[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 27636-27637]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                            PROGRESS IN IRAQ

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday when Democrat leader Howard Dean 
said that the war in Iraq is unwinnable and Senate Democrat 
Presidential candidate John Kerry said that American soldiers in the 
dark of the night are terrorizing Iraqi women and children, I scratch 
my head in absolute disgust and disappointment. The party of Scoop 
Jackson has apparently been now completely hijacked by Cindy Sheehan 
and Michael Moore.
  I went to Iraq last week, and I wish that Mr. Dean and Mr. Kerry 
would go to Iraq and talk directly to our soldiers. Here is what I 
found, and incidentally, I went with a bipartisan group, three 
Democrats, three Republicans. We found troop morale high, a great deal 
of enthusiasm for the mission. No equipment shortages. From tissue to 
toilet paper, our troops are well equipped. We found that they were 
very engaged in the mission and that the Iraqi security forces each day 
were getting more and more of the territory under their control.
  We found enthusiasm for the December 15 election, 228 different 
political parties already offering candidates. A lot of progress is 
being made. Everything is completely different than the pessimism and 
the continuous criticism and the Vietnam-era radicalism expressed by 
Mr. Kerry and Mr. Dean. I would invite those two to go over there and 
see for themselves before they send such discouraging signals to our 
troops in action.

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