[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 87 (Thursday, June 29, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PLAYING POLITICS WITH IRAQ

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 29, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit to the record an 
opinion editorial from the June 26, New York Times entitled ``Playing 
Politics with Iraq'' by Bob Herbert in which the columnist alleges by 
giving the public what it wants, an orderly withdrawal from Iraq, the 
Bush administration is seeking political advantage from the conflict in 
Iraq, making the war part of a campaign strategy.
  The post-war occupation of Iraq has not gone smoothly. This has had 
considerable influence on the approval rating of President Bush and the 
popularity of his policies. As such, the Bush Administration and 
Republican Congressional leadership seeks to turn the debate over the 
Iraq War in their favor. Their plan is to possibly reduce the number of 
troops in Iraq before this fall's Congressional elections, with 
possibly even bigger cuts before the 2008 elections. Yet even while the 
Bush Administration appears to be executing a withdrawal of a 
significant number of U.S. troops in the coming month its Republican 
allies in the Congress are relentlessly claiming that anyone who 
proposes a withdrawal of troops to be proponents of a ``cut and run'' 
appeasement. Is the President and his administration to be accused of 
``cut and run''?
  The Bush White House and Republican Congressional leadership are 
playing politics with Iraq. More than 2,500 American troops who 
answered the call to wage war in Iraq have already perished and 
thousands more are struggling with coming to terms with the emotional 
trauma and anguish as a result of their sacrifice. They deserve better, 
and we owe it to them to do better. We need to move beyond partisan 
politics because they only serve to deviate us from our main goal--the 
establishment of a safe and democratic Iraq state.
  As a War veteran, I know from experience how sound policy can lessen 
the damaging effect a war like Iraq can have on the individual. I do 
not think the Iraq War should be part of any party's campaign strategy. 
Mr. Speaker I call upon the Republican Congressional Leadership to end 
this divisive practice of using the Iraq war for political gain or 
advantage.

                [From the New York Times, June 26, 2006]

                       Playing Politics With Iraq

                            (By Bob Herbert)

       If hell didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. We'd need a 
     place to send the public officials who are playing politics 
     with the lives of the men and women sent off to fight George 
     W. Bush's calamitous war in Iraq.
       The administration and its allies have been mercilessly 
     bashing Democrats who argued that the U.S. should begin 
     developing a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces. 
     Republicans stood up on the Senate floor last week, one after 
     another, to chant like cultists from the Karl Rove playbook: 
     We're tough. You're not. Cut-and-run. Nyah-nyah-nyah!
       ``Withdrawal is not an option,'' declared the Senate 
     majority leader, Bill Frist, who sounded like an actor trying 
     on personas that ranged from Barry Goldwater to General 
     Patton. ``Surrender,'' said the bellicose Mr. Frist, ``is not 
     a solution.''
       Any talk about bringing home the troops, in the Senate 
     majority leader's view, was ``dangerous, reckless and 
     shameless.''
       But then on Sunday we learned that the president's own 
     point man in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, had fashioned the very 
     thing that ol' blood-and-guts Frist and his C-Span brigade 
     had ranted against: a withdrawal plan.
       Are Karl Rove and his liege lord, the bait-and-switch king, 
     trying to have it both ways? You bet. And that ought to be a 
     crime, because there are real lives at stake.
       The first significant cut under General Casey's plan, 
     according to an article by Michael Gordon in yesterday's 
     Times, would occur in September. That, of course, would be 
     perfect timing for Republicans campaigning for reelection in 
     November. How's that for a coincidence?
       As Mr. Gordon wrote: ``If executed, the plan could have 
     considerable political significance. The first reductions 
     would take place before this fall's Congressional elections, 
     while even bigger cuts might come before the 2008 
     presidential election.''
       The general's proposal does not call for a complete 
     withdrawal of American troops, and it makes clear that 
     any withdrawals are contingent on progress in the war 
     (which is going horribly at the moment) and improvements 
     in the quality of the fledgling Iraqi government and its 
     security forces.
       The one thing you can be sure of is that the administration 
     will milk as much political advantage as it can from this 
     vague and open-ended proposal. If the election is looking 
     ugly for the G.O.P., a certain number of troops will find 
     themselves waking up stateside instead of in the desert in 
     September and October.
       I wonder whether Americans will ever become fed up with the 
     loathsome politicking, the fear-mongering, the dissembling 
     and the gruesome incompetence of this crowd. From the Bush-
     Rove perspective, General Casey's plan is not a serious 
     strategic proposal. It's a straw in the political wind.
       How many casualties will be enough? More than 2,500 
     American troops who dutifully answered President Bush's call 
     to wage war in Iraq have already perished, and thousands more 
     are struggling in agony with bodies that have been torn or 
     blown apart and psyches that have been permanently wounded.
       Has the war been worth their sacrifice?
       How many still have to die before we reach a consensus that 
     we've overpaid for Mr. Bush's mad adventure? Will 5,000 
     American deaths be enough? Ten thousand?
       The killing continued unabated last week. Iraq is a 
     sinkhole of destruction, and if Americans could see it close 
     up, the way we saw New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of 
     Katrina, they would be stupefied.
       Americans need to understand that Mr. Bush's invasion of 
     Iraq was a strategic blunder of the highest magnitude. It has 
     resulted in mind-boggling levels of bloodshed, chaos and 
     misery in Iraq, and it certainly hasn't made the U.S. any 
     safer.
       We've had enough clownish debates on the Senate floor and 
     elsewhere. We've had enough muscle-flexing in the White House 
     and on Capitol Hill by guys who ran and hid when they were 
     young and their country was at war. And it's time to stop 
     using generals and their forces under fire in the field for 
     cheap partisan political purposes.
       The question that needs to be answered, honestly and 
     urgently (and without regard to partisan politics), is how 
     best to extricate overstretched American troops--some of them 
     serving their third or fourth tours--from the flaming 
     quicksand of an unwinnable war.

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