Kucinich: House Bill Disaster For America

 Kucinich is right on this score. The Democrats not only dropped the ball on this one, it is business as usual at the Capitol. To get the votes on the bill, they packed it with pork. If Congress had a pair, they would be on record as saying the invasion and occupation of Iraq was not only a major mistake, it is illegal. Surely they know the difference between right and wrong.-Jake

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is not at all happy with the Military Funding Bill passed by the House last week, calling it "a disaster for America."

Kucinich made the comments in an exclusive telephone interview with the editors at truthdig.com, and he didn't hide his displeasure with the Democratic party.

"The Democrats should have been voting—or come up with a plan to get out of Iraq," Kucinich said. "Not one that’s going to keep us there a year or two. It’s the same kind of thinking that led us into Iraq—that we didn’t have any alternatives."

He said the Democrats should be listening to the American people and taking steps to immediately end the war and bring the troops home.

" ... that means to set in motion a plan to end the occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home using money that’s already in the pipeline to do so. At the same time there’s a parallel process of bringing in international security and peacekeeping forces to stabilize Iraq. And we can get that help once we end the occupation."

Another sore point with Kucinich is that the bill "sets the stage for the privatization of Iraq’s ... oil industry.

"To have the Democratic Party involved in something like that is outrageous," he said. "Furthermore, we should be pushing for the stabilization of Iraq’s food and energy crisis. There’s no talk about that. Basically we’re blaming Iraq for the disaster that the United States and this administration visited upon them. We’re telling them, either they’re going to get their house in order or we’re going to leave. Well, you know what, this approach is wrongheaded and the Democrats should have known better and they should have done better."

Another failure of the Democrats is their failure to point the country in a new direction, Kucinich said.

"We need to go in a new direction. And that direction is out," he said. "And the fact that we gave the president money today to keep the war going through the end of his term constitutes a sellout of the interests of the American people. And a continuation of the war for another year at least, possibly two, and this is just wrong. Just totally wrong."

READ OR LISTEN TO THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW