Conyers on Passage of Emergency Supplemental: "A Definitive Step Towards Ending the War"

Washington, DC - - Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary and Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, made the following statement on the passage of H.R. 1591, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act:

"The U.S. House of Representatives has just passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill that will bring our troops home by August of next year or sooner.

"The bill funds critical programs neglected by the President, including nearly $2 billion to improve health care for our returning veterans, almost $3 billion for Katrina relief and recovery, and $750 million for S-CHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance program).

"It sets a timeline for withdrawal based on a series of benchmarks that the Iraqi government must meet.If President Bush does not certify that the government is meeting these benchmarks by July 1^st of this year, redeployment of our troops must begin at once.If the Iraqi government meets the benchmarks, redeployment begins March 1^st of next year.Final withdrawal must be complete by no later than August 31 of next year.

"For the first time, Congress has set a date certain for ending the Iraq war. I would have preferred a stronger bill that would have brought our troops home even sooner, but conservatives in both parties would have voted such a bill down.Now we have taken a definitive step towards ending the most unnecessary war in our history, which has cost more than 3,200 lives and caused tens of thousands of permanent injuries to our brave men and women in uniform.We have spent $2 trillion on this war so far, to the detriment of dozens of vital domestic programs.Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, over two million have fled the country and another two million are internally displaced.Congress has finally taken decisive action to stop this needless violence and bloodshed."