[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11790]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




HOUSE DEMOCRATS HAVE TAKEN THE WAR IN A NEW DIRECTION; REPUBLICANS MUST 
                              NOW JOIN US

  (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, congressional Democrats are trying to move 
the Iraq war in a new direction, but we are not getting much help from 
the White House or the congressional Republicans. House Democrats have 
now voted four separate times over the last 3 months to change the 
course of the war, but every single time House Republicans refused to 
join us.
  For weeks congressional Republicans were saying that the withdrawal 
timeline proposed would lead to America's defeat in Iraq. But now a 
week after the President vetoed that bill, Republican leaders are 
saying that our generals must make the troop surge work by this fall. 
Republican leaders have now indicated that there should be a timeline 
for progress in Iraq, stating that, ``By the time we get to September 
or October, Members are going to know how well this is working, and if 
it isn't, what is plan B?''
  Mr. Speaker, it appears that Republicans are slowly but surely coming 
around to timetables in Iraq. This doesn't mean that they are 
defeatists, as their own talking points have suggested in the past. It 
means that they may be turning into realists.

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