Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/senators-draft-bipartisan-bill-on-iraq-war-funding Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript As President Bush said Wednesday that he would veto a new limited Iraq war funding bill, Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., drafted legislation that would require benchmarks for the Iraqi government. The senators discuss their bill. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: When it comes to congressional debate over spending for the war in Iraq, presidential veto threats are becoming common. As Kwame just reported, today's came as House Democrats proposed a two-step funding plan.Meanwhile, on the other side of Capitol Hill, two senators floated a bipartisan idea to pull troops out unless Iraqis meet certain benchmarks. The co-sponsors are Democrat Evan Bayh of Indiana, a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, also a member of the Intelligence Committee. She has just returned from Baghdad. And they join us now.Senator Snowe, we just heard national security adviser al-Rubaie say that, give them a chance, give Iraqis a chance to walk the last mile, but they're in the last mile. You've just returned back from Baghdad. You just listened to his words. Do you think that that is realistic?SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R), Maine: Well, the fact is, we are giving them the chance to walk that last mile for success by having the military surge in which more than 21,000 troops have been deployed. It's not been fully implemented. There will be more to be completed in July.And the purpose of the surge is to give the Iraqi government the latitude and the flexibility to achieve the political solutions and compromises that's so necessary to effect national reconciliation.The fact is, Prime Minister Maliki promised last September that he would pursue an ambitious national reconciliation plan and, in fact, that many of these initiatives, including the de-Baathification, the oil revenue sharing, provincial elections, would be completed by the end of December of '06 or early in January of '07. And that simply hasn't happened.They haven't demonstrated the sense of urgency that's so essential. And, in fact, you know, the protracted and prolonged, you know, debate over the questions of political benchmarks only encourages the insurgencies and the militias. And that's the problem. The government has to unite and demonstrate to all the Iraqi people that they represent a national agenda and not a sectarian agenda.