Carol Shea-Porter: “I am holding in my hands a report to Congress from September 6, 2007 called 'The Independent Commission Security Forces…”

“I am holding in my hands a report to Congress from September 6, 2007 called 'The Independent Commission Security Forces of Iraq.' This is retired General Jones. They did an absolutely wonderful job, nonpartisan, and I'm very pleased to say that it seems incredibly accurate and fair in all respects. Here is a concern, or one of the many concerns that I have, and I just want to read a couple of lines and talk about it. It says, Iraq's central government in Baghdad, and this is page 39, does not have national reach in terms of security, nor does it have a monopoly on use of force, a defining characteristic of a functioning nation state. Militias continue to play a prominent role and are seen by American and Iraqi officials alike as posing almost as significant a threat to Iraqi stability and security as al Qaeda in Iraq. Now, isn't that fascinating? We hear them talk about al Qaeda, al Qaeda, al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Qaeda was not in Iraq on 9/11, 2001, and yet we have militias roaming around and there is very little talk about that. Now, as this report states, if you have militias, it means that the Iraqi Central Government is not in control of their streets. This is where we have our soldiers, in the middle of a civil war. And this is the reason that we've had ethnic cleansing and the other problems that we're having.”