Patrick Leahy: “I am getting the impression that my distinguished friend, the senior Senator from Virginia, is not in agreement with my…”

“I am getting the impression that my distinguished friend, the senior Senator from Virginia, is not in agreement with my amendment and would like to keep the status quo, at least for now. I respond that the current structure has not worked well. Between the two of us, we have a half century of listening to people testify. The Pentagon has said over and over again--certainly in a lot of the hearings I have had and I am sure that the Senator from Virginia has had--that they are not a foreign aid agency. The Pentagon is not a foreign aid agency. I think the experience of the past 5 months in Iraq confirms that. They came in there without a plan, a postwar plan. I believe they miscalculated terribly and they put our soldiers in a vulnerable position. I yield to nobody in this body in my admiration of the men and women who are in Iraq, the members of our military, but the administration put them in an untenable position. They have to maintain order, fight terrorists, build schools and sewer systems, and do all that simultaneously. Let the military and the Secretary of Defense focus on fighting the war and leave foreign aid to the agencies with the expertise.”