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Providing for Redeployment of United States Armed Forces and Defense Contractors from Iraq

August 4, 2009
Floor Statement
Rep. Maxine Waters [D-CA]: Mr. Speaker and Members, I take this opportunity to thank the leadership for honoring the work and the request of the progressives of this House to place a bill before this body that we could feel good about supporting.

Some of us have been against this war. We have come to the floor. We have done interviews. We have worked the floor. We have done everything that we possibly can to communicate what we believe are the feelings of the American public about this war. The November vote indicated to us, and should have to others, that Americans are sick and tired of this war. They want to bring our soldiers home. They want to stop the loss of lives. They want to stop the money that is being spent, over $400 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan; 3,200 or more lives that have been lost; over 25,000 soldiers who have been seriously injured.

Some of us are not willing to spend other another dime on this war. And this bill that is before us, thanks to Barbara Lee and Mr. McGovern and to Lynn Woolsey and I, we have this bill that represents the thinking of the progressives of this House that simply says, we will give no more money to continue fighting this war, but rather, any money that is expended would simply be funds to help wind down this war and to bring our soldiers out; no permanent bases left in Iraq; and basically that no money would be spent on a surge. This surge that the President has initiated is placing our soldiers at great risk. As a matter of fact, there is no safety in the Green Zone. As a matter of fact, we do not have friends in Iraq. The Sunnis are against us. The Shias are against us. The Kurds are against us. And those Iraqi soldiers that are embedded are undermining our soldiers. I would ask for an "aye" vote on this very progressive piece of legislation.

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