Wayne Gilchrest: “I think if it were a year from now and we were debating further supplementals for Iraq, it would be very appropriate…”

“I think if it were a year from now and we were debating further supplementals for Iraq, it would be very appropriate; but it is not a year from now. We have tens of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq. Many of us have visited them. There is, when we look into their eyes, a deep sense of courage; but there is also, as anybody that has ever been in combat can see, there is a deep sense of fear. Coupled with that, there is urgency. There is not a sense of urgency; there is urgency. There is urgency that we get the supplemental out tonight so the 60- some billion dollars reinforces what our soldiers have, and there is an urgency that we heard from every military person we met at every base we went to that money is ammunition. What that means is, if we can get the electric turned back on, that puts Iraqis back to work. If we can get 80,000 Iraqi police within the next year, that will relieve our MPs from guarding the city streets and guarding the prisons. If we can get 27 battalion Iraqi units on the road, on the borders, in the hinterlands, in this famous peninsula area that is very, very dangerous, 27 Iraqi battalions, that will bring our troops home.”