Date: 2007-02-13
Speaker: ZOE LOFGREN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of this resolution that supports our troops. but oppose the Presidents escalation plan. My opposition to this war has been clear .and consistent. The night before I voted against the Iraq war resolution.in October 2002. I stated on this floor that Congress should not. grant the President power to pursue a war in Iraq for three reasons. First. Iraq was not an imminent threat to the safety and security of America. something we now know to be true. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Secondly. we were acting without real international support. And we now know that our unilateral action proved to be disastrous to our standing in the world community. Finally. I questioned whether the President had an exit strategy. Now. 4 years later. it is clear that President Bush did not have and still does not have an exit strategy for our troops. Even though I voted against the invasion. I never dreamt that the Presidents policies and course of action would be as disastrous as they hdve been for Iraq. for the gulf region and for America. Americans went to the polls in November to send a clear message to Congress and to the administration. They are against this war and they want a successful exit plan. Americans see that we are spending 8 to $10 billion a month to fight this war. while in our own country we have 47 million Americans without health care insurance and our national debt is almost $9 trillion. Mr. Speaker. my Democratic colleagues and I hear the American people loud and clear. They want oversight of this war. They want to know the hard facts of the situation on the ground in Iraq. instead of the rosy picture the Bush administration tries to paint. They want investigations of and an end to the shady contracting in Iraq that has given away billions of American dollars without so much as a receipt. They want assurances that our troops will be protected. . Mr. Speaker. even though it was a mistake of titanic proportions to initiate this war. now that Iraq has been destabilized. what are we to do?- The answer cannot be more of the same. because what we are doing is failing to have a positive impact. Our troops have performed the difficult missions given to them in Iraq with courage. Congress and the American people will continue to support them and provide them with every resource they need. 320 soldiers from my home State of California have died in this war. We can never repay our debt to their faithful service and the sacrifices made by their families.. The failure in Iraq is not a failure of our fighting men and women. It is a failure of command. a failure of political leadership. We must provide our troops and their families with a new exit strategy instead of a new deployment. The civil war in Iraq is not the product of ad hoc. spurofthemoment individual violence. No. It is organized and it is a strategy of various pqlitical and sectarian factions in Iraq. Putting our troops in the middle of these .warring factions will not end the violence. It will only put our troops in the middle of it. That notion is borne out by the fact that more than 60 percent of the Iraqi public believes that it is a good thing to attack and kill Americans stationed in Iraq. Proponents of the Presidents- escalation plan act as if the United States has but two options: one. increase the American troops at great cost. both in human lives and financial. or. two. do nothing. But those are not the only choices. We must step up our diplomatic efforts in the region as recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Americans should call upon neighboring states in the Middle East to take strong measures to avoid a spread of the conflict beyond Iraq. As Iraq disintegrates into sectarian violence. her neighbors must insist that the factions within Iraq halt their civil war. We need to remind the countries in the region that stability in Iraq is vital to their interests. If they want to avoid having this war spill out across the Middle East. they must step up their diplomatic efforts. With the help of the entire region. we can push the Iraqis to help themselves. Iraqi security forces must be trained in a faster pace so they can be responsible for their own country. There is no guarantee of success in Iraq. nor is there a clear definition of what success might look like. but we do have a moral obligation to make our best efforts to diffuse the chaos the war has created. The solution must be a political and a diplomatic one. Unfortunately. the President refuses to pursue the diplomatic options endorsed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and his own military advisors. As we saw today with the welcome news that diplomatic efforts have led to the deescalation of tensions in North Korea and an agreement to abandon their nuclear weapons ambition. a conflict is not always the right answer to world challenges. Even General Abizaid. the outgoing top commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq. does not believe an escalation will increase our chances of American success. The American public has long been ahead of Congress in their opposition to this war. I am here today totell the American people that they are being heard. I stand with the majority of Americans who say they have had enough. In the coming weeks and days. Congress will give the Presidents plan the scrutiny the American people expect and our troops deserve. It is time to bring this war to an end and time to support this resolution.