[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[HO]
[Page 27402]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  WHAT IS THE PLAN TO GET OUT OF IRAQ?

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I came to the floor and told my 
colleagues about a young man from my district who was killed in Iraq 
and the conversation I had with his mother. Since then, two more 
Americans have died in Iraq. Yesterday, I asked Members to be silent 
and contemplate our lost men and women.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to ask the President for a 
plan for how we are going to get out of Iraq. Whatever threat Mr. Bush 
may have perceived from Saddam Hussein, whatever warehouses of weapons 
Mr. Bush believed were waiting to harm the United States, it is over 
now. We should plan to get out.
  We should not spend the lives of young men and young women to 
privatize Iraq's economy. We should plan to get out. We should not 
spend the lives of young Americans to build sewers in Iraq. We should 
not spend the lives of young Americans to make Iraq into our vision of 
a model state. We should plan to leave. We are symbols. We are targets. 
We are sitting ducks. Send in the U.N. or some of the Arab states or 
NATO or whoever wants to go. Pay for it with American taxpayers' money 
as you sign it today, but stop paying for it with American lives. Plan, 
Mr. President, to get out.

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