[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23595-23596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      THE TIME IS NOW TO PLAN SAFE AND ORDERLY DEPARTURE FROM IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, there is a great deal of spin coming from 
the White House on why America needs to stay the course in Iraq, and 
why we must keep the surge going on and on and on, on how victory is 
near if we simply escalate the number of troops we have in this region 
of Iraq or another region of Iraq.
  Enough, Mr. Speaker, enough. It seems the President hasn't read his 
own National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. If he had, he would find a 
grim picture of the political and security reality in Iraq, one quite 
different from his own.
  Let me read just a few conclusions from this August 23 report:
  One, the level of overall violence, including attacks on and 
casualties among civilians, remains high; Iraq's sectarian groups 
remain unreconciled; al Qaeda in Iraq retains the ability to conduct 
high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain 
unable to govern effectively.
  Two, population displacement resulting from sectarian violence 
continues, imposing burdens on provincial governments and some 
neighboring states and increasing the danger of destabilizing 
influences spreading across Iraq's borders over the next 6 to 12 
months.
  Three, broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained 
security, long-term political progress and economic development are 
unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors 
driving Iraqi political and security developments.
  Mr. Speaker, just the first few pages of the NIE on Iraq should 
concern everyone. Also on the President's reading list should be the 
August 30 draft GAO report on Iraq, which also paints a very 
pessimistic picture of Iraq. It concludes that Iraq has failed to meet 
all but three of the 18 required benchmarks for political and military 
progress. Rather than embrace these nonpartisan findings, the White 
House has actually denounced the GAO report for holding Iraq to too 
high a set of standards.
  Mr. Speaker, while the White House speaks of how violence has been 
reduced in Baghdad, it ignores how the number of Iraqi civilian deaths 
across the country rose by about 20 percent in July. This is not the 
time to paint rosy scenarios and declare victory is at hand if only 
Congress coughs up another $200 billion to cover the costs of the war 
over the next few months.

[[Page 23596]]

  Mr. Speaker, the President and we in Congress must face the facts. We 
need a plan on how to leave Iraq in a safe and orderly manner in 2008. 
We need the President to meet with congressional leaders and map out a 
concrete plan for how to draw down our forces and leave Iraq over the 
next 9 to 12 months. It can be done, and it must be done.
  We can redeploy troops to Kuwait in the surrounding region. We can 
safeguard the Kurdish north. We can redeploy troops to Afghanistan. And 
we can bring troops home to their families, friends and communities. We 
need the Pentagon to provide a realistic plan for withdrawal, one that 
is logistically sound and can be achieved over the next year.
  President Bush, with great fanfare, recently invoked the Vietnam 
analogy to support our continued escalation in Iraq. If anything, 
Vietnam and Iraq prove that wars are a lot easier to get into than out 
of. If we want to avoid the haste, confusion and humiliation of our 
final departure from Vietnam, a withdrawal that occurred almost 
entirely without planning and hurt U.S. military prestige more than any 
other single action, then we must plan now for our departure from Iraq. 
If we fail to plan and control the safe and orderly withdrawal of our 
forces, then we will surely fail our troops once again, holding them 
hostage to events on the ground beyond their control.
  The administration lacked a plan for what to do in Iraq the day after 
the fall of Saddam Hussein. We must not repeat that mistake when it 
comes to the welfare and the safety of our troops as they leave Iraq.
  For far too long, Congress failed to live up to its responsibilities. 
We must not continue to send blank checks to the White House.
  Mr. Speaker, this House should not consider the President's 
supplemental request until we come to an agreement with him on how to 
bring our troops home in a safe, orderly and timely way.
  Let me be clear. This means we should not consider on the floor of 
this House any additional funding for this war until we have a plan to 
end it.
  As The New York Times stated last Friday, ``In Vietnam, like Iraq, 
American Presidents and military leaders went to great lengths to 
pretend that victory was at hand when nothing could be further from the 
truth.''
  We don't need more spin, Mr. Speaker. What we need is a plan to end 
the war in Iraq, and we need it now.

                          ____________________