Austin Scott: “Thank you, Mr. Ross. I will try to sum up what we have done this evening. It is very important, as the American people…”

“Thank you, Mr. Ross. I will try to sum up what we have done this evening. It is very important, as the American people have followed this process, have seen us with the legislative process at work, not only in terms of debating the issue, but they have also witnessed how we are putting this, hopefully, this final piece together that the President will sign. First of all, just to wrap up, we have made concessions with the President on the issues that he was concerned about. The timelines, have, indeed, been removed. Those were his major objections on it. So we have compromised on that point. But we also had, then, accountability, and that's what the American people want. They want to make sure that we have accountability in this. Mr. Thompson from California has played a very leading role in this, and it was so good to have him on the floor talking about it. Mr. Ike Skelton, who is the chairman of our Armed Services Committee, has incorporated all of the major points of financial accountability to get out fraud and waste, to bring in the Defense Department's investigators to report to us on each of these areas, on a 6-month basis, to show us how the money is being spent. All of those things are now in this package, and the benchmarks are in, the benchmarks. So we can hold the Iraqi people to, and say, these are things that must be accomplished, as we go forward. If you don't hold their feet to the fire, if you don't put pressure there, there is no accountability.”