Political Quotes

“I also wish at this moment to mention an amendment I am going to offer to this supplemental appropriation to increase funding for international peacekeeping by $50 million. It is amendment No. 784, cosponsored by--I am not offering it at this time, but I will at a later time--Senators Biden, Menendez, Levin, and others, to meet the urgent needs in Darfur, Sudan, and the surrounding region. I believe these urgent peacekeeping needs constitute a true emergency by definition in this bill and should be funded. That was the amendment I originally filed and my colleagues joined in cosponsoring. I also recognize we are under severe budgetary pressure and I have been told I have to find an offset for the $50 million. I do this with reluctance, but let me share with my colleagues a few numbers. The United States has spent $592 million in the construction of a gigantic Baghdad embassy--$592 million. For 2007 and 2008, the administration has requested $2.8 billion for mission operations in Iraq. To put this in perspective, the State Department's request for diplomatic and consular operations for the rest of the world for fiscal year 2008 is $5 billion. So $2.8 billion for Iraq, $5 billion for the world. This supplemental as passed out of the committee contains over $700 million for diplomatic and consular operations intended for Iraq. This amendment, as I modified it, would shift $50 million from this sum to peacekeeping.”