February 13, 2007

MR. SMITH of New Jersey: Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

    Mr. Speaker, the co-Chairs of the Iraq Study Group, former Secretary of State James Baker and former House Foreign Affairs Chairman Lee Hamilton, wrote late last year: “There is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq. However, there are actions that can be taken to improve the situation and protect American interests.

    “Many Americans are dissatisfied,” they go on to say, “not just with the situation in Iraq but with the state of our political debate regarding Iraq. Our political leaders must build a bipartisan approach to bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war. Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric and a policy that is adequately funded and sustainable. The President and Congress,” Baker and Hamilton go on to say, “must work together.”

    “The President and Congress must work together.” “Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric.” Good advice, especially when we are in the middle of a war to help a suffering people living in a tortured land striving to matriculate from dictatorship to democracy.

    Like many Americans, Mr. Speaker, I too have serious questions about this war, especially its cost in human life. I too am impatient and want our men and women brought safely home as quickly as possible. 

    But with so many Americans and Iraqis and coalition forces at risk, it is important to ask what message a nonbinding surge disapproval resolution with no force of law might have on a troop surge already under way and what message do we send to our troops, our allies, and our enemies.

    Will it demoralize even a little, maybe a lot, those brave Americans who have put their lives on the line so that others may be free?

    Will it undermine the resolve, commitment, and solidarity of those nations that have stood with us against the hate and murder of the extremists?

    And how will our enemies regard passage of this resolution? With celebration? Will they step up their already far too robust campaign of terrorism, murder, and suicide bombing?

    If the Democratic leadership wants to stop the surge or the war itself, bring a measure to the floor to defund it.

    The debate on defunding the war and, most certainly, the vote would have predictable clear-cut consequences. The President can't spend money on a war he doesn't first get from Congress. But by offering what is essentially a sense of the House resolution, the weakest, least effective way of driving home a point because it compels nothing, I am concerned that the House this week may, unwittingly, significantly hurt the morale of our warfighters while empowering the hate mongers. Surely no one in this Chamber wants that.