[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 6 (Thursday, January 11, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E77]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S IRAQ ``SURGE'' SPEECH

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                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 11, 2007

  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, last night, the president announced that 
he will escalate the war in Iraq. Still in his cloud of denial, Mr. 
Bush seems to believe that he can achieve some ill-defined ``victory'' 
by perpetuating America's involvement in a bloody civil war halfway 
around the world. It is unclear what such a victory would look like, 
let alone how it might be achieved. Mr. Bush's ``troop surge'' is not a 
strategy; it is a desperate, last-ditch effort to allow the president 
to avoid admitting that his war of choice has been a failure.
  Generals and foreign policy experts alike agree that adding 21,500 
more troops to the quagmire in Iraq will have little effect on either 
our chances for ``victory'' or the safety and stability of the Iraqi 
nation. Indeed, President Bush chose this course of action against the 
unanimous opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and most of the 
commanders on the ground in Iraq. Everyone except the president seems 
to realize that the essential problem in Iraq requires a political 
solution, not a military one. The American people understand it, as 
they demonstrated overwhelmingly last November. Yet the president wants 
to put even more American troops in harm's way for no strategic 
advantage. He persists in his foolhardy escalation, apparently more 
concerned with preserving his legacy as ``the president who didn't lose 
Iraq'' than with the well-being of either our brave troops or the Iraqi 
people.
  An escalation in Iraq will do nothing to improve America's security; 
on the contrary, it will undermine it. Our military is already 
stretched to the breaking point, and Mr. Bush's ``surge'' will cause 
additional damage that will take billions of dollars and many years to 
fix. Exactly none of the military's active duty or reserve brigades is 
considered ``combat ready.'' Only thirty percent of equipment 
considered ``essential'' to homeland security is on-hand here at home. 
Should disaster strike here at home or elsewhere in the world, we will 
be left virtually defenseless while our troops and equipment are bogged 
down in an unwinnable war that threatens to drag on for years, if not 
decades.
  While Mr. Bush claims to have been ``listening'' to the advice of 
military and foreign policy experts over the last months, he seems to 
have emerged as stubbornly committed to his failed policy as ever. It 
is up to the Congress to put an end to this madness. I particularly 
want to call on my friends on the other side of the aisle to listen to 
the voices of their constituents, the everyday Americans who understand 
what we have at stake in this war in a way that the president has 
proven himself incapable of doing. We cannot throw away more American 
lives. We cannot mortgage our children's futures to further enrich war 
profiteers. We cannot continue to contribute to the devastation of 
Iraq.
  The president seems unable to comprehend that American military might 
is not the answer to all the world's problems. But the American people 
do understand. They know that there is only one way forward in Iraq. We 
must begin the phased withdrawal of American troops in the next four to 
six months. We must change our mission from combat to training and 
logistical assistance for Iraq forces. We must provide the economic 
assistance the Iraqis need to repair their devastated society and give 
whatever help they require in moving their political process forward. 
This is the only way to achieve any sort of victory in Iraq.

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