Sen. Cornyn Asks Minority Leader Harry Reid, “Who’s Playing Politics on Iraq?”

Texas Sen. John Cornyn released the following press statement today: WHO’S PLAYING POLITICS ON IRAQ? While the Minority Leader Complains on the Senate Floor, Democrats Attack The Senate Minority Leader took to the Senate floor this afternoon to accuse the White House of playing politics.

[T]he President and Vice President shamelessly decided to play politics…The American people and our brave soldiers deserve better. It seems the President and Vice President have decided to treat the war like it’s a political campaign.

– U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate floor, November 17, 2005, 12:43 p.m. But mere hours before the Minority Leader took to the floor, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (an organization dedicated raising funds for Democrat Senate candidates) sent an email to supporters under the signature of Sen. Reid’s colleague, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), on the same issue.

Our leaders must be held accountable to ALL Americans. Please forward this message to your friends and family and ask them to stand with us Senate Democrats and demand the truth about how we were lead to war in Iraq.

– U.S. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), DSCC email, November 17, 2005 The Minority Leader also complained about “smear” tactics…

The White House continues to dodge and to duck the questions of America and to smear their opponents. That’s not leadership and our troops and the American people deserve better.

– U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate floor, November 17, 2005, 12:43 p.m. …Mere hours after the DSCC attacked the administration with a discredited smear.

[T]he Bush Administration exaggerated and distorted intelligence before the war in Iraq…

– U.S. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), DSCC email, November 17, 2005 U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, made the following statement regarding the politicization of the war in Iraq:

I regret that this war in which we are engaged, the global war on terror, with its central front being in Iraq today, has become such a political football. Unfortunately, we see it is just too tempting a target to partisans, some partisans, to try to engage in revisionist history in order to score political points. This should not be about whether Republicans have scored points or whether Democrats have scored points. Rather, this should be about our military strategy on the ground in Iraq that is being implemented as we speak to restore Iraq to a self-governing democracy.

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