[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 22816]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE MORE

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on a day when 10 more U.S. soldiers died 
in Iraq, raising the number of brave Americans killed to 2,900, it is 
hard to find anything positive to say about the Baker Report, anything 
which is associated with a war which was hopelessly wrong from the 
outset.
  It was Congress that demanded the creation of a bipartisan group to 
critically examine the U.S. presence. At long last, the Congress, the 
American people, and the reluctant President have an Iraq plan to 
debate, except this President's interest has already begun to wane. He 
recently installed his own study group, which is a sign to me the 
President has changed his rhetoric but has not changed the course.
  America cannot and must not deal with Iraq in 2007 in the same way 
this President dealt with it in 2006. America needed a plan for Iraq 
long before the U.S. went in there. Many of the 79 recommendations made 
should have been implemented years ago. One recommendation that is 
imperative from any hope of success, diplomacy involving Iraq and 
Syria, has been rejected by the President before it is even debated out 
here in the Congress. The American people and the American soldiers 
deserve better than that. This President has led them into this mess 
and we have, now, a chance to lead them out. And he rejects the 
recommendations before they are even discussed. We need better than 
that out of the Presidency.

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