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But, the Bush Administration continues to spend our treasure and our troop strength in a single-focused obsession with the fiasco in Iraq. Are we to mortgage the future of our nation to years of financing this adventure? Surely we cannot ask American families for sacrifice indefinitely. We must come to grips with our limits. We must acknowledge risks and realities.
Yet, on last Sunday, Vice President Cheney dug his heels in at the suggestion of rethinking our policy in Iraq. In a television interview, Cheney said that he saw no reason to "think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed."
He went on to try to convince the American public that Iraq was "the geographic base" for the perpetrators of 9-11 - - a claim that this humble Senator has never heard before, and that flies in the face of U.S. intelligence agencies which repeatedly have said that they have found no links between the 9-11 attacks and Saddam Hussein or Iraq. We may come to rue the day when we took our eye off of Bin Laden and sapped our energies and our credibility in this quagmire in Iraq. Yet, there seems to be no soul searching in this White House about the consequences of this war.
While Bush's aides talk of "generational commitments" and the President talks of "sacrifice," I wonder if the American people fully comprehend what they are being urged to forego. They have already sacrificed loved ones with 158 troops killed and 856 wounded just since President Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1. How many more families must "sacrifice" while we occupy Iraq?
A generation of "sacrifice" may also mean a slow sapping of key national priorities, including repairing the infrastructure which fuels our economic engine and funding the institutions and programs which benefit all Americans. Compare the latest request for the Iraq Supplemental with the commitment in dollars to other vital programs and the picture becomes clear. President Bush is asking for $87 billion for Iraq, but only $34.6 billion for Homeland Security. He wants $87 billion for Iraq, but only $66.2 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services. The President seeks $87 billion to secure Iraq, but only $52.1 billion for the Department of Education. He wants $87 billion to shore up Iraq but only $29.3 billion for America's highways and road construction.
For the State Department and foreign aid for the entire world, President Bush sees a need for only $27.4 billion, yet Iraq is worth over three times that much to this White House.
Remember that that $87 billion is just for 2004 alone. Does anyone really believe that it will be the last request for Iraq?
The President asked America for a generation of "sacrifice," but that noble sounding word does not reveal the true nature of what this President demands from the American people. He asks them to supply the fighting men and women to prosecute his war. He implores our people to sacrifice adequate health care; he asks them to settle for less than the best education for their children; he asks them to sacrifice medical research that could prolong and save lives; he asks them to put up with unsafe highways and dangerous bridges; he asks them to live with substandard housing and foul water; he asks them to forego better public transportation, and not just for now, for generations, and all of it for his folly in Iraq. Most puzzling to this Senator is this President's stubborn refusal to guard against the terror threat here at home by adequately funding Homeland Security. Is he asking us all to risk the safety of our homeland, too?
And to further insult the hard working people of this nation, George Walker Bush proposes to lay this sacrifice not only on the adult population of this great country, but on their children, by increasing the deficit with nary a thought to the consequences.
Yet not a peep can be heard from this White House about paying for some of this "sacrifice" by foregoing a portion of future tax cuts - - tax cuts that mainly benefit those citizens who don't need so many of the services government provides.
Our reputation around the globe has already been seriously damaged by this Administration. Are the dreams and hopes of millions of Americans to be "sacrificed" as well on the altar of Iraq? I urge my colleagues to think long and hard about the growing quagmire in Iraq. I urge members of the President's own party to warn him about the quicksand he asks America to wade in. We need a long and thorough debate about the future of this country. We need a serious discussion about the kind of America we will leave to our children. We need to renew our efforts to negotiate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Are we fighting a war in Iraq when pushing the peace might better serve our cause? We must think again about worldwide terrorism and the best ways to combat it. Let us not continue to simply wage the wrong war in Iraq.
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