[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 23]
[House]
[Page 31488]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           THE ORDERLY AND RESPONSIBLE IRAQ REDEPLOYMENT ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4156, the Orderly Responsible Iraq 
Redeployment Appropriations Act, just passed.
  Let me be clear about why I voted for it. This legislation is a 
compromise that I hate, but it's the only way to move the agenda of the 
American people forward. This legislation is anything but perfect, but 
it does make important strides.
  It requires the President to use funding to begin to redeploy U.S. 
soldiers out of Iraq within 30 days of enactment and sets a goal for 
complete redeployment by December 15, 2008.
  It requires the President to implement a comprehensive diplomatic 
political and economic strategy to bring stability to Iraq. For the 
first time, the President will actually have a plan in Iraq.
  It requires the President to report to Congress. It will end the 
secrecy that has surrounded everything about this war.
  And it requires the President to accept what the rest of us know, 
that waterboarding is torture. It is a crime, and this bill says it's 
not going to be used in the interrogation of prisoners.
  After World War II, we prosecuted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding 
U.S. prisoners of war. But the President's new Attorney General is 
walking around wondering about whether waterboarding is a crime.
  House Republicans who voted ``no'' said they're willing to sacrifice 
the will of the American people at the altar of blind political 
obedience to the White House.
  If Republicans in the Senate filibuster this bill, they'll be telling 
the American people to go away because they intend to follow the 
President over the cliff.
  If this legislation should reach the President's desk, it just might 
finally force him to confront reality. But I don't expect any of that 
to happen.
  The President intends to hand Iraq over to the next President. In the 
meantime, this President is waging an Iraq veto war relying on 
Republicans to act as mechanical robots and rubber-stamp his vote on 
every single Iraq policy the Democratic majority has brought forward.
  The American people may not understand how badly they've been 
deceived and misled by this administration, but it's going to continue. 
Sometime next spring, the President will announce things in Iraq are 
going so well he'll bring home a few thousand of our troops. He'll have 
them arrive in the fall during the election, when Republicans are 
desperate to explain why they ignored the American people. He will not 
tell us that 100,000 soldiers will be permanently stationed in Iraq at 
14 military bases the administration has so artfully called enduring 
bases. Of these, five are superbases: Camp Victory North, al Asad Air 
Base, Balad Air Base, Camp Taji, and Tallil Air Base. These are huge 
bases with everything from video stores to supermarkets and rental 
cars. They are so big that one of them, Balad, 40 miles north of 
Baghdad, is the second busiest airport in the world, second only to 
Heathrow in the amount of air traffic.
  Building enduring bases stands for indefinite U.S. military 
involvement in Iraq, which is not something the Congress or the 
American people want or will stand for.
  The President is running a war by veto. If we could have a vote on a 
no confidence motion, this war would be over. But in our democracy, the 
ballot box is the only vote of no confidence and, regrettably, we have 
another year to wait to get rid of the President.
  That only reinforces the need for today's vote. If Republicans won't 
support something as mild as this, then the American people need to 
know the Republicans are stonewalling. Every time we force the debate 
out in the open, the American people see it for what it is.
  If Republicans continue to prolong the war, the American people will 
take charge next November and unelect even more Republicans.
  We call this legislation a bridge fund, meaning to build a way to 
bring our soldiers out of Iraq and home where they belong. We're 
trying, and we're not going to stop until the American people can 
declare the mission accomplished and the men and women of our Armed 
Forces are home.

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