[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18712]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                SEARCHING FOR THE PRESIDENT'S IRAQ PLAN

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President told the world that 
building a more hopeful future in the Middle East is ``the greatest 
challenge of our time'' and ``the calling of a generation.''
  There is no question the President's policies in Iraq have created 
the greatest foreign policy challenge of a generation. What started off 
as a battle between democracy versus stability has now become a civil 
war between the Shiite and the Sunni. It became that way because of our 
incompetence and failure to plan.
  We shouldn't expect a plan soon, because the President's Iraq Study 
Group just announced they will not release their plan for Iraq until 
after the November midterm elections.
  Quote: ``We think it's more important, frankly, to make sure whatever 
we bring forward is taken out of domestic politics.''
  This is how we are teaching democracy in the Mideast. Keep the voters 
in the dark until it's too late.
  I will end the suspense. The new plan for Iraq, there is no plan and 
there never has been one. According to Brigadier General Mark Scheid, 
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone who tried to 
come up with a plan for the postwar and hostilities.
  The President tells us we're in a long war, but thanks to this White 
House's refusal to plan, it has become an endless war.
  It's time for a new direction.

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