Some excerpts from Senator Biden’s remarks this afternoon as he introduced the Biden-Lugar Amendment. Check here for updates on the senators signed on so far.

“Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to offer at this time for myself and Senator Lugar. We are joined by Senators Durbin, Smith, Dodd, Sununu, Menendez, Martinez, Kerry, Snowe, Levin, Collins, Obama, Voinovich, Leahy, Corker, and Hagel. Our amendment builds on similar work done by Senator Feinstein – we all share the same goals.

Mr. President, my amendment restores the full amount of the President’s request – $39. 5 billion – to the international affairs budget.

Last week two distinguish former senior military officers, General Anthony Zinni and Admiral Leighton Smith, came before the Foreign Relations Committee to tell us that we must reorder our nation’s priorities to protect our national security.

With more than fifty of their fellow former flag officers behind them, they are calling for a new emphasis on smart power – using our nation’s diplomatic and economic resources to protect our interests.

Defense Secretary Gates has made the same point absolutely clear, and I quote: “having robust civilian capabilities could make it less likely that military force will have to be used in the first place…

Our amendment has the support of the One Campaign, Interaction, the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, and many other groups.”

Read the full remarks after the jump….

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Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to offer at this time for myself and Senator Lugar. We are joined by Senators Durbin, Smith, Dodd, Sununu, Menendez, Martinez, Kerry, Snowe, Levin, Collins, Obama, Voinovich, Leahy, Corker, and Hagel. Our amendment builds on similar work done by Senator Feinstein – we all share the same goals.

Mr. President, my amendment restores the full amount of the President’s request – $39. 5 billion – to the international affairs budget.

Last week two distinguish former senior military officers, General Anthony Zinni and Admiral Leighton Smith, came before the Foreign Relations Committee to tell us that we must reorder our nation’s priorities to protect our national security.

With more than fifty of their fellow former flag officers behind them, they are calling for a new emphasis on smart power – using our nation’s diplomatic and economic resources to protect our interests.

Defense Secretary Gates has made the same point absolutely clear, and I quote: “having robust civilian capabilities could make it less likely that military force will have to be used in the first place.”” And we can all see the result in both Iraq and Afghanistan, of not having the capabilities, the resources, or the plan, to turn military action into a sustainable peace.

But Secretary Gates was also perfectly clear about the real issue: in his own words, “sometimes there is no substitute for money.” He was talking about the need for an international affairs budget that can do the jobs that are now increasingly shifted onto our overburdened military, or simply not done at all.

The way we do things now, we have, in his words, “field artillerymen and tankers building schools and mentoring city councils – usually in a language they don’t speak.”

Mr. President, we must do better than that.

We face many challenges around the world – the rise of religious fundamentalism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the spread of disease, failed states that are vectors for all those threats. Not one of them can be met solely or even primarily with military force. No one knows that better than our men and women in uniform.

The message we heard in our committee last week was, “We cannot rely on military power alone to make our nation secure.”

And yet, for every $19 we spend on military resources, barely one dollar goes toward the civilian programs that could prevent military action, support a balanced response to security threats, or secure the peace once the shooting stops.

We spend more on three weeks on military operations in Iraq than we have since 9/11 to rebuild a secure Afghanistan – the base from which we were attacked.

This amendment will not fix that problem. But it will keep us from making it worse. Last month, I wrote to my colleagues on the Budget Committee, asking them to treat the President’s budget for international operations “as a floor, not a ceiling.” I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my views be included in the Record.

Working under tight constraints, the Committee reduced the President’s budget request by $4.1 billion. I understand their difficult task. But I believe we must do better.

I ask my colleagues today to join me in restoring the full $39.5 billion the President requested. That will allow us to at least continue the work now underway to build rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, to support our ongoing non-proliferation programs, to provide the manpower and skills for our Civilian Stabilization Initiative, to fight AIDS – to all the things that reduce threats, relieve human suffering, and help to rebuild our moral stature in the world.

Our amendment has the support of the One Campaign, Interaction, the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, and many other groups.

The money we are asking for is less than a couple of week’s military operations in Iraq. It is an absolutely essential investment in our national security. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. President.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Biden-Lugar Amendment, 2009 Budget, Sen. Joe Biden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.