[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 43 (Thursday, April 6, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H1628-H1629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ENDURING MILITARY BASES IN IRAQ

  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, last month the House surprised us all by 
unanimously agreeing to an amendment to the Iraq supplemental spending 
bill declaring that the United States has ``no intentions of 
maintaining a permanent military presence in Iraq.''
  Who knew this Republican-controlled Congress would make such a 
positive statement?
  The lead authors of the amendment were my colleagues and the 
Progressive Caucus co-Chair, Representative Barbara Lee from California 
and Representative Tom Allen from Maine, both of whom have been 
instrumental in demanding that the United States not maintain any 
permanent military bases in Iraq.
  Unfortunately, however, some people working inside the Bush 
administration are doing their very best to make sure that last month's 
efforts will be for naught.
  One of the senior spokespersons at the U.S.-led coalition 
headquarters actually in Iraq had this to say about our lasting 
presence there: ``The current plan is to reduce the coalition footprint 
into six coalition bases, four of which are operated by the United 
States.''
  So there you have it. The administration is not even hiding the fact 
that we are planning on maintaining four permanent bases on Iraqi soil, 
something they bureaucratically call ``the coalition footprint.''

                              {time}  2015

  This appallingly casual reference to what the rest of us call an 
occupation is deeply insulting. Anyone who has heard the President tell 
the American people that we will leave as soon as Iraq is secure and we 
won't stay a single day longer should be equally offended, because the 
evidence on the ground suggests that this statement is deeply 
misleading.
  Mr. Speaker, last fall I traveled to Iraq as a part of an official 
congressional delegation. I visited the Green Zone and the Balad 
military base, and I had the privilege of meeting with our soldiers 
serving overseas.
  There were two powerful lessons that I took away from my visit. 
First, I saw that the troops stationed in Iraq are the very best that 
America has to offer. They are brave, they are intelligent, they are 
loyal, loyal to their country, to their mission and to each other. They 
are profoundly committed to this mission, even those who told me 
privately that they do not support the policy that underlies it.
  The second lesson I learned in Iraq is that the perception among the 
military generals on the ground is that we will be there for a very 
long time. The military bases that we are building are like little 
cities. They have their own restaurants, supermarkets, and even their 
own gyms, theaters and bus routes. The troops deserve no less during 
their stay in Iraq, but our stay there must be for the short term. Our 
troops need to come home to their communities and these bases must be 
given over to the Iraqis.
  The U.S. has already spent $280 million to construct the four biggest 
bases in Iraq, and the supplemental spending bill that the House passed 
in March provides nearly $200 million more to enlarge these bases. This 
is the real Iraq policy, not those phony platitudes and nicely worded 
sound bites about standing down when the Iraqis stand up, platitudes 
that President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld want the people to believe.
  In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Bush 
administration's intention all along was to secure a lasting foothold 
in the Middle East. Forget all that stuff that you heard about going to 
war because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which we all 
know wasn't true. Forget about Saddam Hussein's supposed ties to al 
Qaeda. We know that wasn't true either. And forget about freeing the 
Iraqi people from the thumb of a brutal dictator. My guess is that 
right now most Iraqis feel brutalized after more

[[Page H1629]]

than 3 years of a preemptive war that now the President charges was 
about democratization.
  The real rationale for going to war in Iraq is much more sinister and 
much more dangerous to our long-term foreign policy. It has become 
clear that the U.S. needs to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops 
home. Our soldiers need this, their families and loved ones back home 
need this, and of course the Iraqi people need this. But in order to 
truly end the occupation, we need to leave no lasting American presence 
in our place. That means no coalition footprint, nothing even close. 
That means bringing our troops home and giving Iraq back to the Iraqis.

                          ____________________