Not another dime for the Iraq "war"?

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

"Some will say this is to support the troops. If the administration cared about our troops, our troops would not have been begging for body armor and armor-plated vehicles.

"Some will say we must rebuild Iraq. Yet $9 billion in funds that would have helped rebuild Iraq are missing, unaccounted for. Some will say we must not cut and run, but they have no exit strategy and permanent bases are being built in Iraq.

"Some will say our cause is right, holy, and we are bringing peace and freedom to Iraq. I say the war was wrong, unholy, and the administration has brought death, destruction, chaos, and disruption to Iraq.

"The Bible says 'that which is crooked cannot be made straight.' This war is crooked. It cannot be made straight. Not another dime for this war and for all those who have profited from it. Not another dime."

That a competent administration could, hypothetically, make some good out of this mess with a few more years and a few more hundred billion is irrelevant.

Bush & Co are going to screw it up. No more money.

NGU.

the problem i've seen with all the "Exit Plans" is that they all seem to have this kind of "we'll train the Iraqis and then we'll leave" ...

we'll be saying that for the next 25 years ...

show me an "exit plan" that gets us the hell out of there in 3 to 6 months and count me in ...

That we need to stay and rebuild - obviously - but that we need to pull the troops out IMMEDIATELY.

NGU.

when you say that "we need to stay and rebuild - obviously", i'm not clear what you mean ...

are you suggesting that continued US presence (i.e. occupation) in Iraq is necessary or is your point that the US has an obligation to help support UN efforts to rebuild Iraq? if the US maintains a presence, I, for one, don't trust that it would be for benevolent reasons ...

we have a huge obligation to help but no healing can occur until the US totally withdraws ...

Round up all US troops in Iraq, have them get their gear together, load everything up on transports and fly them the hell out of there! How about that "exit plan"? Anyone who says we have to stay for some altruistic reason is either deluded or lying. Load 'em up and bring 'em home!

by facilitating their killers. The reason US troops are being killed and maimed in Iraq is the US government's policies and any support of those policies works against the troops. US out of Iraq now!

and consider this ...

some have justified voting for the additional $81.4 billion on the basis that it will go to "support the troops" ... let's say there are roughly 150,000 troops in Iraq ...

if we gave every single troop $1000 to buy gear, that would total only $150 million (that's million not billion) ... if we gave every single troop $10,000 to buy protective gear, that totals $1.5 billion out of an $81.4 billion budget request ... if we gave every single troop $100,000 to buy protective gear, that would total $15 billion out of the $81.4 billion ...

and let's be real ... the troops are NOT going to be given that kind of money by the bush White House ... and that still doesn't come anywhere close to spending the $81.4 billion ...

the reality is that spending money "to protect the troops" is a totally specious argument ... the Pentagon budget is more than $400 billion ... isn't that money supposed to be used to "protect the troops" and buy them the necessary protective gear? ... that's a big $400 billion budget the first year of the Iraq war and another $400 billion in the second year and now another $400 billion as we begin the third year and that does NOT INCLUDE the additional $200 billion supplemental funding we've already spent on Iraq ...

add up 3 years at $400 billion per year plus an additional $200 billion ... that makes $1.4 TRILLION (that's a whole lot of zeros) available to buy a bit of protective gear for the troops in Iraq ... and now they want more money ????

anyone who votes additional funds for Iraq and exploits the needs of the troops as a justification can go to hell ...

http://www.kucinich.us/floor_speeches/iq_notonemoredime.php

Not One More Dime
Dennis Kucinich speaking from the Floor of the House

Link to this entry in the Congressional Record
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=H1512&dbname=2005_record

March 16, 2005

"Mr. Speaker, today the House is going to be asked to approve a supplemental appropriation of $82 billion, most of which will go to continue the war in Iraq.

"We now know more than 2 years later that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction which was the immediate occasion of America’s intervention. We know that Iraq had neither the intention nor the capability of attacking the United States. Yet this country has spent over $200 billion and today is determined to spend another $82 billion in furtherance of a war we did not have to fight at great cost of human life, the lives of our troops and the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians.

"Yet while we are contemplating going ahead and spending $82 billion, we should be thinking about the fact that on January 30 the Special Inspector General for the Iraq reconstruction issued a report that the administration’s Coalition Provisional Authority mismanaged $9 billion in a development fund for Iraq funds. Not a single penny of the $9 billion could be accounted for by the Inspector General.

"The development fund for Iraq consisted of Iraqi oil revenues intended for reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in the war-torn country, but they cannot account for a single penny of it.

"Now this government is asking for $82 billion, most of it for Iraq. They could not account for a single penny of the money that the Coalition Provisional Authority, their authority, was responsible for. How can we give them another dime when they cannot account for $9 billion?

"We have people who do not have decent education in this country, decent housing, our highways are falling apart except for our transportation bill. We need to focus on why they do not and have not produced a single shred of evidence of what happened to that $9 billion. The American people have a right to know."

http://www.kucinich.us/floor_speeches/iq_notonemoredime.php