Mr. SCHIFF. With all due respect to my colleagues in the majority, Mr. Speaker, I think the question posed by this resolution is whether you support accountability and oversight by this body of the war in Iraq or whether you do not. This resolution is not a substitute for oversight and accountability.
Our brave men and women in Iraq deserve more than this rhetorical pompom. Even as we celebrate the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the completion of the Iraqi cabinet, we cannot turn away from the grim reality that the war President Bush declared over in the spring of 2003 has been bloodier, costlier, longer and more difficult than the administration anticipated or planned for.
We need a new way forward in Iraq, a fact that seems glaringly obvious to everybody but the President, his advisers and the majority in this House. Last fall the Senate voted 79-19 for a resolution sponsored by Senator JOHN WARNER, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which stated that 2006, quote, should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with full Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq.
At a time when Congress needs to inject itself forcefully into the process of determining what our course of action in Iraq should be, the Republican majority is again prepared to rubber stamp a policy that national security experts across the spectrum recognize as plagued with misjudgment and malfeasance.
We owe our men and women more, and more than any other variable under the control of Congress, our failure to perform oversight has been a major contributing factor to these failures and to the difficult situation we find ourselves in.
Regrettably, I must vote ``no'' on this resolution.
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Mr. Speaker, even as we celebrate the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and the completion of the new Iraqi cabinet we cannot turn away from the grim reality that the war that President Bush declared over in the spring of 2003 has been bloodier, costlier, longer and more difficult than the Administration anticipated or planned for.
We need a new way forward in Iraq--a fact that seems glaringly obvious to everybody but the President, his advisors and the majority in this House. Last fall the Senate voted 79-19 for a resolution sponsored by JOHN WARNER, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which stated that 2006 ``should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq.''
Earlier this year, House and Senate Democrats unveiled our ``Real Security'' agenda that lays out a blueprint for protecting our nation in the 21st Century. Our plan calls for the establishment of full Iraqi sovereignty during 2006, provides for responsible redeployment of our forces to better protect our troops and facilitates the transfer of authority, and holds the Administration accountable for the terrible mistakes that have been made in the prosecution of the war and the reconstruction of Iraq. In response to our plan and the overwhelming bipartisan majority of our colleagues in the Senate, the Republican majority in the House has tabled a blank-check resolution that endorses the President's ``stay the course'' policy in Iraq--a policy that he has reiterated in recent days.
At a time when Congress needs to inject itself--forcefully--into the process of determining what our course of action in Iraq should be, the Republican majority is again prepared to rubber-stamp a policy that national security experts across the political spectrum recognize as plagued with misjudgment and malfeasance.
I have been to Iraq three times to visit with our troops there and I have spent time with our wounded here and in Germany. They have done everything that we have asked of them and they have done it magnificently. Whatever success we have had in Iraq--every village that is secured, every public works project that is completed, every school that is reopened--is due to the efforts of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
We owe our men and women serving in Iraq lot more than this rhetorical pom-pom.
Most glaringly, this resolution does nothing to hold the administration accountable for its conduct of the war. Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, the former commander of the 1st Marine Division. General Newbold is one of a growing number of general officers who have courageously voiced their concerns about Iraq. General Newbold told me what he told Time Magazine in April when he said, ``What we are living with now [in Iraq] is the consequence of successive policy failures.''
More than any other variable under the control of Congress, our failure to perform oversight has been a major contributing factor to these failures and to the difficult situation in which we now find ourselves.
That failure of oversight and the need to hold people accountable has plagued the Iraq war from the beginning. And because this Congress--this Republican-controlled Congress--refuses to hold the President to account, we keep making the same mistakes over and over.
For years the administration and the majority have tried to cow into silence anybody who dared to question the conduct of the war by calling them unpatriotic. That's the subtext of the resolution that we are debating today. It is not disloyal to ask these questions; oversight is a core responsibility of Congress. The great strength of a democratic system with built-in checks and balances is that mistakes are caught and corrected.
Every member of this House, Republicans and Democrats, wants a stable and representative Iraqi government. But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot hope to change course in Iraq until and unless we are willing to acknowledge mistakes and until the administration is held to account and forced to change.
Devising and implementing a successful endgame in Iraq will be difficult, but the President's open-ended commitment to remain in the country is untenable and unwise. The American people want Iraq to succeed, and for representative government there to survive and lead to a better future for the Iraqi people, but that success requires a new direction. This empty resolution fails to provide that and, accordingly, I will oppose it.
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