Maxine Waters: “Mr. Speaker and Members, last night the President of the United States addressed the Nation. He had promised us that he…”

“Mr. Speaker and Members, last night the President of the United States addressed the Nation. He had promised us that he was going to come up with creative solutions because he acknowledged his failures. He has designed what he called ``a new way forward.'' That is another one of his sound bites. He tried to cloud the escalation by saying sending 20,000 new troops was a surge of some kind. There was nothing new or creative about his message. Remember, it was the President of the United States who promised us that they were going to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction, only for us to find out there were no weapons of mass destruction. Remember when he rolled out on the battleship saying ``Mission Accomplished''? Remember when he promised us that we would get the proceeds from the oil in Iraq and that would be used to rehabilitate Iraq? Remember when they promised us that we would be welcomed with open arms and we were winning the war? Well, there this is no new real exit strategy. This is no new way forward. As a matter of fact, this is a new way backwards. And then on top of that, he had the audacity to tell us he wants a billion dollars to give to the Iraqis for jobs and employment. Give me some of that money for our cities and our rural communities. We could really use it. We have to oppose the President on this escalation.”