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Stallings calls for Congress to continue working to get Idaho and America out of Iraq

Contact:  Chuck Oxley   (208) 871-4976 (office)  

BOISE, Idaho – Former Idaho Congressman Richard Stallings on Tuesday called for the current Idaho Congressional Delegation to join with Democrats in their push to resolve the Iraq debacle and bring our troops home.

“President Bush has again failed to heed the call of the American people, a bipartisan majority of Congress and military experts to change course in Iraq,” Stallings said.

“Idaho has already lost 24 brave men and women to the war. How many more have to lose their lives before the president and Idaho’s delegation realize that the current path is the wrong direction?”

After more than four years of a failed policy that has made America less secure, it’s time for this nation to change course and Iraq to take responsibility for its own future.

The President has put our troops in the middle of an endless Iraqi civil war and America is less secure because of the mismanagement and high costs of this war. More than 100 of our troops died in April, more than in any other month this year.

Additionally, the State Department’s report that terrorist attacks in Iraq have increased so dramatically demonstrates once again the unfortunate results of four years of a failed strategy – that Iraq has become a recruiting poster and a training ground for a new generation of terrorists.

 “If the President thinks that by vetoing this bill he is ending efforts to change the direction of this war, he is mistaken,” Stallings said. “Democrats will continue, in as many ways as possible, to force the President to see that a military solution is unrealistic without a political, diplomatic and economic strategy.”

MILITARY FACTS ABOUT IDAHO

• Number of Active Duty Service-Members in Iraq: 1,095
• Number of Reserve Forces in Iraq: 565
• Number of Service-Members Killed in Iraq: 24
• Number of Service-Members Wounded in Iraq: 220
• Cost of War to the People of Idaho: $1.0 billion

(Source: CTS Deployment File, 1/31/07; Department of Defense Personnel Statistics; nationalpriorities.org)

Small towns in Idaho feel the pain of loss in Iraq. "Turn a corner in this quiet southern Idaho town and suddenly the war in Iraq is not 7,000 miles away. It is here, at the end of flag-lined Sandy Glen Lane. In the kitchen, where Pam Hall and her daughter and two sons hold each other as each tries to grasp the death of their beloved son and brother. Petty Officer 2nd Class Curtis Hall, 24, was killed Friday on his second tour in Iraq when a remotely detonated improvised explosive device near Kirkuk blew up Hall's convoy, killing him and two others - all explosives experts." ( Twin Falls Times-News, 4/10/07)

College dreams cut short by bomb attacks in Iraq. "Army paratrooper John Borbonus recently decided to go to college and looked forward to working out the details after returning from Iraq, his father, Hans Borbonus, said. 'I would have liked to trade with him so he could see the world," Borbonus said Sunday. "I would not wish this on anyone.' John Borbonus, 19, was killed Thursday in Baghdad with another soldier from his unit when a car bomb exploded." (Idaho Statesman, 4/16/07)