mr. speaker , regardless of how members of this house feel about the war in iraq , i think all of us want to congratulate the people of iraq for holding these historic elections and for getting out to vote despite the significant risks . 
we all want to congratulate our troops , but quite frankly , there is language in this bill that some of us consider inflammatory , that some of us strongly disagree with , and i would urge my colleagues to vote `` no '' on the previous question so that we can have a unified message and not a divisive message here in the house . 
mr. speaker , we have been in iraq now for over 1 , 000 days , and i believe we must begin the transition to putting the iraqis in charge . 
president bush 's unwillingness to announce a plan to remove u.s. troops within a clear time frame and his refusal to renounce the use of permanent u.s. military bases i think undermines his rhetoric and i think endangers the chance for democracy to succeed . 
our occupation in iraq complicates the transition to democracy . 
people can disagree with me on this , but the fact of the matter is we should be debating this issue of how we deal with iraq not in an h. res. form , but in a binding resolution here on the house floor . 
we have time to debate merry christmas resolutions here in the house , but we never have the time to debate in a real way and in a meaningful way this war in iraq . 
we have sent thousands of our servicemen and -women into harm 's way in iraq . 
i would argue we rushed into this war . 
we have paid dearly for what the politicians in washington have decided to do . 
we owe our troops better than just coming up and saying , stay the course . 
we owe them more than saying we are going to stay there until victory is achieved . 
what is victory ? 
i mean , nobody has defined what victory is . 
the president says we will know when we get there . 
well , that is not good enough . 
that is not good enough for anybody in this house . 
that is not good enough for our soldiers . 
we owe these brave men and women more than just a pat on the back and a congratulations . 
we owe them a real policy , and we owe the people of iraq who have sacrificed so much the right to determine their own future . 
they want us to begin to extricate ourselves from iraq . 
we should do that , and i would hope that my colleagues will vote `` no '' on the previous question so we can bring up a resolution that truly unites this body and not divides it . 
