[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 931]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          MIDDLE EAST DISASTER

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, 
the disaster that we now see unfolding in the Middle East with the war 
in Iraq was set in motion when this President, against the advice of so 
many generals and military people, and against the advice of so many 
Middle East experts, made the decision to invade Iraq.
  It was a war of choice, a choice not made by the American people, but 
a choice made by this President. And he set in motion the disaster that 
we now see. We understand that this decision that he made has been paid 
for by the lives and the injuries and the harm done to our men and 
women in uniform.
  Last night he asked for a continuation of that disastrous choice with 
no new plan to change the outcome, but to simply extend the time in 
which our military will be engaged in Iraq.
  It is foolhardy to believe that we should be sending our troops into 
Iraq based upon the theory that the Shia majority in Iraq for the first 
time in 100 years and the growing Shia majority across the Middle East 
is going to negotiate away their ability to act as a majority. This is 
a foolhardy trip, and we ought to vote against the President's 
proposal.

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