Haley Stevens: “I do not mean to be disrespectful and interrupt the distinguished leader, but I wonder if the Democratic leader knows…”

“I do not mean to be disrespectful and interrupt the distinguished leader, but I wonder if the Democratic leader knows that I am responsible for not having more money for Iraq in this bill. We met with the President and the Secretary of Defense and pointed out the enormous amount of money we had provided in the supplemental passed earlier this year for that action in Iraq. We had to have money to meet some of the problems caused by my interpretation of the budget resolution in not having enough money for some of the other subcommittees. We worked out the arrangement whereby we took $3.1 billion out of this bill and allocated it to other subcommittees with the understanding that if additional moneys are needed in Iraq because of our actions there, beyond what we have already provided, that we will have a supplemental in the spring. We anticipate the moneys we provided in the massive supplemental, $62.6 billion, is sufficient to carry them forward. As a matter of fact, there are not only sufficient funds, but in this bill we actually rescinded about $3 billion of the supplemental to make it available to other areas of defense, not having it totally earmarked to Iraq. We are trying to manage this money. The distinguished Democratic leader is exactly right. The costs are running somewhere around $4 billion to $5 billion a month. We expect that to start tapering down as this involvement in Iraq continues.”