House Democrats Demand Iraq Withdrawal, But Republican Majority Votes to Stay the Course
More than anything, I want our efforts in Iraq to succeed, but our nation is at a strategic crossroads. We cannot afford to ignore the impact the war in Iraq is having on our current and future ability to keep the American people safe from another threat – wherever we may face it. We need a plan for responsible redeployment as soon as practicable, not only for the situation in Iraq, but especially because the long term health of our military depends on it.
As it is, I fear that we may already be eating our military’s seed corn. We are spending $8 billion a month and have spent over $300 billion on this war so far. Equipment in Iraq is wearing out at 2 to 9 times the peacetime rate. I am so proud of our men and women in uniform, but we are wearing them out with repeated deployments. Each month we are losing a battalion’s worth of casualties, killed and injured, in Iraq and Afghanistan....
We as a country cannot determine the fate of Iraq. The Iraqis have to do it themselves – their own government, their own military, their own police force."
--- Congressman Ike Skelton (D-MO), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, yesterday, June 15, 2006, during a heated House of Representives debate over HR 861, which stated that an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.
The Republican-led House passed HR 861 by a vote of 256-153, after a day of rancorous debate, highlighted by searing speeches by many Democratic leaders (John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi, Ike Skelton, Henry Waxman) calling for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
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Related Reading
Iraq Statistics & Results
The complete text of House Resolution 861
Partisan Fight Over Iraq War Erupts on Hill, The New York Times on June 16, 2006
Comments
Thanks for the link to the roll call vote. No surprises, I’m afraid. Let’s hope the 17 Pennsylvanian Republican’s in the State House who were thrown out by the voters for party affiliation last month is the beginning of a trend. Unlike some of the Jellocrats that I won’t mention, they ran on a platform of being anti-Bush.