[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11257-11258]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IRAQ DEBATE

  Mr. DeFAZIO. I ask unanimous consent to take the time of Mr. Emanuel.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from Oregon 
is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page 11258]]

  There was no objection.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives has shirked 
its constitutional duties when it comes to the issue of Iraq.
  The most solemn of duties that this body can undertake is the 
declaration of war, reserved to the United States Congress. Now, in the 
case of Afghanistan, the known perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, Osama 
bin Laden and his collaborators in the Taliban, this Congress did act, 
with near unanimity. One person dissented. And we passed a resolution 
that was compliant with the War Powers Act and the Constitution of the 
United States to authorize an attack on Iraq and others who aided and 
abetted in the 9/11 attacks.
  Now, if George Bush had had proof or had really thought that Saddam 
Hussein and Iraq were involved in 9/11, he would have needed no further 
authority. But, clearly, he had no proof, and he couldn't make the 
case. But he, nonetheless, wanted to attack Iraq. And Congress, 
reaching a new low point here, in my opinion unconstitutionally, 
vaguely delegated its solemn duties in the case of the making of war to 
the President.
  Now, I don't believe that Congress can do that, but we did, and the 
President then, some 5 months later, used that very broad grant of 
authority to preemptively attack Iraq, ostensibly to remove weapons of 
mass destruction and the threat of Saddam Hussein, which later morphed 
into connections to 9/11, which later morphed into any number of other 
things, and which finally became we went into Iraq to bring freedom and 
democracy.
  Now, since that time, this Congress, this Republican-led Congress, 
has refused to conduct any meaningful oversight of what happened about 
the distortion or the misuse of intelligence, about the huge scandals 
surrounding the more than $10 billion which has disappeared in the so-
called reconstruction effort or the actual conduct of the war itself, 
the unbelievable incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld and his cronies, and 
the impact on our troops in the military. Not one meaningful hearing. 
No debates here on the floor of the House.
  So, finally, the Republican leadership says, well, we are going to 
have a meaningful debate. Now, let's see what they mean by meaningful 
debate. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will take up a bunch of 
time, that is good, at least we are going to discuss it on the floor, 
but it will be to debate a nonbinding resolution; that is, something 
which has no force of law and no authority. It is a sense of the United 
States Congress.
  And if you read that sense of Congress, you will find a nonbinding 
resolution which will not be amendable. No Democratic alternative or 
substitute will be allowed. What the Republicans wrote in secret will 
be voted on here on the floor of the House. That is it, up or down. 
This resolution, if you vote for it, is a vote for the status quo. It 
is a vote for staying in Iraq indefinitely, perhaps a decade or longer. 
It is to continue the current policies with no end in sight.
  On March 21, President Bush himself even said that the question of 
bringing home U.S. troops from Iraq will be decided by future 
Presidents. Future Presidents. Remember, unfortunately, he still will 
be President until 2 years from last January. Now, that is a pretty 
extraordinary statement for the President to make.
  Now, I wish that the Republican leadership really wanted to have a 
full and fair debate. They could at least allow us to have and debate 
an alternative. I am a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus. I am a 
cosponsor of Representative Jack Murtha's legislation, legislation that 
would lead to a thoughtful and appropriate redeployment of our troops, 
and would also say that we would be ready should they need to 
reintervene in a crisis situation in Iraq. But what it would do is get 
us out of the business of day-to-day getting between the Shiias, the 
Kurds, and the Sunnis.
  Now, Bush administration said, well, we never could have predicted 
the Shiias, the Sunnis, and the Kurds wouldn't get along. Rummy said 
they would welcome us like liberators, with flowers and stuff. He just 
ignored the last 1,400 years of history, that is all. He also ignored 
the State Department and the intelligence agencies, other than the 
little select group he had who said the same thing.
  And now, I believe that the Shiias, the Kurds, and the Sunnis, and 
many others, will not meaningfully move to share power, get their act 
together and develop a national government as long as we are staying 
forever, which is what the President and what this resolution says. So 
I believe that if we go down the path of adopting this resolution that 
there will be Members of Congress debating this issue years and years 
from today about what is the U.S. future in Iraq.

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