Illinois Congressional Candidate Tammy Duckworth to Deliver Democratic Radio Address

(Washington, D.C.) – Tomorrow, Democratic congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth will deliver the national Democratic response to the president’s weekly radio address. Duckworth is running against Republican Rubber-Stamp-In-Training Peter Roskam and her address will be the ninth by a Democratic congressional candidate this cycle. Duckworth will focus her remarks on Iraq and securing America. Right now, President Bush and the Republican Congress have failed to come up with a strategy for success in Iraq and this week, we learned from the National Intelligence Estimate, that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has not made us safer, and in fact, has spread the threat of terror across the globe. It is time for a new direction in Washington because it’s long past time that Congress does their job of holding the president accountable and long past time that our brave soldiers had a plan for success in Iraq.

Tammy Duckworth is a Major in the Illinois National Guard. She served in Iraq and on November 12, 2004, the Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting north of Baghdad was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. Ten days later she woke up in Walter Reed Hospital outside Washington, D.C. and learned she had lost both of her legs. She returned to Illinois and began talking to her friends in the sixth district about the issues facing our country. She decided to run for Congress because while our brave soldiers are fighting and doing their duty, our leaders in Washington are not doing theirs.

WHO: Illinois congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth

WHAT: Weekly Democratic Radio Address

WHEN: Saturday, September 30, 2006 (at various times across the country)

WHERE: Major radio networks, including ABC, AP, AURN, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, American Forces Radio, Voice of America, BBC, CBC, and Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Below are EXCERPTS of Tammy Duckworth’s remarks:

Tammy Duckworth
National Radio Address
“We Need a New Congress, and a New Direction in Iraq”

“Just this past week, the National Intelligence Estimate revealed the unhappy truth: the war in Iraq has led to more terrorism, not less. These are the conclusions of our sixteen national intelligence agencies. Yet the response from the White House is a predictable ‘stay the course.’

And anyone who challenges our failed policies, or suggests the need for a new strategy, is accused of “cutting and running.”

Well, I didn’t cut and run, Mr. President. Like so many others, I proudly fought and sacrificed.

My helicopter was shot down long after you proclaimed ‘Mission Accomplished.’

And I believe the brave men and women who are serving in Iraq today, their families and the American people deserve more than the same empty slogans and political name-calling.

They know what we’re doing isn’t working and that it’s time to change course.”