Peace Action West asked Rep. Pelosi’s office for more votes on Iraq

In this important election year, we’re asking Rep. Pelosi to push for more votes in the House on the war in Iraq to put members of Congress on record. On Tuesday, Peace Action West and other groups met with Rep. Pelosi’s District Director Dan Bernal and discussed what Congress could do to end the war. While the Senate has been deadlocked on withdrawal from Iraq, the House can continue to raise the issue of withdrawal and put restrictions and timelines on Bush’s supplemental funding request.

In fact, in hearings next month, General Petraeus’s testimony on Iraq will present an opportunity for Congress to articulate a vision of how to responsibly withdraw without leaving residual troops. With the 4,000th American soldier’s death in Iraq and a majority of Americans ready for the war to end, it is up to the House to continue to vote and build momentum for complete withdrawal.

We also spoke with Mr. Bernal about the need for Congress to cut all funding for two nuclear weapons programs: the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) and Complex Transformation. By revamping the nuclear weapons infrastructure, Complex Transformation allows for new nuclear weapons programs, like the RRW, and proposes building a new facility in Los Alamos to churn out more plutonium pits, the core of a nuclear bomb. At the meeting, we delivered 500 petitions that we collected asking Rep. Pelosi to support nuclear disarmament.

We were happy to have San Francisco resident and Peace Action West member Judith Maxwell join us, as well as representatives from the American Friends Service Committee and SF Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility. By working with other groups, we can reach out to a broader portion of the public and mobilize for a better foreign policy.