[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6205-6206]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ FORUM

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from California?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, the carnage and the bloodshed continue in 
Iraq. Things are getting worse, not better. April is indeed the 
cruelest month for 63 American soldiers who won't be making it home. In 
fact, it is the deadliest month so far in the year 2006.
  We are coming up on the 3-year anniversary of the President's 
infamous aircraft carrier flight suit stunt, and I am still looking for 
someone who can answer this question: How is it possible that we have 
lost more than 2,000 of our troops after this mission was supposedly 
accomplished?
  Today's big headline? The President has a new spokesman. As if the 
same talking points, the same platitudes, the same wretched ideas 
coming out of a different mouth is going to make a lick of difference. 
The White House doesn't have a PR problem, it has a policy problem. Do 
they actually think two out of every three Americans are unhappy with 
the President's performance because of his Press Secretary? Are they 
that dismissive of the intelligence of the people they are sworn to 
serve?
  It is as if the administration were our landlord in a house that was 
being condemned, with a foundation crumbling and every corner infested 
with vermin, and when we register our complaints, they go ahead and 
change the drapes. There will be a new talking head at the briefing 
room podium, but the administration's approach remains stubbornly 
resistant to change.
  The other big news of the day is that Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld 
dropped in on Iraq, and from this visit we learn that there may be a 
troop reduction by the end of the year. But that strikes me as a 
cosmetic, contrived move that is driven by the political calendar. It 
is clearly not enough.
  Remember, this President, who says he doesn't believe in timetables, 
made it perfectly clear that he intends to keep our troops in Iraq for 
at least as long as he is in office. And there is every reason to 
believe that the construction of permanent military bases has begun. 
This is exactly the open-ended, long-term occupation that fuels the 
rage of the insurgency.
  I, for one, am not willing to stay silent on the sidelines. I will do 
everything in my power to make the case that the troops should come 
home now. I will continue to explore alternatives to our current Iraq 
policy, and I will continue to shine a spotlight on conditions on the 
ground in Iraq.
  To that end I invite my colleagues to join me tomorrow morning as I 
convene a forum that will help put a human face on the Iraq conflict. 
We will hear from an impressive panel of witnesses, including:
  A Georgetown professor, who spent the bulk of his career with the 
CIA, where he was considered one of the Agency's preeminent 
counterterrorism experts.
  We will hear from a Shia Iraqi woman, a civil engineer married to a 
Sunni, who has lived through the invasion and the occupation and then 
fled to Jordan after her son was briefly detained as a political 
prisoner.
  A marine who served in the Iraq war and was discharged last year due 
to his post-traumatic stress disorder.
  A young American doctor, half Iraqi, half Jewish, who recently 
returned to Iraq, where she lived as a young child. She has put her 
medical practice on hold to raise awareness about the devastating 
impact the war is having on the people in Iraq.
  I will also be joined by several of my colleagues, the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Hinchey), the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Jones), and the gentlewomen from California, Ms. Lee and

[[Page 6206]]

Ms. Waters, among other Members of the House of Representatives. We 
will engage in a dialogue with these panelists, and we will offer our 
own thoughts on Iraq.
  I had a similar forum last fall, which was focused more on shifting 
policy direction and brainstorming about how we might carry out a 
military exit strategy. That will be a component of tomorrow's 
discussion, but my intent tomorrow is to present firsthand accounts 
from people who have lived through this war and can speak 
authoritatively about its human cost.
  We hear virtually every day from the White House, the civilian 
leadership at the Pentagon, and the military commanders. I think it is 
important that we give a platform to those who have stared this war 
directly in the eye, outside of the Green Zone, without a security 
detail or an armored limousine. I hope you can join me tomorrow.

                          ____________________