Madam Speaker, I rise to make an important and urgent announcement to the House: the conflict in Iraq is still going on, and we are still occupying that country.

I have to make this announcement because apparently some people have forgotten all about Iraq or don't think it's an important issue anymore. That's because it doesn't dominate the TV news like it used to. As an example of that, a recent story on CNN began with the words, ``Whatever Happened to the War?''

Well, I hate to spoil everyone's day, but I have to report, with great regret, that the occupation is still going. As proof of that, nearly 300 American and Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi civilians have been killed or wounded so far this month alone. Yes, the bloodshed continues.

And after nearly 5 years of occupation, our leaders still have no exit strategy. They have even stopped pretending that they have one. Last year they told us we couldn't get out of Iraq because things on the ground were going badly. This year they're telling us we can't get out because things are going well; and if we get out, they'll go badly again.

So if you follow the administration's argument to its logical conclusion, this is what you get: we can't leave when things are good; we can't leave when things are bad. Which means we can never leave. The result is permanent occupation, which is precisely what the administration appears to want.

Forgetting about the bloodshed in Iraq is bad enough. But it's dangerous for many, many other reasons. It gives the administration a free hand to ratchet up the threats against Iran. It takes the pressure off the Iraqi Government to make progress toward national political reconciliation. It means our military will continue to be overstretched and less capable of meeting real challenges to our national security that may and will arise elsewhere. It continues to make America appear to be a lawless and arrogant Western occupier of the Middle East. And it allows our budget to be plundered at a time when our economy is more than shaky. People are in danger of losing their jobs here at home; but thanks to the administration's policies, the boys at Blackwater will always have their high-paying military contractor jobs in Iraq where they can continue to terrify the Iraqi people.

We are spending over $300 million every day in Iraq, Madam Speaker. We couldn't afford that when the economy was good, and we certainly can't afford it as the economy goes into recession.

But thankfully, thankfully, the American people are too smart to fall into the trap of believing that everything is just swell. According to a recent CBS News poll, nearly 60 percent of Americans continue to believe the occupation is going badly, and 58 percent believe the U.S. should never have gotten into Iraq in the first place.

Madam Speaker, we cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that Iraq isn't a problem anymore. The only way to change course is to hold the administration accountable, and the only way to do that is to keep the pressure on the administration every single day. That's why I'll continue to raise my voice against the madness of this occupation, and why I will continue to urge the House to use its power of the purse to end it.

Iraq is not a television show that got canceled because of the writers' strike. Iraq is a real place where real people continue to die. We must redeploy our troops. We must give the Iraqi people back their sovereignty, and we must give them their hope for a brighter future.