Chuck Schumer: “this week we in Congress are continuing to work toward a solution in Iraq that both supports our troops and changes our…”

“this week we in Congress are continuing to work toward a solution in Iraq that both supports our troops and changes our mission away from policing a civil war to more narrowly focusing on what should be our first and foremost goal--fighting terrorism, counterterrorism, to make sure al-Qaida cannot set up a camp and strike at us. I rise today because we are beginning. We have said all along that this is going to be a long battle. Because we do not have 61 votes in the Senate, because the President has the veto power and we certainly do not have 68 votes to override a veto in the Senate, we are going to have to continue to bring up resolution and amendment after resolution and amendment until we persuade our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do what the American people want, to do what the American people asked for in November of 2006; that is, dramatically change the course in Iraq, the mission--greatly reduce the number of troops so we can keep some troops there who can fight terrorism, but that will be many fewer. Most will be out of harm's way. We are getting good signs. First, 6 months ago President Bush said he wouldn't accept any benchmarks or any limitation. Now the word from the White House seems to be that they will accept some types of benchmarks or other types of language that would not just be a simple funding the troops without our other goal, changing the mission.”