PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS OF AMERICA: DISAPPOINTED IN DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP

www.pdamerica.org

As the House debates the Iraq Supplemental, Progressive Democrats of America director Tim Carpenter issued this statement on the Democratic leadership’s refusal to allow a vote on Barbara Lee’s Amendment for fully-funded, orderly Iraq withdrawal by end of 2007:

“It is antiwar sentiment that put Democrats into majority control of Congress. The recent USA Today-Gallup poll showed 58 percent of Americans want U.S. troops out of Iraq within a year, or earlier. We are profoundly disappointed that the Lee Amendment – which reflects majority sentiment in the country -- was not allowed to be debated and voted upon by the full House.”

Continued Carpenter: “In a free vote, we believe roughly 90 members of Congress would have supported the Lee Amendment and the desires of most Americans to get out of Iraq. Having prevented that vote, the leadership’s weak supplemental that prolongs funding of an unwinnable occupation is now more susceptible to wrong-headed attacks from Republicans and certain media circles as somehow risky or extreme.”

“We commend Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters for their years of brave leadership right up to this morning in the struggle to end the U.S. occupation – a struggle that helped shift control of Congress last November.”