Dusty Johnson: “thousands of men and women are proudly serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the majority will return home to their…”

“thousands of men and women are proudly serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the majority will return home to their loved ones, more than 1,700 have paid the ultimate sacrifice to their country, and nearly 13,000 have been wounded in action. Even after Iraq's historic elections in January, violence continues on a daily basis with no end in sight to the insurgency. Today, the Senate is preparing to approve another massive supplemental appropriations request from the Bush administration to fund ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most recent request of $82 billion makes it the second largest supplemental appropriations measure Congress has ever passed and brings the total amount of appropriated funds to $275 billion. I support this supplemental request because I firmly believe that Congress has an obligation to provide our troops with all the resources they need to complete their mission. While I am deeply troubled by the Bush administration's continued practice of funding our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan through supplemental appropriations requests rather than the normal annual appropriations process, the bill contains too many important resources for our troops not to support it. This bill includes additional funding above the President's request for essential items such as up-armored Army Humvees, add-on vehicle armor kits, night vision equipment, and radio jammers that disrupt remote-controlled bombs used by Iraqi insurgents.…”