Mike Gravel: The People Want An End To The Iraq War

June 11, 2007 -- On June 5, Presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel had the opportunity to detail his proposal for withdrawing American forces from Iraq and ending the bloodshed before the Center on Politics and Foreign Relations at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

The Senator said, "To understand why over 70% of Iraqis want our troops out of Iraq, consider that peer-reviewed research by the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health indicates about 818,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. The U.S. population is about 12 times the size of the Iraqi population. Thus, the suffering our invasion has unleashed on Iraq is comparable to an extra 9.8 million violent deaths in the U.S. during the last four years, or equivalent to killing every person in 10 U.S. states and two major U.S. cities."

The Senator continued, "Given our current military fatality rates in Iraq, the issue now is whether in the next two years we will send another 2,000 to 3,000 of our service personnel to their deaths. I support these troops and I am determined to save their lives. I have proposed legislation and a legislative strategy to accomplish an immediate and orderly withdrawal from Iraq."

Senator Gravel's legislation will do the following:

1. All U.S. military personnel will be withdrawn from Iraq within 120 days after the bill becomes law;
2. All U.S. funding for military activity in Iraq stops at the end of the same 120 days [this allows full funding of our operations in Iraq until the end of the 120 days];
3. The President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Treasury will certify to the Congress that the troops are out and that no money is being spent for military operations after 120 days;
4. Criminal penalties are set for violation of any provision of the law; and
5. The Authorization for the Use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq is repealed.

Senator Gravel's legislative strategy calls for putting the legislation to a vote now. In the event of a veto or obstructions in the Senate, at noon every day Senator Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi should call for a vote. One of two things will eventually happen:

1. The veto will be overridden and the bill will be law or,
2. It will be clear to all Americans who is responsible for the continued deaths of Americans and Iraqis resulting in generational damage to the Republican Party as the people weigh in on the constitutional confrontation created between the Congress and the President.

Senator Gravel said that our nation expects our troops to fight seven days a week, so the Congress should be able to vote seven days a week on this issue. He asks all Americans to urge their Representatives and Senators to support our troops by bringing them home now, believing we should stop the policy of allowing the troops to die in an effort, which never was, and is not now, in our national interest.

To read the details of Senator Gravel's Iraq Withdrawal Plan, go to www.Gravel2008.us. To view Senator Gravel's speech before the distinguished foreign policy institute, visit the web sites www.gravel2008.us or www.youtube.com/gravel2008.

Mike Gravel, a resident of Virginia, is a former two-term U.S. Senator from Alaska with a distinguished record that includes successfully ending the military draft with a five-month filibuster. Senator Gravel publicly opposed the planned invasion of Iraq in 2002. He appeared on MSNBC prior to the invasion insisting that intelligence showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq posed no threat to the United States and that invading Iraq was against America's national interests and would result in a disaster of epic proportions for both the United States and the Iraqi people.

Source: Mike Gravel campaign

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