OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health, And Iraq Accountability Act, 2007--Continued

Floor Speech

Date: March 27, 2007
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Defense Foreign Affairs Veterans Health and Health Care


U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007--Continued -- (Senate - March 27, 2007)

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 1/2 minutes.

We need to change course in Iraq. That is why I support the supplemental bill now before the Senate and oppose the Cochran amendment that is pending. This underlying bill finally sets a new direction for our mission in Iraq. It begins to redeploy our troops, and it helps us refocus our efforts on fighting and winning the war on terror.

Mr. President, our troops have done everything we have asked them to do. Now it is time to start bringing them home. It is time for the Iraqi people and for the Iraqi Government to take responsibility for their own country. We should not be sending more and more Americans into the middle of a civil war. The conflict in Iraq is not going to be solved by military force alone. It is going to require a political solution among Iraqis. So this underlying bill sets benchmarks for the Iraqi Government on the types of progress that we all agree they ought to be making. They should not be stricken from this by the Cochran amendment.

The President wants to commit more American servicemembers to an open-ended conflict. This bill recognizes that we need a new strategy. We need to do what the Iraqi Study Group and what many generals and what the American people have called for. We need to redeploy our troops. The bill says a redeployment should begin within 120 days, and it sets the goal of having most U.S. forces out of Iraq by next March.

Importantly, this bill helps us take care of those who are injured fighting for our country. It is time we focused our attention on those men and women who have sacrificed so much, who have come home and have endured the hardship we have seen at Walter Reed and other facilities across this country. We need to make sure they get the resources they need, and this bill does that.

I am pleased to support the underlying bill. I oppose the Cochran amendment, and I support this bill because it sets a new direction for our policy in Iraq and it provides important new support for our servicemembers and veterans who are here at home.

I retain the remainder of our time.

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