[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2139-2140]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 THANKING THE HONORABLE LYNN WOOLSEY, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, FOR ALL SHE 
HAS DONE IN TRYING TO CONVINCE CONGRESS TO BRING OUR SOLDIERS HOME FROM 
                                  IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Madam Speaker, this evening I come to the floor to be 
with my friend and colleague Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey as she gives 
her 250th speech and Special Order on this floor. I come to be with her 
to commend her for the tremendous leadership that she has provided not 
only in speaking out against the war in Iraq, but because she has given 
numerous press conferences, she has been on numerous speaking 
engagements, she has spoken with editorial boards, she has written 
articles, she has done everything that could be done in order to 
provide leadership and to encourage and urge the Congress of the United 
States to bring our soldiers home.
  Unfortunately, her messages have not always been heard. But there are 
those of us, those of us who work with her in the Progressive Caucus, 
those of us who work with her in the Out of Iraq Caucus, who have tried 
to not only give support but to do the same kinds of things that she 
has been doing in order to end this war.
  The American people are tired of this war, and I find it disingenuous 
for some of the pundits to say that somehow this is off the radar 
screen, that this is not an issue that the American public cares about 
anymore, that somehow it is the economy. Of course it is the economy, 
but you cannot separate what is going on within our economy from the 
war. We must look at this war for what it is.
  First of all, it is a war that we certainly should not be in. We were 
misled. There were never any weapons of mass destruction. Saddam 
Hussein is dead. Four thousand of our American soldiers have been 
killed in this war. Countless Iraqis, Iraqi civilians, and others who 
have made up the coalition forces from other countries are also dead. 
And so here we are, and the pundits are talking about it is not about 
the war, it's not on the radar screen of the American public, that the 
economy is, when, in fact, our economy is in recession because of this 
mismanaged war.
  We have a President of the United States who came in as a fiscal 
conservative supposedly belonging to the party of the fiscal 
conservatives who have been spending, spending, spending on this war in 
Iraq, over $500 billion on this war in Iraq, at the same time giving 
tax cuts to the richest 1 percent of the corporations of America and 
denying the dollars that we need to invest in our own domestic problems 
that need to be addressed.
  We had a bridge fall down in Minneapolis, and people wondered why did 
that happen. And when we took a close look at the reviews, the 
assessments that had been done about the state of affairs of our 
bridges and our infrastructure, we learned that many of our bridges in 
America are in the same position that that bridge was in, and we know 
that they have been assessed to be dangerous, that they need repair.
  Why don't we have the money to invest in our infrastructure? Why is 
it we cannot create the jobs by investing in our infrastructure? Why 
can't we repair the bridges and the roads and the highways and build 
credible transportation systems? It is because this administration has 
decided that we are going to spend a disproportionate amount of the 
taxpayers' dollars on this war in Iraq, and we don't know when we are 
going to get out of this

[[Page 2140]]

war in Iraq. And this administration would have us believe, because 
they have sent more soldiers and spent more money in the so-called 
surge, that somehow we are winning the war. What are we winning? What 
does winning look like? I don't recognize it.
  I know this: I know that these 4,000 soldiers that have been killed 
in Iraq are not with their families, that their families, many, are in 
disarray; many of them very patriotic, who went to war because the 
President said that they were needed; and many of them who are no 
longer with us, their families are suffering. And we have others who 
have been injured who have come home, and they have not gotten the best 
medical treatment that they should have received, even though they were 
promised that, if they serve, they would be taken care of.
  So here we are. We have destabilized the Middle East and we have 
occupied Iraq. We have Iran that is threatening us, Syria, Lebanon 
destabilized, and Pakistan is a joke.
  I will simply conclude by thanking Lynn Woolsey for all that she has 
done to try to convince this Congress we should bring our soldiers 
home.

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