By Scott Helman, Globe Staff | September 25, 2007

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed frustration yesterday at the public perception that Democrats in Congress had failed to end the war in Iraq, saying the blame lies with congressional Republicans who have blocked all efforts to chart a new course.

In an hourlong interview with the editorial board of The Boston Globe, Pelosi said responsibility for the war no longer lay just with President Bush but with her Republican counterparts on Capitol Hill, who she said are more interested in protecting Bush than working to redeploy the 169,000 American troops now in Iraq.

"We have to make it very clear to the American people that it was George Bush's war [but] it is now the Republicans in Congress's war," she said.

The perception among many Americans, she said, is that Democrats, despite leading Congress since January, had failed to make meaningful progress toward ending the war, which they promised to do after winning both chambers of Congress in last fall's elections.

"They think we just aren't doing it, and that's good for Republicans," Pelosi said.

Just 24 percent of respondents in a Gallup poll earlier this month said they approved of the job Congress was doing, compared with 71 percent who said they disapproved.

Pelosi said Democrats had been willing to work with Republicans to find common ground on Iraq, but that a turning point came last week when Republican senators blocked a war measure sponsored by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. Webb's proposal would have required that troops get as much time at home as on the war front.

"The Republicans in the Senate have guarded the gate," Pelosi said.

While the administration envisions a lasting troop presence in Iraq, Pelosi said she wants to see a troop redeployment begin soon, with a goal of having the bulk of American forces out of Iraq within a year or so. Until then, she said, the United States will continue to be distracted from its more worthy fight against terrorism - including operations in Afghanistan - and to see its reputation stained.

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Note:Pelosi has the congressional vote to cut of the cash flow to the Bush war machine, however she had rather waste words and efforts in a blame game directed at the GOP.
How hard is for her to understand that the American people are sick of lies,excuses, and faulting the other side of the aisle for their own irresponsible leadership!
Nancy, shut off the money and bring our troops home!
One more American death in Iraq is one to many..

Charlie Rose, Questions and Answers for Dennis Kucinich!

Kucinich: Well, are we forgetting something here? I mean, do we still have civilian leadership in the United States or have we torn that page out of our Constitution as well? The founders made it very clear that Congress under Article 1, Section 8 has the power of war. And Congress also has the power of the purse. Congress must tell the president now, "The war is over. Bring the troops home. Bring the equipment home. Force those mercenaries to come home. Get Halliburton out of there." I mean, Congress has the power, and they can take action now. We cannot continue to fund this war.

Kucinich: Good question. It hasn't been—listen, Congress is afraid to take on this president. We engage in all of these phony debates about the war. The essential question of the war—does it continue to be funded? I pointed this out over and over. It does not take another vote, Charlie. It simply is for the leadership of the House to tell the president, "We're not going to give you any money. Start bringing those troops home now." And after all, isn't that what they told the American people they would do when the Democrats were elected in 2006?

Kucinich: First of all, you do not—Charlie, I'll say it again. You don't need votes to end this war. The leadership has to tell the president, "No more money." But here's my strategy. It's a strategy that I articulated over four years ago. The Congress tells the president, "No more money for the war," and that we have to go out and end the war, end the occupation, have a plan to bring the troops home with a parallel process simultaneously, an international peace-keeping and security force that moves in as our troops leave. That way, Iraq's stable. But in addition to that, stop the privatization of Iraq's oil. This is a prescription to keep the war going. No partition of Iraq. We have to have a program for honest reconstruction, for a chance for reconciliation between the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds, and also for reparations to the Iraq people. But right now, what's the Bush administration doing? They're keeping the war going, they're moving towards trying to privatize Iraq's oil, they're doing everything they can to create instability in the region. The occupation is fueling the insurgency. We must end war, we must bring our troops home, and we must have a Congress that stands up to this president to make that happen.

The government in Iraq claimed as of Janurary of this year that since the 2003 invasion between 40,000 and 50,000 violent deaths have occurred. No one pointed out the absurdity of this statement. Not even Brit"the joke" Hume of Fox News!

First, if it were true, including suicides, South Africa, Colombia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia have experienced higher violent death rates than Iraq over the past four years. If true, many North and South American cities and Sub-Saharan Africa have had a similar murder rate to that claimed in Iraq.the suggestion that New Orleans is more violent is totally idiocy.

There have to be at least 120,000 or more deaths per year from natural causes in a country with the population of Iraq. The numerous stories we hear about overflowing morgues, the need for new cemeteries and new body collection brigades are not consistent with a 10 per cent rise in death rate above the baseline

There was a study, published in The Lancet, Europe's most prestigious medical journal, which put the death toll at 650,000 as of July 2006. The UN estimates mortality rates in dozens of countries each year. While the findings may not be absolutely correct, the lower range of possibilities suggested that the Iraq government was at least downplaying the number of dead by a factor of 10.

The Pentagon will not release information about deaths, or amounts of weaponry used in Iraq. On 9 January of this year, the embedded Fox News reporter Brit Hume went along for an air attack, and we learned that at least 25 targets were bombed that day with almost no reports of the damage appearing in the press.

Saddam Hussein's surveillance network, which only captured one third of all deaths before the invasion, has certainly deteriorated even further. During last July, there were numerous televised clashes in Anbar, yet the system recorded exactly zero violent deaths from the province.

How can the Americans have a surge of troops to secure the population and promise success when the coalition cannot measure the level of security to within a factor of 10? How can the US and Britain pretend they understand the level of resentment in Iraq if they are not sure if, on average, one in 80 families have lost a household member, or one in eight?

The time has come leave Iraq. It is wrong to engage in a misadventure rigged to deny the next death induced, and to have spokespeople effectively respond to that death with disinterest and denial.

In researching information for this post and reading reports from various sources, it leads me to beleive that the level of genocide is now exceeding that under Saddam Hussein's reign!

Our national leaders are collectively expressing belligerence in an episode more deadly than the Rwandan genocide, and have actively worked to mask this fact, how will they credibly be able to criticise Sudan or Zimbabwe or the next government that kills thousands of its own people?

Are the Iraqi's finally growing balls after sundays bloodbath that left eleven civilians dead due to a gun battle in the streets with Blackwater security contractors/mercenaries.
Blackwater has been expelled pending an investigation into the incident.
This is just another example of the failure that is becoming more obvious with each passing day with the presents of American Troops in Iraq!

Also exploiting public rage over the killings of what police said were 11 civilians by Blackwater guards, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demanded that the government ban all 48,000 foreign security contractors.
Al-Sadr's office in Najaf said the government should nullify contracts of all foreign security companies, branding them "criminal and intelligence firms."

"This aggression would not have happened had it not been for the presence of the occupiers who brought these companies, most of whose members are criminals and ex-convicts in American and Western prisons.
Al-Sadr insisted that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki prosecute those involved and ensure that families of the victims receive compensation.

Now all they need to do is demand that US forces get out of Iraq, when will George Bush realize that this is Iraq's war?
Its past the time for our people there to come home!