[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23903-23904]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 AMERICA WANTS A NEW DIRECTION ON IRAQ

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, the previous days have offered a series of 
reports on conditions in Iraq. These reports have been consistent: Iraq 
remains dangerous, unstable, and political progress is virtually 
nonexistent.
  It wasn't supposed to be this way. The President's escalation was 
supposed to give the Iraqi Government and the ethnic groups the room 
they needed to make political progress. That progress simply has not 
happened.
  So now, after 4\1/2\ years, billions of dollars, thousands of lives, 
and countless new slogans, the Bush administration is just giving us 
the status quo. Instead of a new strategy for Iraq, the Bush 
administration is cherry-picking the data to support the political 
objectives and preparing a report that will offer yet another defense 
of the President's strategy.
  We don't need a report that wins a Nobel Prize for creative 
statistics or the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Americans are demanding 
the facts, an end to this open-ended commitment, a surge on the 
political and diplomatic front. In short, the American people want a 
new direction in Iraq.

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