[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 50 (Thursday, March 22, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H2931-H2932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, those elected to serve in the people's 
House sometimes must decide matters of war and peace, in other words, 
matters of life and death, and nothing is more important.
  Today we stand at the crossroads of one such momentous decision, and 
let

[[Page H2932]]

no one doubt that the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians 
hang in the balance.
  This is a vote of conscience and one of the most important votes I 
will ever cast in the House of Representatives.
  I wish we were debating the language of the 1970 McGovern-Hatfield 
amendment. It called for directing funds only for the safe and orderly 
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Indochina. I enter into the Record at 
this point the Iraq version of the McGovern-Hatfield that I want to 
offer.

Proposed McDermott Amendment to H.R. 1591, Modeled on McGovern-Hatfield

       After April 30, 2007, funds herein appropriated may be 
     expended in connection with the activities of American Armed 
     Forces in or over Iraq, Iran or Syria bordering Iraq only to 
     accomplish the following objectives:
       (1) the orderly termination of military operations and the 
     safe and systematic withdrawal of remaining armed forces by 
     December 31, 2007 and
       (2) provision of humanitarian and reconstruction assistance 
     to the people of Iraq.
                                  ____


  Senator George McGovern's Speech in Favor of the McGovern-Hatfield 
                     Amendment, September 1, 1970:

       ``Every senator in this chamber is partly responsible for 
     sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This 
     chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly 
     responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and 
     Bethesda Naval and all across our land--young men without 
     legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes.''
       ``There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys 
     who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to 
     them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does 
     not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, 
     or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are 
     staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being 
     shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their 
     lives and their hopes.''
       ``And if we do not end this damnable war those young men 
     will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the 
     Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on 
     us.''
       ``So before we vote, let us ponder the admonition of Edmund 
     Burke, the great parliamentarian of an earlier day: ``A 
     contentious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.''

  I wish the legislation before us was that direct, but we do have 
legislation before us and a momentous decision to make.
  Over 4 years ago, a vote in this House enabled this President to take 
America to war. Earlier today I told Speaker Pelosi that I will cast my 
vote to bring America home to peace. I want to get all of the soldiers 
out of Iraq tomorrow, but safely extracting over 140,000 U.S. troops 
cannot be done overnight, and the safety of our soldiers in leaving 
Iraq must be paramount.
  I want to end this incomprehensible war tomorrow, but as a medical 
doctor, I know that no matter what we do today, this war will go on for 
decades in the minds of psychologically wounded soldiers and in the 
bodies of severely injured soldiers.
  What we have before us today is a first step, and despite my serious 
misgivings about it, it is a step in the right direction, which is out 
of Iraq.
  Speaker Pelosi has given America a plan, a timetable and a course of 
action demonstrating the leadership we have not seen from the President 
on Iraq. The President has lost the trust of the American people, and 
he deepens the mistrust at home and around the world every time he 
speaks about Iraq.
  Instead of confronting reality, the President stubbornly adheres to a 
fiction of his own creation that a military victory will be achieved in 
a nation in the throes of a full-scale civil war, with an American 
presence inciting unspeakable violence against our soldiers from all 
sides.
  The Iraqi people have seen their lives sink into misery. Millions 
have fled their country or been displaced from their homes. Those 
remaining live in terror that a trip to the market will end their life, 
and very often it does.
  The Iraqi people want us out because they see the U.S. as an 
occupier. They want the U.S. out because it is their country and their 
oil, not ours.
  This war should never have started, and Americans at the end of the 
21st century will still be paying for this Presidential misadventure.
  Preying on the fears of the American people, this President devised a 
war-first policy, unheard of in American history. The President 
implemented his chilling foreign policy in Iraq. When just cause for a 
war did not exist, the administration made it up, preying on America's 
vulnerabilities after 9/11.
  They called it a war against terror, but now we know it was a war of 
revenge and a war to control oil. It was never about exporting 
democracy. It was always about exploiting the fears of the American 
people to do what the White House had been planning long before 9/11: 
Invade Iraq, control its government, and enable foreign oil companies 
to reap a bonanza of profits by extracting Iraq oil and perpetuating 
America's addiction to oil.
  Speaker Pelosi has given us a plan, not as strong as I want, but one 
I will support as a bare minimum because it has a timetable and demands 
accountability from Iraq leaders; bare minimum, but dramatically better 
than what we have, a war without end from a President incapable of only 
escalation, not negotiation.
  The heroes of our Nation, the soldiers fighting and dying on the 
front lines, deserve to come home. The Iraq people deserve to decide 
the future of their own country.
  With this legislation, we acknowledge the wisdom and the will of the 
American people. We realize that the Iraq war is a fraud, and 
perpetuating it by sacrificing more innocent U.S. and Iraq lives is a 
tragedy we can no longer tolerate.
  I urge my colleagues to vote with Speaker Pelosi and vote for peace.

                          ____________________