Dick Durbin: “As cosponsor of this amendment, what we are setting out to do is to ask the administration for the costs of the Iraqi…”

“As cosponsor of this amendment, what we are setting out to do is to ask the administration for the costs of the Iraqi war. That is not included in this Defense bill. We are living on money appropriated in the supplemental appropriation that we know will run out before the next fiscal year ends, so we are leveraging from one supplemental appropriation to the next. This war, in fact, is costing in the realm of $4 billion a month and the Afghanistan war another $1 billion a month. We are asking the President to disclose the cost of this war, to give us an idea for the American taxpayers and for Congress of the financial responsibility we have undertaken. I support the amendment.”