LaRocco Repeats Call for A New Direction in Iraq; Asks Sen. Craig to Do the Same

Press Release

Larry LaRocco, Democratic candidate for the United States Senate, today (July 6, 2007) made this statement:

On April 25, I called for Congress to chart a new course in Iraq. A number of senior Senators, including Pete Domenici, a conservative Bush administration supporter from New Mexico, are breaking ranks and calling for a new direction. Domenici joins a growing list of senior Republican Senators including John Warner, Richard Lugar and George Voinovich, who have broken with the Bush escalation strategy in Iraq.

Yet Senator Larry Craig continues to be a rubber stamp for a failed foreign policy. His silence on the most critical issue facing our country is deafening. Even Senators in the Republican leadership such as Lamar Alexander and Robert Bennett have signed on as co-sponsors of the bi-partisan "Iraq Study Group Recommendations Implementation Act." Today I call on Senator Craig not only to speak out but to join his colleagues in supporting S. 1545 to implement these recommendations. It's time. It's long past time.

The bi-partisan Iraq Study Group bill to draw down the number of troops in Iraq should mark the beginning of the end of the disastrous and delusional Bush Administration policy in Iraq. Because our original reason for going to war in Iraq—removal of Saddam Hussein—has long since been accomplished, Congress should also consider revoking the original authorization for the war in Iraq. Should that effort fail, Congress should reassert its power of the purse over Pentagon appropriations.

Let me be clear: As a veteran, I fully support our troops, but they are dying in ever-growing numbers, now more than 100 per month. Senator Craig remains silent about the current failed strategy. I cannot and will not do so. Our troops deserve more.

In 1970, our nation faced a similar challenge when a rogue White House escalated the war in Vietnam. In response to President Nixon's sending troops into Cambodia, Senators Frank Church and John Sherman Cooper introduced legislation that was approved by the Congress calling for the removal of forces. The Cooper-Church Amendment helped restore the Senate's Constitutional role to "advise and consent."

Unfortunately, Senator Craig lacks the courage of a Frank Church—or of a growing number of his Republican colleagues—to bring the Iraq war to an end.

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