David Obey: “this event is a sad day in the history of the House and the country. The fact that this bill is before us today…”

“this event is a sad day in the history of the House and the country. The fact that this bill is before us today indicates that the President's aim is about as faulty as the Vice- President's. The fact is that on 9/11 we were attacked by al Qaeda. They were sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The President correctly responded to that by going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But then he slipped off the track and diverted his attention and the country's to an unnecessary war in Iraq against a government that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack against the United States on 9/11. We have now spent, in 18 separate actions, we will now have spent $450 billion on this adventure, when you take into account what will be provided in the defense appropriations bill which will be considered by the full Appropriations Committee tomorrow. Now, my objection to the way this war is being funded is based primarily on my belief that the country and the Congress has a right to know what the cost of this war is and what we think future costs will be. But because, as the gentlewoman from New York has indicated, because the requests to finance this war have come in the form of supplementals outside the regular appropriation process, the actual cost of the war has effectively been hidden because the administration's plan was to reveal that cost to the American people on the installment plan. So a little bit at a time they get to understand what the cost is going to be.…”