[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 13, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H1474-H1475]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  You know, I think we must be debating two different resolutions here

[[Page H1475]]

today. I just heard my colleague from across the aisle talk about a new 
plan. Of course, I guess that fits in with the smoke-and-mirror 110th 
Congress about a new plan. Well, if you don't want to increase the 
troop size, which the undemocratic majority evidently does not want to 
do with this resolution, and you don't want to stop the funding, then 
what do you want to do? You want to stay the course. I think the 
American people said in the election, we don't want to stay the course.
  I think that our military leaders, we hear this resolution when the 
other side talks about it, they talk about supporting our troops. And I 
am sure General Petraeus is confused to get approved unanimously in the 
Senate and hear this resolution about supporting our troops and yet we 
don't want to follow what he has said we need to do. General Casey 
agrees with this and he has been confirmed to a new position. And so 
how can we tell our men and women in the field that, Hey, look, we 
support you, but don't listen to what your commanders have to say. 
We've got something different. We're going to micromanage the war from 
Washington.
  A lot of the people that are going to be voting on this resolution 
have never been to Iraq. They have never been to Afghanistan. They have 
never seen some of the situations that our young men and women are put 
in for freedom-loving people all over this world. I don't know how they 
could actually vote on it if they have never been, but I guess they 
will. Because they are trying to paint a picture of having your cake 
and eating it, too. We support our troops but, look, we don't want to 
change our way of what we're doing. We don't want to try to help you 
with more troops, to try to help you save your life over there and 
securing these areas that you risked your life in going in to take, 
knock the enemy out, and then have to leave and let the enemy come back 
in and be even stronger. What kind of message does that send?
  This is not about President Bush, because I think President Bush has 
tried every way, Mr. Speaker, he knows how to make this a successful 
campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he continues to come up with new 
ideas through the help and the advice of his military commanders to win 
this war on terror. This is a global war on terror. Some people from 
the other side seem to believe that if we pull out of Iraq that the 
Iraqi people are going to go back to tending sheep and herding goats. 
That is not what is going to happen. If we pull out of Iraq, what is 
going to happen is you are going to see more bloodshed than we have 
seen in a long time in this world, and it is going to be the innocent 
Iraqi people who stuck their finger in that purple ink and went and 
voted for the first time in their life that are going to be the ones to 
suffer, the ones that said, we believe in freedom, we believe in 
governing ourselves, we support the coalition forces here because we 
believe that they're coming to free us from this tyrant that we have 
been under. Those are the ones that are going to die. Those are the 
ones that are going to suffer the most. Those are the Iraqis that are 
losing their lives today because they want freedom.
  Our men and women in uniform, those blessed souls that are in Iraq 
and Afghanistan and are losing their lives, they volunteered to put 
their lives in harm's way not only to protect our freedom in this 
country, not only to protect this Republic that we have but to spread 
freedom and democracy all across the world to every human being that 
loves freedom and liberty. These brave men and women need our support. 
They need our encouragement. But what they don't need is a smoke-and-
mirror resolution that is done for political reasons and because of 
political promises made on a campaign trail. They don't need that. They 
need real encouragement and support from this Congress. Let's do 
something to give them that and not do things that strengthens the 
enemy, discourages our troops and really and truly, I believe, goes 
against the Constitution. When we all took the oath of office, we made 
an oath to the Constitution, not to anybody else. Let's uphold that. 
Let's respect our Commander in Chief and the generals in the field.

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