[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 152 (Wednesday, November 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H10361-H10362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my 
Special Order at this time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Washington?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to Iraq, the President and 
his administration continue to act like cowboys in a western movie. 
When will they learn? And until they do, there will be no solution in 
Iraq.
  The President stampeded the American people into a flawed, futile, 
and fatal war; and this administration keeps applying B-movie mentality 
to real-life suffering. We have taken sides in a war-torn nation, 
inadvertently backing the Kurds and Shiites to the detriment of the 
Sunnis.
  This is not some clan fight on a movie set that will get solved with 
a new sheriff riding into town proclaiming peace and progress. But that 
is what the administration's current strategy seems to be. Despite 
demands by Iraqi Sunni leaders that American forces stop new military 
operations, the fighting continues unabated. And like Vietnam, the 
latest administration tactic is to announce body counts, as if that 
will promote confidence among the American people. That same tactic was 
used during Vietnam. It did not work then, and it will not work in 
Iraq. If anything, this latest tactic will only deepen American 
resentment to this war because the American people know they are only 
being told part of the story.
  The Rumsfeld command is happy to announce the number of insurgents 
killed or captured, but they do not talk much about the innocent Iraqi 
civilians killed or wounded. They are not announcing those numbers 
every day. Why not? If they killed or captured 80 insurgents, how many 
civilians were injured or wounded in the process? Why do they not tell 
us the whole story?
  Iraq is an urban guerilla warfare, and our brave soldiers should not 
be fighting a house-to-house war that puts them in maximum danger all 
the time. There is no front line in Iraq because every road is the 
front, every house is the front, and every footstep is along the front 
line. There is no safe haven for our soldiers. Danger is everywhere no 
matter where they sleep, no matter what they eat, no matter how much 
they try to forget this war for even a moment.
  And the administration calls this progress. The American people see 
it as a paralysis of leadership. The President stampeded the Congress 
into a do-or-die scenario, and now our soldiers keep dying in the wrong 
place at the wrong time and for the wrong reason.
  When was the last time the President even mentioned Osama bin Laden, 
the terrorist who is supposed to have started this whole thing, this 
war on terror?
  The White House has built an underground bunker to keep out reality. 
The truth cannot penetrate those walls of denial, fortified with 
Presidential speeches to carefully selected audiences. Now the 
President is beginning to say that he is not responsible for the war in 
Iraq. The record is clear, Mr. Speaker: this war was started by this 
President and his war cabinet. They got what they wanted. They got more 
than they can handle. And every new pronouncement from the White House 
bunker widens the gulf between administration rhetoric and Iraq 
reality.
  Reality may be missing in action at the White House, but reality is 
front and center with the American people. Another Presidential speech 
with yet another spin on why the President wants this war will not do 
anything to stabilize Iraq, promote peace, or create democracy.
  We are just learning about the latest catastrophe. Now Americans 
soldiers have to launch operations to uncover hundreds of Sunnis 
abused, tortured, and malnourished in a prison run by the people we put 
in power.
  Imposing our will is a prescription for civil war and ethnic scandals 
in Iraq. Imposing a Western blueprint on a Middle Eastern culture will 
undermine any attempt at real peace. Iraq needs the benefit of a Middle 
Eastern solution, a cultural process that has worked for thousands of 
years. Many in the Middle East know this. Many have tried to tell us. 
But we will not listen. Their will, not ours, will define democracy in 
Iraq. If we are serious about an election in Iraq, we have to stop the 
provocations.
  America is at a crossroads: stability or continued occupation of 
Iraq. The Rumsfeld command now admits American soldiers could be there 
for a decade or more. That is occupation, and nobody outside the 
administration favors it. Ten more years of house-to-

[[Page H10362]]

house guerilla fighting is a failed mission and a guarantee of more 
U.S. lives lost. 2,056 flags draped over 2,056 coffins; 2,056 honor 
guards and 2,056 grieving families paying respects of a grateful 
Nation. And we are still counting.
  Mr. President, you have to change the course.
  There's a difference in a President leading the nation through a time 
of crisis and this President misleading the nation into precipitating a 
crisis. We have a crisis. We need a leader. We need a plan to return 
U.S. soldiers to U.S. soil, not a decade from now, but right now.
  Announce a pull-out date and pull back the troops to their camps.

                          ____________________