Senator Byrd's statement about the $87 billion Iraq war request

[LittleApple81]

I think this is what he said in Congress when Bremer was in front of the committee... PLEASE READ it is very good.

A NATION WITH QUESTIONS
by senator Robert C. Byrd

The President's request for an additional $87 billion for the military and for the reconstruction of Iraq is eye-popping. This request comes at a time when the American people are expressing serious reservations about the President's go-it-alone occupation of Iraq. The American people are asking questions about the reconstruction plan.
Snip…
In his $87 billion request, the President asks future generations of Americans to pay for his war in Iraq. By refusing to pay for this war today and instead exacerbating the largest deficit in the nation's history, President Bush is forcing those young Americans who are now in kindergarten to pick up the tab for his war in Iraq.
The President's unsubstantiated justification for his war in Iraq has left the nation questioning the White House's current efforts. The Administration was wrong, it seems, on its claims of an Iraqi broad-scale, advanced weapons of mass destruction capability; the Administration was wrong on its claims that American soldiers would be welcomed with open arms as liberators; and the Administration remains wrong in its refusal to share authority and responsibility for the restoration of Iraq with the rest of the world. We obviously cannot accomplish this task alone; yet, that is exactly what we continue to attempt. It is no wonder that the country is losing confidence and patience in the President's Iraqi program. Many of us on this panel have seen what a loss of public confidence and trust can do to a war effort, to a government, and, indeed, to the fabric of a nation. I saw it in Vietnam. Have we not learned the lessons of our own past?
Snip…
In essence, America faces two wars at once: the war brought against us with the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the war that we brought to Iraq on March 19, 2003. The Iraqi war was the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, against the wrong enemy. It is a tragedy of American foreign policy that the sympathy which most of the world had for the United States after 9-11 has been squandered by the Bush Administration's headlong pursuit of an unnecessary preemptive war against a sovereign country, a country which posed no imminent and direct threat to our national security.
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http://www.antiwar.com/orig/byrd7.html

[bif]

1. I love this man!

When is the rest of the Democratic Party going to wake up?

[Padraig18]

2. I saw that!

He was SCATHING towards Bremer, and for the record, I think Senator Hollings did a fine job of sticking it up Bremer's a** and breaking it off, too! :thumbsup: