[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3824]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hall) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HALL of New York. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Indeed, as my colleague from across the aisle says, there are many of 
us, citizens and Members of this House, who do not believe our 
Commander in Chief, and we have good reason not to believe him. I wish 
it were not so.
  After President Bush announced his escalation of the war, I said that 
he owed the American people an honest explanation as to why he thinks 
this surge will succeed when previous efforts have failed. 
Unfortunately, the President decided to stay the course and to begin 
the escalation before either House of Congress had a chance to consider 
it. Instead of providing a new comprehensive strategy to turn the tide 
in Iraq, President Bush offered the same tired rhetoric. Rather than 
engage in an important discussion with the American people, his 
loyalists prevented the Senate from debating this crucial matter.
  Fortunately for us, such obstruction will not occur in this Chamber 
and the House will begin to take up this important debate this week. As 
a new Member of the House, I feel it is my responsibility to ask 
serious questions of our President who refuses to take this institution 
seriously. I ask my colleagues to join with me, to not try to score 
cheap political points but to push this administration and its 
supporters in Congress for real change in the direction of our Iraq 
policy. Our men and women in uniform, who have done everything that has 
been asked of them, deserve no less.
  So I ask the President why this Congress should support his proposal 
to send 20,000 more troops into harm's way when his own former Iraq 
commander, General Abizaid, said it is not needed? Why should we 
support it when the Prime Minister of Iraq has himself expressed no 
support? And why should we support it when the American people have 
shown that they actively oppose the President's policy towards Iraq?
  From the very outset, this administration has been wrong at every 
step of this war.
  The administration led us into an unnecessary war with flawed or 
manipulated intelligence. Wrong.
  This administration went to war without enough troops to win the 
peace. Wrong.
  This administration gave no-bid contracts to its friends and 
political allies, locking out other countries who might have helped us 
and indeed locking out the Iraqis. Wrong.
  President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 
2003 and said, ``Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the 
battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.'' 
Wrong.
  This administration literally took piles of cash, flying pallets of 
millions of dollars from the U.S. mint to Baghdad, into a war zone, and 
lost billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Wrong.
  Now this administration wants us to blindly place our faith and the 
lives of 20,000 more of our troops in an Iraqi government that has 
failed to meet every security obligation it has pledged. Sadly, once 
again, this President is wrong. And no amount of presidential wrongs is 
going to make the situation in Iraq right.
  Last fall's National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the 
President's policy in Iraq is creating more terrorists than it is 
eliminating. Nothing in this policy will change that. Three thousand 
one hundred twenty-four American service men's and women's lives have 
been lost in Iraq as of yesterday. Three thousand one hundred twenty-
five will not make it right.
  It is time for a new strategy in Iraq. It is time to start to bring 
our brave men and women who have fought so courageously back home. By 
turning Iraq over to the Iraqis, we will force their government to 
fight for their own security. Al Qaeda in Iraq will lose their mission 
and be less likely to inflame the Sunni-Shiite conflict. And Iran and 
Syria will have to work for calm rather than sit in the shadows and 
stir the insurgency.
  Mr. President, it is time for a new path for the United States and 
Iraq. This nonbinding resolution reflects the will of the American 
people. It is an important first step but only a first step. I look 
forward to working with my colleagues as we seek to untangle this 
disaster the administration has brought upon us all. Together, we can 
begin to repeal this tragic blunder and undo the damage done to our 
military, to our country, and to our standing in the world.

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