THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008

Mr. McCaul of Texas- Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this amendment offered by Mr. Wolf of Virginia to restore $158 million to this bill for democracy, governance, rule of law and human rights programs. In addition, it will fund nonproliferation and anti-terrorist programs.

Mr. Chairman, the debate in this Chamber over the future of Iraq and the best course of action has been passionate and divisive. Each Member of this House has their own opinion, yet the one thing we should be united on is that our end goal should be the same, a secure and stable Iraq.

Unfortunately, this bill predetermines failure by cutting off all funds to important democracy-building programs in Iraq. The majority has chosen to use this bill, as they have attempted several times already this year, to force a premature end to Iraq's pursuit of freedom and democracy. This will only lead to chaos and instability in the region.

As a consultant to the Iraq Study Group, along with Mr. Wolf of Virginia, we introduced a bipartisan bill, the Iraq Study Group Recommendations Implementation Act of 2007 which provides a comprehensive set of recommendations and a plan of action to succeed in Iraq. Included in these recommendations are suggestions for funding democracy, governance and rule of law, all the items that are funded by this amendment.

This bill has garnered 52 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, who have recognized the potential we have by implementing these recommendations together and moving forward as a united Congress. If we allow this bill to pass without the money for building an Iraq democracy, we condemn our mission to failure and declare that the sacrifices we made over the past several years were in vain. It will also squander any opportunity we have to give the Iraq Study Group recommendations a chance to succeed.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the Wolf amendment.