Neil Abercrombie: “Is it not interesting in the context just established by the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and that which the…”

“Is it not interesting in the context just established by the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and that which the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) just recounted to us, that there is some mention made today about a Marshall Plan for Iraq, as if there was some analogy or some parallel to what is happening today, from what is happening today to the time of the Marshall Plan under Harry Truman. Harry Truman made his reputation as a Senator of the United States by rooting out corruption and favoritism and cronyism and profiteering out of defense spending. That is how Harry Truman made his reputation. And when he was President of the United States, the Marshall Plan was free of that kind of corruption, free of that kind of cronyism, free of that kind of direction. I have a suggestion for the gentleman from Oregon: We now have Ms. Rice in charge of stabilization. I am not quite sure what she knows about construction. She constructs sentences very well. By the time she gets finished, a house of cards is still standing. I do not know how long that house of cards is going to stand, but she does her best to construct it. Now, perhaps she can do the same for reconstruction in Iraq. I do not know. But if she is in charge of that, presumably she will be in charge of the $600 million that is going to be borrowed and spent to find the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.”