[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23637]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    PRICE-MILLER RESOLUTION ON IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I also rise in support of 
the Price-Miller resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, millions of Americans feel increasing frustration with 
the contrived reasons given for invading Iraq, with the lack of any 
realistic plan for the aftermath of our invasion, and with the 
administration's failure to state clearly what has to happen for our 
military to come home.
  And I feel the same frustration. This administration has said simply 
that we should stay the course, but has failed to declare our port of 
destination. It is hard to believe that there is a course, that we are 
not simply drifting rudderless.
  Mr. Speaker, it has become painfully clear that most Iraqis now see 
our military, who has served admirably, as an occupying army. Iraqis 
believe the United States intends to occupy Iraq on a long-term basis, 
and they believe that our government intends to dominate the elected 
Iraqi Government, rather than respect that government as the legitimate 
government of a fully sovereign nation with control of its own natural 
resources, security and public safety.
  Iraqi suspicions about our intentions undermine the legitimacy of the 
Iraqi Government and fuel the insurgency that continues unabated. Mr. 
Speaker, if our presence in Iraq is truly not for Iraq's oil or for a 
permanent staging area for our military operations in that part of the 
world, we need to say so. We need to state clearly that we do not 
intend a long-term occupation of Iraq, and the Iraqis will determine 
their own future. We need to say out loud that we will transfer to Iraq 
security forces the bases now used by our military, and that we will 
maintain no permanent bases or long-term military presence in Iraq.
  The Price-Miller resolution calls for more than the platitudes that 
we stay the course or finish the job. We demand that the President 
state clearly the remaining mission of our military in Iraq, and to 
state the time period that the President believes will be required to 
accomplish that mission, what needs to happen for our men and women to 
come home, and when does the Bush administration think that it will 
happen.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no better way to persuade the Iraqi people that 
we really intend to withdrew than to begin withdrawing. The Price-
Miller resolution calls for a partial withdrawal as soon as possible. 
There is still work to be done to help the new Iraqi Government achieve 
stability and an enduring democracy, and we need to give new urgency to 
those efforts. We need to train Iraq security forces and engage other 
nations in that effort. We need to help reconstruction efforts and 
provide diplomatic support to the new government. But the referendum 
approving the new Constitution gives us an opportunity, an opportunity 
we must seize, to change fundamentally what we are fighting for, and 
what the Iraqi insurgents are fighting against.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot do that unless we say credibly out loud that 
our military is not there to stay.

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