Mark Dayton: “Let me read a couple of excerpts because this is really the crux of where I think we have fallen behind in our effort…”

“Let me read a couple of excerpts because this is really the crux of where I think we have fallen behind in our effort and where, until we do make up that effort and start showing some visible success, our troops are going to have an increasingly difficult time and increasingly become targets of hostility and reaction and where they are going to be bound to that country longer than they would need to be. It describes the city of Abu Ghraib which is just west of Baghdad. It says: The constituents' woes came down to the essentials. They had no power, and thus no clean water. Their local elected leader was besieged with all of these requests for basic necessities of life. Mr. Dari could do nothing for the man who, lacking electricity, stayed up all night fanning a sick child, nothing for the 5-year-old child who was left legless by unexploded ordnance that detonated, a sight that caused him to weep. He could do nothing for the multitudes complaining of cars, weapons or relatives taken by American forces, other than give their names to the Americans. He could do nothing for those lacking drinking water or waiting for food rations. "What do you tell the people--have more patience?" he asked rhetorically. "Till when?" This local Iraqi leader went on to say: "Conditions have never been worse," he said bluntly. "We've never been through such a long bad period." The city has had only 1 to 3 hours of power a day in recent weeks.”