[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 167 (Wednesday, October 31, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H12242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN IRAQ ARE TIRED, BITTER AND SKEPTICAL, AND YET BUSH 
                         ONLY OFFERS STATUS QUO

  (Mr. MORAN of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, as President Bush allows the 
war in Iraq to drag on, with no change in policy and no end in sight, 
it is important that we hear what our combat soldiers are saying on the 
front lines of that war. Over the weekend, The Washington Post 
published a story on the First Infantry Division of the First 
Battalion, which has been patrolling the streets of Baghdad for the 
last 14 months. Those troops are tired, bitter and skeptical. One such 
soldier told the reporter, and I am quoting, ``I don't think this place 
is worth another soldiers' life.''
  Our soldiers are also frustrated that decisionmakers here in 
Washington don't fully realize what is going on. Quoting another 
soldier: ``They just know back there what the higher-ups tell them. But 
the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe 
places with a little bit of gunfire. They don't see what we see on the 
ground.'' Having been to Iraq a number of times, as many of my 
colleagues have, how true that is.
  Madam Speaker, none of us in this Chamber can imagine what our 
soldiers go through on a daily basis in Iraq, but the White House needs 
to start listening to them. It is well past time to bring our sons and 
daughters home from this fiasco we call the war in Iraq.

                          ____________________