A Clean Supplemental to Fund Our Troops

A CLEAN SUPPLEMENTAL TO FUND OUR TROOPS -- (House of Representatives - May 15, 2008)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon an extraordinary thing did happen when we had a vote on a supplemental with all kinds of strings attached to it to fund our troops in harm's way.

The Democrats have the majority. They have the ability to pass that funding without a bit of help from the Republicans.

Many of us on the Republican side of the aisle were quite concerned, however, with the strings, with the linkages that were made to this bill to help our troops do their job. One, for example, was that in the second amendment, which we knew would pass, provisions there existed to create hard and fast deadlines for pulling our troops out of Iraq.

We all want to see our troops home. We all want to see our troops back with us. And those of us who go over to Iraq and see them in harm's way, we long for the time of having them home completely. But the vast majority of those guys in record numbers re-enlist because they know they're doing good. They know they are making a difference. And when you go over there, you see it. I was in Kurdistan in December, in the northern area of Iraq. Construction booming, things going well.

We have made a difference with the surge. It is a profound difference. We have al Qaeda on the run. They're making last-ditch efforts to try to stop what's going on. We have the Iraqi people that are there working for themselves, more soldiers, more police trained than ever. There are really good things going on. And were we to pass a supplemental that was linked to that second amendment with the time deadlines, the message would be a message of hope for all those who hate us and want to destroy us. And that is: ``If you will just hold on a little bit longer, we will have the Americans put their heads between their legs and go cowering away, as they did from Vietnam.'' We could have won Vietnam; we can succeed in Iraq.

The great state of Iraq is so close to governing itself. Just like John Adams wrote to Abigail, what people have only dreamed of, governing themselves is so close, within our reach. We can't give it up now. It's so close. Iraq is there. We cannot hand our enemies and the Iraqi enemies, the enemies of liberty, this kind of win.

So we voted ``present.'' If the Democrats had had enough votes, then they would have passed the supplemental by itself and it would have been linked to the second amendment that would have required the time deadlines for withdrawal and would have given hope. As it was, we couldn't vote against our troops, many of us, but we voted ``present.''

The first amendment that we took up this afternoon failed; so now we have got to come back with a clean supplemental to help our troops. And the
crud in there about the $52 billion tax hike at a time when the economy certainly can't afford that, let's get the linkage out to admitting and saying we are defeated, we can't win, giving our enemies a victory, get all of that stuff out of there. No more linkages like that. No more tax hikes. Just a clean supplemental to give our troops the wherewithal to do what they need to succeed. That's the message we needed coming out of today. And that's why so many of us voted as we did. We voted for victory for our troops.

And I will never forget the words of Travis Buford's mother. Travis was killed over in Iraq. And as I stood near his coffin with his mother, it was an emotional time, and I said, ``Is there anything I can do?''

She gritted her teeth and she said, ``Tell the Congress to shut up and let the military do their job.''

That's what we need to do. Let the military have the wherewithal to succeed, as they can, without the linkages to failure so that we can keep our head held high and, what's more, perhaps go 7 more years without being attacked here.

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