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Towns Votes To Override Presidential Veto of Iraq Accountability Act
I was proud to vote once again to support a plan that would take Iraq in a new direction. After four years of the President's stay-the-course strategy, we must provide a responsible plan to get our troops home and force the Iraqi government to meet basic benchmarks for stability. The Iraq Accountability Act supports our troops by providing $4 billion more than requested by the Bush Administration. This includes additional funding for military health care, military housing, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles for our troops, and a Strategic Re-serve Readiness Fund. The measure honors our veterans by providing $1.8 billion not requested by the President to begin meeting the unmet health care needs of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. This legislation established a responsible timeline for the redeploy-ment of U.S. combat troops from Iraq with redeployment beginning in Oct-ober 2007, at the latest and the goal of redeployment completion by March 2008. This represents the approach recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which has also called for a goal of redeployment being com-pleted by March 2008. It is time for accountability. For the first four years of the Iraq war, the Republican-led Congress failed to exercise its Constitutional responsibility and hold the Bush Adminis-tration or the Iraqi government ac-countable. This has led to disastrous results for the American people. The President should have signed this bill, in order to get these needed resources to our troops.
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