Robert C. Byrd

When I last had the microphone we talked about the National Guard, and I want to finish my questions along that line.

Why are our troops using their own modest pay to buy this equipment when Congress has appropriated to the Pentagon $427.7 billion during this fiscal year?

Why has it taken more than half a year to provide this vital protective equipment to all of our troops?

Why was supplemental funding for these important items not included in the request sent by the President to Congress on March 27?

And we'll have enough vests in December?

Further, I suggest that you initiate an immediate review to ensure that our troops are receiving the proper equipment for the environment in which they are being deployed.

Why haven't the American people heard about this sooner? Is this dissent in our intelligence reports being whitewashed by the administration?

I am shocked by this administration's loose talk about a Marshall Plan for the Middle East.

At what point exactly did our mission in Iraq expand so dramatically that our conversation has shifted to bringing democracy and free-market economies to the entire Middle East?

The truth, of course, is that this long and costly occupation was not unavoidable, and it was not an urgent threat in the war on terror.

We're appropriating on behalf of the American people, and it involves their treasure and their sons and daughters.

We ought to have the information coming out of that Madrid conference as to how much money those various and sundry countries are going to contribute.

I think that it's a matter worth consideration that we have people come to this committee who do not represent the administration's line.

It is my feeling that, inasmuch as we're launching down a long road here which entails reconstruction efforts, which the American people were not told about, and which entails the establishment of a democracy in Iraq, and the…

I have only the highest praise for him and the people who serve under him.

We're destroying our National Guard and Reserves, I can tell you. They're exhausted.

It's not a money supplemental, it's a manpower supplemental.

Let's get away from the so-called Coalition--Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia. Come on.

I don't compliment the President a durn bit. He has not been helpful to the military.

Seven minutes. Think of that. On an $87 billion request.

What will the United States do if the so-called democracy that we're building in Iraq takes a wrong turn?

The people haven't been told that. They were told that we were going in there because of weapons of mass destruction.

But still, I haven't had an answer to my question as to where the mandate comes from the American people.

The American people have never been told that we're going into that country to build a new nation, to build a new government, to democratize the country, and to democratize the Middle East.

The Marshall Plan was not presented to Congress for its rubberstamp approval.