[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12035-12036]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       RETURN SOVEREIGNTY TO 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. Madam Speaker, I have believed for a long time now that 
the best way to bring peace to Iraq is to launch a diplomatic surge to 
encourage regional and international partners to get involved in 
addressing Iraq's problems.
  The first step in this process would be to withdraw all of our troops 
and military contracts, which would create a positive climate, a 
climate that would allow diplomatic efforts to actually begin. But 
today, the administration is taking our country in quite the opposite 
direction. It is negotiating long-term security arrangements with the 
Iraqi Government, arrangements that could actually keep us bogged

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down in Iraq for decades and destroy Iraq's sovereignty.
  It is hard to know exactly what the administration is demanding in 
the negotiations because it has refused to share the information with 
Congress. Reports, however, and whatever we can find out, indicates 
that the administration is asking for unilateral authority over all 
U.S. military operations in Iraq, the right to arrest and detain Iraqi 
citizens, legal immunity for American military contractors, control 
over Iraqi borders and air space, and perhaps permanent bases, making 
Iraq a virtual American colony.
  All this has brought a wave of protest from Iraqis of all political 
and religious stripes. It seems that we have finally succeeded in 
uniting the Iraqis against us. An Iraqi Government spokesman actually 
has said, ``The Iraqi Government's vision differs from that of the 
Americans, who think the agreements will give them almost totally a 
free hand in Iraq, and that, as a military force, they must have 
absolute powers.''
  In addition, members of the Iraqi Parliament representing the 
majority of parties in that body wrote a letter to the Congress which 
was released just last week by my colleague on the Foreign Relations 
Committee, Representative Delahunt, the chairman on the Subcommittee on 
International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight. This letter 
includes a demand for the withdrawal of American troops. It said, in 
part, that ``the majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any 
military security, economic, commercial, agricultural investment or 
political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear 
mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to 
fully withdraw from Iraq in accordance with the declared timetable, and 
without leaving any military bases, soldiers, or hired fighters.''
  Madam Speaker, by moving for a permanent military presence in Iraq, 
the administration is sending the wrong message to the Iraqi people. 
The American people are also getting that message, along with the rest 
of the world. It says to the Iraqi people that they will continue to 
live under foreign military occupation with no end in sight. It tells 
the American people that the occupation will continue to drain our 
resources at a time when our citizens are facing dire economic problems 
at home. And it proves to the world that the administration is 
determined to tie the next President to the failed policies of the 
past.
  The best course for America is to begin the immediate, responsible 
redeployment of our troops and military contractors out of Iraq, as 
this House has mandated. But since the administration is clearly 
unwilling to do that, the next best thing is for Congress to demand 
full knowledge of the negotiations, with the right to approve any 
agreements.
  Madam Speaker, the United States must give full national sovereignty 
back to Iraq, and we must stop acting like an arrogant occupying power. 
After more than 5 years of bloody occupation, this is no time to talk 
about staying in Iraq forever. Instead, it is time to give the Iraq 
people back their independence. And it is time to bring our brave 
troops home.

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