Jerry Nadler: “it is growing very tiresome to hear Republicans rewriting history and blaming all the ills of our society on the 1990s…”

“it is growing very tiresome to hear Republicans rewriting history and blaming all the ills of our society on the 1990s and the Clinton administration. The gentleman from Oklahoma said the Army was too small, that in the 1990s it was reduced from 15 divisions to 10. Maybe so, but, you know, we have had 6 years of the Bush administration and 6 years of the Republican Congress to fix that if that is the problem. I have not seen any proposals to change that. I have not seen any proposals from that side of the aisle or from the administration to increase the Army to 11 or 12 or 15 divisions. The real problem is that we are wasting the Army. The real problem is that Secretary Rumsfeld thought we could fight a war on the cheap. He sent the troops into Iraq with not enough troops, dismissed General Shinseki when he told him we need twice as many troops as you may think; otherwise, we will have a long-term war on our hands, and he was right. We sent the troops in without the proper body armor and without the proper equipment, and Americans died because of that. The other real problem is that we are wasting our funds, $300 billion so far, not just funds, 2,700 lives in a foolish, counterproductive war in Iraq, a war started by the Bush administration under false pretences, after misrepresenting facts and intelligence to this Congress.”