Cord Byrd: “Today we take up a supplemental bill to fund our troops in the field, to send a strong message about the direction of…”

“Today we take up a supplemental bill to fund our troops in the field, to send a strong message about the direction of the war in Iraq, to improve the veterans and defense health care system, to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild, to secure the homeland, and to provide emergency relief to farmers impacted by major drought and freezes. We are now in the fifth year--the fifth year--of the war, this terrible war. I was against it. I voted against it. We are there. We are now in the fifth year of the war in Iraq. The debate about the war has deteriorated into a series of buzz words--preemptive war, mission accomplished, exaggerated intelligence, inadequate body armor, and surges--and on and on. Our job in the Senate is not to look backward but to look forward. The Constitution clearly gives the Congress the power--yes, it does; it clearly gives the Congress, us, the power--to decide when this Nation should go to war, and it gives Congress the power of the purse, money. Money talks. Funding such conflicts is the responsibility of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee. The buck stops here, and don't you ever forget it, the Senate Appropriations Committee. Because of that power over the purse, it is certainly our duty to debate the future of the war in Iraq. The bill before the Senate includes a provision that would give the war a new direction, and it points the way out--out, out--of the civil war in Iraq.”