House Expected to Act Next Week on Kucinich, Paul Privileged Resolution to Remove U.S. Forces in Pakistan

The House of Representatives is expected to act next week on a privileged resolution introduced last night by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Ron Paul (R-TX). The resolution directs the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan.

"We have known that U.S. forces have been operating in secret inside the territories of Pakistan without Congressional approval. We recently learned from an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, 'U.S. Forces Step Up Pakistan Presence' that the United States is engaged in a covert strategy to increase our troops' role there incrementally, with the goal of convincing Pakistan to be more accepting of our presence. This is a violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution and it is our Constitutional responsibility as Members of Congress to act," said Kucinich.

"The US military has significantly increased its activity in Pakistan - both in troop presence and Predator attacks - at a time when there are, according to the CIA, very few al-Qaeda members in that country. This increasing US military activity in Pakistan has little to do with protecting the United States and in fact is creating more enemies than it is defeating. The administration, like its predecessor, is misusing language in the original post-9/11 resolution to prosecute a wider regional war and Congress is sitting quietly on the sidelines. This must stop," said Paul.

The introduction of H. Con. Res. 301 follows a promise last December to introduce bills to remove the U.S. forces from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In March of this year, the House of Representatives debated H. Con. Res. 248, Kucinich's resolution to debate and vote on whether to continue the war in Afghanistan.