[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19609-19610]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 UNDERMINING EFFORTS TO FIGHT TERRORISM

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my 
Special Order speech at this time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Washington is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, we learned yesterday of a new 
intelligence assessment that confirms what the common sense of the 
American people concluded some time ago: The war in Iraq has undermined 
our efforts to fight terrorism.
  The national intelligence estimate says the Iraq war has made 
terrorism worse on a global scale. The Iraq war has made the world more 
dangerous. These conclusions come from the agencies and specialists who 
work to keep America safe by keeping leaders informed of the latest 
verifiable information.
  The intelligence assessment is sobering, but the White House and 
Republican response is staggering in its total denial of the truth. 
Faced with newspaper accounts of the new intelligence report in the New 
York Times and the Washington Post, the White House immediately issued 
a denial. They went so far as to have their appointees repeat the 
often-heard misstatement that significant progress is being made in 
Iraq.
  Violence is the only thing that Iraq has more of today. More than 200 
people have been killed in Iraq since the weekend, but the President 
and the Republican surrogates keep saying significant progress is being 
made.
  The Republican idea of keeping America safe is keeping America in the 
dark, unaware of the truth Republicans have been told behind closed 
door. Republicans continue to blindly endorse the President's Iraq war 
because those are the marching orders from the White House. There is no 
independence from the President. Republicans in the House do exactly as 
they are instructed.
  So when the intelligence community tells Republican leaders the Iraq 
war is spreading terrorism, the White House tells the Republicans to 
say something else. U.S. soldiers are fighting and dying in the middle 
of a civil war, yet the Republicans mechanically recite the same old 
White House rhetoric.
  The only thing that will help America become safer is to face the 
truth. The Iraq war has made the world more dangerous. Only Republicans 
disagree with that truth.
  The Republican party in power denies the facts of the intelligence 
community; and they keep telling America you are safer, you are safer. 
The facts prove the President has been wrong about Iraq all along. The 
facts prove the President could have changed course but instead chose 
to keep U.S. soldiers in harm's way and make the world a more dangerous 
place. And the facts prove the Republican Party abandoned the American 
people in favor of misleading statements, failed foreign policy, and a 
President who will stay his own course when America is off course.
  America is not safer when the President has a Republican Congress 
willing to accept White House press releases instead of cold hard 
assessments from 16 intelligence agencies of the United States 
Government. America is not safer when the Republican Party's principal 
weapon in the war on terror is misleading press releases denying our 
own intelligence community. But that is what the Republicans would have 
you believe. Republicans think a press release is more important to 
their future than an intelligence plan that demands we confront Iraq as 
it really is.
  Republicans had the power to change course and work with the 
Democrats to produce a national plan on the crisis in Iraq. They simply 
refuse. They go it alone. Republicans had the power to develop a plan 
for Iraq that was based on facts, not the President's speeches, but 
they refused. Jack Murtha, Ike Skelton, many on our side have offered 
them alternatives.
  The world today is more dangerous, and Republicans will not even 
accept their own intelligence assessments.
  The American people learned two important pieces of information over 
the weekend: The Iraq war has made the world more dangerous, and the 
Republican Party is not willing to act on that intelligence. They are 
not protecting the American people. They are protecting their own hold 
on power by denying the horrible mistake that they have made. They will 
not change

[[Page 19610]]

course because that would require them to say, well, you know, we did 
the wrong thing when we let the whole Army go, when we let Abu Ghraib 
get out of hand. They won't admit that they have made us less safe.

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