On July 31, 2007, as part of Cities for Peace, I joined locally elected officials from around the country to present our resolutions against the war in Iraq to the Whitehouse and to speak before the Progressive Caucus in Congress. No money from the City of Ann Arbor was used for this trip. I’ll be adding links to other Congressional Testimony from Locally-Elected Officials on the Local Costs of War who represent over 300 municipalities with Bring the Troops Home resolutions. As a group we are closer to the grassroots citizens who overwhelmingly oppose this war, while the administration and other national leaders continue to fail in getting us out. There is hope in a “readiness” amendment that would require troops being sent into battle first receive adequate training and be provided with the resources they need to be able to enter into combat. The Bush administration has broken our armed forces and stretched our “boots on the ground” resources so thin that we would not currently be able to address any other war that we might really need to be ready to fight. In the same fashion that Democrats have been afraid to vote for anything that would cut funding for the troops, Republicans will be hard pressed to vote against insuring that our troops are ready for battle, before being sent into a war. Thus, this readiness amendment may turn out to be the best way to end the war as quickly as possible, while insuring the safety of our troops, since the only way to achieve “readiness” would be to bring our war weary troops home for the training and rest they need.

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