John Larson: “Briefly reclaiming my time, could it be that one of the reasons they are not speaking out as forthrightly as they…”

“Briefly reclaiming my time, could it be that one of the reasons they are not speaking out as forthrightly as they should, and I am just surmising this, is because part of this reconciliation that has been discussed is the granting of amnesty to Iraqis who have murdered or kidnapped American soldiers or civilians? {time} 2045 We have put forward a resolution here. It was debated during our discussion here, but not a nonbinding resolution. We put forward a resolution that will actually bind the Congress to instruct the President to send a message to the Iraqi Government that that cannot stand; that we, this Congress, and the American public will not stand by and let them recuse people who have taken American lives, who have kidnapped and tortured and mutilated Americans. We will never stand by and let that happen. Could that be part of the reason? Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, well, one of the questions you have to ask yourself is, Did Mr. Maliki and the Iraqi Government sit down and come up with this reconciliation package all by themselves? Does anybody think that the American Government was not, in the form of the ambassador, involved in those discussions, or that talked to the military? Of course they did. So what you have got is our own government talking out of both sides of its mouth. The Iraqis, all they know is we are staying there. We have got a $500 million embassy, the largest embassy in the world. It is really Fortress America.…”