Pete Stark: “I rise in opposition to a resolution that does nothing to end the war in Iraq. Does H.R. 3087 call for our troops to…”

“I rise in opposition to a resolution that does nothing to end the war in Iraq. Does H.R. 3087 call for our troops to immediately be brought home? No, it does not. Does it at least call for redeployment over several months, or even years? No, it does not. Or at the very minimum, does it demand that the Pentagon actually develop and outline to a Congress a strategy on how redeployment might occur? No, it does not. As introduced, the bill would have done so. But in committee, this weak bill became even weaker. There's no there there, if there ever was. All the bill does is require the Department of Defense to report to Congress on the status of planning for redeployment. Let's not kid ourselves about what the result of today's resolution will be. Every 3 months, President Bush's Secretary of Defense would tell Congress that the administration has not and will not develop a plan for the withdrawal of all our brave men and women in uniform. That much I already know. I don't need a Bush lackey to repeat the bad news on a quarterly basis. The only plan President Bush has is to keep our troops in harm's way for years if not decades. He wants to continue wasting tens of billions of dollars abroad while domestic needs go unmet at home. I urge all my colleagues to vote against H.R. 3087 and instead support an immediate end to the war in Iraq.”