Supplemental Spending for Iraq & Afghanistan. The final version (conference report) of H.R. 3289 would appropriate $87.5 billion in supplemental fiscal 2004 spending for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the largest supplemental that Congress has ever passed. Of this total, military operations would receive $65.8 billion. Iraq reconstruction would be funded by grants totaling $18.6 billion, while reconstruction in Afghanistan would receive $1.2 billion.
William Norman Grigg predicted in the March 24 issue of this magazine that "the impending war on, or occupation of, Iraq is intended to carry out the UN Security Council mandates, not to protect our nation or to punish those responsible for the September 11th attack. The war would uphold the UN’s supposed authority and vindicate its role as a de facto world government." In its November 20 report on President Bush’s speech at London’s Whitehall Palace the Guardian of London provided a concise confirmation of Mr. Grigg’s prediction in its headline "Iraq war saved the UN, says president." Now American taxpayers must pay tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of billions ultimately, for this latest military intervention to empower the UN.
The House adopted the conference report on H.R. 3289 on October 31, 2003 by a vote of 298 to 121 (Roll Call 601). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the U.S. military was sent into Iraq to enforce UN resolutions, when the only proper use of our nation’s armed forces is to protect the lives and property of American citizens, and the huge U.S.-funded infrastructure rebuilding program in Iraq and Afghanistan is another example of unconstitutional foreign aid.
