[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5812-5813]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      DEMOCRATS RETREAT FROM IRAQ

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, after waiting for months, the new Democrat 
majority has introduced their plan for Iraq today, and it can be summed 
up with one phrase, fully funded withdrawal.

[[Page 5813]]

  Seeking to micromanage the war, the Democrats have come up with a 
plan that attaches strings to troop funding in order to seek American 
withdrawal from Iraq by 2008. This Democrat plan for a fully funded 
withdrawal could also be described as a well-equipped retreat. A fully 
funded withdrawal might well be added to that classic list of American 
oxymorons that includes plastic glass and jumbo shrimp.
  Since their election pledge to ``fix the war,'' it has taken our 
friends on the other side of the aisle 4 months to come up with a 
strategy in Iraq. But even though their proposal does include funding 
for our soldiers in the field and our veterans here at home, their 
latest poll-tested approach for fighting the war in Iraq can best be 
described as cut and run.
  For all the Democrats' furtive back-room efforts and tortured 
explanations, it is not nearly as complex as they describe. In fact, 
their strategy could be described by George Orwell: ``The quickest way 
to end the war is to lose it.''
  We don't need a fully funded withdrawal. We need to fully fund 
victory for freedom in Iraq.

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