Lynn C. Woolsey: “yesterday the House voted on the Defense appropriations bill for the year 2007, and once again, we missed a golden…”

“yesterday the House voted on the Defense appropriations bill for the year 2007, and once again, we missed a golden opportunity. We missed an opportunity to pass a bill that strengthens our national security, while at the same time, reflecting the very best of American values. Foremost among these values is our desire for peace, our capacity for global leadership and our compassion for the people of the world. Unfortunately, the Defense bill passed by the House, which included a $50 billion bridge fund for Iraq, came to a grand total of $431 billion. This amounts to more than all other discretionary programs combined. With this latest appropriation, the war in Iraq now totals $320 billion. With this amount of money, we could have given more than 61 million American teenagers a 4-year university scholarship. We could have created nearly 3 million affordable housing units, a process by the way that would in itself have created over 1 million jobs. Remember, this is the same war that Paul Wolfowitz said could be paid for out of Iraq's oil revenues, the same war that caused Bush economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, to be fired when he suggested it might cost as much as $200 billion. Three years, more than $300 billion later, and over 2,500 American soldiers killed and more than 18,000 wounded, and with Iraq's oil still not flowing at the capacity it was before the war, there is still no end in this war in sight. We are still mired in a seemingly endless conflict.…”