Marilyn Strickland: “I deeply resent, I deeply resent those who would use our troops as leverage, those who would use our troops as hostages…”

“I deeply resent, I deeply resent those who would use our troops as leverage, those who would use our troops as hostages in order to extract from this Congress an agreement to spend $87 billion in Iraq. All of us support our troops, but this President and this leadership will not allow us to have separate votes on the money to support our troops and the money to build Iraq and money that could and probably will be used in a non-bid contracting-kind of environment. But it really offends me to imply that because we do not want to just give the President $87 billion to spend basically as he wants to spend it, that somehow we are not being supportive of our troops. I find that a painful thing to have to cope with.”