Lynn C. Woolsey: “last month the House surprised us all by unanimously agreeing to an amendment to the Iraq supplemental spending bill…”

“last month the House surprised us all by unanimously agreeing to an amendment to the Iraq supplemental spending bill declaring that the United States has ``no intentions of maintaining a permanent military presence in Iraq.'' Who knew this Republican-controlled Congress would make such a positive statement? The lead authors of the amendment were my colleagues and the Progressive Caucus co-Chair, Representative Barbara Lee from California and Representative Tom Allen from Maine, both of whom have been instrumental in demanding that the United States not maintain any permanent military bases in Iraq. Unfortunately, however, some people working inside the Bush administration are doing their very best to make sure that last month's efforts will be for naught. One of the senior spokespersons at the U.S.-led coalition headquarters actually in Iraq had this to say about our lasting presence there: ``The current plan is to reduce the coalition footprint into six coalition bases, four of which are operated by the United States.'' So there you have it. The administration is not even hiding the fact that we are planning on maintaining four permanent bases on Iraqi soil, something they bureaucratically call ``the coalition footprint.'' {time} 2015 This appallingly casual reference to what the rest of us call an occupation is deeply insulting.…”