Ellison, Kline Debate Redeployment in U.S. House

The Responsible Redeployment from Iraq Act passed the U.S. House Thursday by a vote of 223-210 with the Minnesota delegation voting along party lines. Reps. Keith Ellison and John Kline represented polar opposite sides of the debate on the House floor. Here is part of what each had to say:

Rep. Ellison supported the measure:

“I’m proud to have voted for this safe redeployment act today, but I just want to point out something that’s so very important; and that is, that while dollars and cents clearly are important in this debate, no one can calculate the loss of a loved one. Since this surge began, 600 families have received the most devastating news that any family can ever receive, 600 spouses, 600 sets of parents, 600 sets of children, 600 communities lost a loved one because of this surge that was wrong-headed from the very beginning.

We can’t calculate the costs of this war in dollars really. It must be calculated in terms of the lives of our fellow Americans that have gone forward in this horrible conflict. We have to calculate this war in terms of the injuries and the casualties that have been faced, in terms of the young people who have lost limbs, who have lost their strong sense of mental health, their ability to discern reality, their ability to have a calm frame of mind because, for so many of these young people, the helicopter sounds don’t stop even after they come home. For so many young people, the explosions, a car backing up, any sort of sound sends them back to that war zone they used to be in. And it’s a horrible tragedy, it’s a human tragedy, and no amount of calculation of dollars and cents will ever truly capture what we have lost as a Nation.”

Rep. Kline opposed the bill:

“By advocating a rapid withdrawal, they endorse the quickest way of ending the war, by losing it. It has been less than a month since the full force of troops requested by military commanders arrived in Iraq, but already some have declared the operation to be a failure. General Petraeus arrived in Baghdad in February with a new strategy designed to reinforce the Iraqi security forces confronting al Qaeda, terrorists and Iranian-supplied insurgents. Rather than giving him the opportunity to fully implement his surge strategy, opponents in Congress immediately sought to undermine his credibility and his ability to command.

Mr. Speaker, our troops serving in Iraq don’t need 435 armchair generals dictating the tactical movements of troops, as this legislation would surely do. They have true commanders whose professional military skills have been honed by decades of military service. They need us to renew our commitment to them and their commanders. And more importantly, they need us to trust their commanders’ decisions.”