Hodes and Shea-Porter Speak on Iraq Resolution
IRAQ
New Hampshire Union Leader
Greg Hellman
Boston University Washington News Service
2/14/07
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 —New Hampshire Democratic Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol-Shea Porter are speaking this week in support of a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq.
Addressing the House late Tuesday night, Rep. Shea-Porter criticized the administration for entering Iraq under false pretenses.
“We sent our soldiers on a mission that made no sense from the beginning,” she said. “There were no Iraqis on the plane [referring to Sept. 11] and there were no [weapons of mass destruction].”
As part of the House debate on the leadership’s resolution, the 434 representatives each have five minutes to speak for or against the resolution, with a vote expected on Friday. Several GOP lawmakers are expected to vote with Democrats in favor of the resolution.
Rep. Hodes, who is scheduled to speak early Thursday evening, said he will condemn President Bush’s troop surge as a doomed policy and call on the administration to heed the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.
“It is clear that we need a new direction,” he said in a phone interview while discussing his remarks planned for Thursday. “This troop surge is too little, too late.”
Rep. Shea-Porter said the war in Iraq also unnecessarily drains resources away from the war in Afghanistan.
“Our nation was attacked by people in Afghanistan,” she said. “We should be working even harder there to make sure our mission does not fail.”
Opponents of the resolution, including House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), attacked it as a first step toward cutting off funds for troops in Iraq and undermining the war on terrorism.
“This nonbinding resolution is their first step towards abandoning Iraq by cutting off funding for our troops that are in harm’s way,” Rep. Boehner said on the House floor Tuesday. “This is one part of a much larger fight…against Islamic terrorists who have waged war on the United States.”
According to Rep. Hodes, however, the president has had long enough to freely send American troops into harm’s way without any congressional oversight..
“We’ve had five years with the president having unimpeded ability to pursue a course that does not have the support of Congress and the American people,” he said in a phone interview. “We support the troops, but I don’t think [this war] was in the American interest.”
Rep. Shea-Porter also criticized President Bush for ignoring Congress and the American people.
“The president goes his own way; he doesn’t listen,” she said on the floor. “Well, we say no. Troops need to know that their mission is in the best interests of the United States. The days of rubber-stamping are over.”
Rep. Boehner urged the House not to give up hope of salvaging the mission in Iraq.
“This is a great American tragedy,” he said. “The mission of this Congress is to urge the change of course.”
Rep Shea-Porter went on later to counter, however, criticizing Republicans as offering only empty patriotic rhetoric without any real solutions.
“There’s no Davy Crockett in Iraq,” she said. “Our soldiers need a clear-eyed leader, not this romantic garble we’ve been hearing.”
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