[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 27634]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                        LISTEN TO THE GOOD NEWS

  (Mr. HEFLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, a reporter from a major news organization in 
the United States who is now stationed in Iraq made the statement the 
other day that if he wrote a single story that was positive about what 
was going on in Iraq, he would have to fight with his editor to get it 
published.
  Is it any wonder that we have such a negative attitude in America 
about the war and the way it is going?
  I think it is time for a little reality. During the last week of 
November, 526 insurgents were detained or killed and 104 weapons caches 
were discovered during 355 combined operations. And in those 
operations, 30 percent of them were conducted independently by Iraqi 
security forces. As of November 16, 2005, a total of 211,700 Iraqi 
security forces have been trained and equipped. The number includes 
99,500 Ministry of Defense forces and 112,200 Ministry of Interior 
forces. Thirty Iraqi Army battalions have assumed primary control of 
their own areas; and on and on it goes, Mr. Speaker.
  There is a lot of good news out of Iraq, and we ought to begin to 
listen to it.

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