Hear, hear!

Harry Reid:

Today we renew our call to President Bush:

There is still time to listen.

There is still time to come to grips with the facts on the streets of
Baghdad and throughout Iraq.

There is still time to sign this bill and change course in Iraq.

In just the four days since we passed the conference report, new facts have come to light that make our call for a new direction even more urgent:

This weekend the U.S. death toll in Iraq passed 100 for April -- making it the deadliest month of the year and one of the deadliest of the entire war.

That bears repeating: despite the President's claims of progress, this has been one of the deadliest months of this four year war.

Also this weekend, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released his quarterly report that paints a dispiriting picture of our $20 billion rebuilding efforts.

The report concludes that our rebuilding efforts are falling far short of their targets. As a result, after more than fours years of these efforts, Iraqis -- quote -- "plagued by power outages, inadequate oil production, and shortages of clean water and health care."

The report tells us that despite spending more than three quarters of our allocated funds to increase electricity production, Iraq's power grid now produces less electricity than before the invasion, with Baghdad averaging just 6.5 hours of electricity per day, down from almost 24 hours before the war.

The report tells us that despite spending nearly 2 billion American dollars, our efforts to provide Iraqis with clean drinking water are falling miserably short.

And the report tells us that oil production -- a critical component of any future stable Iraq economy -- is still off target levels as well.

President Bush continues to ask for our patience and continues to boast of progress. But this report gives us no reason to believe that conditions for the Iraqi people are improving any more than they are for our troops.