[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 69 (Monday, April 30, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S5262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SUCCESS IN ANBAR PROVINCE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, my good friend the majority leader 
neglected to mention the front-page story in the New York Times 
yesterday about the extraordinary success our troops are having in 
Anbar Province, the center of much of the al-Qaida activity in Iraq, 
with Sunni sheikhs, tribal leaders coming together to support, not just 
verbally but in terms of supplying military personnel, fighters to take 
on al-Qaida in Anbar Province. It is a piece of good news in admittedly 
a cloudy picture in Iraq. It is also the case, I am confident, that a 
majority of Democrats in both the House and Senate believe that funds 
should be supplied for the troops. That certainly has been the view of 
the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin. Hopefully, we 
will find a way forward after the bill that regretfully has the 
surrender date in it tomorrow is sent down to the President and vetoed. 
Beginning Wednesday, we will be discussing how to go forward. The 
majority leader and I have had some preliminary discussion about that. 
Hopefully, we can resolve this matter in the very near future to 
provide the funding for the troops so General Petraeus's mission, for 
which we confirmed him 81 to nothing, will have the resources to be 
completed later this year.
  I yield the floor.

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