Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago this Friday, the President ordered the men and women of our Armed Forces into Iraq. They performed magnificently and have continued to do so despite an ongoing guerilla campaign, difficult conditions, and a shortage of protective gear such as Kevlar vests and armored Humvees.
As we celebrate their courage and skill, we must also reflect on their sacrifice. As of today, 565 American troops have been killed in this war including United States Army Specialist Rel Allen Ravago, IV, one of my constituents.
I will support this resolution because it includes language honoring our troops, but I am very concerned over what the resolution excludes and deeply disappointed that it was not crafted in a bipartisan manner.
Our troops in Iraq are not representatives of one political party or the other, and those who seek to exploit their daring and sacrifice for partisan gain would do well to remember that.
This resolution fails to address a number of serious issues that have arisen as a result of the war. Although the resolution before us makes no mention of it, this Nation went to war over intelligence that Saddam Hussein had both an existing arsenal of biological and chemical weapons and an ongoing nuclear weapons program. A year has passed, and we have yet to find evidence that this was correct.
Clearly, we must look at the totality of the circumstances that led to such a colossal intelligence failure. This failure cannot be minimized or, in the case of this resolution, ignored all together. To do so does no honor to our troops who have been lost and further imperils our future.
The planning for the post-war period of this operation was also deficient and based on a number of unsupported assumptions. Over the past decade and a half, our forces have been engaged more and more in post-conflict operations. Clearly we need to organize ourselves better to meet the challenges posed by post-conflict reconstruction.
In the coming days, I will offer a House companion to a bill introduced in the Senate by Senators Lugar and Biden that does just that, and I hope my colleagues will support it.