KUCINICH, DENNIS: A State of the Union Address is an opportunity for the Nation to take stock of where it is at this exact moment.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: It's obvious that the entire domestic agenda has been swallowed up by the war in Iraq. With over 3,000 U.S. soldiers killed in action; with over 650,000 innocent Iraqi civilians dead in the war; with this Nation having spent over $400 billion dollars in the war and,
KUCINICH, DENNIS: according to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stieglitz, will spend up to two trillion dollars for the war in Iraq, we have seen the hopes and the aspirations of the American people for more jobs, for better housing,
KUCINICH, DENNIS: for decent health care, for education for their children just swept aside as the administration focuses intently not only on the war, but escalating the war.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: I think all across this country people are hopeful that America will have a new agenda, one which will recognize that we must focus on America's basic needs. It's time for America to come home. Come home and start taking care of the needs of our people here for decent housing,
KUCINICH, DENNIS: the needs of our people for health care.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Over 100 million Americans either have no health insurance or lack access to adequate health insurance, and yet we are about destroying the health of the people of Iraq instead of focusing on the needs of our people here back home
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Martin Luther King said it years ago in his speech at Riverside Church in New York. He said that the hopes and the aspirations of the people of two countries were being set aside. And he was speaking of Vietnam and the United States.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Today the hopes and the aspirations of people of two countries, of Iraq and the United States, are being set aside in this head-long rush to escalation of a war.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Now, what should be our policies, and what steps should we take? First of all, this isn't just about opposing escalation. I'd say that is pretty easy to do based on the record of this administration's conduct of the war.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: But we should be taking a strong stand against the occupation.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: We should be demanding that the United States end the occupation, that we bring our troops home, that we close our bases. That then will set the precondition that's necessary for the world community to come together and support a peacekeeping and security mission in Iraq.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: That then sets the stage for the Iraqi people to reach a moment of possibility for reconciliation between the Shiites, the Kurds, and the Sunnis. It is absolutely imperative that the United States announce that it is going to end the occupation because it is the occupation which is fueling the insurgency
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Tonight the Nation is waiting for a new direction. It's not looking for more war. It is not looking for more casualties. It's not looking for a continued destruction of our domestic agenda. And so we are here to state that there is a plan,
KUCINICH, DENNIS: and I have submitted it.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: The Kucinich 12-point plan is the plan that sets the stage for America to take a new direction. That direction is out of Iraq, but it is also a direction of reconciling with the world community because the way this administration responded to 9/11 separated us from the world community.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: At a moment when the whole world was ready to embrace the United States in its suffering and to work with us to meet the challenges of security, we set ourselves apart with strategies of unilateralism,
KUCINICH, DENNIS: first strike, and preemption.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: We need to replace that with strategies of embracing the world community, of working together, of recognizing that the world is interdependent, interconnected. And because of that, we understand the common fate which we all have on this planet to work together,
KUCINICH, DENNIS: to put together structures of peace internationally.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: And the United States must take that direction. We must engage with Iran and Syria. We must reach out to the region and look for a solution and find that solution which will enable us to bring our troops home.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: We can have our troops home in 3 months if we can come up with an agreement and a new direction, and we should be about that work.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Mr. Speaker, the American people want health care. The American people want jobs. The American people want education for their children. The American people want retirement security. And our whole domestic agenda is sacrificed for this war
KUCINICH, DENNIS: It is time for a new direction. It is time for a State of the Union which celebrates what we have in America that needs to be improved, which restates the American vision of a Nation for all, and which takes us away from policies of endless war.
KUCINICH, DENNIS: Yield back.