[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 147 (Monday, October 1, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H11047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         REDEPLOYMENT FROM IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, the American people have been opposed to 
the occupation of Iraq and they have been demanding the redeployment of 
our troops for a very long time now, but the word obviously hasn't 
reached our Nation's leaders.
  Last Wednesday, the Secretary of Defense asked Congress to 
appropriate billions of dollars more to continue the occupation of 
Iraq. He said that American troops will remain in Iraq for years to 
come with no end in sight.
  The occupation has already cost nearly half a trillion dollars, and 
what have we gotten for that investment? Even General Petraeus couldn't 
say for sure that our involvement in Iraq has made us any safer when he 
testified before Congress last month. And the National Intelligence 
Estimate warned us in July that al Qaeda is using the occupation to 
energize extremists, raise money, and to recruit and indoctrinate 
operatives for attacks on the U.S. homeland.
  Madam Speaker, the way to make America truly safer is to end the 
occupation, restore our moral leadership in the world, and use 
diplomacy to strengthen the structure and institutions of international 
cooperation and peace. That's why it is time to tell our leaders in the 
White House that Congress isn't going to be their friendly neighborhood 
ATM machine any more. Congress has the power of the purse. We can use 
it to force the administration to change course. We must refuse to 
appropriate one more dime for the occupation. Instead, we must fully 
fund the safe, orderly and responsible redeployment of American troops 
and military contractors out of Iraq.
  Redeployment of our troops is the necessary first step on the road to 
peace. It is clear that Iraq will never stabilize while American troops 
and the vast unaccountable army of 180,000 American military 
contractors are there.
  Our occupation of Iraq prevents Iraqis from finding solutions to 
their own problems, and it delays the regional and international 
diplomatic efforts needed to jump-start a true peace process.
  The administration has said that it plans to redeploy some troops, 
but this is just a tactic, I believe, to win political favor. The 
arithmetic proves it. We began this year with 130,000 troops in Iraq. 
The escalation brought the level to 160,000. Now the administration 
says it will bring out 30,000 troops so by next summer we will again 
have 130,000 troops.
  So, Madam Speaker, we end up with the same number of troops, but the 
administration calls it a reduction. I call it fuzzy math. President 
Bush has created a national mathematics panel to study ways to improve 
math education in America. That is a really good thing, because the 
President himself needs help with addition and subtraction.
  Actually, Madam Speaker, the only way to make sure that our troops 
are out of harm's way is to proceed right now with a full redeployment 
and end the fantasy that there is a military solution to this quagmire.
  If we fail to use our power of the purse, if we continue to spend our 
taxpayer dollars on this occupation instead of ending it, we will have 
failed politically, we will have failed economically, and we will have 
failed morally. And we will have failed our brave troops along with all 
of the American people. It is time to bring our troops home.

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