Joe Biden: “But, Mr. President, the reason I rise today is to speak because there was not time for me to speak on the supplemental…”

“But, Mr. President, the reason I rise today is to speak because there was not time for me to speak on the supplemental we just voted for. Earlier this month, Congress sent the President an emergency spending bill for Iraq. It provided the President with every single dollar our troops needed and the President requested, and then some. It also provided the American people a plan to bring this war to a responsible end, including the language Senator Levin and I wrote, which required to start to bring American troops home within 120 days, have the bulk of our combat troops out of Iraq by March--it turned out to be April 1 of 2008, and to, most importantly, limit the mission of the smaller number that would remain to fighting al-Qaida and training Iraqi troops. In vetoing that bill, the President denied our troops funding they needed and the American people the plan they want. When the President did that, I urged, like others, that we send the bill back to him again and again and again. But the hard reality is, we found out we did not have the 53 votes we had the first time, that we did not have even 50 votes, that we would not be able to send it back. And ultimately, even if we had the 50 votes, we probably did not have 60 votes to stop a filibuster. We clearly do not have 67 votes to overcome another veto. We do not have those votes either. I do not like the bill we just voted on, the one I voted for. It denies the American people a plan for a responsible way out of Iraq.”