Washington, DC--On Wednesday, March 17, 2004, my Republican colleague, Rep. Henry Hyde, will introduce a resolution on behalf of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other House Republican leaders, which endorses the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq over the past year. If passed, the resolution will put the imprimatur of the United States House of Representatives on what President Bush has instigated in Iraq during the 12 months that have lapsed since he invaded that country a year ago this Friday.

I went to Iraq last summer as a member of the House International Relations Committee. I have followed the evolution of the war closely. I have talked in detail with both Pentagon and State Department personnel. While I think the toppling of Saddam Hussein is a good thing, the way we went about it has been an unmitigated disaster with catastrophic consequences for American prestige and credibility. Moreover, much like the deficit and national debt, the Administration has left us with a burden from which it will take not months nor a few years, but perhaps decades, to extricate ourselves.

I have nothing but praise for our warriors in Iraq, but I oppose the President's Iraq war. If this were a resolution praising our warriors instead of using them as a pretext for sanctioning the President's after-the-fact arguments for going to war, I would vote for it. If this were a resolution calling on the President and the community to come clean on why no weapons of mass destruction have been found, I would vote for it.

If this were a resolution condemning the no-bid contracts by which private military companies like Halliburton have enriched themselves and whose contributions have fattened President Bush's campaign treasury, I would vote for it.

If this were a resolution demanding that the President jettison his reckless doctrine of preemption and preventive war, which served as the ideological and political predicate for what has become Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's folly, I would vote for it.

If this were a resolution insisting that the Administration return to the multilateral approach that guided American foreign policy for more than a half century, I would vote for it. If this were a resolution instructing the Administration to build an international consensus on the next steps in building a democratic but genuinely sovereign Iraq, I would vote for it.

If this were a resolution appealing to Mr. Bush to refocus on waging a war against terrorism instead of against heads of states that he doesn't like, I would vote for it.

If this were a resolution proposing ways in which Congress and the president will raise our soldiers' pay, improve their housing at home and abroad, ensure quality health care for their families and survivors, I would vote for it. If this were a resolution guaranteeing greater benefits, job training, educational and employment opportunities for returning veterans, I would vote for it.

But, since this resolution is none of the above, I am compelled to vote against it. Since this resolution is steeped in hypocrisy and self-congratulatory bravado while refusing to address the false pretenses upon which the Iraq war was launched, I am compelled to vote against it. Since this resolution fails to call on the House to hold an open and honest public discussion of how and why it allowed itself to be misled into passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 107-243), I am compelled to vote against it.

Just like I voted against the resolution authorizing the war and the various supplemental appropriations to pay for the war and for Iraq reconstruction, I will vote against this resolution because it applauds deceptive decisions and failed policy, even as I hold our men and women serving in Iraq in the highest praise possible. I applaud their courage and skill. I pray their safe return home.

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