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Again, you want war and the costs and death that always come with it, the burden is definitely on you to justify it. That's why our constitution requires congressional approval for war.

If you want to send Americans into harm's way, it's also your responsibility to show why this is different from 1998. You're more than right in my mind to go back to 1998 and point out how hypocritical the Dems are because they were all for that war and said Saddam had WMDs, even though they were just doing it to save DIRXPOTUS42's rear end. What you're missing is the converse of that: why are so many Republicans supporting a war with Iraq now that they opposed in 1998?

As for DNC talking points, I don't think Ron Paul or John Duncan or Walter Jones are working with the DNC:

HIDDEN COSTS OF WAR -- (House of Representatives - June 14, 2005)

Mr. DUNCAN.

I told people before this war started that there was nothing conservative about this war; that it was going to mean massive foreign aid, which conservatives have traditionally been against; that it was going to mean huge deficit spending, which conservatives have traditionally been against.

Lawrence Lindsey, who was the President's leading economic adviser, said before the war started that it would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. Now, by the end of this fiscal year, we are going to be at the astounding figure of $300 billion. And I think the only reason more people are not upset about that is that it is humanly impossible to truly comprehend a figure as high as $300 billion

Of course Lawrence Lindsey lost his job over that. A few days before we voted on this war back in October of 2002, I was called to the White House with five other Members and was given a briefing by Condoleezza Rice; George Tenet, then head of the CIA; and John McLaughlin, the Deputy Director. I asked about the Lindsey prediction and was told by Ms. Rice, oh, no, the war would not cost near as much.

I asked them if you could get by the traditional conservative view against massive foreign aid and get by the traditional conservative position of being against huge deficit spending, and if you could get past the traditional conservative view that the U.S. should not be the policeman of the world, was there any evidence of any imminent threat?

I was told there was no evidence of any imminent threat, and that was later confirmed the day after Mr. Tenet resigned. He gave a speech at Georgetown and he said he told everyone all along there was no evidence of any imminent threat by Saddam Hussein, who was truly an evil man. I asked at that time meeting at the White House how much Saddam Hussein's total military budget was in regard to ours, in relation to ours, and I was told it was a little over 2/10 of 1 percent of ours.

It just amazed me that we would be considering such a drastic action, and what really impressed me later on, I read in Bob Woodward's book, and the briefing I had was in October 2002. Some 2.5 months later on December 21, the President received that same briefing from Mr. Tenet and Mr. McLaughlin and probably received more information than I did. According to Mr. Woodward, the President's comment was, "Is that the best we have? That will never convince Joe Public." And yet we went on to this unnecessary war anyway.

One thing that disturbed me about this also, not as much as the deaths and the woundings, but many people, I think, mistakenly thought this was a conservative war. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and I are two of the most conservative Members of this House, as is the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler), another one of our colleagues who voted against the war.

Charlie Reese, a nationally syndicated conservative columnist, who was chosen several years ago as the favorite columnist of C-SPAN viewers, said before the war that it is ludicrous to think that a Third World country like Iraq is a threat to the United States.

He went on to write, ``A U.S. attack on Iraq is a prescription for the decline and fall of the American empire. Overextension, urged on by a bunch of rabid intellectuals who wouldn't know one end of a gun from another, has doomed many an empire. Just let the United States try to occupy the Middle East, which will be the practical result of a war against Iraq, and Americans will be bled dry by the cost in both blood and treasury.''

James Webb, President Reagan's Secretary of the Navy and a Vietnam veteran, wrote a column in the Washington Post strongly opposing this war before it started. He said if we went in, we would be there probably for 30 years...

The gentleman mentioned the word "isolationist" a few minutes ago. Anyone who opposes any foreign adventure or misadventure is sometimes referred

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to as an "isolationist." But our policies and actions in Iraq have isolated us almost more than anything else we have done from the rest of the world.

I have traveled in many foreign countries, and in almost every country I have been told 75 to 80 percent of the people have been against the war. Dick Armey, the Republican majority leader at the time we voted on the war, said before the war started, "I do not believe that America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation. It would not be consistent with what we have been as a Nation. My own view would be to let him bluster, let him rant and rave all he wants, and let that be a matter between he and his own country. As long as he stays within his own borders, we should not be addressing any attack or resources against him."

Jack Kemp wrote before the war, "If there is a lack of sufficient hard evidence that Saddam Hussein has his finger on the trigger of a weapon of mass destruction or is at least taking active steps to use one in the near future, are we prepared to assert the moral and legal authority to invade and conquer Iraq preemptively because we fear Saddam might use a weapon of mass destruction against us if he were able to acquire one? Would the same apply, say, to Pakistan or Iran if we fear the current regimes might fall and Taliban-like regimes take their place? What is the evidence that should cause us to fear Iraq more than Pakistan or Iran in this regard? Do we reserve the right to launch a preemptive war exclusively for ourselves, or might other nations such as India, Pakistan or China be justified in taking similar action on the basis of the fears of other nations? Based on the hard evidence I have seen, I do not believe the administration has made a compelling case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq."...

President Kennedy said in 1961, "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we are only 6 percent of the world's

population," now 4 percent, "that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity, and therefore, there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."

I can also tell Members that last year Robert Novak wrote a column and said Republicans all over the country are "distraught about the U.S. adventure in Iraq.'' He quoted from a speech by Senator Roberts, who said, ``We need to restrain our growing messianic instincts, a sort of global social engineering, where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy, by force, if necessary."

And of course we know, too, a few days ago that the godfather of conservativism, William Buckley, came out and said it is time to exit Iraq. A few months before he said if he had known in 2002 what he knows now, he would have opposed the war from the beginning.

It has not been a conservative war from the start. It was totally unfair and unconservative to put the total burden of enforcing U.N. resolutions on our taxpayers and our military. Conservatives have traditionally been the biggest critics of the U.N.

I get back to the word "isolationists," and say we should try to be friends with every nation. I think most of us support helping out during humanitarian crises. We should have trade and cultural and educational exchanges, but we should never go to war except as a very last resort.

Another great, great conservative from many years ago, Senator Robert Taft, wrote, "No foreign policy can be justified except as a policy devoted to the protection of the liberty of the American people with war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty." That is the true conservative position. The true conservative position is to put our own country and our own people first, and we are not doing that.

Most of what we have done in Iraq has been massive foreign aid. We have built or rebuilt over 6,000 schools. We have been rebuilding roads, water systems, power plants. We have set up a witness protection program, small business loan program, and even Internet cafes. I know that the soldiers over there are proud of these good things that they have done, but at a time when the Congress, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and I do not vote to raise the national debt, but the Congress voted recently to raise our national debt to $9 trillion.

Mr. Speaker, it is not going to be many years ago, they talk about 2046, but it is going to be much sooner when we are not going to be able to pay all of our Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Every article says Medicare and Medicaid are in worse shape than Social Security. We have guaranteed 44 private pensions through an agency called the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. We have added on a trillion-dollar prescription drug benefit. There is nobody up here that I have talked to on either side of the aisle who says we are going to be able to pay all of these obligations in the near future.

So what will we do, first we will start printing more money, but that does not work for very long. It is like a ball rolling downhill; it gets faster as it goes along, and then they are going to have to cut benefits. At the most we have 12 or 15 more years probably, and that is at the most.

A few days ago the pensioners of United Airlines woke up, and their pensions had been cut in half. It will not happen that drastically with the government, but that is the kind of future we are facing if we try to take on the obligations of the entire world.

We went into Iraq, and I can tell Members this: In 1998, I voted to give the Iraqi opposition $100 million to start the movement to take out Saddam Hussein. I was convinced that we should have let them fight their own war instead of sending our kids over there to fight and die. I think what we should do now, we should start, and I wish the President would announce a phased and orderly withdrawal. I think he could do this in a very positive way. He could say we have done far more for Iraq than any other nation has done for another in the history of the world. He could point to the $300 billion we have spent there, and he also could refer to the polls showing almost all Iraqis view us as occupiers rather than liberators. Last year in the last poll that the government took, it was 92 percent, and 78 percent in a poll taken by CNN, that the Iraqis view us as occupiers rather than liberators. They do not really appreciate what we have done. They do want our money. This is a country that Newsweek said had a gross domestic product of $65 billion before the war, and we have spent $300 billion in just a couple of years' time.

As I said earlier, some may say this is isolationist, but the truth is the war in Iraq has isolated us from almost everyone except a few foreign policy elitists around the world. When they use thoughtless cliches like we cannot cut and run, or we must stay the course, we should ask, why? Is what we are accomplishing or not accomplishing in Iraq worth one more young American being killed? Would it be worth the life of your son and daughter, I would say to anyone who happens to be listening to this?

Last June about this time I read in the Chicago Tribune a story about a young soldier who had just been killed in Iraq. Just a few days earlier he had called his mother and told her, this is not our war. We should not be here. I can tell Members this: We changed the name of the War Department many years ago to the Department of Defense. We should make it truly a Defense Department once again and bring our troops home.

I can tell Members very few people in this Congress, I do not think anybody in the Congress, really respects and admires the military more than I do, but I believe in national defense. I do not believe in international defense, and if we take on the defense obligations of the entire world, and that is another thing, conservatives have never believed in world government. This is not a conservative war. We should begin a phased, orderly withdrawal and stop the killing over there. It is such a sad thing, and it is just not worth what we are going through.