Iraq

IRAQ -- (House of Representatives - September 30, 2004)

(Ms. DeLAURO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, today's Washington Post tells us that the administration recently curtailed the distribution of reports by contractor Kroll Security International that show increasing violence in Iraq. The article goes on to say that the Pentagon is sponsoring a group of Iraqi Americans to speak at military bases throughout the United States to provide "a firsthand account of events in Iraq." That is to say, the administration is sending Iraqi exiles, mostly people who may not have been to the country in years, to tell our troops just back from Iraq the "good news" about how things are going there.

I imagine some of these exiles are the same people who told Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz that we would be greeted as liberators upon arriving in Iraq. These are two more examples of an administration in denial of what is actually going on in Iraq, an administration unhinged from reality. If these emissaries of the administration were going to tell our troops the truth about Iraq, they would say that the international coalition is getting smaller, that our burden is getting larger, and our casualties are rising at an alarming rate.

That is the reality in Iraq, the reality that our dedicated troops deserve to be told by those sending them into harm's way. The American public needs to know what is happening in Iraq. This administration is failing to do that.