Russ Feingold: “I am pleased to support the fiscal year 2005 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. Recently, the release of the 9/11…”

“I am pleased to support the fiscal year 2005 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. Recently, the release of the 9/11 Commission report gave us all reason to redouble our efforts to focus on the importance of the foreign policy and foreign assistance priorities that are addressed in this bill. The commission's intelligence reform proposals have been the focus of most of the media attention surrounding the 9/11 report, but the commission's call for more focused, effective ways to attack the terrorists and their organizations, and, critically, to prevent the continued growth of Islamist terrorism, deserve equally intense examination and certainly deserve action. If we are to leave our children a safer world, we must take the long view in this struggle, and we must find ways to regain the kind of international support and resolve that emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. That support--so critical to any effort to deny terrorists sanctuary, to unravel their financial networks, and to effectively piece together the intelligence picture that can reveal their plans and weaknesses--has dipped dramatically in recent years, and we have sustained terrible losses of an extraordinarily valuable type of American power: our power to persuade, to lead, and to inspire.…”