Cord Byrd: “If I may finish, and then I will be glad to. That is an old game. You put it off. You don't want to answer on the…”

“If I may finish, and then I will be glad to. That is an old game. You put it off. You don't want to answer on the record. You don't want to answer in public. And you don't want to answer that question lest there be a followup question. So you just put it off. Say, ``Senator, I am sorry, I don't have that figure. I will have to take a while. It may take me a while, take us a while to give you that figure.'' I said, Well, no, we want the figure now. That is the way we are being handled. That is the way Congress is being handled, and I think it is wrong. Then the answer came back, after a short recess of 20 or 30 minutes. The answer came back from the Secretary of Defense that the war in Iraq is costing about $3.9 billion per month, and almost $1 billion, $943 million, I believe, per month, in Afghanistan. Those answers we needed, and with that kind of information. I am sure the Defense Department had this estimate long before I asked them the question in the committee. They had these estimates. They should have incorporated them into a request in the budget bill. That could have been done. They could have foreseen--well, we are spending on the average of $1 billion a week in Iraq. Let's put it in the budget. Let's put $52 billion in the budget. That would be the way they ought to deal with Congress. That is the way they ought to deal with the people's representatives in Congress. But they are not doing it. They didn't do it then.”