Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations--Motion to Proceed --
Floor Speech
MAKING EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - November 16, 2007)
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we know what the deal is. The Senator from Iowa knows what the problem is. The Democratic leadership is refusing to allow amendments on the farm bill, and the farm bill is not going to pass until they do. And they are going to allow amendments at some time, and we are going to pass a farm bill. That is what the truth is, and everybody knows it here.
But I want to talk about something that is really troubling to me. We had a hearing yesterday in the Armed Services Committee. The Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, and GEN George Casey, the Chief of Staff of the Army, told us that they are reaching a crisis in maintaining support for our troops in Iraq, that they need desperately for this Congress to fulfill its responsibility to support the troops we have sent into the field in harm's way to execute the policy of this Nation.
They are there because we sent them there. They are doing fabulous work, and they need support.
Just remember, this summer we had a long debate about what to do. President Bush said we need to change our policy. The American people said we need to change our policy. We sent General Petraeus there. I see the Senator from Texas. I don't know if she wants additional time.
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Mr. SESSIONS. We really need to do this. We voted after a full debate this summer to give General Petraeus a chance, asked him to come back and report in September. We voted 80 to 14 to fund the surge, and General Petraeus came back with positive reports in September. But it was early. We were not sure what was going to be the true trend. Since September, the situation in Iraq has improved to a degree I did not expect possible. The casualties are down two-thirds from earlier in the summer. It appears al-Qaida is completely on the run. Great progress has been made. It is unthinkable at this point, after all we have been through, the difficult times we had this summer, when progress is being made clearly, indisputably, that we would now jerk the rug out from under our soldiers. We have to do this. We need Senator Reid to quit saying we are losing and quit saying this is not working, while our soldiers are making progress. How demoralizing is that?
I urge my colleagues to vote to support our troops at this critical point as we are making progress.
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