[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 152 (Wednesday, November 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H10365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          AMERICAN MILITARY PRESENCE FUELING IRAQI INSURGENCY

  Ms. WOOLSEY. 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 
gentlewoman from California?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, if there was any doubt that the Bush 
administration has it Iraq's policy totally wrong, the actions taken 
yesterday in both Houses of Congress shattered that notion. In the 
Senate, 79 Senators voted in favor of an amendment designating the year 
2006 as a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty. 
The amendment also requires the President to provide Congress with a 
quarterly report detailing United States policies and military 
operations in Iraq.
  And in the House, the Out of Iraq Caucus, led by Ms. Waters, 
introduced a discharge petition to force the House to openly debate the 
Homeward Bound legislation. Homeward Bound is the bill introduced by 
the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). It is H.J. Res. 55, and it 
calls for bringing our troops home no later than October 1, 2006. The 
petition must be signed by 218 Members of Congress and then will force 
a debate on the floor.
  This debate would include 17 hours of open debate, allowing every 
Member of Congress a chance to offer an amendment or talk about the war 
in Iraq from their very own perspective. Regardless of where my 
colleagues stand on the war and regardless of their political 
affiliation, I urge them to sign onto this discharge petition because 
we are long overdue for a conversation here on the floor about Iraq. It 
is a conversation that we need to have because it has been a long time.
  Anyone watching at home may remember the last time Congress debated 
this matter. It was May 25 when I introduced an amendment to the 
defense authorization bill, an amendment asking the President to put 
together his plans for bringing our troops home and to provide those 
plans to the appropriate committees in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. Speaker, 128 Members of this House voted for that amendment, and 
if the vote were held today, I am sure we would have many more than 128 
votes. Of those 128 votes, 5 were Republican, 122 were Democrat, and 
one was our Independent from Vermont.
  Unfortunately, we cannot have that vote again because the Republican 
leaders in Congress will not allow it. They will not bring important 
Iraq legislation like the bipartisan Homeward Bound legislation up for 
debate on the House floor. Think about it, the last time we debated 
this vitally important issue was nearly 6 months ago, and that was the 
first time and only time we have talked about it since the beginning of 
the war.
  Since Congress will not have this debate, we have had to resort to 
taking matters into our own hands. That is why we are working to bring 
Homeward Bound to the House floor, and that is why 61 of my colleagues 
joined me in sending a letter to the President last week urging him to 
make four key policy changes in his position on Iraq.
  First, we asked him to engage in greater multilateral cooperation 
with our allies. We simply cannot keep 160,000 American soldiers in 
Iraq and hope for the situation to just change for the better because 
it is our very military presence that is fueling Iraq's growing 
insurgency.

                              {time}  1830

  Instead, the President should actually eat a little crow, admit his 
mistakes and ask our allies, the same ones we offended in the buildup 
of the war, to establish a multinational interim security force for 
Iraq, possibly run by the United Nations or NATO. The U.N.'s Department 
of Peacekeeping Operations would be particularly well suited to 
managing this task, as a matter of fact.
  Second, the U.S. must pursue diplomatic and nonmilitary initiatives. 
If we seriously want democracy to take hold in the Middle East, then we 
need to get serious about changing our role from that of Iraq's 
military occupier to its reconstruction partner.
  Instead of sending troops and military equipment to Iraq, let us send 
teachers, scientists, urban planners, and constitutional experts as a 
larger diplomatic offensive, one that will allow us to regain our lost 
national credibility while, at the same time, creating Iraqi jobs and 
bolstering Iraq's economy.
  Third, let us prepare for a robust, postconflict reconciliation 
process. There is no shortage of national healing that needs to occur 
in Iraq after nearly 3 years of death and 3 years of destruction. That 
is why we should encourage an international peace commission to oversee 
Iraq's postconflict reconciliation. This group would coordinate peace 
talks between the various factions in Iraq, providing all Iraqis with a 
sense of ownership and hope over their country's future.
  Finally, and most important of all, we must bring our troops home. 
The human cost of this war has been absolutely staggering. To save 
lives, end the war and prevent our Treasury from spiraling even further 
into debt, we need to end this war.

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