Expresses the sense of Congress that Donald Rumsfeld should be replaced as Secretary of Defense.
[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 470 Introduced in House (IH)]
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. CON. RES. 470
Expressing the sense of Congress that the President should immediately
replace the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 13, 2006
Mr. Murtha submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Armed Services
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the President should immediately
replace the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
Whereas after 9/11, the United States Government had unprecedented support from
international allies as well as the American people for military action
against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan;
Whereas the initial phase of the war in Afghanistan was successful in
dismantling al Qaeda operations, removing the Taliban authority which
was harboring al Qaeda, and allowing for the Afghani people to establish
a representative government;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense imposed a cap on the number of ground forces in
Afghanistan prior to the war in Iraq;
Whereas the Bush administration concluded in April 2002 that Osama bin Laden was
in Tora Bora, Afghanistan during the battle for Tora Bora in December of
2001 and that the failure to commit the sufficient number of ground
forces directly resulted in the failure to capture him;
Whereas a resurgence of Taliban influence and violence is now occurring in
Afghanistan;
Whereas in the months prior to the war in Iraq, the Secretary of Defense
repeatedly and forcefully asserted to Congress and the American people
that there was no question that there were weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq and that they were a threat to the United States, which is now
known to be false;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense rejected estimates from top military commanders
regarding the troop strength that would be required to secure Iraq,
failed to anticipate the level of violent opposition among Iraqis to
U.S. occupation, and publicly doubted the war in Iraq would take [longer
than] six months;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense expressly forbade his staff to develop a plan
for post-war Iraq and threatened to fire anyone who raised the issue;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense failed to ensure that U.S. troops had adequate
protective gear for their mission at the start of the Iraq war,
including a shortage of 40,000 protective body armor units, radio
frequency jammers to thwart remote detonation of improvised explosive
devices, and up-armored high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles
(HMMWVs);
Whereas failure of the Secretary of Defense to anticipate the troop strength
needed to secure Iraq or to develop a post-war plan resulted in foreign
fighters entering the country who have incited attacks against U.S.
soldiers and fomented sectarian violence, the latter of which has
precipitated a civil war between Sunni and Shia Iraqis;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense asserted at the start of the Iraq war that
Iraqi oil production would pay for the war yet U.S. expenditures in Iraq
now exceed $8 billion per month and Iraqi oil production is still below
prewar levels;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense failed to provide the necessary training,
supervision, personnel and guidelines for the management of prisoners
and detainees which directly led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison,
severely undermining U.S. efforts to win hearts and minds of the Iraqi
people critical to securing Iraq;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense has failed to address the flagging readiness of
U.S. ground forces, in particular the U.S. Army, whose preparedness for
war has eroded to levels not witnessed by our country in decades, thus
hindering the ability of the U.S. to respond to other potential threats
to national security;
Whereas U.S. armed forces cannot sustain the current operational tempo in Iraq
and a large percentage of U.S. troops have done over three tours in
Iraq;
Whereas with 130,000 troops, key measures of success in Iraq have not been met
and in some cases are worsening, including: the level of employment; the
level of oil production; the level of electricity production; the
training of Iraqi security forces; and the number of violent incidents,
which have increased from an average of 400 per week before the
establishment of an interim Iraqi government in the spring of 2004 to
almost 800 per week this year;
Whereas the Secretary of Defense has failed to ensure adequate accounting of
billions of dollars of expenditures of the Coalition Provisional
Authority;
Whereas at the time of the introduction of this resolution, 2,672 U.S. service
members have died in Iraq and 337 have died in Afghanistan, exceeding
the number of people who died on 9/11; in addition, over 20,000 U.S.
service members have been wounded;
Whereas terrorism incidents around the world have increased since the U.S.
entered Iraq;
Whereas a survey of 116 top national security experts indicates that eighty-
seven percent of them believe the Iraq war has had a negative impact on
the war on terrorism while ninety-three percent of them believe that the
war in Afghanistan has had a positive impact on the war on terrorism;
and
Whereas Democrats and Republicans are united against terrorism; Democrats and
Republicans are united for a strong military; Democrats and Republicans
are united for a strong America: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That it is the sense of the Congress that, for the good of the country,
the United States of America must restore credibility both at home and
abroad and that the first step toward restoring that credibility must
be to demonstrate accountability for the mistakes that have been made
in prosecuting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by immediately
effecting the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and
replacing him with someone capable of leading the Nation's military in
a strategy to resolve our deployment in Iraq, prevent regression in
Afghanistan, reconstitute our military readiness, and refocus on the
threats to national security posed by diffuse and proliferating
terrorist cells as well as belligerent states.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services.
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