In the Public Square: Timetables to Abandon Iraq
- Mar 28, 2007 - 1
We urge you to contact your contact your senators and share your thoughts on this critically important piece of legislation.
Following the House’s narrow passage last week of an emergency supplemental bill to extend funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Senate has begun heated debate on its own war spending measure, which, like the House version, includes a controversial timetable to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq and plenty of pork.
The Senate bill under consideration, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act of 2007 (H.R. 1591), would set a timetable to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq 120 days after enactment, with a goal of bringing all combat troops home by March 31, 2008. The House version, passed 218-212 on March 23 with the help of two Republicans, would set a series of benchmarks but still require troops to vacate Iraq by no later than August 31, 2008.
Similar to the House version, the $122 billion Senate bill is loaded with pork—earmarks for pet projects unrelated to President Bush’s request for troop funding, which otherwise will dry up next month. Earmarks totaling nearly $20 billion include $22.7 million for geothermal research, $25 million for construction projects at the Capitol, and $100 million for the cities of Denver and St. Paul, Minnesota, for the 2008 presidential conventions. To help secure House votes last week, House leadership fattened their bill with $28 billion in pork, including $25 million for spinach growers and $74 million for peanut storage.
While bill supporters appear to want to manage the Iraq war from Capitol Hill, funding for our troops is nearly depleted and many fear radical Islamists are being sent a message to wait it out because Americans will soon bow out of their mission. President Bush, however, has announced he will veto any bill that sets a timetable for withdrawing troops.
We urge you to contact your senators and share your thoughts on this critically important piece of legislation.
Further Learning
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1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Mar 30th, 2007, at 9:54pm, Fred Thompson wrote:
Dear Dr. Land
Thank you for sending me the cd in reference to your talk about the US abandoning Cambodia. William Bennett’s “America The Last Best Hope”, and starting on the chapter where Thomas Jefferson took office. This book verifies the subject matter below. I have yet to hear any of the conservative talk shows make mention of this subject. I hope that you might find it useful. I cannot put the entire article in this space, but would hope that you would look up the article in the information given below. I will send money for the cd. Thank you for your faithfullness and ministry. That our God might be glorified through His son Jesus Christ. Fred Scott Thompson
Subject: What Thomas Jefferson Learned about the Quran
From the shores of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli . . .
How does that saying go? If you forget history, you are doomed to
repeat it?
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm