Contact: Josh Holly, 202.226.3988
Washington D.C. – U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, today cited the President’s interim progress report on Iraq while speaking in opposition to political legislation sponsored by House Democratic leadership that offers no new strategy for success in Iraq. Hunter’s statement follows:
“I want to address and offer my great respect for my colleague, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee—a gentleman who really has the welfare of American troops in his heart when he speaks and when he legislates.
“But, let me say this about this piece of legislation before us today, which the Democratic leadership brought before this House. This is an attempt, once again, to stampede a retreat from Iraq. And it is a gratuitous attempt at best. There is no reason, however, only three and a half weeks after the surge of American troops was completed, to now race for the borders to demand that the President start winding up this operation and begin making preparations to leave, especially when General Petraeus will be making recommendations to us in September.
“I'm reminded of when the surge was first announced and I was on the House floor with a Democratic colleague and she said the day after the surge had been announced and only a few American troops were in country that ‘since there was a car bombing, that shows that the surge doesn't work.’ She was ready to start a retreat from the country.
“There's no reason to do this today. We have an interim report from the President which was just released. The interim report says that of the 18 areas of interest, where progress has to be registered: there's been progress on eight of them; unsatisfactory progress on eight of them; and it’s too early to really make an evaluation on two of them.
“Well, that’s the interim report. And on September 15th, we'll get another report. As I look at the important things in this report, an important thing is that when we needed to get the three additional brigades into Baghdad from the Iraqi Army, we got them. Even though they didn't show up when called a year and a half ago, they showed up this time. Mr. Maliki was good on his commitment, they got there. Things that are important to me with respect to this report were accomplished.
“The facts are simple. We're only 27 days into this surge and the Democratic resolution before us today really provides no plan whatsoever. It asks the President to come up with yet another plan, which is highly interesting since he has a plan and since General Petraeus stated that he will recommend adjustments to that plan on September 15th. So if there are adjustments to the plan, it should come after General Petraeus comes before this body in September and gives us a report.
“What are we doing here today? We're counting votes. This is an attempt by the Democratic leadership to get a hard vote count—an attempt to see if there are any slips on their side of the aisle so they can tee it up and hopefully, from their perspective, to forward their goal of starting a retreat from Iraq as soon as possible.
“There is not a single recommendation in the resolution offered by my good friend. There is no recommendation for a new strategy. There are only questions of the Bush Administration, and those questions will best be answered when General Petraeus comes before us.
“There are two messages I see coming from Iraq and we all see in this complex, very difficult mission lots of messages. A message came to me the other day from a senior Marine leader. Do you know what it said? It said, ‘We are crushing the enemy in Anbar,’ A few minutes later, I saw a message from the Democratic leadership that said, ‘We have to get out of Iraq now.’
“I have heard the senior Democratic leadership say they want to end this war. We don't have the ability to end this war. No American has the ability to end this war. What they have is the ability to leave this battlefield. Let's not stampede for the border.”
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