Responsible Redeployment From Iraq Act
Floor Speech
RESPONSIBLE REDEPLOYMENT FROM IRAQ ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 12, 2007)
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Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words. There's a movie out called "Groundhog Day'' in which the same thing happens over and over for a particularly long period of time.
We've had this debate once recently. We're having it again today, and I understand the leadership on the other side intends to have these conversations once a week for the next 4 weeks. I don't anticipate that much different information will be said.
I have the profoundest respect for the chairman of the committee and the man whose name is on this resolution, but I'm going to have to oppose it.
Much of what gets said here today, Mr. Speaker, is doublespeak. It's doublespeak to talk about the failure to get benchmark progress on the civilian scene, on the political scene in Iraq, and yet to strip $2 billion out of the State Department's funding request, part of the CR, to strip another $500 million out of the 2008 appropriations request, money that would go to do the nation-building part, the provincial reconstruction team part in Iraq, and then to call it a failure. That's doublespeak in a classic sense.
It's doublespeak, Mr. Speaker, to talk about how wonderful our troops are, and they are. They are magnificent, and even more magnificent are the families who support them and let them do what they do. And then to turn around and say that the implementation of this policy has failed, but somehow they've not failed as a result of that; I think that's doublespeak as well.
It's also doublespeak to say the current policy says we're going to have a report in 60 days from David Petraeus, the right man at the right spot to give us that report, and then vote on a resolution that says 120 days we're going to start getting out, when we'll have the better information in September, in 60 days. That's doublespeak. It's disingenuous, I believe, to do it that way.
The majority has the ability to get out of Iraq today. And all of the talk about failure, all of the talk about the lost lives, all of the talk about the costs, by extending this another 120 days, as they intend to do, leaves additional lives at risk. And somehow to me, that just seems to be at counter purposes of what the conversation is.
I encourage my colleagues to vote this resolution down.
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