Message From the Senate

MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE -- (House of Representatives - June 15, 2006)

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution will not secure any success in Iraq. It will not bring our troops home. It will only signal the death of true, honest debate within the walls of this great Chamber.

Today's so-called debate is politics at its worst. We are playing politics while U.S. men and women are being killed, wounded and kept away from their families. I remember laying in an Army hospital bed just home from Vietnam while another Congress played politics.

He was disdainful then, and when I think of those brave men and women I visited at Walter Reed, Bethesda, Ramstein, it makes me sick today. Let's do our job and bring our troops home as soon as possible.

For weeks we have been told, and the American people have been promised by the Republican majority, that there would be a debate on this floor on the Iraq war. Instead we get what the news is calling today Republican election year strategy. This resolution ignores the issues most important to the men and women serving in Iraq, their families and the taxpayers who have already been billed nearly a half trillion dollars.

It ignores the issues raised by some of our most respected generals, and it ignores the lack of accountability and oversight that has led to some of the most egregious and embarrassing examples of waste, fraud and abuse on record. We need to be working nonstop to bring our troops home as soon as possible, not trying to score political points while they are fighting a war.

We need to be working to keep them safe, as safe as possible, until they are home. For starters, we should send a strong, loud message to the insurgents who will not occupy Iraq and will not control Iraq's oil, a message that we want to leave, as bad as they want us to leave.

On my last visit to Iraq, everyone I spoke with said that they want the Iraqis to assume more security responsibility faster. Our military has done its job, often in two, three or four deployments, an unconscionable demand on our troops, an unconscionable demand on their families, and an unconscionable demand on their communities. Make no mistake, it has taken a toll on our military. Stay the course is not a strategy for success, and we are not doing our job by being a rubber stamp for this administration.

Mr. Speaker, this isn't honest debate. While the majority plays politics, our men and women serving in Iraq are in terrible danger.

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