mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume .  mr. chairman , it is with great pride that i bring before the house h.r. 1268 , a bill making emergency supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2005 .  this is my first appropriations measure as the new appropriations committee chairman .  i am especially proud of the extraordinary effort put forth by the committee 's members and staff to report a bill that will better permit our troops to prosecute the war on terrorism and will do so with a price tag less than that requested by the president .  mr. chairman , i would like to have the house pay special attention to three of my colleagues who have come back from the private sector to help serve this committee .  frank cushing is my staff director , and david lesstrang and jeff shockey are my deputy staff directors for the committee .  i really appreciate their willingness to make great sacrifice to come back .  six of the committee 's 10 subcommittees participated in the development of this measure which provides $ 81.27 billion in urgent and emergency spending .  the lion 's share of that amount , some $ 76.8 billion , is for defense-related expenditures .  this funding represents an increase for defense needs of $ 1.8 billion above the president 's request , which i hasten to note is entirely for enhanced support for deployed , soon-to-be deployed , or returning troops in order to assist in force protection and to increase the survivability of the troops in the field .  to provide these important resources for our troops , we reduced other , nonessential dod requests by some $ 600 million as well as nearly $ 1 billion in foreign assistance-related programs that were either not well justified or did not meet the strict definition we applied for emergency spending .  in addition , another $ 1 billion of extremely important and time-sensitive non-emergency foreign assistance approved by the committee was completely offset by a rescission of funds originally appropriated in fiscal year 2003 .  with my colleagues ' indulgence , i would like to take a few moments to give the house a flavor of the urgent procurement needs that the committee has included in the measure for our troops .  those include up-armored humvees and other new humvees , medium and heavy trucks , night vision devices , handheld stand-off mine detection systems , jammers , improved high-frequency radios , strykers to replace combat losses , add-on armor kits , small-arms modifications and ammunition , body armor for both the army and marine corps , and medical supplies .  in addition to our providing these necessary resources for our troops , the committee was compelled to fully fund the army 's modularity program at this time because of the urgency to address the significant challenges the army now faces in mitigating stress on the current active duty combat force .  to meet this problem , the army will not only create 10 additional combat brigades ; all of the current combat brigades will be redesigned to enhance their ability to deploy more rapidly and operate more independently on the battlefield .  i might add that our determination to procure additional equipment beyond the president 's request will allow forthcoming troop rotations to receive much of their equipment prior to deployment , clearly an obvious benefit to the success of our troops .  beyond the requirements of our defense community , the bill provides $ 656 million to meet the human needs resulting from last december 's horrific tsunami .  in addition , the bill includes $ 592 million for the construction of the u.s. embassy compound in baghdad .  while that money for the embassy is a reduction of some $ 66 million , or 10 percent , from the president 's request , construction of the embassy compound has been deemed urgent because of the imminent security threats to some 4 , 000 u.s. personnel in iraq .  thus far , 45 personnel with the u.s. mission in iraq have been killed , including two american citizens who were killed by a rocket attack on our diplomatic compound the day of the iraqi elections .  providing the funds now will greatly reduce the amount of time our personnel remain in harm 's way .  despite the additional needs we have recommended on behalf of our troops , the committee 's bill is $ 614 million less than that requested by the president .  this reduction comes largely as a result of reductions in proposed foreign assistance spending .  mr. chairman , i believe this measure is responsible both in how we have responded to the needs to provide for adequate resources in making this fight against terrorism and also in how we have carefully scrubbed each and every program so that we can say with utmost assurance that this is a fiscally sound piece of legislation .  mr. chairman , as i close my remarks , i wish to express my deep appreciation for my ranking member from wisconsin ( mr. obey )  , as well as to each and every member of the committee .  i have already expressed my feelings about our staff on both sides of the aisle .  all of them have worked so diligently to prepare effectively this legislation .  mr. chairman , as i mentioned at the outset , i am very proud of this measure i bring to you , my first measure as chairman of the committee on appropriations .  i certainly urge the members to adopt this bill .  mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time .  