Out of Iraq
OUT OF IRAQ
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, it is good to see you in the Chair, and I thank the gentleman for allowing me to do this.
I am a proud member of the Out of Iraq Caucus, and my office has been flooded with letters and calls from constituents who want the President to start bringing the troops home from Iraq. According to all the polls, an overwhelming number of Americans are opposed to any escalation.
Instead of a plan to begin redeployment, Americans heard a giant sucking sound from President Bush last night, pulling our troops further into the civil war that has already taken the lives of so many of our brave sons and daughters.
The President is dealing with an Iraq that exists only in his imagination. I challenge the President to answer the questions: Who are our allies? Who are our enemies? What does winning mean? How long will American troops be there? How many lives are you willing to sacrifice?
Escalation presumes a military solution is still possible. The catastrophe facing Iraq is political, and yet there is no evidence of a political process that has any hope of achieving any kind of reconciliation or success.
The President has virtually fired General John Abizaid, our top commander for Iraq in the region, who consulted with all of the divisional commanders and asked them in their professional opinion, if we were to bring in more troops would it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq. They all said no, but the President has not listened.
The British have announced that rather than escalating their participation in this war, they are going to bring 3,000 troops out of Iraq in May.
We are not receiving support from any allies. So it seems to me, as now a sponsor of the Markey-Kennedy bill, H.R. 353, that Congress has to step in, has to state its belief that this escalation is misguided. And according to the Markey-Kennedy bill, it would prevent the President from spending another taxpayer dollar to increase troop levels in Iraq without the consent of Congress. And after 4 years, it is time for President Bush to wake up and realize that his policy in Iraq has failed. Most of the country has already come to that conclusion.
Now, we must renew our military, work to restore our diplomatic credibility and, above all, begin redeploying our troops out of Iraq.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov