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Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement on Monday after signing a letter with members of the House and Senate Republican Leadership to Speaker Pelosi urging her to call the House back into session to finish work on an emergency bill to fund the War on Terror:

“Congress has an obligation to our troops in the field to move this emergency security funding measure to the President as quickly as possible. Senate Republicans are prepared to send a clean bill to the President for his signature, yet inaction by the House is preventing Congress from moving forward to fund our men and women on the ground. I join with my colleagues in urging Speaker Pelosi to call the House back into session so that we may finish our work and ensure our troops receive the funding they need to win in Iraq.”

The full text of the letter follows

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

We are writing to urge you to call the House back into session immediately so that Congress can finish its work on the emergency legislation to fund the Global War on Terrorism. This funding request has been pending since February 5, but your leadership team chose to leave town for more than two weeks rather than completing this bill. As a result, our troops have been put at risk.

We are especially troubled by the House’s failure to appoint conferees. The Senate appointed conferees on March 29, moments after passing its bill, but the House never did so despite passing the bill a week earlier. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Senate that he hoped the House-Senate conference would begin on March 30. That hoped-for progress has been thwarted by your failure to act.

It should go without saying that our military leaders are in the best position to know the needs of our troops, and they have left no doubt that this funding is needed urgently. General Peter Schoomaker, United States Army Chief of Staff, has written that, “without approval of the supplemental funds in April, we will be forced to take increasingly draconian measures which will impact Army readiness and impose hardships on our Soldiers and their families.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also emphasized the dangers of delay: “This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families.”

Our troops need this funding, and they need it soon. The Senate is in session and ready to work. We respectfully request that you cancel the remainder of your break, call the House back into session, appoint conferees promptly, and work in good faith to pass a clean supplemental funding bill that the President can sign as soon as possible. Every day we don’t fund our troops is a day their ability to fight this war is weakened.

Senator Mitch McConnell

Senate Republican Leader

Senator Trent Lott

Senate Republican Whip

Senator Jon Kyl

Chairman, Senate Republican Conference

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

Chairman, Senate Republican Policy Committee

Senator John Cornyn

Vice-Chairman, Senate Republican Conference

Representative John Boehner

House Republican Leader

Representative Roy Blunt

House Republican Whip

Representative Adam Putnam

Chairman, House Republican Conference

Representative Eric Cantor

Chief Deputy Republican Whip

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Washington, D.C. – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Monday regarding legislation by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) that would cut-off funds to troops in the field on an arbitrary surrender date:

“Announcing a surrender date to al Qaeda is a dangerous military policy, cedes the initiative to the enemy, and directly contradicts the 96 Senators who just last month voted against funding cuts for troops in the field. The chosen date isn’t tied to circumstances on the ground or the needs of the military commanders. It’s completely arbitrary. It was pulled out of thin air. And the terrorists have already marked it on their calendars.”

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‘If they think the war is over, they should vote against the appropriations bill’

LOUISVILLE – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on ‘Fox News Sunday’ this morning. The following are excerpts from the program:

On Iran:

“This is the kind of behavior you would expect from a regime that denies that the Holocaust occurred and would like to see Israel annihilated. The Iranians by their own behavior have done something pretty challenging for everyone else, which is to unify the entire world against them. Most of the Sunni Arab countries who are generally friendly with us, the Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians, are appalled by Iran. The Iranians' own behavior has made it more possible for us to get the kind of international cooperation that we need in order to have sanctions that actually bite.”

On the consequences of delaying funds to the troops in the field, the surrender date in the funding bill, and the President’s veto:

“[I]t affects other things. It affects readiness. It affects the lives of the troops.”

“Clearly, the Army chief of staff is correct. The general sent me a letter just a couple of days ago indicating that severe consequences would follow not having the bill by April, by mid-April, mid to late April, so what needs to happen here is the House of Representatives needs to come back a week early, we need to get the conference report on the money for the troops bill down to the President so it can be vetoed. “

“Why is it going to be vetoed? Because it's got a date specific in there when we're going to leave. It's like sending a memo to the enemy giving them the date that you're going to give up. I think our Democratic friends have decided the war is lost. They don't have the courage to vote against the money, which is the only way to end the war, so instead what they do is try to make it more difficult for our troops to succeed by saying we'll send them the money, but we're going to put all kinds of strings on it.

“If they think the war is over, they should vote against the appropriations bill.”

“Oh, I don't think the President's going to sign a bill that is supposedly for getting funds to the troops which in effect says to the enemy we're going to give up on a certain date. I think the President's going to veto that bill. I think we ought to get it on down to him and get the veto out of the way, get the veto sustained and get serious about providing money for the troops without a deadline that endangers our troops and gives the enemy a precise date upon which we're leaving.”

On the flaws in the war funding bill:

“That's not the only outrage in the bill. Not only does it send a memo to our enemies telling them exactly when they can win, it's also porked up. The Congress put in spinach, money for spinach farmers, peanut storage. They used this serious effort, what should have been a serious effort to fund the troops, as an opportunity to send a memo to our enemy when we're going to give up—and to get pork for various and assorted projects back home. This bill is not salvageable. It needs to be vetoed. It needs to come back to Congress very quickly and we need to get serious about providing the funds for the troops so we can win in Iraq, not give up.”

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Recent Press Releases

McConnell: Move Forward to Fund Our Troops

April 9, 2007

McConnell: Funding cut ‘cedes the initiative to the enemy’

April 2, 2007

McConnell on Fox News Sunday

April 1, 2007