Pete Stark: “I rise today to tell a tale of two Republican disasters, the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. It is a story with no best…”

“I rise today to tell a tale of two Republican disasters, the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. It is a story with no best of times, only the worst of times. This tale is why I oppose the Supplemental Appropriations Act (H.R. 4939). The main characters in my story are an incompetent President and a corrupt Congress. The setting is an America desperate for honest leadership. But the plot involves lies and cover-ups. The problem is misplaced priorities. But the solution is not this supplemental, which provides another $67.6 billion for a failed war but only $19 billion to help the victims of Katrina. The first disaster, the Iraq War, was predicated on lies. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, had never attempted to buy uranium from Niger, and was not about to welcome American soldiers with open arms. An incompetent President failed to prepare America for the postwar period. As a result, looting of stores and museums began shortly after the United States military gained control of Baghdad. Months later, sectarian violence has pushed Iraq to civil war, with Shiite militia and security forces clashing with Sunni citizens and insurgents. Yet our troops remain in Iraq and in harms way. Two American soldiers and 40 Iraqi soldiers and civilians are killed every day. As long as we stay in Iraq, the insurgency will continue, even as the so-called Iraqi democracy experiment goes nowhere.…”