Frank Pallone: “What do our international friends know that the Bush administration doesn't? It seems everywhere you turn, the…”

“What do our international friends know that the Bush administration doesn't? It seems everywhere you turn, the 'Coalition of the Willing' is concluding it is time to get out of Iraq, while the Bush administration wants to send 21,500 more U.S. troops. Just last week our biggest ally in the Iraq war, Britain, announced that it was withdrawing 1,600 troops from Iraq in the coming months. The same day Denmark said it, too, would pull out all of its 460 troops by the end of the summer. And then South Korea decided that 1,100 of its 2,300 troops would be withdrawn from Iraq in April, with the rest following later this year. With this news, the 'Coalition of the Willing' is no longer so willing, dwindling to about 10,000 troops. What is it that these countries know that the Bush administration still can't figure out? Could it be that they see the writing on the wall; that they have concluded, as many others have here in the United States, that the Iraq war can no longer be won militarily? Mr. Speaker, our dwindling coalition should serve as another wake-up call to the Bush administration that it is time for a new direction in Iraq.”