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Still thousands more have been
permanently disabled from grievous injuries. This impact
has touched every corner of our country – including many
families in Vermont.
We now know that the President
led our nation into this war under false premises and
without a viable exit strategy. The President had tried to
describe his "strategy" for accomplishing the mission. It
turns out to be nothing more than a repackaging of the
failed approach he has been pursuing for more than two
years, interspersed with lofty rhetoric that bears little
relation to the situation on the ground. In the meantime,
the insurgency has steadily gained strength.
We do need an effective,
global strategy with our allies against religious extremism
and terrorism, but spending more than a billion dollars each
week and sacrificing American lives in Iraq is not making us
safer. As the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations
Committee’s Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, I
am committed to holding the Administration accountable for
this failure in judgment, and I invite you to follow the
work I have done to oppose this misguided war. |
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Sen. Leahy met
with Ayad al-Sirowiy, and his father Ali, in July
2005. Ayad was injured in Iraq when a U.S.
cluster bomb exploded near him in Iraq, blinding him
in one eye and leaving scars on his face from
shrapnel. Marla Ruzicka, who worked with Sen.
Leahy to establish the a fund for
innocent victims of war
before she herself was killed in Iraq, worked to
bring Ayad to the U.S. for treatment. |
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