Exclusive Congressman Gene Taylor Video on Iraq

Strong Words from Congressman Taylor on Iraq

"How do win a counterinsurgency when 80% of the people don't want you there? It's a complete flip-flop from September of '03 the first time I heard that number in the exact same place and exact same room. It got worse, it said about 60% of the Iraqis said it was okay to kill an American."
...
"How do you turn that around? Because unless you turn that around, nothing else is going to work. If we don't have the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people telling us where the IEDs are, telling us who's shooting at us, making bombs, if we can't count on their help, we don't speak their language, we can't turn this around. And no one (at the Pentagon) ever gave me a good answer."
...
"As people are searching for what to do, I'm going to recommend to the President that we ask the Iraqi's to hold an election and that's the question, 'Do you want the Americans to stay?' and you know as it takes in Mississippi it takes a 3/5 vote to raise taxes and that's the percentage I put on it. I don't want just 51% saying we want you guys to stay. Unless 60% of the Iraqis are willing to say 'Yes we want you guys to stay and yes we are going to cooperate with you and we want to tell you where the IEDs are and yes we're going to tell you who's making those mines and yes we're going to tell you who's kidnapping people at night.' If they're not in it with us then I'm at the point of saying to heck with them." (applause)



It may be hard to hear the first minute, but the main quotes follow that section.