John Boehner 8TH DISCTRICT OF OHIO

Yesterday, Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) delivered a speech on national security to the American Legion National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in advance of President Obama’s Oval Office Address to the nation on Iraq.  Boehner touched on Iraq, Afghanistan, the global war on terrorism, the broader Middle East, and the economy.  Following is the full video of his remarks: 

For a full transcript of Boehner’s speech as prepared for delivery, click here.

Yesterday, CNN’s Situation Room highlighted a web video released by Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) which credited our troops with the success of the surge in Iraq.  CNN also offered a preview of an address Leader Boehner will deliver at the American Legion National Convention later today at 2:10pm EST, as Wolf Blitzer noted: “President Obama won't be the only one publicly addressing this milestone in Iraq tomorrow. Republicans will have a voice as well. The House Minority Leader John Boehner is planning a major speech ahead of the President's.”

As Congressman Boehner noted in an op-ed in Human Events last week:

The success of the troop surge is undeniable. By taking the fight to al Qaeda, other terrorist threats, and the insurgency, our men and women in uniform succeeded in providing greater security to the Iraqi population and giving the government the time to build capacity to more effectively meet the needs of the Iraqi people. As a result, the drawdown of U.S. troops that began in 2008 has been able to continue. I commend President Obama for listening to our commanders in the field and working closely with them, the Iraqi people, and the Congress to ensure that we continue making significant strides there.

The American people owe a debt of gratitude to the courage and sacrifice of our troops for all they have done to advance freedom abroad and strengthen our security here at home.

The Obama White House is in a hurry to claim credit for our troops’ success in Iraq – success made possible by the surge strategy then-Sen. Obama opposed as a candidate for president.  The President has taken ownership of the flagging economy, but when will he get serious about creating jobs and cutting spending, and specifically address the unemployment rate among American veterans, which now stands at 11 percent, above the already-high national rate of 9.5 percent?

Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) addressed the subject in a speech to the American Legion National Convention today in Milwaukee.  An excerpt from the Leader’s remarks as prepared: 

"Today, as thousands of our warriors come home seeking to provide for their families and realize the American Dream they have volunteered to defend, they confront an economy that affords neither opportunities nor jobs.  Veterans’ unemployment is now at 11 percent.  That is why I have called on my colleagues in the Congress and the president to join me in supporting a series of immediate actions to end the ongoing economic uncertainty and help more Americans find an honest day’s work.  ‘Stimulus’ spending sprees, permanent bailouts, federal mandates and government takeovers have failed this nation and have failed our veterans."

MSNBC today previewed Boehner’s remarks about the troubling job situation facing America’s veterans and the workforce in general. 

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has expressed concern about the unemployment rate among veterans, and recently urged employers to “take a chance on veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and offer them jobs and mentorship,” according to the Associated Press. 

Problem is, those employers in most cases don’t have jobs to offer – thanks in no small part to the job-killing policies of the Obama Administration, which have forced small business owners and private-sector job creators to operate in a state of near-constant uncertainty over the past 19 months, freezing many in their tracks and preventing the creation of millions of jobs.  And now President Obama wants to raise small businesses’ taxes.  The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation says the tax hike recently endorsed by President Obama and his economic team will result in higher taxes for 50 percent of the small business income in America – a policy shift certain to result in diminished opportunities for even more Americans, including veterans returning home on success from Iraq.

A full breakdown of the troubling unemployment situation facing America’s veterans is available here. 

As America’s heroes return from Iraq, too many are being forced to ask: where are the jobs?  Instead of blaming others for the situation, President Obama should take responsibility, replace his economic team, and work to build bipartisan support for aggressive spending reductions and other policies that will help our economy get back to creating the jobs that veterans and other Americans deserve.  (In an economic address last week, Leader Boehner detailed the five steps the president needs to take immediately to help small businesses get back to creating jobs.  And in a letter sent earlier this year on ways to boost private sector job creation, more than 100 economists urged President Obama to take immediate action to rein in government spending, stop the coming tax hike, and end the barrage of new federal rules that are causing uncertainty for small businesses under the current administration.)

The Kabul Conference, scheduled for July 20-21, will draw foreign ministers from more than 60 nations to Afghanistan, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, to review government projects the international community hopes will kick start the economy.  

Western diplomats, in a series of background briefings ahead of the gathering, said they expected presentations detailing how billions already committed would be spent in perhaps the most crucial year for the country since the Taliban's 2001 ousting.  

‘This is probably the most important meeting Afghanistan has ever held,’ said one.

Yesterday, Iraqis went to the polls in droves to cast their ballots in a nation-wide parliamentary election, defying terrorists and naysayers alike.  The result was a historic election in the heart of the Middle East, as the New York Times reported this morning:

Iraqis defied a barrage of mortars, rockets and other bombs to show up to the polls in strength on Sunday, in elections that have been seen as a critical test of Iraq’s stability and a last milestone before American troops leave the country…. The insurgents still fighting in today’s Iraq face a far stronger government, capable now of saturating the country with police officers and soldiers. Even more important, they face an Iraqi people far less willing to support, or even sympathize with, violent resistance against the country’s democratic government.  Iraqis, seemingly inured to violence, even mocked the attacks.

That’s a remarkable turnaround for a country that many Democrats believed was incapable of democratic government and wanted to abandon altogether.  Instead, today “Israel may have to retire its title as the only democracy in the Middle East. With Sunday’s free and fair national election, Iraq joins the honor roll as one of the very few Islamic democracies,” David Frum remarked in a column today for CNN.

In fact, Bloomberg News noted that “More than 6,200 candidates competed for seats in the 325-member legislature.”  And interestingly, according to the same Bloomberg story, “voter registration was the biggest problem for Iraqis, not security.” 

As Pete Wehner noted last week on National Review:

The progress in Iraq has been truly remarkable, especially when one considers where things were at the end of 2006. Iraq was caught in a death spiral. The odds were stacked against us. And most people in Iraq and America - including almost all of the political class and virtually the entire foreign policy establishment - had given up on the possibility of success. The main question for them was the terms of our retreat and de facto  surrender…What has unfolded in Iraq is not an accident or based on luck. It was the result of one of the most astonishing military turnarounds in American history….

What America has done for Iraq, which had been brutalized for so long, may not be the noblest act in our history. But it ranks quite high. The Iraq war was, in fact, a war of liberation. And the liberation appears to be working. Nothing is guaranteed; ‘Everything in Iraq is hard,’ Ambassador Crocker once said. But regardless of where one stood on the war and the surge, what we see unfolding in Iraq today is something to be grateful for, and to take pride in.

Some of those in the “political class” that Wehner talked about are now in the highest corridors of power - and today are trying to claim ownership of the success in Iraq.  Vice President Biden even tried to claim credit for the success in Iraq, recently remarking that: “this could be one of the great achievements of this administration.”  But, as Jonah Goldberg noted, “The same administration that blames all of its mistakes on problems it inherited now wants to take credit for accomplishments it inherited.”

Iraq is a free and an increasingly stable country today thanks to the men and women of America’s armed forces, who have put their lives on the line to defeat the terrorists who nearly tore Iraq apart just a few years ago.  Thanks to the surge, engineered by General David Petraeus, Iraq has turned a corner and is poised to be a beacon of democracy in a region mired by oppression, poverty, and terrorism.  Iraqis exercising their democratic right to vote yesterday was another encouraging sign that that once troubled nation has turned a corner - and as American troops draw down after success - rather than defeat - the United States will have another democratic ally in the heart of the Middle East.