[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23806-23807]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  NEWS WE DO NOT HEAR ABOUT FROM IRAQ

  (Mr. KIRK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, I just returned from Iraq with 15 bipartisan 
colleagues, and I learned that 90 percent of Western reporters have 
left Iraq. Those who remain can only get their stories out if they 
report injuries to Americans. We are not allowed to learn what else is 
happening in Iraq.
  The press does not like to report on other press, but that is a story 
here. Iraq had only one newspaper, Uday Hussein's newspaper. Now it has 
over 100, like Azzaman, Ashiraa, Ibn Al-Balad, Al-Nahdhah, Al Mutamar, 
and an English-language newspaper, Iraq Today. But today is also the 
first day of school in Iraq, and we have now bookbags given to children 
in Iraq. This is a bookbag filled with school supplies, notes, 
calculators, rulers, pens, papers, that went to 1.5 million Iraqi 
children for the start of school. These are also things that are 
happening in Iraq, but we are not allowed

[[Page 23807]]

to hear about them from our newspapers.

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