[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11261-11262]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE IRAQ WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I come this evening to share information 
that I think the American public must know and understand about what is 
going on in the Congress of the United States of America and what is 
going on with this war in Iraq. It is important that I do that this 
evening because tomorrow there will be on the floor of Congress a so-
called debate. But it is a sham debate. This is a debate formed around 
a resolution, H. Res. 861, that the Republicans have put together in an 
attempt, one more time, to fool the American people about what they are 
doing. This resolution was dreamed up after the Republicans determined 
that the polls were consistently against the way this war is being 
managed. This resolution was put together after they went home on break 
and they heard over and over again that the American public is getting 
fed up with this war, the amount of money that is being spent, the 
number of lives that are being lost, and so they come to the floor, 
after having done no oversight, never explaining to the American public 
how billions of dollars are being spent, never taking the time to find 
out about the corruption and the mismanagement in Iraq, never 
investigating the lies and the lack of intelligence and all that has 
been happening. They have the audacity to come before the public in a 
so-called debate with the resolution simply designed to trap the 
Democrats.

[[Page 11262]]

  It is a resolution that says all kinds of things. Do you love the 
soldier or don't you? If you don't support our resolution, you are not 
for the soldiers in Iraq. And so many Democrats are going to get 
trapped because they claim that in their districts they have half of 
their constituents for it, this war, and half against it, and they 
don't know what to do. And so when they have to confront a phony debate 
and a phony resolution, they may just say yes because they don't want 
to be criticized for not being patriotic and loving the soldiers and 
supporting them.
  Well, I am here to say tonight it is a sham. And I would hope, 
overnight, that my colleagues on this side of the aisle would see the 
light and have the courage to vote against it, to not participate in 
the sham. But I don't know if they will or not.
  But let me just give you the background and the backdrop of why all 
of this is happening. This war started March 19, 2003. Total number of 
U.S. troops in Iraq today, about 133,000. Number of soldiers dead, 
2,499, as of June 14. Number of soldiers injured, 18,490, as of June 
14. Total amount appropriated, including latest supplemental, $320 
billion. The cost of the war per month, $6.1 billion, almost $11 
million an hour. There were 1,398 reported killings in May alone, more 
than any other month since the war began in 2006, and that figure 
doesn't include slain soldiers or civilians killed in bombings. Yet, 
the President of the United States would make you believe we are 
winning the war. We are advancing. We are going to be able to turn this 
mess over to the Iraqis and they are going to be able to contain what 
is now a civil war.
  According to the Pentagon, there are about 600 insurgent attacks each 
week since the new government took over in February. The rate of 
insurgent attacks is higher now than it was in 2004. Our soldiers are 
being killed. It is difficult for them to protect themselves against 
these bombings, these suicide bombings, these bombings that are set off 
in cars along the road and dead dogs and on and on and on.
  And why are they dying? We are in this war because the President of 
the United States said that there were weapons of mass destruction that 
we had to protect against. All that we have encountered is 
mismanagement, corruption, missteps, a lack of winning this crazy 
thing. Soldiers dying and some of our young people now being charged 
with killing innocent people because they put guns in their hands and 
they told them to go and kill them because they hated it.
  These soldiers should not be charged. The President of the United 
States should be charged. The Republicans should be charged and the 
Democrats should get some courage and come to this Chamber and make 
sure that they oppose this war.

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