[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13892-13893]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from 
California is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, on March 1, 2003, the United States stopped 
fighting a war in Iraq and became the occupants of Iraq. That was when 
the U.S. occupation began.
  March 1, 2003, is the day that President Bush, speaking under a huge 
banner with the words ``Mission Accomplished'' declared major combat 
operations in Iraq had ended. At that moment, the United States 
military should have left Iraq.
  Military commanders and policy experts advised the President, but he 
failed to grasp that deploying hundreds of thousands of soldiers to 
Iraq and invading Baghdad would be like sticking your hand in a beehive 
and trying to remove it without getting stung.
  Even the President's father, President George H.W. Bush, agreed on 
this point. That is why during the first Gulf War during 1991, he 
stopped short of having the U.S. military actually enter Baghdad.
  If we had left after, according to the President, the ``mission'' had 
been ``accomplished,'' we could have prevented the deaths of over 2,400 
American soldiers. More than 18,000 others wouldn't have returned home 
with life-changing injuries, and thousands of others wouldn't suffer 
from severe psychological trauma as a result of fighting a

[[Page 13893]]

war halfway across the world. And countless thousands, tens of 
thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who have been killed might still 
be alive in Iraq.
  The last 3\1/2\ years since the President's ``mission accomplished'' 
speech have been unsuccessful in all ways in Iraq. This war has drained 
America's coffers of nearly $400 billion, money that could have been 
used for underfunded programs right here at home, like addressing key 
homeland security needs, providing health care to all Americans, giving 
all American children a first-class education.
  This war has diminished America's role as an international leader. 
Our role and our image have suffered great damage as a result of our 
involvement in Iraq. We are even less safe here at home, and Iraqis are 
less safe in Iraq than before the United States invaded Iraq.
  It is actually the very presence of 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq 
that has enraged and dissatisfied the people of the Arab world.
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a war; this is an occupation. The Pentagon 
and the White House have turned our troops into occupiers against their 
will, placing them in an absolutely impossible situation. This is not 
what they were trained for. Soldiers can win a war, but how do they win 
an occupation? An occupation is by its very nature unwinnable. There is 
no winning; all you can do is come home.
  The President does not seem to understand this truth which is made 
very clear in comments he makes like ``we will accept nothing short of 
total victory in Iraq''; or ``we will stay in Iraq until the job gets 
done.''
  Mr. Speaker, the American people understand that there is no such 
thing as ``getting the job done in Iraq'' because it is not a job, it 
is an occupation. What Congress needs to do is take back the powers it 
gave to the President more than 3 years ago. It is time to rescind the 
legislation that gave him the authority to use force in Iraq. And while 
we are at it, let's do the right thing for our soldiers, their families 
and the entire country: end the occupation.
  The least we can do for our troops is thank them for their service 
and bring them home to their families.

                          ____________________