Schakowsky Speaks Out Against Escalation in Iraq

SCHAKOWSKY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST ESCALATION IN IRAQ

WASHINGTON, DC--U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a founding member of the Out of Iraq Caucus and a member of the House Committee on Intelligence, today delivered the below statement on the Iraq resolution opposing the President's escalation:

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of my constituents in Illinois to say, as strongly as possible for myself and for them, that we reject President Bush's decision to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

Tragically, the President and his Administration are dealing with an Iraq that exists only in their imagination.

Bob Herbert said it well in Monday's New York Times: "We need to stop pretending that there is something sane about continued U.S. involvement in this ruinous war. We keep sending troops into the combat zone and they keep sinking ever deeper into the ancient Middle East sand. To keep sending young people off to die in a war that everybody knows is pointless is criminal....

Each time that the Bush Administration has proclaimed that we must "stay the course... because the war has just reached a turning point - that turn has led to a dead end.

May, 2003, President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished....

By the end of 2003, 486 of our troops were dead and 2,408 were wounded, and yet, we stayed the course in Iraq.

In June, 2004, President Bush said, "We're handing over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government… A turning point will come in less than two weeks....

By the end of 2004 — 1,334 of our troops were killed and 10,408 were wounded, and yet, we stayed the course in Iraq.

In June, 2005 Vice President Cheney said, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

And in December 2005, President Bush said "… the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East, and the history of freedom....

By the end of 2005 -- 2,180 of our troops were killed and 16,354 were wounded, and yet, we stayed the course in Iraq.

In May 2006, President Bush called the formation of a new Iraqi government "a turning point....

By the end of 2006, 3,001 of our troops were killed and 22,736 were wounded, and yet, we stayed the course in Iraq.

Just last month Vice President Cheney proclaimed, "Well, I think if you look at what's transpired in Iraq… we have, in fact, made enormous progress....

And President Bush told us that his new strategy to escalate the war in Iraq "will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror....

Since those remarks, made just days ago, more than 120 troops are dead. And yet, once again, we are being asked to stay the course in Iraq.

My colleagues across the aisle want to characterize this troop increase — the 4th escalation — as a new direction. But the American people know better. They recognize "stay the course... when they see it, and they say NO.

And the Administration continues the charade that if you don't support this war and this escalation, then you don't support the troops. Shame on them! It is they who have failed to serve the troops who have served us so well.

From day one, our troops were sent into the war theater without the proper equipment to maximize their safety. Families were having bake sales to buy their loved ones better vests and helmets.

Just last month the Pentagon's Inspector General found that the Defense Department hasn't been able to properly equip the troops it already has with enough guns and ammunition to "effectively complete their missions.... Soldiers are short body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment.

Imagine! This war is costing $12 MILLION every hour, 24/7, for four years — more than half a trillion dollars — and our soldiers don't have enough body armor??? Ammunition? Communications equipment? If our troops aren't the priority, who is? Halliburton, Blackwater, other corporate chums of the President? Don't lecture us about caring for the troops.

The executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America recently said of our returning soldiers and marines: "And, when they come home, there aren't nearly enough transitional care services, job placement, transitional housing. It is just not there…...

$12 million an hour to wage this war and our veterans are returning home without the proper care they need?

Our support for the troops compels us to oppose this war and this escalation. Of the terrible options the President has left us after 4 years, the absolute worst is to continue to send our young men and women in uniform to die in the meat grinder that is Iraq, to put them in the cross-hairs of a civil war.

Speaker Pelosi has said that our goal is to END this war. We can begin right here, right now by passing this resolution.

Thank you Mr. Speaker.