This is an extremely dangerous amendment.

The junior senator from Virginia, would like for you to believe that it helps our troops and a vote in support of this amendment is a vote to support our troops.

Wrong. Nothing can be further from the truth.

This amendment would be a nightmare to execute. It says that a soldier must spend one day at home for every day the soldier is deployed. That may sound reasonable on its face, but anybody that knows how the military plans its missions knows it will be a logistical roadblock for our military planners.

The problem is that when a unit returns from a deployment its personnel are often reassigned to other units and other assignments. Divisions, brigades, battalions, and units don’t stay together forever. In a military of millions of people, there are a lot of people reassigned each day.

This amendment would essentially require the Army and Marine Corps staffs to keep track of how long every servicemenber has spent in Iraq or Afghanistan, how long they have been at home, and how long their unit was deployed and how long it was home.

This is absurd!

This would mean pulling soldiers out of units scheduled to deploy if the service members did not have enough dwell time. This breaks up leadership and soldier teams, the formation of which is the purpose of the Army and Marine training system.

Requiring the President to issue a certification to Congress to waive this requirement for every individual service member who might be affected by this is even more absurd.

This amendment takes tools and flexibility away from our commanders on the ground like General Petraeus. That is why it is being offered today.

Commanders make estimates about the forces they need based on assumptions about current and future threats. If a commander in Iraq or Afghanistan concluded that some event might require the deployment of additional forces to his theater, this amendment would restrict the units and personnel that could be sent.

The junior senator from Virginia claims to be concerned for the welfare of our troops. Not one member of this body is opposed to troops getting rest after a long deployment. But we need to be equally concerned about the dangers our soldiers face when they do not have the necessary resources and reinforcements available to do their mission.

This is the true purpose of this amendment. It cripples the ability of Secretary Gates, General Petraeus and our other commanders on the ground to accomplish their mission and forces a drawdown of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will not support this strategy out of Iraq. It puts troops in harms way restricting the resources and reserves they need to successfully accomplish their mission.

This is not supporting our troops. It is wrong to cloak a troop pullout amendment in language that relates to troop rest. But that is exactly what this amendment does.

This week I visited with two brave Kentuckians that recently served in Iraq. They came to see me to ask me to vote against the Webb amendment. These Kentuckians know the sacrifices that their fellow soldiers and their families make. They know and understand the importance of rest back home. They know the strain of war. They have experienced the heat of Iraq and the tragedy of knowing some of their fellow soldiers never made it home.

But these two Kentuckians also know the intent of this amendment. They know why it was offered. And they don’t want to tie the hands of the military so that we are forced to leave Iraq and Afghanistan before the mission is complete. That’s why they came from Lawrenceburg and Hebron Kentucky to ask me to oppose the Webb Amendment.

It is not Congress’ role to mandate individual soldier or unit deployments. I know the Democrats like to try to micromanage war, but I am not the Commander in Chief and neither are any of my colleagues across the aisle. I want to remind everybody of this.

If you want to truly support our troops then vote against this amendment. It was defeated two months ago on the Senate floor and I can only hope it will be defeated again today.

Thank you Mr. President and I yield the floor.