Blog
Yesterday we introduced the CHAMP Act--- an essential package that addresses the health care needs of our children and seniors, while also meeting the needs of our doctors.
Despite the fact the 70 percent of Americans support withdrawing almost all U.S. troops from Iraq by April, and despite a growing number of retired Generals and senior Republican Senators joining Democrats in calling for a new strategy in Iraq, many House Republicans remain staunchly in favor of the President's failed Iraq policy.
A week does not go by without at least one or two Republican Senators coming forward and saying, what many of us have known for months that the president's Iraq strategy has failed.
First, it was Senators Lugar and Voinovich. Then, last week, Senator Domenici joined them in saying that a serious change in course is needed. And then on Monday Senator Snowe told NBC News that the time has come for binding legislation to bring home most of our troops.
Yesterday an influential Republican voice on foreign affairs admitted that the war in Iraq is doing more harm than good, and that "our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond."
Those are the words of Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who went to the Senate floor last night to say that changes in strategy need to be made BEFORE September.
For six years President Bush and Republican Congresses ignored the record gas prices that seem to pop up every year just before Memorial Day. Once again, this year, American consumers, are paying for their inaction.
We keep on hearing all these doomsday scenarios from the White House and our Republican colleagues about the emergency supplemental bill. It would be nice if they'd listen to the President's own Defense Secretary who said this week that our timelines are already creating positive results in Iraq. And yet, the president threatens to veto the bill, and says that the money is needed immediately.
It's time for a reality check.
As the president prepares to meet with Congressional leaders today to discuss the emergency supplemental he should listen to his own Secretary of Defense, who said that Congress' timelines have been useful in forcing the Iraqi government to make compromises that have been elusive in the past.
This week the House will have a chance to move the Iraq war in a new direction---one that holds the Iraqi government accountable for meeting benchmarks that it already promised it could make.
American involvement in Iraq should not be an open-ended proposition, and we should not be sending more troops there to serve as referees in that nation's devastating civil war.
Accountability has returned to Washington after a six year absence. This week alone the new Democratic Congress has provided critical oversight of the administration's unacceptable neglect of our wounded soldiers.