[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21353]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  IRAQ AND THE MARCH IN WASHINGTON, DC

  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, Cindy Sheehan, who was arrested yesterday 
for simply exercising her constitutional right to freedom of speech 
outside the White House, has awoken a sleeping American public. She 
deserves a great deal of credit for her tireless campaign against the 
Bush administration's lies and abuses which have governed the war in 
Iraq from the very beginning. Her campaign awakened the American people 
to realize just how awful this war truly is.
  This weekend over 300,000 Americans, and I know it was more than 
100,000 as reported by the press because I was there, over 300,000 
Americans demonstrated the same resolve as Cindy Sheehan by showing up 
in force at a rally in Washington, DC. It was one of the first times 
since the 1970s that so many people had descended on the Nation's 
capital to protest a war.
  If strength of numbers demonstrates the injustice of a particular 
policy, then the thousands who participated in Saturday's march 
depicted the wrongness of the Iraq war.
  Most Americans know that the war in Iraq is not increasing our 
national security, that by continuing to fight an unwinnable war the 
President is ensuring our national insecurity.
  Most Americans know that the Bush administration had no plan for how 
to conduct the war. They had no plan for securing the country once 
Saddam was deposed; and now they have no plan for ending the war.
  Most Americans know the terror and chaos that plague Iraq cannot be 
resolved simply by staying the course. I am sure the families of the 
2,000 American soldiers and countless thousands of innocent Iraqi 
civilians killed in this war would argue that the last 2-plus years of 
fighting have not brought much stability to Iraq or to their lives.
  Let us not forget about the thousands of American soldiers who were 
not killed in Iraq, but whose lives will nonetheless be changed forever 
as a result of injuries sustained during the war: arms and legs lost, 
shrapnel wounds cutting into every body part, emotional trauma. How 
will these wounds ever heal?
  The thousands of Americans who bravely serve in our Nation's military 
deserve better. In fact, all Americans deserve better. They deserve 
better than an endless war that is slowly draining our national 
coffers. They deserve better than $9 billion of congressionally 
appropriated funds being lost; $9 billion lost. That is really pretty 
hard to imagine. Lost under the Coalition Provisional Authority's 
watch, or the new $1 billion that has gone missing to the Iraqi 
Government, U.S. money intended for training of Iraqi security forces.
  While the Bush administration is failing the American people through 
its foreign policies, they are also neglecting priorities at home. Just 
take the recent hurricanes that have bombarded the southeastern United 
States over the past month.
  If anything, Katrina and Rita have demonstrated just how skewed our 
national priorities have become. The Federal Government failed to 
assist thousands of Americans, mostly poor, mostly underprivileged, 
mostly African American during their great time of need.
  What we need now is an independent commission to investigate how the 
hurricane response was botched so badly. Unfortunately, the Bush 
administration's response to the failures at home is just like his 
response given to its failures in Iraq: deflection and misdirection of 
any blame whatsoever.
  President Bush has announced that he will establish a partisan, 
congressionally appointed oversight committee; but that is not what the 
American people need. That is not what the American people deserve. We 
need an impartial, independent commission to get to the bottom of why 
the National Guard was in Iraq and not in the United States to protect 
its citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, it is clear that we need a drastic change in policies, 
both at home and in Iraq. The American people know when they are being 
lied to, when they are being misled.
  It is time that Congress started doing what it was created to do: 
represent the will of the American people, rescue victims of natural 
disasters, and rescue our troops by bringing them home.

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