Maurice Hinchey: “earlier this evening, one of our Republican colleagues, a very fine and thoughtful gentleman, came to the well here to…”

“earlier this evening, one of our Republican colleagues, a very fine and thoughtful gentleman, came to the well here to lament the fact that the dialogue here, the discussion in the House, has become somewhat partisan lately. I have to agree with him that that is the case. He also said that earlier, after September 11, 2001, immediately thereafter, there was a sense of unity and purpose here, we were united. There is no question that that also is true. There are legitimate reasons for both circumstances. After the attack of September 11, of course we were united. We were united as a country and the Members in this House were united purposefully to deal with the problems associated with that attack. The President and the Members of Congress here identified the source of that problem. It was al Qaeda network being harbored by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and we all united together to make sure that that problem was eliminated. Some of us even went to Afghanistan to be with our military personnel to show them our support for the efforts there. That military action is over. Unfortunately, due to the lack of attention of the administration, however, it is rapidly deteriorating. But I want to talk more about the situation that exists in Iraq because that has become the major focus of our attention, and indeed it has taken on a partisan perspective, and there are very good reasons for that because we have major differences of opinion.”