Byron Dorgan: “today has been a fairly significant day here in the Congress. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have flown back to…”

“today has been a fairly significant day here in the Congress. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have flown back to the United States from the country of Iraq, and they have reported to both the Armed Services Committee and also the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have not had a chance to listen to their testimony--I don't serve on either of those committees--but I know the news will carry the testimony, and I am sure I will see portions of it and will certainly read their testimony tomorrow morning, but I wanted to make this point. While General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have come here today and I am sure have talked about the progress that results from the surge--although there has been a substantial amount of violence, and tragically, I believe 11 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq just in the last few days--I think there is no question that the extra soldiers, the additional 30,000 or 40,000 soldiers they took to Baghdad and to the streets of Iraq, dampened down the violence some. Yet there is so much discussion about Iraq and so little discussion about something else that matters a great deal to our lives. This is the 2,400th day since 9/11, and 2,400 days later, Osama bin Laden is still at large, the same Osama bin Laden who boasted the day after 9/11--a day when thousands of innocent Americans were killed-- Osama bin Laden boasted about having engineered the murders of these Americans.…”