[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 27574]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     CONGRESSIONAL ACTIONS ON IRAQ

  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, the good news, I suppose, is that nearly 3 
years into the Iraq war, the Bush administration has seen fit to share 
with the American people their war plan.
  The bad news is that there is no ``there'' there. The ``national 
strategy for victory'' shared with the American people last week is 
barely worth the paper it is printed on.
  It is essentially the same old warmed-over rhetoric that we have 
become accustomed to and frustrated with: the enemy is bad; we are 
good; we will never back down; we will achieve total victory.
  To the extent that this strategy for victory contains specifics, they 
are completely divorced from reality.
  In last week's speech, the President mentioned that Haifa Street, 
formerly called Purple Heart Boulevard because of all of the U.S. 
attacks incurred there, is now safely under the control of Iraq's 
security forces, but taking control of Haifa Street in Baghdad does not 
make Iraqi forces self-sustaining. Taking the battle to the enemy, as 
the President likes to put it, has not thwarted terrorism but, instead, 
made Iraq a hotbed of terrorism.
  The President insists that fighting the terrorists ``over there'' 
means that we are not fighting them at home. I doubt the people who 
call London, Madrid, or Bali their home would agree with that 
assessment. Who is to say that next time it will not be Chicago, Las 
Vegas, or San Francisco? There is no evidence that we are any more 
secure at home because of the war in Iraq.
  Iraqi democracy is anything but a certainty. We are undermining our 
own stated goal of advancing freedom when we torture prisoners and when 
we spend millions of dollars to spread propaganda in the Iraqi press.
  When the White House's statements are not divorced from reality, they 
contradict everything they once said about the war. Like this one, from 
the supposed ``victory strategy'' document: ``It is not realistic to 
expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies and 
peacefully reconcile generational grievances, to be in place less than 
3 years after Saddam was finally removed from power.''
  Now they tell us. So much for ``Mission Accomplished.'' We have sure 
come a long way from the confident assertion that we would be greeted 
by grateful Iraqis throwing flowers at our feet, that we would be in 
and out in a flash, that all we had to do was depose Saddam and 
democracy would instantly take hold.
  The President's speech last week demonstrates his inability to 
recognize the intensity of people's anxiety about this war. Americans 
are not looking for the administration to do the same thing but just do 
it a little bit better and to put it in a glossy booklet.
  They want to see a fundamental shift in direction, like the plan 
outlined in a letter I wrote to the President, which was cosigned by 61 
other House Members: one, engage in greater multilateral cooperation 
with our allies; two, pursue diplomatic, nonmilitary initiatives; 
three, prepare for a robust postconflict reconciliation process; and, 
four, and most importantly of all, bring our troops home.
  I wish this administration would step out of its bubble. They should 
break away from the yes men and listen to the American people who do 
not understand the cause for which more than 2,100 and countless 
thousands of Iraqis have died.
  It is not just the American people that the administration is 
ignoring. It is the Iraqis also. Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni leaders 
agree on practically nothing except that there needs to be a clear 
timetable for our troops to leave Iraq.
  The President wants to have it both ways on Iraq. He will not change 
his underlying approach, an open-ended military commitment that will 
last as long as he deems it appropriate, but he can read the polls. So 
he wants to be perceived as doing something new and something different 
in order to rescue his administration from political oblivion; but, Mr. 
Speaker, repackaging a Twinkie does not improve its nutritional value, 
and the same goes for the Bush Iraq policy.

                          ____________________