Iraq War Resolution
IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION
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Mr. GALLEGLY. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, my concern about the Iraq resolution offered by my friends on the other side of the aisle is what impact it will have on our troops and our mission and its consequences on our mission. How can you say support our troops when you don't support sending in the people necessary to back them up to do the job that we sent them there to do to start with?
Let's be clear, Mr. Speaker, about who the real enemy is. We are at war with the Islamic jihadists. Jihadists have vowed to destroy America, the West and all sympathizers with democracy. We are at war for our very existence against jihadists who have vowed to enslave us with a fundamentalist philosophy that rejects all human rights.
The consequences of failure in Iraq are not just failure in Iraq. Iraq's stability has direct repercussions on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and all of the Middle East. If our efforts to bring peace and stability to Iraq are successful, we will accomplish a great deal. If not, if Iraq fails, it will provide Islamic jihadists with a sanctuary similar to the one we removed from Afghanistan, only the sanctuary in Iraq would be many times worse, as the terrorists would have access to billions of dollars of oil resources to carry out their evil plans. Such a sanctuary would threaten Europe and the United States.
If we are in support of our military men and women, we must support their mission against Islamic jihadists. The alternative is defeat in Iraq and a greater threat of attack here at home.
A defeat in Iraq would not just be a defeat for the United States. It would also set back any chance for peace and stability in the Middle East. It would empower terrorists to unleash greater sectarian violence, which would draw all of Iraq's neighbors into a Sunni versus Shi'a conflict for control of Iraq.
I am also concerned about the resolution because it does not offer any alternative whatsoever that could lead to a successful outcome for the United States in Iraq. All the resolution does is to criticize the President's plan to augment our existing force in Iraq by 21,000-plus troops.
The Democratic resolution offers no other plan. It does not address what should be the right strategy or the right tactics. In effect, and I think this is the real issue, it endorses the status quo in Iraq, a position that I certainly can't support, and I hear lots of those that are supporting this say they can't support either, but they are de facto supporting the status quo by supporting this resolution.
I look forward to the majority offering a comprehensive proposal that would set forth a specific course of action. Then we could have a real debate on the pros and cons of the Democratic plan versus the President's plan to secure Iraq and defeat the terrorists in that country. Unfortunately, the resolution before us fails to do this, and therefore I can't support it. It should be rejected.
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