[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13515]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               WHY AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION IS NEEDED

  (Ms. WATSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, last week the Iraqi Bureau Chief for 
Newsweek Magazine left Iraq after being there for 2 years and wrote one 
final report entitled ``Good Intentions Gone Bad.'' Rod Nordland said 
the turning point in the war was the Abu Ghraib scandal. Nordland 
wrote: ``The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib alienated a broad swath 
of the Iraqi public. There is no evidence that all the mistreatment and 
humiliation saved a single American life or led to the capture of any 
major terrorist.''
  The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody has severely undermined our 
Nation's position in the world. And yet congressional Republicans are 
still unwilling to call for an independent investigation to determine 
what exactly is happening in these prisons.
  How can we possibly regain our credibility in the world until we 
actually investigate the possibilities of abuse? We still do not know 
why these abuses took place.

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