mr. chairman , i rise in opposition to this bill . 
one of the solemn honors that i have had as a member of congress is to visit our soldiers who have been wounded in iraq . 
i have visited with them at walter reed army hospital here in washington and at the veterans hospital at palo alto , california . 
it is rewarding and shocking to meet our troops under these circumstances . 
theirs are the stories of courage under fire . 
their wounds are almost unimaginable to those of us who are not sharing their world of combat . 
the treatment that they receive from the moment they are attended to on the battlefield , taken to battlefield hospitals , transported to germany and stabilized and brought home to the united states for specialized care and rehabilitation is a tribute to our magnificent military and veterans medical system . 
each time that i have left these brave men and women , i have had to confront my role as a policy-maker and whether or not i have done all i can to serve and protect them in their mission . 
i voted not to go to war in iraq because i believed at the time of the vote , and i believe now , that the case had not been made ; that the intelligence we had did not support what the bush administration was telling the american people was the threat that we faced from iraq . 
tragically , since that time , it has become clear that there was not only no imminent threat to the united states from iraq , but there was no plan for what our troops would encounter after the war was supposedly won . 
the duty this government owed to its soldiers when they were sent into combat was not met : not in the justification , not in the preparation and not in the planning . 
our obligation to them was simply not met . 
all americans now understand that the reasons that the bush administration gave to go to war in iraq were not true . 
the evidence did not exist . 
in spite of the advice of many in our military , in our state department and among our allies , the administration remained determined to wage a war in iraq . 
in short , the administration failed to be truthful with the american people and with the congress . 
as a result , since the first day of that war , americans have been paying 90 percent of the costs and suffering 95 percent of the casualties beyond those of the iraqi people . 
today , we are being asked to vote for another $ 81 billion for the war in iraq . 
this is the third supplemental appropriations bill for iraq since the war started , totaling nearly $ 200 billion ; and without a change in course , the nonpartisan congressional budget office estimates the war in iraq and afghanistan will cost an additional $ 458 billion over the next 10 years . 
astoundingly , this additional request has no change in strategy forthcoming from the president to address the absence of control and continued violence against our troops and the iraqi people . 
the president and his advisers cling to the idea that america is just one major battle away from victory , or that with just one more capture of a significant insurgent leader we will break the back of the opposition to our occupation and to the formation of a democratic government in iraq . 
those who continue to attack our troops and the iraq people have been described in many different ways as the war has dragged on . 
first , we were told the resistance was under the command and control of saddam hussein . 
then they were described as disaffected baathists , and later they were just a bunch of `` bitter enders. '' we were told that a heavy battle attack of fallujah would break the back of the resistance . 
what happened instead was that we made 300 , 000 people homeless by flattening their city with little or no impact on the resistance . 
in fact , the violence rapidly spread to other major cities . 
while it has become clearer to those with both diplomatic and military experience that we must now develop a new strategy for success , it is resisted by the very same top command in the white house and the pentagon who have made so many errors and so many miscalculations that have continued to place so many of our military in circumstances in which they are not able to prevail . 
the opposition to change comes from the very same people that failed to carry out the due diligence to properly plan and prepare for the war and its aftermath . 
their failure to anticipate , plan , and train for the mission that our soldiers were faced with was a failure of the first duty of care owed by the commander in chief and the defense secretary to our troops , the duty to provide for the protection of our forces . 
this was not done , and the results have been thousands of wounded and killed , at the same time that the pentagon resists change and fails to transform its approach to fighting terrorism in iraq and elsewhere . 
so , today , nearly 3 years after 9/11 , we still have no comprehensive policy to support the war on terror declared by the president . 
as a result , both our nation and our troops continue to face an unacceptable level of threat and danger . 
today , as we consider this request for supplemental appropriations , the dishonesty by the bush administration continues . 
this request itself is dishonest . 
it is labeled as an emergency , as if somehow the administration did not know what money it was going to need for the war in this year 's budget or in next year 's budget . 
yet we know the war has been costing between 5 and $ 7 billion a month and is likely to continue to do so under the current policy . 
the administration will not take responsibility for the cost of the war or how to pay for it . 
at the end of the day , the president and his advisers simply do not have the courage of their convictions . 
if they did , they would be honest with the american people about the real cost of war and the lack of progress being made on the ground , about the plan for drawing down our troops and about the real reason american soldiers were sent to iraq in the first place . 
i can not in good conscience vote to approve a supplemental appropriations bill that offers no strategy for success , that has no plan to draw down our troops in a responsible manner , and that fails to makes a compelling case to the american people about why the haunting sacrifices of lives , limbs and money have been necessary . 
i know that some of my colleagues , in very good conscience and with honorable intentions , believe that supporting this bill is the equivalent of supporting our troops . 
i would very respectfully have to disagree with that view today . 
rather , in my view , to vote for this supplemental is to expose our troops to the same leadership in the white house and the pentagon that refuses to tell the truth , that refuses to take responsibility for its actions , and that refuses to hold a single person accountable for the failed decisions that have been made for this war . 
and it exposes them to the same leadership that refuses to provide the kind of change that will start to remove the central organizing principal of the guerrilla war in iraq -- the presence of nearly 150 , 000 american troops viewed as occupiers by those who oppose us . 
to say that we must remain in the current configuration in iraq because the situation will get worse is to ignore the facts on the ground , facts that have been acknowledged by many of our field commanders , by members of congress who have visited iraq , and by members of the news media covering the war . 
this is a very difficult vote , i understand that . 
but let us be clear that this is not a vote about whether i or any other member of congress supports american troops . 
of course we do . 
and this is not a vote about the heroism shown by the thousands of iraqis who risked their own lives by voting in the national elections in january . 
they have my admiration and support . 
we support the troops by arguing against the kind of failed preparation and planning that sent national guard and reserve troops into battle without flak jackets and reinforced hum-vees . 
we support our troops by arguing in favor of a strategy for success . 
we support our troops by arguing against the president 's budget that dishonors our veterans by undermining the system of care and benefits they need and deserve . 
but we do not honor our troops simply by approving yet another allegedly emergency bill that offers no promise of success in an area of the world where success is not just critical , it is literally a matter of life and death . 
we can provide for the needs of our troops in a bill that also provides for success in this war . 
tragically , that bill is not before us today . 
