Providing for Consideration of H. Res. 557, Relating to the Liberation of the Iraqi People and the Valiant Service of the U.S. and Coalition Forces

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the undemocratic, completely closed rule, and in opposition to House Resolution 557.

Mr. Speaker, like all of my colleagues, I have tremendous respect for the men and women of our Armed Forces who are bearing the burden of this military action in Iraq. My support and my commitment to them and their families are unwavering. I will work to ensure that they remain the best trained, the best led, and the best equipped military force in the world. I am grateful and humbled by their courage, endurance and sacrifice, and I honor them not just today but every day, and I only wish this House was considering today a truly bipartisan resolution that properly honored our troops.

Unfortunately, once again this House is claiming to honor our troops without devoting the necessary resources for their safety or for their support. House Resolution 557 will do nothing to ensure that every one of our military personnel, including our National Guard and reservists serving on the front lines in Iraq will be fully equipped with the latest body armor. Instead, many families of our troops are buying and shipping that protection overseas to their loved ones, out of their own pockets with no hope for reimbursement. This is unacceptable, and we should fix it.

This resolution will do nothing to close the pay gap for our reservists and National Guard members who have been called away from their civilian jobs to serve in Iraq. Their families are struggling, going into debt as a result of their patriotic service. Yet the leadership of this House, unlike the other body, resists funding commonsense solutions to the problems caused by these overlong activations. This is unacceptable, and we should fix it.

This resolution contributes nothing towards fully funding our military construction needs so that all our military personnel have decent housing and facilities in which to live, train, and work. This is unacceptable, and we should fix it.

Mr. Speaker, I support our troops. I want to help the suffering people of Iraq live and prosper in a safe and secure nation. I want them to have the opportunity to choose their own government, one where every Iraqi may worship as he or she chooses, and every man, woman and child can live out their lives. But 1 year and $120 billion later, we face continuing hostilities in Iraq, with no end in sight.

This resolution fails to mention that the war in Iraq was justified by this administration on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Why? Because just like the experts tried to tell us for months before the war, we now know there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I do not believe we needed to send over 150,000 American troops to Iraq to confirm that fact. Mr. Speaker, 566 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines have died, and over 3,200 more have been wounded. Thousands of Iraqi men, women and children have perished, and scores of other civilians and nationals have been killed since we entered Iraq. There is no mention, no remembrance for them in this resolution. Today the American taxpayer is still paying for almost all of the cost of Iraq without the least idea of how much the war has cost to date or how much it will cost in the future. In fact, the operations in Iraq are not even included in the President's budget. We still do not have a truly independent commission to provide a full accounting of the events leading up to the war and the nature of the intelligence of policymaking that led the Bush administration to go to war.

Mr. Speaker, 1 year later the United States is more isolated than ever in the world. Terrorist networks are proliferating, including new networks in Iraq and Europe. And our troops abroad and our first responders at home are overstretched, underfunded, and overburdened.

I am glad Saddam Hussein no longer has the power to torment the Iraqi people, but unlike the claim made in this resolution, I do not believe that the world is a safer, less dangerous place than it was 12 months ago.

This resolution is more about what the Republican leadership wants us to forget about the past year: the costs, the bloated contracts, no weapons, no ties to al Qaeda, the flawed intelligence, the wounded and the dead.

I urge all my colleagues to remember and vote against this undemocratic rule and vote against this bill.

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