[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 149 (Wednesday, October 3, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H11176]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NOW IT'S CHOLERA

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, let me talk about a surge in Iraq the 
President is not talking about. An outbreak of cholera is spreading 
across the country, harming and killing innocent Iraqi people. Five 
hundred new cases were confirmed in Kirkuk in the last 5 days.
  The World Health Organization says there have only been 12 deaths so 
far, but there are 3,000 confirmed cases and 30,000 more Iraqis are 
sick. As a medical doctor, let me tell you that cholera is caused by 
human waste contaminating the water supply. In other words, the sewage 
treatment plants that we were supposed to rebuild that worked prewar 
are still not working after the surge. And innocent Iraqis are 
suffering.
  When a Seattle church group sent me to visit Iraq in 2002, they asked 
me to see firsthand how Iraqi children were suffering from the effects 
of the first war in 1990, the subsequent economic sanctions and how 
their suffering would only get worse in a new war. They were right.
  Cholera is the latest example of a failed war. Instead of talking 
about the surge, the President should be talking about the scourge of 
cholera.

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