Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District

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Inslee supports troop redeployment measure

12 July 2007

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) cast a vote in favor of the Responsible Redeployment from Iraq Act, HR 2956, which would require American forces to begin redeploying from Iraq within 120 days and complete the transition to a limited presence by April 1, 2008. It passed shortly after 6 p.m. EDT by a vote of 223 to 201.

During a speech on the House floor earlier today, Inslee, who voted against the Iraq war in October 2002, said, “Having started a war in Iraq, we had a moral obligation to give the Iraqi people a reasonable chance to form a government. But after four years, after 3600 lives, after $450 billion sunk into the sands of Iraq, that moral obligation has been fulfilled in spades.

“Now we have a moral obligation to our sons, a moral obligation to our daughters, a moral obligation to our husbands and wives. The moral obligation to Iraq has been completed; the moral obligation to our families now needs to be honored.”

In March, Inslee supported an Iraq supplemental spending bill that included an enforceable timetable for transitioning power to Iraqis and bringing U.S. troops home. It was vetoed by President Bush on May 1, 2007. Inslee voted against another emergency spending measure that came to the House floor later in May because it did not include binding benchmarks.