Joe Biden: “Today, the Senate has an opportunity--and a responsibility--to begin to end the escalation of the war in Iraq and to…”

“Today, the Senate has an opportunity--and a responsibility--to begin to end the escalation of the war in Iraq and to start us toward a new strategy for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind. Our responsibility is to debate and vote on the resolution passed by the House of Representatives that says that Congress disapproves of the President's plan to deploy more than 20,000 additional American combat troops to Iraq. The question before us today is whether a minority of Senators will even allow the debate to start. That is what we are about to vote on. To my colleagues who are thinking about trying to block debate, let me say this: Iraq dominates our national life. It is on the minds of tens of millions of Americans. It shapes the lives of hundreds of thousands of our men and women in uniform and their families. That the Senate would not even debate, much less vote on, the single most urgent issue of our time, would be a total failure of our responsibility. We have a duty to debate and vote on the President's plan. We have a duty to debate and vote on our overall strategy in Iraq.”