A High Price for a Hollow Victory

[dweller]

by US Senator Robert Byrd
Senate Floor Remarks
November 3, 2003

Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate debated whether to grant final
Congressional approval to the President's $87 billion funding request for the military and Iraqi
reconstruction.

The Iraq supplemental conference report before the Senate today has been widely described as a
victory for President Bush. If hardball politics and lock-step partisanship are the stuff of which
victory is made, then I suppose the assessments are accurate. But if reasoned discourse,
integrity, and accountability are the measures of true victory, then this package falls far short of
the mark.

In the end, the President wrung virtually every important concession he sought from the
House-Senate conference committee. Key provisions that the Senate had debated extensively,
voted on, and included in its version of the bill - such as providing half of the Iraq reconstruction
funding in the form of loans instead of grants - were thrown overboard in the conference
agreement. Senators who had made compelling arguments on the Senate floor only days earlier
to limit American taxpayers' liability by providing some of the Iraq reconstruction aid in the form of
loans suddenly reversed their position in conference and bowed to the power of the presidency.

Before us today is a massive $87 billion supplemental appropriations package that commits this
nation to a long and costly occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, and yet the collective wisdom of
the House and Senate appropriations conference that produced it was little more than a shadow
play, choreographed to stifle dissent and rubber stamp the President's request.

Perhaps this take-no-prisoners approach is how the President and his advisers define victory, but I
fear they are fixated on the muscle of the politics instead of the wisdom of the policy. The fact of
the matter is, when it comes to policy, the Iraq supplemental is a monument to failure.


more here...

dp

[theivoryqueen]

1. NPR reported that Sen. Byrd was the only senator

to vote no on the $87 Billion. The rest chose to have their votes be "unreported". Like that would hide the fact everyone else votes yes. I am so amazed by Sen. Byrds recent (last year or so) speeches and statements. I hope they have an effect on the public as well.

[grannylib]

2. They did it on a voice vote so that there would be no record...

and no accountability to the people.

[Serial Mom]

3. A must read

:kick:

[tom_paine]

4. God Bless Senator Robert Byrd!

He is our Cicero! The Last Senator of the Old American Republic!

(Wellstone was, too, but he was too young and too principled...his honesty and charisma might have allowed oppsitional forces to coalesce around him...so he had to go)

When he is gone there will be nobody left.

[teryang]

5. Senator Byrds floor remarks

...are the yardstick by which posterity will judge the actions of his foolish compatriots.