May 21, 2008
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold is letting Senate leaders know today of his intent to offer an amendment to the Iraq supplemental spending bill to safely redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq, after which funding for the war would end. Feingold will be joined by Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in offering the amendment. The Senate is currently considering two versions of the supplemental spending bill – one approved by the House, the other approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee – that include only weak redeployment language marking a significant step backward from the first Iraq spending bill that Congress sent to the President a year ago.
“I am deeply disappointed that Congress is considering another Iraq spending bill that does nothing to end the war in Iraq,” Feingold said. “There’s a lot of tough talk from Democrats and even some Republicans about ending the war but not enough real action to do so. Democrats took control of Congress last year pledging to work to bring an end to the war. But now, five years into this war, with 4,000 Americans killed, over 30,000 wounded, and over $10 billion per month being spent in Iraq, we’re actually moving backwards in our goal to end the war. This is a retreat from responsibility.”
The Senate version of the Iraq supplemental spending bill contains non-binding “sense of Congress” language that the mission in Iraq should be transitioned by June 2009. The House version of the supplemental requires redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin within 30 days with a goal of completion within 18 months, which is a longer period than the 11 month goal included in the bill Congress sent the President last year. The House bill also has broader exceptions than the bill vetoed by the President a year ago. In recent months, Congress has received numerous warnings from military leaders including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army about the toll the indefinite war in Iraq has taken on our military. And while our troops are bogged down in Iraq, al Qaeda has regenerated in the Afghanistan and Pakistan border area – the region the Director of National Intelligence and others have labeled a safe haven for the terrorist group.
“We owe it to the American people to at least vote on ending this war,” Feingold said. “They should be able to see who wants to take the steps necessary to end this mistake in Iraq and who wants to prolong it. Everything about this supplemental – from the way it was crafted behind closed doors to the weak language it contains – fails to meet the standards of what Americans expect from their leaders.”
http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/08/05/20080521.htmlThank you, Senator Feingold. :patriot:
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