On the recordSeptember 14, 2010
Beginning in January 2005, speaking from this very spot just about every single night that I could on the House floor, I've declared again and again my conviction that we must bring our troops home from Iraq. I was actually the first Member of Congress to bring legislation to the House floor to end the war in Iraq, and now at long last it is finally happening. Eighty-eight months after President Bush declared ``Mission Accomplished,'' President Obama has kept his promise to redeploy our fighting forces out of Iraq. To be sure, however, there is still a long way to go before we can declare that this war is over. There are still Americans in harm's way in Iraq--50,000 servicemen and -women as well as countless contractors, but they are remaining behind to train Iraqi Security Forces, and it is expected they will leave by the end of next year. Every single American, Mr. Speaker, has sacrificed for this policy of invading a sovereign nation without provocation and under false pretenses. The Iraq war has drained the American people of nearly three-quarters of $1 trillion. This is money, much of it borrowed from foreign creditors, which we are essentially taking from our children and grandchildren. And then there are the things you can't quantify--the moral authority we have squandered; the national credibility we have lost; the trust of our global neighbors that we won't soon recover.
