Mr. Speaker, this week, we heard reports that private military contractor Blackwater has been ordered out of Iraq and had its license revoked after a shootout that took the lives of at least eight Iraqi civilians. This didn't happen in the ``wild west'' of Iraq, not even in the so-called ``triangle of death.'' Mr. Speaker, it happened within the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad. That's the area where the so-called surge was supposed to bring peace and stability.

One account of the scene goes like this: a witness, Muhammad Hussein, saw his brother killed in the gunfight. Muhammad said, I was driving behind my brother's car and suddenly there was an explosion and firing. I tried to figure out what was happening when I saw a black convoy ahead of us, he told an international news agency, and went on to say, Soon after, I saw my brother slumped in the car. I dragged him out of the car and tried to hide to avoid the firing, but realized that he had been shot in the chest and he was already dead. That's what he said.

So, Mr. Speaker, one week after General Petraeus came up to the Hill to brief Members of Congress, we are seeing private military contractors killing civil civilians in the streets of Baghdad. Is this the measure of success of the escalation? I should hope not. I should think not. To this date, the administration has either been unwilling or unable to account for all the private military contractors in Iraq.

Contractors have their own rules. No one knows to whom they are accountable. Reports of these contractors, however, have been anything but promising. The Center for American Progress estimates the total number of private contractors in Iraq to be 126,000 to 180,000; 20,000 to 50,000 of those are private security guards. They zip through Iraq, through Iraqi towns and neighborhoods in their convoys of armored SUVs. Are they accountable to an international law of war? Are they accountable to U.S. law? Can the Iraqis hold them accountable for acts of violence within Iraq? Nobody knows. Are these contractors receiving any mental health assistance? Are we ensuring that no one being paid by the United States is hitting the streets of Baghdad with PTSD? What is the screening process? We have no idea who's out there in the name of the United States of America.

Every single day we open the paper to find report after report that the occupation of Iraq is a failure. Despite all of the heroic acts of our men and women in uniform, we cannot bring peace and stability to a nation at the point of a gun. We cannot win an occupation.

This administration needs to get real about the situation on the ground. It is time, it is past time to fully fund a safe and orderly redeployment of our troops and of our military contractors from Iraq. That is all the Congress can accept.

We support our troops. We support Iraqi sovereignty. We support a surge in diplomatic efforts. What we cannot, what we will not accept is another year, another decade or another flag-draped coffin.

Let's bring our troops home. Let's bring our contractors home. And let's allow the people of Iraq to reclaim their country.