Oberstar’s speech on Iraq

02/15/2007

Star Tribune
Last update: February 14, 2007 – 6:13 PM


Speech by Rep. Jim Oberstar support the House resolution against President Bush's troop increase in Iraq.

Delivered Feb. 14

This is the moment that a majority of Americans who voted late November have waited for; a time when Congress does something about Iraq. And that something the people asked of us is to get us out of Iraq.

The resolution before us will not, of itself, get U.S. forces out of Iraq. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, 'If it is not the end, it is at least the beginning of the end.'

Our President is having trouble understanding the message from the American people. It's a simple message that I hear every time that I go back home to Minnesota. It's time to bring our troops home with honor. The people are telling me our mission in Iraq is accomplished. The President already declared victory, the goals of the U.S. invasion have been met: Iraq's army was defeated, Saddam Hussein removed from power and brought to judgment, the Iraqi people held elections to establish a new government. Mission accomplished, time to bring the troops home with honor.

No weapons of mass destruction were found despite extensive searches, the Iraqi's have a government, an army a police force. There's no further purpose of American policy to be served by continued military presence in Iraq.

What remains in Iraq is religious warfare between Sunnis and Shi'ites and our troops are caught in the crossfire. This not the job our troops signed up for. This is not the war that President Bush sold to Congress. People are telling the President it's time to bring the troops home, and to do it with honor.

President Bush has said he's concerned that this resolution is pre-judging the outcome of our involvement in Iraq. I would say that the outcome is not in doubt.

We're spending almost $9 billion every month in Iraq. 3,122 of our service men and woman have been killed. 23,530 have been wounded. Tens of thousands more Iraqis killed and wounded.

The violence is escalating, our troops are the targets. I don't think this resolution pre-judges anything; the facts speak for themselves; and the people are saying bring the troops home with honor.

I didn't support this war at its outset. We had Saddam Hussein contained, Al-Qaeda was not in Iraq and we had a job to do in Afghanistan. I supported going into Afghanistan to capture Osama Bin Laden, but I saw no clear rationale for sending troops into combat in Iraq.

The resolution does offer a statement of support for the troops. Their service is an extraordinary gift; they volunteered to leave their homes and families and to risk their lives every day at the order of the President. All they ask is that we never ask them to go into conflict unless that conflict is necessary and in the national interest. Lt. General William Odom, in a recent article in the Washington Post said, "About the question that we have to continue to fight in order to support the troops. Has anyone asked the troops? During their first tours many may have favored staying the course, but now in their second, third and fourth tours many are changing their minds.

We see no evidence of that in the news stories about unhappy troops being sent back to Iraq. The strangest aspect of the rationale," General Odom writes, "for continuing the war is that the troops are somehow responsible for deciding to continue the President's course. That political and moral responsibility belongs to the President, not to the troops. Didn't Harry Truman make it clear that the buck stops in the Oval Office, the President keeps dodging it. Where does it stop?" General Odom asks, "with Congress."

And that is why we are here today. To say it is up to us to make a definitive statement with this resolution, a statement that it is time to end the U.S. involvement in Iraq and bring the troops home with honor.

And then if the President doesn't heed, we must take more vigorous steps; steps that I voted for in coming to end the U.S. involvement in Vietnam over 32 years ago. If that's what it takes, then we have to say that the buck stops with us in the Congress to stop the U.S. engagement in Iraq.

I yield back the balance of my time.