“Over the past four years, the administration has advanced similar initiatives involving the escalation of troops and while our troops have performed heroically, each time these plans have failed.

Our military leaders and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have called on President Bush to embrace a far more comprehensive approach.

Instead, the President has put forward a plan to train Iraqi troops that is unrealistic, a political approach that is overly simplistic and an economic initiative that will have no lasting impact.   It is a plan in search of a reality.”

Congressman Delahunt is an original co-sponsor of H.R. 353, the House version of Senator Kennedy’s bill which would prohibit the use of funds for an escalation of United State forces in Iraq above the numbers existing as of January 9, 2007.

-30-