Barbara Boxer: “Since he is my seatmate on the Foreign Relations Committee, which in itself is an honor for me, I recall that we were…”

“Since he is my seatmate on the Foreign Relations Committee, which in itself is an honor for me, I recall that we were very skeptical from the start about going it essentially alone in Iraq. He and I have pressed very hard to work through the U.N. weapons inspectors and to have the whole world breathing down Saddam's neck. Now, as it turned out, we essentially did it alone and we are bearing the burden of these tragic deaths every day, deaths that are almost going, I hate to say, unnoticed now, although some of us talk about the brave soldiers we are losing. When it comes to the funding of this war, we are up to $45 billion to $50 billion a year, even without the rebuild. As my friend knows, because he has been a major force for fiscal responsibility, we cannot even share that burden. Even when countries such as the Poles come forward, and we are grateful to them for sharing the burden on the ground, we are paying for it. How can we sustain these costs at a time when our deficits are skyrocketing? So we are in a bit of a mess, and I hope the President will move more forcefully toward internationalizing the rebuilding of Iraq and sharing the burden because that is the answer. That is what a real leader has to do. We all said that the 21st century would be America's century but that does not mean we do it alone. It means we lead the world against tyrants and against the war on terror.”