Washblog

Mr. Speaker, I proudly stand today with fellow veterans as the House debates the most damaging, costly, and divisive course of U.S. military involvement since Vietnam.

At a naval hospital in California, I treated combat veterans returning home from Vietnam, many with severe physical and psychological wounds like PTSD and Agent Orange. After Vietnam, America swore there would never be another tragic military misadventure, but that is what has happened in Iraq.

The American people want Congress to end the Iraq war and bring our soldiers home now. That's what the American people elected Democrats to do last November. What we do this week is step one. Step two will come when we take up Appropriations next month.

We have to get out of Iraq.

We have to get out now, not two years from now, after a new President takes office. We're killing them and they're killing us and nothing is getting better and the reasons we started this turned out to be false.

The American people know this and today they are watching our debate. They will judge us by our actions.

Getting U.S. soldiers out of Iraq has been my top priority since they were sent there four years ago under false pretenses. And the new claim by the President that escalating the war will reduce the violence is just another attempt to mislead the American people. They don't accept it and we shouldn't either.

Those who claim we cannot leave Iraq without causing chaos ignore reality.

I ask unanimous consent to insert in the record a piece by retired lieutenant general and Reagan Administration NSA director, William Odom that decisively debunks this argument. (below)

Chaos, not democracy, has taken root in Iraq. And chaos will continue to take U.S. lives until we act in our best interest and order our people out of harm's way.

News accounts continue to remind us that our soldiers don't even have the proper body and vehicle armor.

We cannot adequately protect the soldiers already serving, but more were ordered in anyway. If you want the most basic reason to vote to oppose the escalation, it is that we haven't properly equipped the troops already in Iraq and we're not doing any better by the troops we're sending now.

Just being on record against the President's escalation of this war is not enough. The only way to defuse the violence in Iraq is to de-fund the war in Iraq.

Congress has the power to direct funding and we have a responsibility to exercise that power vested in us by the Constitution. That's what the American people elected us to do last November. We must exercise our Constitutional power as a co-equal branch of government to do what the President is unwilling to do: bring our soldiers home.

When Appropriations for Iraq come to the floor, I intend to offer an amendment based on the 1970 Hatfield-McGovern Appropriations amendment to end the war in Vietnam.

It will be an amendment to provide funding to protect our soldiers as we bring them home in a planned, safe and orderly way, and to prohibit taxpayers' money from being used to continue or expand the war in Iraq. This will provide a transition for Iraqi security forces using a benchmark that matters: the date when U.S. forces will not be there.

The Iraqis can't help themselves until we get out. Right now, almost anything constructive that Iraqis do is seen as collaborating with the US occupiers. We have to get out of the way so the Iraqis can solve their own problems. We can't help. We just make good targets.

So I want to encourage everyone in this House to vote for this resolution. I want to make it the biggest, strongest, clearest vote we can get to let the President know that Congress says no.

I know that many members on the Republican side of the aisle are as distressed as I am over Iraq and I admire their courage in standing up to the President.

Every veteran, including myself, in this House and in this nation is very proud of our soldiers. They have done what they were ordered to do, at great personal sacrifice.

It's time for new orders to be issued.

It's time to end the U.S. role in the Iraq civil war and bring our soldiers home.

We can begin to do it immediately. That's what I advocate and that's what the American people expect us to do.

The question I care about is not who is the fiercest critic of the war. The question is when is Sen. Murray going to say, as Rep. McDermott has repeatedly, "We have to get out of Iraq. We have to get out now . . ."