WASHINGTON - When House Majority Leader Tom DeLay sat down with reporters on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, he was asked to assess President Bush's campaign in Iraq and to respond to criticism that the military mission is not going well and the White House needs to develop an exit strategy.Iraq's newly arrived US ambassador has a—shall we say—contrasing view:
DeLay offered this response: "These things take time and they take a long time, and some people get weary of the constant barrage that we see in the media.
"You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways," DeLay said.
"And if you took that as the image of what is a great city that has an incredible quality of life and an incredible economy, it's amazing to me. Go to Iraq. And see what's actually happening there.
"Everybody that comes from Iraq is amazed at the difference of what they see on the ground and what they see on the television set."
"I am horrified by the daily suffering of the Iraqi people. The terrorists attack ordinary people, teachers, doctors, newly trained police and others who are assisting the people of Iraq...."(DeLay via Raw Story.)
"Foreign terrorists and hard-line Baathists want Iraq to descend into civil war. Foreign terrorists are using the Iraqi people as cannon fodder," said Khalilzad, who previously served as US ambassador to his native Afghanistan.
The number of attacks blamed on Islamic extremists has escalated since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his Shiite-led government on April 28. Nearly 1,200 people have been killed since then.
A reporter might want to ask Mr. DeLay if lots of people are being blown apart in Houston. You know, with bombs.
No comments:
Post a Comment