Bill Delahunt: “I would like to make an interesting observation, because during the debate tomorrow and during the debate today, and…”

“I would like to make an interesting observation, because during the debate tomorrow and during the debate today, and during the course of our committee hearings, we constantly hear of a profound concern by this administration and this government about Iran. If you remember, Iran was described as a charter member, if you will, of the Axis of Evil club. And there are legitimate concerns about the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. And here we are in Iraq, we have already appropriated in excess of $330 billion. That is $330 billion. Estimates range that by the time we have discharged our obligation, which is difficult to quantify, we will be looking at $1 trillion from American taxpayers. However, while we are expressing this concern about Iran, a story appears in the Washington Post dated Tuesday, July 12, and the headline reads as follows: Iraqi official says Iran will not train troops. But there appears to be some confusion because the Iraq defense minister reached an agreement, a military agreement with Iran the previous week. And he claims it does not include any provision for the Iranian armed forces to help train Iraqi troops. But this was contradicted by his Iranian counterpart. So here we are, America. We now have a military agreement between Iraq, where we have expended billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, and the blood of more than 1,700 Americans killed in action, and yet what do we have? We have a military agreement between Iraq and the Republic of Iran.…”