110 HRES 1326 IH: Calling on the President to respect and U.S. House of Representatives 2008-07-09 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

IV 110th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 1326 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES July 9, 2008 Ms. Waters (for herself, Ms. Woolsey, and Ms. Lee) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services RESOLUTION Calling on the President to respect and honor Iraq’s sovereignty.

Whereas on May 24, 2007, President George Bush stated, We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi Government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It’s their government’s choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave; Whereas Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called for a timetable for redeployment of United States forces from Iraq to be included in the security agreement being negotiated by President Bush between Iraq and the United States, saying, “The direction we are taking is to have a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or to have a timetable for their withdrawal”; Whereas Iraqi National Security Adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said, “We will not accept a memorandum of understanding without having time line horizons for the cessation of combat operations as well as the departure of all the combat brigades”; Whereas disregarding Iraq’s request for the redeployment of United States military forces would cause America’s presence to be seen as an open-ended occupation of Iraq; Whereas the United States has already spent roughly $524,000,000,000 on the war in Iraq; Whereas the total cost of the war in Iraq may exceed $3,000,000,000,000 when secondary costs are included, according calculations by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz; Whereas 88 percent of current and former military officers agree with the statement that “the demands of the Iraq war have stretched the United States military dangerously thin”, according to a recent survey by the Center for a New American Security; Whereas after nearly 5 and a half years into the war in Iraq, more than 4,100 American troops have been killed, tens of thousands have suffered serious physical injuries, and hundreds of thousands suffer from mental health issues; Whereas according to recent polls, a large majority of the Iraqi public is against the American military presence in Iraq and would like to see a timetable set for the redeployment of United States troops; Whereas members of the Iraqi Parliament delivered a letter to the leaders of Congress on June 4, 2008, on behalf of a majority of the 275-member Parliament, stating that they strongly reject any military, security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment, or political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq, in accordance with a declared timetable and without leaving behind any military bases, soldiers, or hired fighters; Whereas according to recent polls, a large majority of the American public is against the war in Iraq and would like to see a timetable set for the redeployment of our troops; and Whereas a majority in the House of Representatives recently voted for language stating that the war in Iraq should end as safely and quickly as possible and our troops should be brought home: Now, therefore, be it

That the House of Representatives calls on the President to— (1)respect Iraq’s sovereignty and redeploy our military if asked to do so by the Government of Iraq; and (2)present plans to Congress, in classified and unclassified form, for the safe redeployment of our troops and military contractors from Iraq.