Rob Andrews: “This President has used the resolution that we passed some years ago as a blank check to take us into a disastrous…”

“This President has used the resolution that we passed some years ago as a blank check to take us into a disastrous situation in Iraq, leaving Afghanistan half done. What we are trying to do with this amendment is simply say to the President, you have to stay where we put the money. If you want to come out and go after Iran in a preemptive way, as you did against Iraq when you had no evidence, when you came to this floor and presented evidence that turned out not to be true, and use that as a pretext for going into war, we are heading for in Iran, in my view, another Gulf of Tonkin kind of situation, where you cook up a situation. This administration took down the border between Iran and Iraq and now complains to us everywhere that we are getting all kinds of weapons coming in from Iran. Using that as a pretext, the Arab press yesterday reports that the Vice President was in the Middle East telling people that war is coming, telling them that the problems in Iraq don't keep us out of anything. They won't be any hindrance to us going into Iran. This amendment is simply an attempt to put a minor block in the way of this administration's desire to widen this war, probably to get people's minds off how bad it is in Iraq. This is supposed to be winding down in Iraq because of the escalation. But in fact that is not what is happening. We are losing more soldiers every day.”