mr. speaker , i yield myself such time as i may consume to respond to my very good friend from california by saying , first and foremost , there is nothing ugly and divisive about the debate that we are about to undertake , that we are in the midst of right now , number one . 
number two , i think it is important to note that while all of the recommendations that were made by the minority were rejected , i have just been given by the staff of the international relations committee an outline of those two recommendations that were made . 
they were to entirely delete the resolved no . 
6 clause in the resolution , which was the language that i read which says that we can not establish an artificial timetable for withdrawal , which is exactly what president talabani said in his piece , number one . 
and , number two , it underscored the fact that there was a desire from the minority to change the goal of achieving victory to establishing stability in iraq . 
mr. speaker , i think it is very important for us to note that there should be , in fact , complete bipartisanship in our goal to not have an artificial timetable complying with the request of our men and women on the ground there along with president talabani , as well as making sure that we achieve victory in iraq . 
nothing , nothing , has to be divisive about this debate . 
i am convinced , mr. speaker , that at the end of the day , an overwhelming majority of the house of representatives will support this , because we want to do more than simply pat our men and women in uniform on the back and pat the iraqi people on the back . 
we want to talk about the importance of sustaining what took place yesterday for the future of iraq . 
