Kirk Watson: “When President Bush meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki at the White House today, he needs to tell the Iraqi leader…”

“When President Bush meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki at the White House today, he needs to tell the Iraqi leader that the time has come for his government to shoulder more responsibility. Congressional Democrats have said this year that we need to have a significant year of transition from U.S. to Iraqi forces. That is not happening. In fact, the violence there is getting worse. Over the last month alone, the number of Iraqis who have been killed has doubled from 1,500 in May to more than 3,000 in June. Imagine that. One hundred Iraqis are now being killed every day. The sectarian violence between the Sunnis and the Shiites is clearly getting worse, and the Iraqi Government simply cannot stop it. For 3 years now, House Democrats have been demanding a serious debate on Iraq. Instead, last month House Republicans favored a partisan debate in the hopes that they would score political points. Today Iraq is close to fighting a civil war, and we must see that this does not happen. ____________________”