Haley Stevens: “the Senator from Hawaii and I understand full well the problems facing the chairman and ranking member of the Armed…”

“the Senator from Hawaii and I understand full well the problems facing the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. We want to work with them to the maximum extent possible. However, as we have informed the chairman, the Senator from Virginia, we feel that bringing that bill here without a time agreement, to call it up without a time agreement, would mean that we would face some 100 to 200 amendments, as the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee have faced in the past. In my conversations with Department of Defense officials, particularly the uniformed members of that Department, it is clear that we must have this bill to the President and signed before the middle of November. The Appropriations Committee had a series of reprogramming of 2006 moneys, done just before September 30, to assure that liquidity was there to maintain our forces in the field. Under the continuing resolution, we have no such flexibility now. The flexibility that comes from having a full year's bill out in front of the Department is absolutely necessary at this time. We are at war. We are involved in a global war on terror. If anyone heard General Abizaid's briefing for us and the one that was done publicly, we have to realize that we are facing what looks like the beginning of a new crusade by militant terrorists of the Islamic world. We cannot afford to delay this bill.…”