[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10806-10807]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 4, 2007, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made 
much on the talk shows of the last 2 weeks saying the Congress--the 
Democrats--are trying change direction in Iraq and should listen to the 
military professionals. Now, if only this administration had taken its 
own advice. If they had listened to the military professionals and the 
intelligence professionals, we would never have gone to war in Iraq. 
The trail of this administration to the sad fourth anniversary of 
Mission Accomplished is littered with professional, military and 
intelligence advice that was either ignored, discarded or deliberately 
distorted.
  There were no links to 9/11 and al Qaeda. That was recently 
declassified in a report on April 6 of this year.
  There were no weapons of mass destruction, despite statements from 
the likes of Vice President Cheney. ``We believe Saddam has in fact 
reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' 3/16/2003.
  The war has drug on for 4 long years since the President--dressed as 
a fake fighter jock--landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier and 
declared Mission Accomplished. Since that day, more than two U.S. 
soldiers have died every day for 1,460 days. Three thousand three 
hundred forty-two have died, 3,205 since George Bush proclaimed mission 
accomplished.
  Now, they have been so wrong all along with their inside advice, 
their made-up intelligence, their own neocon theories. They were wrong 
about, again, ``We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. I think it 
will go relatively quickly, weeks rather than months.'' Vice President 
Cheney. 3/16/2003.
  ``We're dealing with a country that can finance its own 
reconstruction and relatively soon.'' 3/27/2003, Deputy Secretary 
Wolfowitz, who was promoted to the World Bank so he could get his 
girlfriend a job. He was kind of wrong, too.
  Now the scandals are unfolding about what little reconstruction has 
been done and how poorly it was done. But Halliburton has benefited 
tremendously--over $25 billion of no-bid contracts which has probably 
boosted Vice President Cheney's portfolio quite a bit. So there have 
been some successes in this effort.
  Our troops have done everything that was asked, many of them now on 
their second and third tour of duty. They are mired in the midst of a 
1,400-year-old sectarian conflict--a civil war. The Iraqi government 
has delivered on no promises to take meaningful steps to end that civil 
war. There is not a singular military solution to this conflict. There 
must be a political solution in Iraq. There must be diplomacy in the 
region. And yes to the President and the Vice President--we need a new 
direction.
  And this Congress is listening to the professionals. Unfortunately, 
mostly we have to hear from the retired generals and the others because 
those who are still in uniform are being gagged by this administration 
from giving their true opinions about the changes that are necessary to 
extract our troops from the midst of that conflict.
  This is a sad fourth anniversary. But it is the first anniversary of 
attempts by this Congress to stand up for its constitutional 
obligations and begin to try and change course, to end the stay-the-
course, open-ended commitment of

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George Bush and Dick Cheney who have been wrong every step of the way.
  Someone else needs to push for change in Iraq, because it will never 
come from this White House.

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