Thad Cochran: “I hope the Senate will be able to support my amendment. It is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment. There are certain…”

“I hope the Senate will be able to support my amendment. It is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment. There are certain findings that are made in the amendment. But it all comes down to saying that the Senate should give the President what he has asked for, in terms of supplemental appropriations to fund the activities in Iraq that would protect our soldiers, that would put into the field new equipment and armaments that would help us reduce the level of casualties, make it less likely that American soldiers are going to die on the battlefield. We don't need to continue to drag this out. This request has been submitted to the Senate, to the House, and it still has not been approved. People want to add everything to it. We have had a lot of suggestions about amendments that should be put on the supplemental. What this sense of the Senate says, basically, is the Congress should approve the funding requested by the President at the earliest possible date. We know that that may take a few days, but it should not take any longer than that. So I am hopeful that Senators, after expressing their views on the war, expressing their views on whatever else they want to put in this legislation, keep focused on what the real need is and what the request is; it is supplemental funding to replace funds that have been exhausted in the regular fiscal year appropriations to add what the military needs.”