Delahunt Continues ‘Iraq Watch’
WASHINGTON, Oct 6 – It is 11.30 p.m. when hundreds of congressmen call it a day here in the House of Representatives after a busy Monday of bill passing and amending, but two men remain on the floor. They are Jay Inslee, a Democrat of Washington, and William Delahunt of Cape Cod. They have gathered to talk about the situation in Iraq as they have been doing on a weekly basis when Congress is in session for the past 17 months.
They call it Iraq Watch, a special session started by four House Democrats to publicly raise concerns about how the George W. Bush administration is handling the war and to suggest new policies.
After 36 weeks of these hour-long discussions, which are broadcast by C-SPAN, Delahunt defends their importance, arguing that the war “is still a pressing national issue and it is our responsibility to keep questioning, not once in a while, but weekly, what is happening there even if we are busy.”
Delahunt likes to remember the genesis for the Iraq Watch was in Falmouth on a September afternoon in 2002 when hundreds of residents filled the Morse Pond School auditorium to discuss the reasons to go into Iraq.
“It was a beautiful summer day,” recalls Delahunt, “and I expected 15 to 20 people to show up. But I remember being somewhat taken aback by the full auditorium.”
Delahunt told the 300 people there, “I have heard nothing that would cause me to support a resolution to support a war.” The next month he voted against the authorization of forces.
But not a single Iraq watch discussion, which started in May of 2003 in the House, has drawn nearly as many people as gathered in Falmouth.
The sessions have never exceeded a dozen representatives. In the beginning there were Joseph M. Hoeffel III of Pennsylvania, Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii and Delahunt.
This year two more Democratic House Members have joined the group: Jay Inslee of Washington and Ted Strickland of Ohio. But all along, Delahunt has been the most consistent.
“I felt I needed to communicate my view as well as those of who voted against the war,” Delahunt says. His colleague Joe Hoeffel agrees. “We felt increasingly frustrated with the mess in Iraq and decided to speak out and raise questions, worries and concerns,” Hoeffel says.
In each meeting and for an hour, using the rigorous House protocol, the gentlemen yield each other time to review the latest news from the front line, to highlight what they consider the Bush Administration’s “failures” and “misjudgments,” and to embrace the courage of the troops serving overseas.
Asked why so few of the 205 Democrats in the House attend their weekly meetings, Delahunt says Iraq Watch takes “a lot of time and effort” but argues he is committed to it because “it is kids from Cape Cod that are dying and it is essential that we are learning what is happening there and why it is happening.”
Delahunt has described the Iraq Watch as “a conversation among friends” that gets broadcast by C-SPAN. The participants don’t know how many people watch them each week, but their offices on Capitol Hill receive letters and phone call from all across the nation, their spokesmen say.
During these 17 months, only a handful of Republicans have showed up for Iraq Watch. Greg Crist, spokesman for the House Republican Conference, says they don’t attend because each party holds its own special sessions. “This week we have chosen to debate Iraq and other themes like John Kerry’s lack of leadership, the 9/11 report, or jobs and the economy,” Crist says, “and Democrats will not come.”
Hoeffel says he wished more Republicans would take part in the sessions. “That way we could have had debates,” he said, “but they see it as an attack on their president, not as a critique of the policies in Iraq.”
With no Iraq Watch sessions scheduled before the election, the group of Democrats involved has announced that no matter who is elected president, they will be back on the House floor to debate the war.
“Here we can inform ourselves, our colleagues, and help educate the American people,” Delahunt says.
