Jim Moran: The Next Iraq Legislation Won't Be Non-Binding

Mr. Speaker, when the White House announced that the U.S. Military would attack Iraq under the guise of the Global War on Terrorism, not one single uniformed military officer believed that Iraq was part of the war on Terrorism.  Saddam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.  Saddam wasn't harboring any al Qaeda cells that did attack us.

In fact, starting a new war would distract us and limit us from accomplishing our objective of eliminating Osama bin Laden.  Saddam was a vicious, secular, despotic dictator.  But, he saw al Qaeda as a threat to his control and al Qaeda viewed Saddam as an enemy of their religious extremist world vision.

The US intelligence community knew that there was no clear evidence that Saddam was a threat to the US

There was no failure of our professional intelligence community, but there was an abysmal failure of our political leadership.

How did we get to this point?

First, we were scared with the threat of Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, mobile labs, aluminum tubing, and yellow cake uranium.  There were no WMD.  The White House knew before the President informed us about the mobile labs that our experts had determined that they were not in any way related to chemical or biological weapons.  Likewise, the aluminum tubing was bogus information.  Well, before the so-called yellow cake uranium from Niger was cited as evidence of nuclear armament, our intelligence community had informed the White House it was a hoax.

We were told that Saddam was the threat to global stability, that there was a direct connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

We were told, in the buildup to the war, that our troops would be greeted by the Iraqis as liberators, being offered flowers in the streets.

This was propaganda that the State Department warned the White House not to believe, but they nonetheless peddled it to the Congress and the American people.

And yet, all we have done is to finance extremist and further Iranian interests.

We were told that to liberate Iraq was to spread freedom and democracy, to keep the oil out of the hands of potentially terrorist controlled states.

We were told the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil revenues.

After Baghdad fell we were told that America had prevailed, that the mission was accomplished, that the resistance was in its last throws and that more troops were not needed.

And, as things went from bad to worse, we were told of turning point after turning: the fall of Baghdad, the death of his sons Uday and Qusay, the capture of Saddam, a provisional government, the trial of Saddam, a charter, a constitution, an Iraqi government, elections, purple fingers, a new government, the death of Saddam. All excuses for triumphant rhetoric while the reality on the ground continued to worsen.

We were told, `As they stood up, we would stand down.' We would `stay the course.'

Now we are told there is a new course but it's in the same misguided direction.

After falsehood after falsehood unravels each day with the morning paper reporting even more deaths, the American people are being asked to put 20,000 more sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives into the line of fire, into the dead zone between the sectarian sides of a civil war.

A message was sent to the President on November 7, 2006. This surge of more troops into Iraq defies the will of the American people.

But this is a new Congress. We will no longer be cowed by leaders using 9/11 as a bludgeon against sensible people who oppose the administration's failed Iraq policy.

Today, for the first time since the war began, Congress will go on record opposing the President's failed Iraq policy.

Some will argue that it's a non-binding resolution.  That it won't have the impact of a law, that it won't stop a roadside bomb or bring a single soldier home to their family.

But the President understands what this resolution means.  It is the beginning of the end of this wrong war of choice.

If the Administration continues not to listen, the President can rest assured that the next Iraq legislation we consider won't be a non-binding measure.

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