[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15629]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       DRAWDOWN OF FORCES IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, this weekend many of us learned that the 
Bush Administration may have a plan for a phased drawdown of coalition 
forces in Iraq in the next 12 to 18 months.
  Unfortunately, we did not learn about these plans from the 
Administration's legally mandated yet unfulfilled reporting 
requirements to Congress. We learned about it from news reports of a 
leaked memo circulating in the British government.
  The memo outlines the Administration's plan to cut the size of our 
force in Iraq from 140,000 down to 66,000 by the middle of next year, 
and describes a ``strong U.S. military desire'' to hand over control to 
the Iraqi security forces in most of Iraq.
  In January I released a white paper in which I proposed a timetable 
for a phased drawdown of the majority of American troops by the end of 
2006. If the information in the British memo is true, then the 
Administration may be planning similar plans, despite its public claims 
to the contrary.
  Ironically, the British memo, reportedly written at least a month 
ago, broke in the American press at exactly the same moment that the 
Administration missed a very important deadline to share precisely this 
sort of information with this Congress.
  There is something wrong when we are learning about the 
Administration's plans for our troops, not from the President, not from 
the Pentagon, but from leaked foreign memos. Yesterday the Pentagon 
should have released to Congress an essential report on the benchmarks 
and guidelines for measuring progress in Iraq.
  The report for ``Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq'' was a 
provision of the Supplemental Defense Appropriations Bill passed by 
this Congress and signed into law by President Bush on May 11, 2005. 
This law required the Administration to outline a comprehensive 
approach to Iraq by July 11, yesterday, with follow-up reports every 90 
days thereafter.
  This report presents an invaluable opportunity for the administration 
to explain to Congress and to the American people their plans and 
intentions in Iraq. Providing Congress with a more comprehensive set of 
performance indicators will undoubtedly lead to a more informed debate 
over U.S. policy in Iraq.
  The congressionally mandated report calls on the Administration to 
outline key measures of stability and security in Iraq. This includes 
measurements of political stability, the training of Iraqi forces. 
Specifically, the report mandates that the Administration provide 
information on the operational readiness status of the Iraqi military 
forces, including the type, number, size and organizational structure 
of Iraqi battalions, as well as their ability to conduct 
counterinsurgency operations.
  The report requirement also calls for estimates of the strength of 
the Iraqi insurgency and details on the training of the Iraqi police 
force.
  I urge the Administration to take this responsibility seriously and 
to take this legal obligation seriously by providing this information 
to Congress as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.
  The information contained in this report is a critical step towards 
bringing our troops home. To that end, I am a cosponsor of House 
Resolution 55, the Homeward Bound Act. This bipartisan legislation 
requires the President to announce a plan by December 31 of this year 
for the eventual return of all elements of the Armed Forces. This plan 
would be a natural extension of the report due to this body yesterday.
  The bill also requires the President to begin a drawdown of our 
troops on or before October 1, 2006. Beyond that date, it provides the 
President with the flexibility for an orderly drawdown.
  Finally, the legislation requires the President to accelerate the 
training of Iraqi forces and to ensure that they are adequate to take 
the leading role in fighting the insurgency.
  Our troops have done everything we have asked of them in Iraq. They 
have acted heroically. They have done their job. Now is the time for 
Washington to do its job.

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