First of all, I would like to thank the gentleman from New York for this Special Order and for including me and allowing me to speak once again on this House floor about this war and this occupation of Iraq.

On the evening of March 19, 2003, speaking from the Oval Office, the President of the United States started his address to the Nation with these very words, and I quote him.

"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.'' Here we are, 4 years later, and it's fair to ask, indeed, it's incumbent upon us to ask, have we disarmed Iraq?

Well, first off, as we all know, there are no weapons of mass destruction to disarm, so that whole entire premise was flawed.

The question we have to ask is have we made Iraq safer? We may have deposed Saddam Hussein, but with insurgents, militias and vigilantes terrorizing Iraqi neighborhoods, some of them with the tacit support of the Iraqi Government, it's impossible to say we have disarmed Iraq or made its people and communities more secure.

Have we freed Iraq's people? Well, I can think of at least 60,000 Iraqis for starters who haven't been freed. That's the most conservative estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths over the last 4 years, at least 60,000 killed for the cause of their so-called liberation.

Many of those who have escaped death live in fear of it, afraid to go to the market or send their children to school, if there is still a school for them to attend.

Too many Iraqis live in communities without electricity, without sewage or basic services. Have we freed them?

What about those who are so flush with freedom that they have chosen to flee their own country? I am talking about the 1.5 million-plus Iraqi refugees. Why don't we ask them if they feel free?

Have we defended the world from grave danger? Indeed not. One study by the Center for Security Studies at New York University Law School concludes that the rate of fatal Muslim terror attacks worldwide has increased by a factor of seven since the Iraq war began. I repeat, that is seven times as much terrorism since we started this occupation, more people call it a war, but it is really an occupation, because this occupation that they keep telling us is the central front in the war on terror is not getting rid of terror.

It's clear our Iraq policy has had a major impact in the war on terrorism. Unfortunately, it appears to be helping the wrong side.

So to go back to the President's statement of exactly 4 years ago, it would appear he has accomplished none of these three tasks, tasks he claimed to have begun that night 4 years ago. Iraq is not disarmed, its people are not free, and the world is more dangerous. It was never supposed to get to this point. You remember this was going to be quick, it was going to be painless. We are going to finish these guys off without breaking a sweat, remember.

On the very same day that President Bush spoke in front of the Mission Accomplished banner, prominent neoconservative Richard Perle actually published an op ed in a major national newspaper entitled ``Relax, Celebrate Victory.'' The cost? Don't worry, they told us, Iraq oil revenues will cover the entire thing.

They fired the top White House economic adviser for daring to suggest that the war had cost as much as $200 billion. What would they have done to him if they had known he was underestimating it by a few hundred billion dollars?

We have to ask our colleagues who authorized the President to launch the preemptive strike on Iraq, is this what you voted for, to invade a country that had no weapons of mass destruction, no link to 9/11; to occupy that country for 4 years, helping foster a vicious insurgency and fan the flames of civil war?

If you had known these things, and if you had known that it would cost us over 3,200 lives to date, and upwards of $400 billion, uncounted civilian deaths, and between 35,000, as the Pentagon tells us, or over 200,000, as reported by the Veterans Administration, wounded, we have to ask, can you look the American people in the eye and say you would have done the same thing all over again knowing what you know now?

If your answer is no, if you believe the war has been a mistake, then it makes absolutely no sense to let it continue any longer, and it makes even less sense to hand the President an additional $100 billion with which to pursue the same disastrous policy.

Our troops have done their job. They and their families have sacrificed more than enough. They have been forced to dig for scrap metal in order to armor their vehicles. They have endured substandard care, bureaucratic delays and squalid conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. They have been betrayed by the grievous mistakes of their civilian supervisors and superiors.

Support our troops. Bring them home.

I have four grandchildren who weren't born 4 years ago. They have never lived in a world unclouded by this shameful, destructive and unnecessary occupation. I fear that if this Congress doesn't act, they will be living with these consequences well into their adult lives. It is for them, for the America they will inherit, that I want this war to end.

It's time to act boldly. Americans are crying out for leadership, for their elected representatives to hear their frustrations about Iraq and to move decisively in response.

This is a gut-check moment. Do you want it said about the 110th Congress that it failed the test of history, that it continued to send young Americans to kill and be killed on a mission that did nothing to enhance our national security or promote U.S. foreign interests? Do you want it said that we made a tragic mistake; even worse, that we blindly rubber-stamped a failed policy that has ignited a civil war and inspired a new generation of terrorists?

The Iraq policy of the last 4 years has proven ruinous and misguided at every turn by any objective measure. As a matter of humanitarian obligation and political accountability, it's time to change course.

In the name of national security, fiscal responsibility and basic human decency, we must get our troops out of Iraq and bring them home by the end of this year. Bring them home for the holidays.

I thank you again, Mr. Hinchey.