America Competes Act
Floor Speech
AMERICA COMPETES ACT -- (Senate - April 26, 2007)
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I join with my colleague from Wyoming in rising to express my concerns about the budgetary problems the Army and Marine Corps are going to face because the Democratic majority has committed to staging a showdown with the White House instead of fulfilling our obligation to fund the military.
Over 2 months ago, the former Army Chief of Staff, General Schoomaker, testified before the Armed Services Committee that if the Army and Marine Corps do not get the supplemental funding by mid-April, the services will experience a serious cashflow problem and have to take extraordinary measures that will slow down the whole system. On April 11, the Secretary of Defense wrote Congress and stated:
It is a simple fact of life that if the Fiscal Year 2007 supplemental legislation is not enacted soon, the Army faces a real and serious funding problem that will require increasingly disruptive and costly measures to be initiated--measures that will inevitably negatively impact readiness and Army personnel and their families.
Moreover, on April 19, the Associated Press reported that the $70 billion provided to fight the war has mostly run out. I want to say that again: The $70 billion that the Army needs to fight this war has mostly run out.
In order to stretch their remaining funds through June, the Army is slowing down the purchase of nonessential repair parts. I am not sure what repair parts during a war are nonessential. I guess we will have to leave it to our generals to inform their soldiers that their vehicles are not getting repaired because they are nonessential.
There is important funding in this supplemental. For example, Senator Biden offered an amendment to purchase more mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles for our soldiers in the field. I commend Senator Biden for offering this amendment. I commend his commitment to it. Senator Biden said two things with which I wholeheartedly agree. First, he said that providing funding for these vehicles is a moral imperative. Second, he said it was a matter of life and death. I agree. His amendment and the supplemental as a whole represent a moral imperative for every Senator. It is a matter of life and death for our soldiers serving in combat. Yet the Democratic leadership is not handling this issue as a matter of life and death because they are determined to send a bill to the President that he has said he will veto.
As we all know, the President's objection to this bill is the troop withdrawal language that ties our commanders' hands and telegraphs to our enemies the time and place of our surrender. Congress should not and Congress must not get into the habit of interjecting itself into the military chain of command. To do so invites disaster and moves the country from the premise of conducting our military operations with one Commander in Chief and not running it by committee.
I direct some of my comments to some of our colleagues on the other side, primarily the leadership. I have been very concerned and shocked recently to read statements of members of the majority stating that their strategy is to send the President bills he will veto because it is politically advantageous. Some of our colleagues on the other side were quoted as saying recently:
We are going to pick up Senate seats because of this war.
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We will break them, because they [the Republicans] are looking extinction in the eye.
I would say to my Democratic colleagues, we are not the enemy. If you want to break something, let's break the enemy. Let's break al-Qaida. I am concerned about where this debate is headed.
I have to tell my colleagues, as I have listened to our colleagues talk about this war particularly of late, we have had Democratic leadership saying that the war was lost. If that is true, then who won? Terrorism? Al-Qaida?
Religious extremists who murder the innocent? Or all of the above? If this is a true and accurate representation of the majority's position, it is not surprising that Congress has not sent an emergency supplemental to the President.
I serve on the Armed Services Committee. I have traveled several times to Iraq. I have visited, numerous times, Walter Reed Hospital and the military hospital in Germany. I have to say that I have not talked to one GI who says the war is lost. I have not talked to one injured soldier who says the war is lost. I have not talked to one officer who has said the war is lost. I have not talked to one commander who has said the war is lost. The only place I hear the statement that the war is lost is right here from the Halls of our Nation's Capitol or from news reports from Al-Jazeera or Iranian television quoting the majority leader of the Senate.
Our American soldiers believe they can win. Our American soldiers always believe they can win. That is why they are American soldiers. They are the best. It has to be very disturbing to our American soldiers to constantly hear politicians in Washington, DC, telling them they can't win. The Democratic leadership in Washington is playing a game of roulette with the administration where the only losers will be the American soldier.
We need to focus on providing our troops the equipment and resources they need to win this war. It is a global war. We have to quit acting as if short-term political gains are going to win this war for us. They will not. We need a unified and serious effort on the part of both parties in the Congress to win this war and to keep our Nation secure. History is going to judge us based on how we respond to the crisis of our generation.
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