[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 12999]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            UNDECLARED DRAFT

  (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, in all of the confusion of transition in 
Iraq, it is easy to forget that people are still dying there. Our 
troops are dying on a daily basis, and this President has instituted an 
undeclared draft, but he will not tell Members unless he is reelected.
  Do Members think they need proof, last month 20,000 U.S. soldiers 
were told, not asked, they were not going home after a year in Iraq. 
Mr. Rumsfeld liked something called the stop-loss policy because the 
military can conscript soldiers to just keep fighting. More soldiers 
are staying behind because there are not enough in Iraq to begin with.
  From the beginning, professionals in the Armed Forces told this 
President and the civilians that 300,000 soldiers would be needed in 
Iraq. The President and his civilians denied it, and they fired anyone 
who dared to disagree. So now the administration calls the draft a 
stop-loss order, and they are using it because they need more soldiers.
  Mr. Speaker, make no mistake, a draft arrives in 2005 if this 
President remains in office. They just deny, deny, deny, just another 
day in the Bush administration.

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