Bill Nelson: “the underlying bill, supplemental appropriations, is a must-pass piece of legislation. Attached to it is the language…”

“the underlying bill, supplemental appropriations, is a must-pass piece of legislation. Attached to it is the language that has caused some controversy because it is an attempt at defining what the policy of the U.S. Government is with regard to the beginning of a redeployment from Iraq. This Senator from Florida will vote for the funding bill with this legislation attached because America needs a new direction in Iraq. For 4 years, what we have been doing has not been working. It has not been working because--and I am not talking about all the mistakes of why we went into Iraq under misinformation and lack of intelligence and, in some cases, I think massaged intelligence. I am not talking about that. I am talking about that we did not have a sufficient understanding of the history of Islam and the history of that part of the world to understand how much enmity there is between the different sects of Islam and how, ever since 680 A.D.--the Battle of Karbala right in what is, today, Iraq--the Sunnis and the Shiites have been at each other's throats, and we are seeing that played out in gruesome detail right now. Our men and women in uniform and not in uniform--because we have a lot of people over there defending the interests of the United States who are not in uniform: CIA, DEA, FBI, the State Department; you can go on and on--our men and women are right in the middle of that crossfire, particularly in Baghdad.…”