Truth to Power

Thanks to True Majority, I just spent a bit of time looking over the transcript from the House's debate on Congressman Murtha's Plan for the Responsible Redployment from Iraq. In addition to some fantastic, gutsy comments from Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) I was really pleased to come across this fearless recounting of recent history by Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). She said, on the floor of the House:

The truth has been a major casualty in the war of Iraq.

It is worth reviewing just a few of the statements presented as truth that have been proven to be not true, never true, and still today not true:

Dick Cheney said in August 2002, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

In March 2003, Donald Rumsfeld said, "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

The President said in May 2003, "We found the weapons of mass destruction."

And Donald Rumsfeld on the cost, "Well the Office of Management and Budget has come up with a number that is something under $50 billion for the cost. How much that will be the U.S. burden and how much will be other countries is an open question."

Dick Cheney said May 30, 2005, "I think they are in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

. . . Yet by the end of this year we will have spent $450 billion in Iraq. Some say at the end of the day the war will cost $1 trillion taxpayer dollars. . . . We could have insured 165 million children for 1 year, provided more than 13 million American students with 4-year scholarships at public universities, fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 11 years, give basic immunization to every child in the world for 92 years, and I believe that would have brought us more security than invading Iraq has done.

To read Representative Schakowsky's comments in full, go to the True Majority site (here). To search for your own representative, you'll need to enter her/his name in all caps for the search to work.

Amen and amen!

Tech Tags: true+majority barbara+lee schakowsky Cheney war