[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 803-804]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           THE WAR IN IRAQ, LATINOS AND TROOP ESCALATION PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, good evening to you and to those families 
that are listening to us tonight.
  I believe our Nation needs a policy to secure and stabilize Iraq, one 
that constructively engages in diplomacy and partners with neighboring 
countries and the region to create a stable and peaceful Nation in 
Iraq.
  Unfortunately, President Bush missed the opportunity to set the 
United States on a new course in Iraq. Without a plan to secure the 
peace and stabilize Iraq, President Bush's plan will do nothing but 
unnecessarily risk the lives of more U.S. servicemen.
  I have here displayed 13 of those service members who represent my 
district, most of whom, if you can look through each, are under the age 
of 30 and who left families, parents and children. They went to serve 
our country with honor, no doubt, but many of them enlisted in the 
Reserve and the Guard hoping that they would come back to get a college 
education, to have a better life, to be able to get housing and to get 
health care for their families. Unfortunately, that dream is not true 
for many of them.
  There are approximately, at this time, 132,000 U.S. troops serving in 
Iraq. This war, as you know, is having a significant impact on our 
families and our communities. Last December was the deadliest month of 
the war in over 2 years. U.S. casualties have exceeded well over 3,000 
lives, and more than 22,700 servicemen and women have been permanently 
injured or disabled. Nearly half of those will not be able to lead a 
normal life.
  While Latinos make up just about 12 percent of the U.S. population, 
they make up 17 percent of the service men and women in combat in Iraq, 
and about 11 percent of those have already been killed.
  In the District that I represent in California, we have lost these 
young men. Sadly, Latinos, both citizens and noncitizens, and I mean 
those that

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carry green cards, are proudly there to serve our country, but we need 
to do more for them.
  In 2001 to 2005 alone, the number of Latinos in the Army who enlisted 
rose by 26 percent. There are currently 35,136 green card soldiers 
proudly serving our country today. An additional 28,000 have become 
U.S. citizens since 9/11, and 73 have been granted citizenship after 
death.
  This includes one of my very own, who was a fallen soldier early in 
the war, a young man, Lance Corporal Francisco Martinez, in the 
Marines, representing the City of Duarte in the San Gabriel Valley. His 
service to this Nation is countless. He was not even a U.S. citizen. He 
gave his life and was granted posthumous citizenship. But we need to do 
more for our soldiers than that.
  The plan the President is going to speak to us of tonight ignores the 
real needs of our troops and the reality of the situation. Three times 
in the past 2 years President Bush has increased the number of troops 
in Iraq. Three times the approach has failed. From November 2004 to 
March 2005, the level of U.S. troops increased from 12,000 to 150,000. 
The increase did nothing to improve long-term security.
  During the constitutional referendum in the fall of 2005, troop 
levels increased by 22,000 soldiers, for a total of more than a 160,000 
American service men and women in Iraq. Again, this increase, while 
limiting major violence during the referendum, did nothing to improve 
the long-term security in that particular area.
  During Operation Together Forward, the Bush administration sent 
additional troops to Baghdad. The U.S. military spokesman, General 
William Caldwell, stated this effort was a failure and had ``not met 
our overall expectations for sustaining a reduction in the level of 
violence.''
  Each of these instances has something in common. Each failed to 
improve the long-term security situation and the violence and death 
toll, which continues to rise. Even the Commander of U.S. Central 
Command has testified that top military commanders in Iraq do not 
believe increasing the number of troops is the right approach. He 
stated, in fact, more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing 
more, from taking more of their own responsibility.
  We know the solution is not to send more troops to Iraq without a 
real plan to secure the peace. Fifty-five percent of Americans do not 
believe more troops can secure Baghdad, and 59 percent of Americans 
want redeployment of American forces, this includes two-thirds of the 
Latino population, who want our troops brought home. A study done by 
the Pew Hispanic Center found that 75 percent of Latinos now believe 
that the U.S. made the wrong choice in using military force in Iraq.
  Americans, as you know, voted November 7 for a new direction in Iraq, 
and we must deliver that promise. Our Nation needs a policy to secure 
and stabilize Iraq, one that constructively engages in diplomacy and 
partners with our neighbors there. We need a plan that ensures that 
there are no permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq and a plan to 
decrease the U.S. presence there. We need a plan which investigates and 
punishes companies like Halliburton engaged in war profiteering and 
fraud, like the $1.4 billion in unreasonable and unsupported charges by 
Halliburton which the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified.
  We need a policy and a plan to put welfare of our service men and 
women first so that they come home, rejoin their families and receive 
the care that they deserve. This should also include services for all 
of our veterans, both men and women.

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