[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7572-7573]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the first 3 months of the 110th Congress 
have been very productive. We have shown the American people that when 
Democrats and Republicans work together results flow. It is 
interesting, when that happens, there are a lot of positives that can 
be said by both parties. When we don't accomplish something, there is a 
lot of criticism that is shared by both parties.
  This productive work began in January when we passed the ethics bill, 
the most sweeping reform in the history of our country. Next we worked 
to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. After minimum 
wage, we finished the fiscal work of the last Congress, the 109th 
Congress, by passing a responsible continuing resolution with no 
earmarks. Then we went to homeland security and ensured that 5 years 
after 9/11, all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission will be 
implemented. Last week, we passed a balanced budget which includes over 
$180 billion in tax breaks for middle-class families and says in the 
future, if you are going to lower taxes, if you are going to increase 
spending, you have to have some way to pay for it. Ethics, minimum 
wage, the continuing resolution, the 9/11 recommendations and the 
budget--it is a record of which all of us can be proud. But, of course, 
we have so much more to do. From stem cell to immigration to energy, 
there are challenges ahead, and this week the Senate will turn its 
attention to the most pressing challenge of them all--the debacle of 
Iraq.
  Today we begin consideration of the 2007 supplemental appropriations 
bill. This legislation includes more than $121 billion. The vast 
majority--90 percent of it--is for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It 
is also for enhancing military readiness generally, for improving 
veterans health care--and certainly in the wake of Walter Reed and 
other scandals regarding how veterans are being taken care of, this is 
certainly something that is necessary--for national priorities such as 
rebuilding the gulf coast and homeland security and I mention, Mr. 
President, drought assistance, farm disaster.
  In the western part of the United States, because of this global 
climate change, we have had millions--I am speaking directly--millions, 
not thousands, but millions--of acres burned, and unless we figure out 
some way to restore that vegetation, that land is going foul, to say 
the least. That is what this is all about--farm aid assistance. Willie 
Nelson could sing for weeks about the need for this assistance to take 
place in the West. I am not an expert on wheat, corn, rice, and all 
those other products--a lot of people here are--but I am about 
rangelands and what has happened to Nevada.
  The bill contains critical money, as I have indicated, for our 
troops. We need to get the money to them as quickly as we can. Our 
troops are serving under difficult conditions. The Senate will ensure 
they have everything they need to continue this fight as we have done.
  Our support, though, for the troops does not stop at funding. We must 
also ensure our soldiers have a strategy for success. The Democratic-
controlled Congress is listening to the American people and fighting to 
give our troops what they need and strategy--strategy worthy of their 
sacrifices. That is why in addition to the much needed changes for our 
troops, the bill also contains a strong message for President Bush: 
Change course in Iraq.
  My friend, the distinguished Republican leader, criticized what is in 
this bill that will be reported to the floor shortly, saying it is not 
good for the troops. David Brooks, the very conservative editorial 
writer for the New York Times, said last Friday on the ``Jim Lehrer 
NewsHour'': This is ridiculous for anyone to criticize a democracy for 
debating the most important issue of the day, the war in Iraq. The very 
conservative David Brooks said this is what democracies are all about. 
The troops over there know this is good.
  I have my BlackBerry on my hip. Someone BlackBerried his friend, one 
of my staff members, who is a full colonel in the Army National Guard 
out in Nevada. He keeps in touch with his friends. He said what 
happened in the House and what we put in our bill is good for the 
troops--this is a soldier e-mailing my friend from Iraq--because it 
lets the Iraqi Government know we are serious. He went on to say the 
deadline is important for the Iraqi people and the soldiers, and the 
Iraqi people know that.
  Secretary Gates, when asked about this timeline, provisions in the 
bill relating to Iraq, said it doesn't affect the troops adversely at 
all.
  Certainly the troops know we care about them. We give them everything 
they need. But last week, we entered the fifth year of this war. Think 
about that, the fifth year of this war, and there is no end in sight, I 
am sorry to say. The news this morning, when I first got up, was five 
more soldiers were killed yesterday, 238 this year alone. March 26, 238 
dead Americans, just like the boy Raul Bravo, from Elco, NV. I talked 
to his mother--237 just like that young man. Three thousand two hundred 
forty-one so far in

[[Page 7573]]

this war--dead Americans--25,000 wounded. One hospital in Texas has 
handled 250 amputations. There are 2,000 double amputees as a result of 
this war.
  The war continues to move in the wrong direction and yet--instead of 
digging us out of the hole it created in Iraq--instead of stopping this 
downward spiral of destruction--instead of taking the fight to the 
terrorists who attacked us on September 11--this White House wants us 
to keep doing more of the same in Iraq.
  In January, President Bush said he would escalate the conflict and 
send 21,500 new troops for a few months. Of course, we were misled on 
that. We now know the number is around 30,000, and they will be there 
indefinitely, and the President has said he might ask for more troops. 
There is no short-term surge, as the President has described. It is 
more of the same. The President is placing troops in the middle of an 
Iraqi sectarian civil war. More military solutions to a problem that 
General Petraeus, our top commander in Iraq, has said can only be 
solved politically. Our commander on the ground in Iraq has said that 
only 20 percent of it can be won militarily. That is not good enough 
for me. We need to find a new way forward.
  If the President will not listen to the generals, if he will not 
listen to the American people, who have spoken for a new direction, 
then perhaps he will listen to us, Congress, when we send him a 
supplemental bill that acknowledges reality in Iraq. We must find a new 
way forward. The President can swagger all he wants, but we have 3,241 
dead Americans.
  The Iraq measure in this bill changes the mission of U.S. troops from 
policing a civil war to counterterror, training, and force protection. 
It rejects the notion that this war can be won militarily, and it sets 
a goal of redeploying our troops by March 2008. It includes a 
requirement for a political, diplomatic, and economic strategy to be 
implemented in conjunction with the redeployment.
  The Iraq language is based on a simple premise: Iraq can be won only 
politically. In short, it offers a responsible strategy in Iraq that 
the American people asked for last November 7--a strategy that will 
enhance our country's ability to wage war on terror.
  Contrary to what President Bush believes, the key to success in Iraq 
is not escalating the conflict by adding tens of thousands of 
additional troops to trod down the same dangerous road. It is to find a 
new way forward.
  I urge my colleagues to support this supplemental. After 4 years of 
war, our troops deserve a strategy to help them complete the mission so 
they can come home.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I wish to thank our leader for his 
comments about the progress that has been made in the Senate on issues 
that affect the working middle-class families of this country and also 
for his responses on the issue of the war in Iraq, where there should 
be an opportunity, as we focus on the particular amendment, to get into 
that in greater detail. But I thank him for his very worthwhile 
comments this afternoon.

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