Byron Dorgan: “let me make a comment about another item. We will be, later this week, responding to the President's request for a…”

“let me make a comment about another item. We will be, later this week, responding to the President's request for a supplemental appropriations. Clearly, we need to provide supplemental funding. We will not send America's sons and daughters to war and then decide we will not provide the funds necessary. This Congress will and must. One piece, however, of this request by the President is for reconstruction assistance in Iraq, and humanitarian assistance. Should we do humanitarian assistance? You bet we should. Absolutely. It ought to be a first priority. But reconstruction? Let me make the case that reconstruction in Iraq, in my judgment, should be funded from Iraqi resources and Iraqi oil. This is a country rich in resources, endowed with very substantial oil reserves. While I will support reconstruction in Iraq, I am one who believes, when the job in Iraq is finished, the resources and the oil that exists in the country of Iraq ought to produce the revenue for the reconstruction of Iraq. I intend to make that case in the Appropriations Committee later this week and next week here in the Congress.”