Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, it is sad that the resolution before U.S. today is as close as we can get to having a full and open debate on the tragedy that continues to unfold in Iraq. Yes, this is about failure of leadership in the Department of Defense from Secretary Rumsfeld and the team that was unable, after winning the war, to win the peace, a Department that cannot communicate with its own Department of State, let alone the Congress. But it is about more than the failure of the administration and the Department of Defense. What we should be debating today is the failure of Congress. We should be having hearings dealing with these issues on armed services, international relations, appropriations, government operations. Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues do themselves no favor rushing this to the floor and refusing to deal with the responsibilities of congressional oversight. When our Republican colleagues do not permit us to do our job, it does not help them politically. What happens is that this is forcing us to rely on reporters from the New Yorker & from CNN. The avalanche of reports now coming out show the Department of Defense knew about this, even if the top brass had not bothered to read the reports. This should have been shared with members of Congress, and we should have been helping them do their job.”