[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 69 (Monday, April 30, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5265-S5266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IRAQ FUNDING

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is a lot of discussion today, and 
has been in the last week or two, and perhaps there will continue to be 
discussions about the funding for our troops in Iraq. I think it is 
important to say that the Congress has passed legislation that will go 
to the President that actually requests more funding than the President 
requested for the troops in Iraq. It also establishes a goal of hoping 
that perhaps we will be able to extract our troops from Iraq in a year. 
There is not a requirement that American troops be pulled out of Iraq. 
It establishes a goal. But what I wish to talk about today is the part 
of the bill that provides a higher level of funding for the troops than 
the President requested.
  It is regrettable that in this country we have gone to war in Iraq 
and to war in Afghanistan. We have asked very much of our soldiers to 
go into harm's way--3,300 plus of them have been killed in Iraq--but we 
have not asked for similar circumstances from the American people. We 
have not asked for a commitment from the American people. In fact, the 
very funding the President has requested, once again, as emergency 
funding is not paid for. The President says: Let's have emergency 
funding and add it to the debt.
  We have not asked the American people to pay for the war. We sent the 
soldiers to war with the understanding that when they come back, they 
will inherit the debt and pay for this war. That doesn't make sense to 
me.
  Even more than that, the President says one can contribute to this 
country by going shopping, going to the mall. So we send soldiers to 
war, and we go to the mall. Where is the national commitment? Where is 
it that we have asked the American people to go to war against 
terrorism, to go to war in Iraq with the American soldiers?
  I remind everyone that what we did in the Second World War--and by 
the way, this war has now lasted longer than the Second World War. But 
in the Second World War, our country mobilized. There was Rosie the 
Riveter. There were three shifts at the manufacturing plants. We had 
our capability humming in this country producing everything we needed 
for that war. We had rationing. We had factory lights on 24 hours a 
day.
  William Manchester wrote a book, ``The Glory and the Dream.'' He 
describes what we did. He said this:

       From an initial keel-to-delivery time of over 200 days, 
     Henry Kaiser cut the average work time on a liberty ship to 
     40 days. In 1944, he was launching a new escort aircraft 
     carrier every week, and they were turning out entire cargo 
     ships in 17 days. During the first 212 days of 1945, they 
     completed 247 cargo ships, better than one a day.

  We had this country's productive capacity revved up full speed. When 
Stalin met with FDR and Churchill in the mid-1940s before the end of 
the war, he said: Thank God for America's productive capability, 
America's manufacturing capability.
  Here is what they did. Manchester, in ``The Glory and the Dream,'' 
described this. I want us to think about this just for a moment: From 
1941 to 1945, We turned out 296,000 warplanes, 102,000 tanks, 2.4 
million trucks, 8,700 warships, and 5,400 cargo ships. America went to 
war. In the last year of the Second World War, we were producing 4,000 
warplanes a month in our factories. Contrast that with what is 
happening today.
  The reason I ask these questions, the reason I come to the floor to 
ask those questions is because of this picture. This is a picture of 
something called an MRAP, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, 
which is much safer than the humvee. This version of the MRAP is what 
the Commandant of the Marine Corps said we need in Iraq, 6,700 of them.
  There have been 300 IED attacks in Iraq against this version of the 
MRAP. Not one death. Let me say that again. There have been 300 attacks 
by an IED against this vehicle in Iraq; not one death in those attacks.
  We have had 3,342 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, 70 percent of them 
caused by IEDs, improvised explosive devices. The Commandant of the 
Marine Corps says this vehicle will save three-fourths of the lives 
that are being lost. Eighty percent of the casualties from IEDs will be 
saved with this safer vehicle.
  Why do I raise this question in the context of what we did in the 
Second World War? Because we have been producing about 45 of these 
vehicles a month. At a time when the Commandant of the Marine Corps 
says we need 6,700 in Iraq to safeguard the soldiers going on patrol in 
Iraq, with the capability that this vehicle will save three-fourths of 
the lives that are now being lost, we are producing 45 a month. They 
say they want 6,700 in Iraq, and the President has requested less than 
a third of that amount. We wrote money in this appropriations bill, 
$1.2 billion, to substantially increase the number of MRAP vehicles 
that must be produced and must be sent to Iraq to save lives.
  Let me read, if I might, James Conway, Commandant of the Marine 
Corps, understanding I am talking about this MRAP:

       The MRAP vehicle has a dramatically better record of 
     preventing fatal and serious injuries from attacks by IEDs. 
     The Commander of Multinational Force West estimates that the 
     use of MRAP could reduce the casualties in vehicles due to 
     IED attacks by as much as 80 percent.

  This is from the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Why is it we could 
produce 4,000 warplanes a month at the end of the Second World War in 
support of our fighting men and women, and we produce 45 MRAPs a month 
in this country? Why is it we surge our troops to Iraq but don't surge 
our production of the MRAP vehicle, just as one example, that would 
provide dramatic increased protection against the lost of life from 
IEDs? Why will we not surge this? Why is this less important? I don't 
understand this at all. We go to war, but it is just the troops, not 
the country?
  There was a story in USA Today, April 19:


[[Page S5266]]


       In more than 300 attacks since last year, no Marines have 
     died while riding in the new fortified armored vehicles the 
     Pentagon would like to rush to Iraq, the Marine Commander in 
     Anbar Province said. Attacks on other vehicles cause more 
     than two casualties per attack, including deaths.

  IEDs are responsible for 70 percent of the casualties in Iraq. Yet, 
while this country has sent its soldiers to war, it has not mobilized 
the country. We do not have third shifts with the lights on 24 hours a 
day. We don't have Henry Kaiser producing 1 ship a day, 4,000 warplanes 
a month. In fact, this relates to something else I have talked a lot 
about on the floor of the Senate. Only two U.S. steel mills are 
qualified to produce the special armored steel for the Defense 
Department at this point--two. Both have been acquired by foreign 
companies in the past year and a half.
  Let me say that again: Only two U.S. steel mills are qualified to 
produce armored steel for the Defense Department. Both have been 
acquired by foreign companies in the past year and a half. Oregon Steel 
is now owned by Evraz Group S.A. of Russia. The International Steel 
Group was acquired by the Dutch conglomerate Arcelor Mittal.
  The Defense Department has requested that the armor steel made by 
both firms be categorized with what is called a ``DX'' rating for the 
MRAP program. DX stands for the highest national urgency. Under the 
1950 Defense Production Act, any item with a DX rating gets top 
priority and must be furnished to the U.S. Government in advance of any 
other customers. Several other items that are critical to the MRAP 
vehicles--ballistic glass, transmissions, and Mack Truck chasses--are 
also supposed to receive the DX rating.
  I am told Defense officials are in negotiations with both the steel 
mills I mentioned, that are foreign owned, to make sure there will be 
enough steel available for the various kits they need for the MRAP 
vehicle.
  The point I want to make is simple: In the Second World War, we had 
some unbelievably brave soldiers, men and women who went halfway around 
the world to fight because their country asked them to fight for this 
country's freedom. But it was more than just soldiers; it was in 
virtually every manufacturing plant in this country and with virtually 
every citizen, through rationing, through production, through the 
capability to produce what the soldiers needed.
  Contrast what we did in the Second World War with what we do today. 
We decide to send the soldiers to Iraq, but we make only a few of the 
MRAP vehicles that would save so many of those lives that are now being 
lost to IED explosions. We can't do this. This ought not be acceptable 
to anybody in this country. If we are going to war, the country needs 
to go to war with the soldiers. When the President sends us an 
appropriations request and says, Oh, by the way, the MRAP is a lower 
priority, we are not going to fund it, we are not going to ask for what 
the Marine Corps Commandant says is necessary in the field, we will ask 
for slightly less than a third of that number of vehicles--this 
Congress fortunately has said no, Mr. President, that is not what we 
are going to accept. We decided to invest in these vehicles as quickly 
as we can and move them to Iraq so when soldiers are on patrol and they 
are hit with an IED, they have better armor and a better opportunity to 
protect their lives.
  There will be a lot of discussion in the coming days about who is 
right and who is wrong on all the funding issues with respect to Iraq. 
I want my colleagues to understand a couple of things. First, we have 
actually increased the funding requested by the President. We have 
increased the funding for couple of reasons. No. 1, we added funds for 
safer vehicles that the President did not request enough of will save 
the lives of troops; No. 2, we had to add funds for military and VA 
medical care because the President did not request enough money to care 
for the injured soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. We 
increased the funding for both. We have actually increased the funding 
for the troops.
  I understand there is a disagreement about the language with respect 
to Iraq. Ours establishes a ``goal,'' not a requirement, a goal, hoping 
we can extract our soldiers from the middle of a civil war in Iraq 
within a year. That is a goal. I know the President and others suggest 
that somehow fully funding the troops and even adding more where it was 
necessary and establishing such a goal is pulling the rug out from 
under the troops, but nothing could be further from the truth. What I 
think injures our troops is to decide we are going to surge the troops 
but we will not surge the equipment necessary to protect them. That is 
wrong. This Congress has said it is wrong in the legislation we have 
passed.
  I hope in the coming days and in the coming conflicts, whether it is 
dealing with Iraq or dealing with the terrorist threat around the 
world, we will decide in the future never again to send our soldiers in 
a manner that allows us not to use the full impact, the full capability 
of the American people to produce that which the soldiers need to do 
their jobs. That has been the case, regrettably, here.
  Early in the Iraq war I received e-mails where people would send me 
pictures that illustrated what they were trying to do to protect 
themselves. Their humvees were not armored, so soldiers had welded 
patches of various kinds of metal to make them stronger. But now we 
have a new vehicle that can save a dramatic number of lives. The 
President's budget did not request nearly the money for it that should 
have been requested. So Congress added to it. I hope this is the first 
step to do what we should do with America's capacity to say to the 
soldiers: You have not gone to war alone. This country goes to war with 
you, with every capability we have to protect you.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. WEBB. I ask the quorum call be rescinded and that I be allowed to 
speak for 15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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