Robert C. Byrd

Thank you for coming before this committee today.

It is the sense of the Senate that... any request for funds for a fiscal year for an ongoing overseas military operation... should be included in the annual budget.

Well, do we have an exit strategy?

General Myers, earlier you stated that there is no way that we can militarily win or lose in Iraq.

Mr. Secretary, do you have any concern that once you lift the stop-loss order, you will see a mass exodus of experienced troops?

So how many troops are currently affected by the stop-loss order?

And when would you expect to lift the stop-loss order?

Well, I'm sure that Congress would want to be sure that there's some limitations on these monies and that this will not be a slush fund.

What assurances do we have that these funds will be limited to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan only, and not be diverted into some kind of dual-use activities that could be used to prepare for another war?

The way you are operating, it is not credible. It is not credible at all. What is the magic about January?

At Secretary Rumsfeld's confirmation hearing, I asked what he was going to do about the Pentagon's broken accounting systems.

But how can you justify spending tens of billions of dollars on these computerized accounting systems when you do not even know how to fix what is wrong with those systems that we are pouring money into?

This makes it impossible for the Congress to conduct its constitutional oversight.

The administration has the advantage, the political advantage, of saying, well, this is our budget for this year.

This is a gimmick that this administration is using, I must say, and the American people are being kept in the dark.

The American people are entitled to have that light because they are footing the bill.

The American people would have some idea of what they are going to be asked to pay and over what period.

The administration wants to delay until after the upcoming Presidential election sending Congress the bill for keeping our troops in Iraq for another year.

Members of Congress, this is the way we see it today; and on this basis, we would estimate thus and so.

The American people, and we are here to represent them, are entitled to know what the costs of this war are and what the estimate of the future costs are going to be.

I think it is a poor way to legislate.

The Department of Defense has adopted an all or nothing approach, sending Congress an ultimatum: Either give the Pentagon a blank check for $10 billion...

The administration is in the midst of a massive rotation of forces in Iraq.

Is that increased effort requiring any corresponding increase in the average monthly cost of operations in Afghanistan?

That is an old herring, going back to the Clinton administration.