Lynn C. Woolsey: “for over 5 years, the American people have seen the administration break one promise after another when it comes to…”

“for over 5 years, the American people have seen the administration break one promise after another when it comes to Iraq. Now, another promise is being broken. This time, it has to do with the stop-loss policy, a policy that forces soldiers to stay in the military when their unit deploys to Iraq within 90 days of the end of the soldiers' enlistment period. Stop-loss means that troops must continue to serve even when their enlistment period has expired. In January 2007, Secretary of Defense Gates ordered the military services to limit the number of stop-loss troops. For a while, in fact, the order seemed to be working. The number of troops affected by the policy dropped to about 8,500. However, now the number is back up to 11,000, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said just last week that the number of stop-loss troops would continue to rise over the next couple of years. Stop-loss soldiers are forced to serve an average of over 6 months more than they signed up for. This creates enormous stress, Madam Speaker, and it also creates great strain on the soldiers and on their families. The multiple deployments that many of our troops face make the hardship even worse. The stop-loss policy is actually a backdoor draft, but it is even worse than that. It is a breach of trust with the men and women who put their lives on the line for our country. They deserve a lot better treatment and a lot more respect than that.”