Jack Kingston: “I want to say this: We have had a lot of good, sincere debates in the Defense Subcommittee of Appropriations, but one of…”

“I want to say this: We have had a lot of good, sincere debates in the Defense Subcommittee of Appropriations, but one of the things that, in our honest disagreement about, that we have not talked about as much is the effects that the surge has already had. I wanted to bring up some statistics. The 4 weeks prior to the surge which began on February 15, we had 1,440 civilian deaths; since that time, 265. That is a reduction of about 500 percent. In terms of bombings, prior to the surge, we had 163. Then from February to March, it is down to 102. Similar with car bombings, down 35 percent from 56 to 36. The surge is already showing a significant impact. Two-thirds of the Iraqis polled by a British polling firm, 5,000 people which were sampled, the largest poll in the history of Iraq, two-thirds of the people say they are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein. Seventy-three percent say they are not in a civil war. Al-Maliki, the Prime Minister's approval rating has gone from 29 percent in September to 49 percent now. We are making progress. We are not defending the status quo. We are changing the course, and the Petraeus plan needs to be given time to work, and that is very, very important.”