[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1959-1960]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        WE NEED A NEW DIRECTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, a State of the Union Address is an 
opportunity for the Nation to take stock of where it is at this exact 
moment.
  It is obvious that the entire domestic agenda has been swallowed up 
by the war in Iraq. With over 3,000 U.S. soldiers killed in action; 
with over 650,000 innocent Iraqi civilians dead in the war; with this 
Nation's having spent over $400 billion in the war and, according to 
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stieglitz, will spend up to $2 
trillion for the war in Iraq, we have seen the hopes and the 
aspirations of the American people for more jobs, for better housing, 
for decent health care, for education for their children just swept 
aside as the administration focuses intently not only on the war, but 
escalating the war.
  I think all across this country people are hopeful that America will 
have a new agenda, one which will recognize that we must focus on 
America's basic needs. It is time for America to come home. Come home 
and start taking care of the needs of our people here for decent 
housing, the needs of our people for health care. Over 100 million 
Americans either have no health insurance or lack access to adequate 
health insurance, and yet we are about destroying the health of the 
people of Iraq instead of focusing on the needs of our people here back 
home.
  Martin Luther King said it years ago in his speech at Riverside 
Church in New York. He said that the hopes and the aspirations of 
people of two countries were being set aside. He was speaking of 
Vietnam and the United States. Today the hopes and the aspirations of 
people of two countries, of Iraq

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and the United States, are being set aside in this head-long rush to 
escalation of a war.
  Now, what should be our policies, and what steps should we take? 
First of all, this isn't just about opposing escalation. I would say 
that is pretty easy to do based on the record of this administration's 
conduct of the war. But we should be taking a strong stand against the 
occupation. We should be demanding that the United States end the 
occupation, that we bring our troops home, that we close our bases. 
That then will set the precondition that is necessary for the world 
community to come together and support a peacekeeping and security 
mission in Iraq. That then sets the stage for the Iraqi people to reach 
a moment of possibility for reconciliation between the Shiites, the 
Kurds, and the Sunnis. It is absolutely imperative that the United 
States announce that it is going to end the occupation because it is 
the occupation which is fueling the insurgency.
  Tonight the Nation is waiting for a new direction. It is not looking 
for more war. It is not looking for more casualties. It is not looking 
for a continued destruction of our domestic agenda. So we are here to 
state that there is a plan, and I have submitted it.
  The Kucinich 12-point plan is the plan that sets the stage for 
America to take a new direction. That direction is out of Iraq, but it 
is also a direction of reconciling with the world community because the 
way this administration responded to 9/11 separated us from the world 
community. At a moment when the whole world was ready to embrace the 
United States in its suffering and to work with us to meet the 
challenges of security, we set ourselves apart with strategies of 
unilateralism, first strike, and preemption. We need to replace that 
with strategies of embracing the world community, of working together, 
of recognizing that the world is interdependent, interconnected. And 
because of that, we understand the common fate which we all have on 
this planet to work together, to put together structures of peace 
internationally.
  And the United States must take that direction. We must engage with 
Iran and Syria. We must reach out to the region and look for a solution 
and find that solution which will enable us to bring our troops home. 
We can have our troops home in 3 months if we can come up with an 
agreement and a new direction, and we should be about that work.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people want health care. The American 
people want jobs. The American people want education for their 
children. The American people want retirement security. And our whole 
domestic agenda is sacrificed for this war.
  It is time for a new direction. It is time for a State of the Union 
which celebrates what we have in America that needs to be improved, 
which restates the American vision of a Nation for all, and which takes 
us away from policies of endless war.

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