[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              WAR IN IRAQ

  (Mr. SESTAK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. SESTAK. Mr. Speaker, I have served this Nation in combat in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. The first was a just war; the second was a tragic 
misadventure.
  After 31 years of military service, I ran for this office. I have 
never deviated from believing that a date certain to redeploy from Iraq 
is the only strategy which can change the incentives for the Iraqis, 
the Iranians and Syria, to change their behavior and to work for a non-
failed state in Iraq. But I have run the Navy $67-billion-a-year 
warfare program. And I understand that money is only so fungible, and 
we will run out.
  There is a greater good than me, than my office, than my caucus, than 
this Congress, and that is those that still wear the cloth of this 
Nation in Iraq that we Americans sent to fight for us.
  I cannot vote to place their security between us and someone we hope 
might blink, because I do believe, however, after this, that I have 
great faith that there are those Americans on both sides of the aisle 
that will work towards ending this open-ended commitment for their 
security and America's.

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