[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3826-3827]
[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 Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes 
is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, you like I am a freshman in this body and today we will 
begin the debate on one of the most important topics that this Congress 
has debated and that is America's involvement in the Middle East and 
Iraq and eventually in Afghanistan in dealing with the whole terrorist 
situation.
  I have been in this House, Mr. Speaker, and listened to the 
Republicans and listened to the Democrats and the Democrats, of which I 
am a member, have talked about protecting the troops and opposing the 
President's surge, which is really an escalation, and the Republicans 
have come in here today and said that we need to in essence stay the 
course, we need to put in more troops and we're doing wrong by opposing 
the President's escalation or surge.
  Mr. Speaker, from what I have heard from the American people, the 
American people realize this war has been a failure, that American men 
and women are dying, and dying for what purpose? For the purpose 
theoretically of trying to bring democracy to Iraq where the people in 
Iraq don't even want us to be there, where the Iraqi government is 
almost nonexistent, where calling what is going on in Iraq a civil war 
is almost a misnomer, for a civil war connotes a nation and there 
really is not a nation in Iraq. The ministries are not working. The 
government is not working. Many of the people in Iraq of the highest 
caliber have left Iraq and gotten out of what is a zone where there 
have been tens of thousands of Iraqis die. What the people across the 
aisle talk about in bringing democracy to these people, in bringing 
democracy to these people we have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, 
we have destroyed their nation, and we have put casualties among tens 
of thousands of Iraqis. What a price to pay to bring democracy to a 
country, to destroy the country.
  Mr. Skelton, who will bring forth the Democratic response, has said 
that this, quote-unquote, surge is 100,000 troops too few and 3 years 
too late. I don't have anybody in this House I respect more on this 
position than the head of the Armed Forces Committee, Mr. Skelton from 
Missouri.
  The fact is this war was started under false pretenses and much of 
that information has come out lately. Many of the people who voted to 
give the President the power to go into Iraq did so under facts, or 
appearance of facts that were given the American people and this 
Congress that were false. I remember being at home and watching on 
television when the President addressed this Congress and talked about 
Osama bin Laden and talked about what he said were connections between 
Iraq and 9/11 and it made everybody feel like if you were a red-blooded 
American, you wanted to do something about Iraq because they had 
destroyed the Twin Towers, they had killed 2,000 people, Americans and 
others, and put a devastation in this world that we hadn't seen except 
in movies.
  Well, that information given us was false. There wasn't a connection 
between Iraq and 9/11. We went to war for reasons that are still not 
quite clear and known, and this United States of America went to war 
against a country that was not at war with us and we were an aggressor 
nation. This is something we shouldn't have done. It is not about cut 
and run, as the people on the Republican side say, but it is, as 
President Clinton says often, it is about stop and think. And when you 
stop and think, do you support the troops by continuing to send them in 
harm's way?
  Mr. Speaker, I am a prizefight fan and one of my favorite fighters 
was Floyd Patterson. At one time Floyd Patterson fought Muhammad Ali 
and Muhammad Ali was just whooping him and whooping him and whooping 
him. And his trainers kept putting him back in the ring and Floyd kept 
going in there and trying to fight. But Floyd Patterson didn't belong 
in the ring with Muhammad Ali. He could beat a lot of fighters, but he 
couldn't beat Muhammad Ali. He was in the wrong fight at the wrong time 
and he just got beat and beat and beat. And what a good trainer would 
do is throw in the towel, and say, We quit. It's a technical knockout. 
We'll fight another day. We'll figure out a new way to fight Muhammad 
Ali maybe or maybe that's just somebody we can't fight. It just wasn't 
our fight.
  To support our troops isn't to continue to send more troops into Iraq 
and have more American men and women die and more American men and 
women come back as casualties and be in veterans hospitals but is to 
get them out of a war they can't win and out of a situation where all 
they are is fodder for a civil war, where Iraqis are killing Iraqis and 
Iraqis are killing Americans and whether the Americans are there or 
not, the Iraqis are going to have their civil war and there is going to 
be bloodshed. The only issue left, Mr. Speaker, is how much American 
blood will be spilled on this foreign soil on a foreign policy folly 
that is somewhat akin to Napoleon's entries into Russia, to Hitler's 
entries into Russia and in the Danish countries' efforts to go into 
Russia. There are certain places you can't go and you can't win, and 
after 4\1/2\ years this country should know it. To put more troops 
there, to waste more blood, and to give up more lives is simply wrong. 
To support our troops is to bring them home.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this time. I hope that not more American 
men and women will lose their blood or lose their limbs in what is an 
impossible war. We need to bring America home, bring our resources 
home, and bring our troops home.

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