Barbara Boxer: “Yes. I am glad the leader explained that. The fact is, with the approval of the other side, we could have taken up the…”

“Yes. I am glad the leader explained that. The fact is, with the approval of the other side, we could have taken up the Iraq issue on Monday, and we could all have been heard all of Monday, Tuesday, and then voted for the resolution that represented our ideas, our thoughts, on how to proceed in Iraq. The fact is, that proposal was objected to by the Republicans. What was that proposal? It was everything they wanted last week. They wanted a vote on the Gregg amendment. We said fine, you can do it. They wanted a vote on the Warner amendment. Senator Reid said you got it. They wanted a vote in favor of the surge with the McCain amendment. Senator Reid had that in his proposal. We Democrats are asking for a vote on our proposal, which I will talk about in a minute, and another proposal that would be similar to Senator Gregg's. Republicans would have gotten three of their amendments and proposals, and we would have gotten, on our side, two. But the Republicans cannot say yes. What this means is Senator Reid is right. We are not going to debate Iraq next week--at least not Monday. We will debate it in the context of the supplemental or, if we can reach agreement, in the context of a unanimous consent resolution. I am very proud to be a cosponsor of the Reid joint resolution. I want to talk about what it does. It says we support the troops. It says the circumstances cited in the 2002 use of force authorization have changed substantially. We all know that. It is not the same.…”