[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4827]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1615
                      AMERICAN DEATH TOLL IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, when the American death toll in Iraq hit 
4,000 on March 23, there was a great deal of coverage about it in the 
media. But the media only seems to care about the death toll when it 
reaches a special milestone. But now that the number of dead has 
reached 4,012, they have packed up their cameras, they have gone back 
to ignoring Iraq. Once again, our brave soldiers are dying in virtual 
anonymity, surely paying the highest price.
  Here at home, the administration's occupation policies are harming 
American people in other ways. I am talking about the millions of 
Americans who are suffering because we are spending our Nation's 
treasure in Iraq rather than on vitally-needed social and economic 
programs here at home. We're spending about $4,600 every second on the 
occupation, or about $12 billion a month.
  Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has calculated 
that the occupation will ultimately cost $3 trillion, and that, Mr. 
Speaker, is a conservative estimate. And it will certainly cost a whole 
lot more if the administration gets its way and we establish permanent 
bases in Iraq or the others get their way and we remain involved in 
Iraq for 50 to 100 years.
  This enormous drain on our resources has buried us so deeply in debt 
that we cannot make investments in the programs that would really move 
our Nation forward. Just think of what we could do with all of those 
trillions of dollars.
  We could invest in the education of the 48 million children in our 
public schools. We could prepare them to compete and win in the global 
economy.
  We could invest in early childhood education and the childcare that 
millions of poor and middle-class families so desperately need.
  We could invest in the medical research needed to cure disease and to 
save millions of Americans from needless suffering and from premature 
death.
  We could invest in our infrastructure and new green technologies 
which could produce millions of jobs around our Nation.
  We could produce an economic stimulus package to fulfill remaining 
unmet needs.
  We could help States and cities to provide their first responders 
with the equipment they need to save lives in the event of terrorism or 
natural disasters.
  We could build more affordable housing and assist those who have been 
caught up in the mortgage meltdown.
  We could provide health care to our citizens, starting with SCHIP for 
our children.
  We could move to ensure the solvency of Social Security.
  We could invest in global health. As a member of the Foreign 
Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, I can tell you that 
every single dollar spent on global health is a dollar spent to make 
our world more peaceful and stable.
  These are just a few examples, Mr. Speaker. We couldn't do them all, 
but if we did just a few, we would go much further toward safeguarding 
our national security than we are currently doing in Iraq.
  I hope my colleagues will remember this when General Petraeus arrives 
next week with his bar charts and statistics. Let us remember that the 
turmoil in the Middle East is helping to spike gas prices at the pump. 
It is leading us deeper and deeper into the effects of the Iraq 
recession.
  The responsible redeployment of our troops out of Iraq is the one 
policy that makes sense, and the one policy that the great majority of 
the American people support. It is high time for us to do what the 
American people expect us to do, and they expect us to end our 
occupation of Iraq.

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