[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23682]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     PLANNED DEFEAT BY WITHDRAWAL?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. ``Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and 
easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the 
tides and hurricanes that he will encounter. The statesman must realize 
that once the signal is given, there are unforeseeable and 
uncontrollable events.''
  Winston Churchill's statement many years from the past indicates the 
truism of war. It is hard. It is always hard.
  Next week, General Petraeus will be reporting to this Congress what 
progress has been made in achieving security and stability in Iraq. No 
doubt the report will offer mixed results, signs of progress and 
probably setbacks.
  In the midst of all of this review, Mr. Speaker, the question is: Now 
what?
  Regardless of what anybody thought about going into Iraq, we are 
there. Right now our military personnel are risking their lives every 
day in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect our interests at home and 
abroad. In my opinion, there are far too many people focusing on where 
we have been and how we got there rather than making decisions about 
the future and our involvement in Iraq.
  The way I see it, Mr. Speaker, we just have two options. We can stay 
in Iraq and keep fighting for the American interest and what we believe 
is right, or we can turn our back and leave. There is not a third 
option.
  To those who think we ought to leave Iraq and bring our troops home, 
what will happen if we withdraw before the job is done? The answer is 
chaos and more bloodshed. Without a stable Iraq, the power vacuum will 
inevitably entice more civil war like we haven't begun to imagine and, 
most likely, a regional conflict that will lead to serious security 
risks for those nations and the United States.
  Congress is making the outcome of this war the same as the planned 
failure in Vietnam. That war lasted 10 years. The media didn't like the 
war. The American public got war weary and Congress then cut the 
funding and started bringing troops home. The results: We left before 
the mission was accomplished. We abandoned our friends, and when the 
communists gained control, they killed thousands of people because we 
lost our way.
  Our enemies today believe we will abandon Iraq in the same way, and 
they hope we do. They feel we don't have the stomach for war. Our 
enemies believe they are more committed to their cause of killing in 
the name of religion than we are for our cause of life and liberty.
  Abandonment and retreat is not a strategy. We stay because it is in 
America's best interest to stay and secure a victory before we turn the 
country over to the Iraqis. We stay because there are men and women 
laying down their lives for the cause of America. Twenty-one courageous 
men and women from my area in southeast Texas have died in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. What would the retreat crowd tell those families about 
their kids who died on the altar of freedom? War got too hard so we 
left? We don't quit because war is hard. War is always hard. We stay, 
Mr. Speaker, because we know that we are fighting a global enemy who 
doesn't intend to stop war. They want to destroy us. Success, Mr. 
Speaker, has never come from withdrawal; it never will.
  General George Patton in World War II told his troops in 1944, he 
said, ``Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The 
quickest way to get it over with is to get the ones who started it. The 
quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. You must always 
do your finest and win.''
  That is the only option. And yes, Mr. Speaker, Patton and his boys 
successfully finished that war.
  And that's just the way it is.

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