[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11789]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 THE STATUS QUO IS NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE

  (Mr. SIRES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. SIRES. Mr. Speaker, with President Bush's veto last week, it is 
clear that if this Congress is going to take this war in a new 
direction, we need some of our Republican colleagues to join with us. 
Unfortunately, it seems that the House Republicans are still willing to 
blindly follow the President, no matter the facts in Iraq.
  Consider this statement from Minority Leader Boehner over the 
weekend. He said, and I quote, ``We want a clean bill. We don't want 
artificial deadlines. We don't want artificial measures in there to try 
to ensure failure.''
  Let's not forget that the artificial measures that the minority 
leader is referring to were actually measures designed by President 
Bush himself to hold the Iraqi Government accountable. These are 
critical measures that will put the pressure on the Iraqi Government to 
make political, diplomatic and economic reforms. So far, none of these 
benchmarks have been met.
  It is time that the House Republicans realize that the status quo is 
no longer acceptable to the American people. We have to keep pressure 
on the Iraqis to initiate these reforms and bring our troops home.

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