[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 57 (Thursday, May 11, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H2556]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IRAQ AND THE FY07 DEFENSE BILL

  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, this Congress had a great opportunity today 
to pass a defense authorization bill that is good for the American 
people, a bill that reflects the very best of American values. Foremost 
among those values is our desire for peace, our capacity for global 
leadership, and our compassion for the people of the world. We could 
have reflected those values by utilizing the defense bill as a means of 
voicing our opposition to prolong the war in Iraq. The Rules Committee, 
however, prevented me from offering just such an amendment to the 
defense authorization bill.
  My amendment expressed the sense of the Congress regarding the war in 
Iraq in two parts. First, it instructs the President, the Commander in 
Chief of the United States Armed Forces, to develop a plan to bring the 
members of the U.S. Armed Forces home from Iraq and to bring the plan 
to the congressional defense committees.
  It is clear that we need to begin the process of bringing our troops 
home because, among many other reasons, the presence of nearly 150,000 
American troops in Iraq is an obvious rallying point for dissatisfied 
people in the Arab world, making the situation in Iraq worse and not 
making the U.S. any more secure.
  The second part of my amendment describes how the United States 
should support Iraq once our troops have come home. The amendment 
directs the United States to engage the international community, 
including the U.N. and NATO, to establish a multinational interim 
security force for Iraq. The U.N.'s Department of Peacekeeping 
Operations actually is particularly well suited to this task.
  Next we would have shifted our role from that of Iraq's military 
occupier to its reconstruction partner. By working with the Iraqi 
people to rebuild their economic and physical infrastructure, we can 
give Iraq back to the Iraqis and help to create Iraqi jobs and Iraqi 
security.
  Finally, my amendment urged the President to involve the United 
Nations in establishing an international peace commission comprised of 
members of the global community who have experience in international 
conflict resolution so that they would oversee Iraq's post-war 
reconciliation process, beginning Iraq's long road to recovery after 
years of sanctions and war.
  The House should have been able to debate the importance of ending 
the war while we helped to stabilize this war-torn nation. 
Unfortunately, this Congress had other priorities, priorities like 
authorizing another $50 billion to continue a devastating war in Iraq 
that has already taken the lives of more than 2,400 American soldiers, 
countless tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and forever 
shattered the lives of another 16,000 injured and wounded American 
troops.
  Priorities like authorizing another $10 billion, that is billion with 
a ``B,'' on a still unproven missile defense system that can't stop the 
greatest threat we face, nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists, 
and has never even been able to stop the missiles it is designed to 
destroy.
  It is beyond dispute that this administration, in tandem with the 
Republican Congress, has been, to put it mildly, less than fiscally 
responsible.
  Earlier this month I introduced new legislation called the 
Commonsense Budget Act of 2006 that finally put some sanity back into 
the Nation's fiscal policy. This bill already has the support of almost 
40 cosponsors.
  The Commonsense Budget Act would trim $60 billion in waste from the 
Pentagon budget and put it to work on behalf of the people and programs 
that truly strengthen America.
  These programs include $10 billion for the modernization of every 
public school, $12 billion for health insurance for every child in 
America, $10 billion to invest in renewable energy and energy 
efficiency programs, $13 billion to feed the hungry, $5 billion to 
improve homeland security, and $5 billion to start the reduction of our 
deficit.
  We need to change the way we think about national security, Mr. 
Speaker. The return on the investments I have proposed as part of the 
Commonsense Budget Act will benefit the entire society, and they won't 
cost us a dime more than we currently spend on our bloated national 
defense.
  Any change in budget priorities, though, has to go hand in hand with 
change in policy on the ground. The very first of those needs to be an 
end to the war in Iraq. For the sake of our soldiers, their families 
and our national security, it is time to bring our troops home.

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