, and I for one am in favor of that, because what I care most about is the lives of those soldiers that I get to say good-bye to and welcome back home on the planes in Texas. And they matter to us in Texas, they matter to us in the United States. And we are proud of them, and we owe them everything we can to keep them alive, healthy, and successful. And I thank you for allowing me to participate.

Mr. Neugebauer: And I appreciate the gentleman's comments. And I also want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for allowing us this time tonight.

I think I would leave you and leave the American people not with my words and not with Members of Congress or even General Petraeus or some of the other military leaders, but I will leave you with the words I started off the evening with in my time here is the words of the young men and women that are boots on the ground, that have served not one tour, but two tours, and many of them three tours, when they looked me in my eye and they said, "Congressman, we want to go home. We want to spend time with our families. We want to go back to our communities. But, Congressman, we have a lot invested in this war, probably more than anyone else, and let us finish this job."

And so I urge my colleagues to listen to these young brave men and women that are doing phenomenal things for our country and for the people in Iraq. Listen to the soldiers: Let's finish this job.

Mr. Kingston: And, finally, let me say this: Let's defeat this bill. Let's come back on a bipartisan basis and come up with something better, something that gets Democrats and Republicans together in the name of the troops, America, and international security.

It is in our interests to get the politics out of legislation like this and come back with something better, something more noble. And I believe we can do it, because we are Americans. Thank you.