[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 162 (Wednesday, October 24, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H11990]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, when General Petraeus testified before 
Congress last month, there was a lot of happy talk from the 
administration about how much improved things had gotten in Iraq. From 
the way they talked, you would have thought that Iraq had become a sort 
of paradise, a middle eastern Shangri-La.
  But now it's back to harsh reality, and yesterday the administration 
handed us yet another bill for their senseless occupation of Iraq. This 
time, the tab is $46 billion in supplemental funding. And this is for 
Iraq as well as Afghanistan. That's on top of the nearly half trillion 
dollars we have already spent in Iraq. And make no mistake, this isn't 
the last bill for Iraq that we will be getting. The administration has 
no exit strategy. Instead, it has a strategy to keep the occupation 
going for decades. So the bill will keep piling up until our credit 
cards are absolutely maxed out. To make matters worse, the 
administration had the gall to hand us this enormous bill just a few 
weeks after vetoing the SCHIP bill, which they said was too expensive.
  Let's examine the White House's logic. Our policy in Iraq is a 
failure while the SCHIP program is a big success. So you would think 
the administration would want to cut our losses in Iraq and increase 
our investment in SCHIP. But, no, it's the other way around. The White 
House has turned into Superman's bizarro world, where everything is the 
opposite of what it should be.
  Yesterday, when the administration announced its funding request, the 
President said, and I quote, ``I often hear that war critics oppose my 
decisions, but still support the troops. Well, I'll take them at their 
word, and this is the chance to show that they support the troops.''
  Well, a few weeks ago, the administration had a chance to show that 
it supported the troops, and it blew it. The SCHIP bill that was vetoed 
included the bill that I sponsored, H.R. 3481, the Support for Injured 
Servicemembers Act. This bill amends the Family Medical Leave Act to 
allow family members of a soldier wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan or any 
other conflict to take up to 6 months leave from work to care for that 
soldier.
  This change in the Family Medical Leave Act is desperately needed by 
the families of our brave troops. The Dole-Shalala Commission reported 
that 21 percent of active duty soldiers, 15 percent of reservists and 
24 percent of retired or separated soldiers have had family members or 
friends give up their jobs to care for them while they recovered from 
their wounds. And 33 percent of active duty soldiers, 22 percent of 
reservists and 37 percent of retired or separated soldiers have had a 
family member or close friend relocate, relocate for extended periods 
of time to care for them while they were in the hospital. So extending 
the Family Medical Leave Act benefits would help many military families 
when they actually need the help the most. That's why my bill has been 
endorsed by the Military Officers Association of America, the Enlisted 
Association of the National Guard of the United States, the National 
Military Family Association, and the National Partnership for Women and 
Families.
  The administration's veto of SCHIP was a slap in the face, not only 
to the children that will not be covered, but to all of these fine 
organizations.
  Let's support our wounded troops and their families and let's support 
our courageous troops in the field in Iraq by rejecting this 
administration's request for supplemental funding, but, instead, fully 
funding the safe, orderly and timely redeployment of all of our troops 
and of all of our military contractors. That way we will be supporting 
the troops in Iraq.
  This is what Congress must do. This is what the American people want. 
And if we fail to do it, we will have failed the American people and 
our troops.

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