RESPONSIBLE REDEPLOYMENT FROM IRAQ ACT

Mr. McCaul of Texas- Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee for yielding me this time.

Here we are once again. I feel like we have done this before. Once again, I rise in opposition to the Democratic leadership's latest attempt to politicize the war, and I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote against defeat in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, the debate in this Chamber over the future of Iraq and the best course of action has been passionate and divisive, and each Member of this House has their own opinion. Yet the one thing we should be united on is our end goal and result. That should be the same: a democratic and stable Iraq.

The Democratic majority has chosen to use this month of July, as they have attempted several times already this year, to hold a series of votes to withdrawal our troops and force a premature end to Iraq's pursuit of freedom and democracy.

We have to ask: What would happen if we withdrawal immediately? When we talk to the experts in the region, the leaders in these governments and key stakeholders in the region, they will tell you it will be a fireball in the Middle East. It will create a vacuum, a safe haven for al Qaeda. Iran will swoop in and take over. They, the key nations in the region, are quite frankly terrified of this action, and they tell us that privately.

I believe that we can cannot afford that course of action. The Democrats have chosen this course not because it is in the national interest of this country but rather because they believe it provides them with good talking points to use back home. I submit they are mistaken.

In my view, Americans are tired and frustrated with the partisan squabbling over the war which has done nothing to improve the situation in Iraq. Putting politics above our national interest while the men and women of our military are fighting overseas is simply unacceptable.

In a time of war, politics should end at the water's edge.

There is another way forward. I and others have introduced the Iraq Study Group recommendations Implementation Act of 2007. This legislation is bipartisan. It is a comprehensive set of recommendations, a plan of action to succeed in Iraq, a plan which matches our military might with political solutions, with economic solutions and with a diplomatic surge which can bring peace and stability to the troubled nation. This bill has gained strength by those who recognize that moving forward in a unified way still exists in the Congress.

The Iraq Study Group report offers a consensus policy that the vast majority of Americans support. The sponsors of the Democrat withdrawal bill that we are debating here today, however, have decided that even though the surge only came into effect 3 weeks ago, that it's already failed and we need to question it and throw it out.

They further decided that we should declare defeat immediately and not wait for General Petraeus to come to Congress and give us his firsthand report. This rush to judgment, this rush to action on their part makes it clear that they have not reached an informed decision but, rather, a political one.

Throughout the course of our American history, we've answered the call for freedom, and we, Mr. Speaker, I submit are at our greatest when we are united as a Nation; at our worst when we are divided.

We should unite behind the ideals which helped achieve victory against the threats to our very way of life, such as the victories against the Third Reich, such as the threats by the Soviet empire and the victory against the Soviet Union.

Today, the greatest threat is the threat of terrorism, and the conflict in Iraq poses one of the greatest challenges to the American experience. We must unite, or we will surely fail.