[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 27853-27854]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1945
                              THE IRAQ WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, today President Bush requested an additional 
$46 billion war request. This request is on top of an existing $142 
billion request pending from earlier this year.
  The President told reporters that the funding was simply for day-to-
day military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said that the bill 
provides for basic needs like bullets and body armor, protection 
against IEDs, and mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles.
  The President would lead us to believe that there are only two 
options in Iraq; Congress must either continue to fund the war 
indefinitely, or we must choose to pull the rug out from under the 
troops and strand them in the field without body armor and bullets. 
This, of course, is a ridiculous characterization of our position. We 
feel that continuing to referee a civil war in Iraq runs counter to our 
national security interests.
  There is no military solution to the war in Iraq no matter how many 
soldiers, weapons and dollars you dump into the country. Bombs and 
bullets have not and will not bring us peace in Iraq. I believe there 
is only one answer to the war in Iraq: a fully funded redeployment of 
our troops and military contractors.
  I think a reasonable Member of Congress would welcome a plan from the 
President on how we're going to safely leave Iraq, and we would be 
happy to fund it. But asking us to continue funding, providing funds 
for the occupation of Iraq until President Bush decides to change 
course is tantamount to asking us to just continue to support the war.
  The choice is clear; it is time to face the facts: We either provide 
funds to continue the war or we provide funds to end the war.
  Mr. Speaker and Members, I'm bothered by this request. I'm bothered 
by it because the President is playing politics with the issue. The 
President of the United States is saying, ``I want this $46 billion and 
I want it now, and I want to use it for very necessary armor and 
equipment,'' because he knows that the Members of Congress do not like 
to be seen in a bad light, having folks believe that somehow they're 
not providing support for the soldiers. And he keeps testing the will 
of this Congress with these kinds of antics.
  We know that the American public wants us out of Iraq. We also know 
the American public wants to indicate its support for the soldiers who 
are not there because they've decided that we would go to war, but 
rather, they answered the President's call because they are patriotic, 
many of them needed jobs, they needed resources, they needed money, so 
they're there.
  Everybody supports the soldiers, but the President is trying to set 
us up. He is trying to set us up so that if we don't immediately vote 
on this $46 billion it will look as if we are not giving the soldiers 
the necessary equipment in order to wage the war. This is absolutely 
ridiculous.
  And I don't know how long this President thinks he can get along with 
mismanaging this war in the way that he's doing. We have 101 questions 
we ought to be forcing on him. First of all, where are the 190,000 
weapons that have been lost? Where is the money we were supposed to 
have been getting from the oil wells in Iraq? Where are the billions of 
dollars that they sent over in cash in the beginning of this war? What 
happened to all of that money?

[[Page 27854]]

  We can go on and on and on with questions about Blackwater and the 
contractors and the mercenaries. We can go on and on about this 
government that they put together that does not function and will not 
function. We can ask them, whose side are you on, the Sunnis, the 
Shias? And now you're trying to manage what Turkey does with the Kurds. 
The Kurds killed Turkish soldiers. The Turks threatened to go over and 
invade the Kurdish territory, and now we're over there trying to manage 
that. It is complicated. We have no business there.
  This occupation is draining us, not only the lives of young men and 
women who are there trying to answer the President's call, but the 
dollars that should be going into comprehensive universal health care, 
truly supporting Leave No Child Behind, truly supporting moderate and 
low-income housing, truly being used to rebuild the infrastructure 
that's falling apart all over America.
  Come on, Mr. President, don't challenge us this way. There are some 
of us who know what we're going to do, and others are going to get wise 
very soon.

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