David Obey: “Mr. Chairman, once you fire the bullet, you do have an obligation to clean up the mess; and that is why I certainly…”

“Mr. Chairman, once you fire the bullet, you do have an obligation to clean up the mess; and that is why I certainly agree with virtually every task in Iraq that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) just described. I do not agree with those who believe that we should just provide a military package and not provide a reconstruction package. That would be, in my view, irresponsible. But having said that, I think the problem is that the package that is being proposed is insufficient in terms of what it does to help the troops; and it is wasteful in terms of what it does in Iraq, and badly through out to boot. That is why we have been asking questions of the administration about their future plans. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) says we need to finance an exit strategy. The problem is we have no exit strategy. Until we do, we are going to be floundering and we will have a tremendous number of American lives disrupted. So that is why I have come to a different conclusion on this specific package than the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).”