WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sen. John Kerry made a statement from the Senate floor today about his opposition to a supplemental funding bill that replaced a binding deadline for the redeployment of troops from Iraq with a "presidential waiver" to allow President Bush to continue his misguided policy. Below are his remarks, as prepared: Mr. President, I would like to speak about the supplemental funding bill for Iraq. I will oppose this legislation for the simple reason that it does nothing to force the President to change his failed policy in Iraq. This bill does not provide a strategy worthy of our soldiers' sacrifice. Instead, it permits more of the same - a strategy that relies on sending American troops into the alleys and back roads of Iraq to referee a deadly civil war. Instead of the same misguided strategy, we could truly show support for our troops by getting the policy right. We could show support for our troops by setting a deadline to force Iraqis to stand up for their own country. We could show support by bringing our troops home - not with meaningless benchmarks and blank check waivers for this President. Mr. President, the original supplemental spending bill we approved offered a roadmap for a new approach, a strategy that could work in Iraq. We set a goal of redeploying most of our combat troops within a year - because if there's one thing we've learned it's that deadlines are necessary to force Iraqi to make the political compromises that are the only hope for ending the violence. We set a new strategy - forcing Iraqis to do what only Iraqis can do for Iraq, while giving the President the discretion to leave the troops necessary to complete the training of Iraqi security forces, chasing Al Qaeda, and protecting U.S. forces and facilities. We set a strategy of real benchmarks with teeth to move the political reconciliation process forward. And we demanded that the President ensure that our troops were properly prepared before they were sent into battle. But the bill we are voting on now does none of that. All of the most important provisions have been stripped out by the veto threat of an Administration that stubbornly refuses to accept reality. All of the requirements necessary to get the President to accept the will of the American people - and the majority of Congress - are gone. There are benchmarks for progress by the Iraqi government in meeting the key political benchmarks - including laws governing de-Baathification, distribution of hydrocarbons, federalism, disarming the militias and provincial elections. But while it says our reconstruction aid will be conditioned on progress in meeting these benchmarks, there is a presidential waiver and no actual consequences if they do not. We know that benchmarks without consequences are no more than a wish list. These benchmarks have been around for 9 months and the Iraqis have missed every deadline. The President said in January that he would hold the Iraqis accountable for meeting the benchmarks, but they haven't met any of them and nobody has been held accountable. And now, he insists on a waiver so he can let the Iraqis off the hook again. So what are we left with? Little more than a blank check that enables the Administration and Iraqi politicians to deliver more of the same failed strategy that created the disaster in the first place. I don't know about all of you but five years of a broken policy is proof enough to me that it's not worth trusting this president with a blank check. Here's what we have today: A bill that does nothing to change course. It allows the President to claim he has the backing of Congress as he rushes ahead with the same misleading rhetoric about how supporting the troops means supporting a failed policy. If they want to debate who supports the troops - let's have that debate. We believe in providing our troops with the up-armored humvees they need to be as safe as possible in the line of fire -- they were prepared to let our troops go without. We are willing to fight for a pay raise for our brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day. This president picks a fight with Congress over whether to give soldiers a 3.5 percent raise or just 3 percent. We support making sure our troops are fully trained and ready before they are sent into battle. This president has shown again and again the he'll skimp on preparation to get his way. We are for real benchmarks to force accountability on the Iraqis, they are for meaningless benchmarks that allow the Iraqi politicians to continue to dither while their country literally burns. We're for a timetable to bring our troops home. But this president was willing to use to the veto power to deny the will of the American people and this Congress. Mr. President, we support the troops by funding the right mission. We support them with a deadline to force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq. We support them with a strategy that has a chance of working, a strategy that gives our troops a chance to come home with a real mission accomplished. We know how little the words "mission accomplished" mean to this Administration. They're hollow words, as hollow as all their predictions and posturing about this war. Today, Mr. President, it isn't even clear what the Administration's strategy is: it seems to change every couple of months. In January, the President announced that he was escalating the war by sending more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq as part of new strategy to "clear, hold and build." Less than four months later, it's clear that not only has this strategy increased the number of American lives lost - but sectarian deaths have actually increased as well. Now, just yesterday, we learned that yet another new strategy is in the works. This one reportedly shifts our strategy from fighting a counter-insurgency campaign to focusing on the political reconciliation necessary to end a civil war. They are just now realizing that we are in a civil war in Iraq that can only be solved politically? That's been clear to many of us for over a year. No wonder one of the leading generals they asked to become the new "war czar" refused because, as he said, the Administration has no idea where they are going. In fact, it speaks volumes that the General who finally accepted the position - General Douglas Lute - was strongly opposed to the surge. And perhaps most troubling are reports that this new strategy has basically given up on achieving meaningful political progress at the national level in the coming months. They have essentially acknowledged that the President's plan to place more American troops in harm's way to give the Iraqi political leaders "breathing room" to make political deals is not going to produce results anytime soon. And they have decided to endorse the Maliki government, without any accountability, even though there are grave misgivings about that government's intentions. So the bottom line is that come September, we are probably going to be in the same position we are now, watching our kids get killed for a strategy that isn't producing real results in the only category that really matters: political progress. And what are we going to hear from this Administration? More of the same backward logic: the price of failure is so high that we must continue to pursue a strategy that is failing. And what's going to happen while we continue with the same disastrous policy in Iraq? We know from our intelligence agencies that this war is a rallying cry creating more terrorists who want to kill us. And this week, the President again selectively de-classified information to make the case that we must stay the course in Iraq. At the same time, we learned that the top Al Qaeda leadership - which is still planning attacks from right where we left them, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border - is using Iraq as a vital means of fundraising. That's right: not only did the war in Iraq create a terrorist haven where one did not exist before, and distract us from pursuing the very terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 - it is now providing them with more recruits and more money to try to do it again. And while we are distracted and bogged down in Iraq, the situation throughout the region continues to deteriorate - with every passing day it seems we move closer to the three civil wars that King Abdullah of Jordan warned of last year. Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah, newly empowered, have succeeded in paralyzing Lebanon even as Sunni extremists with ties to Al Qaeda have opened a new front against the Siniora government in the north. Israel faces a growing threat from Hamas as Palestinian factions fight a bloody battle for control of the streets of Gaza - and many fear that another war with Hezbollah or Hamas is only a matter of time. Iran, emboldened by our compromised position, defiantly moves forward with its nuclear program and continues to detain American citizens. And the resurgent Taliban continues to fight a determined battle against under-manned NATO forces in Afghanistan. We simply cannot continue down this path. Mr. President, as we approach Memorial Day it's appropriate to think about how we honor the lives lost in Iraq. Without a doubt, we should all agree that repeating the horrible mistakes of the past is no way to thank troops and their families who have made the ultimate sacrifice. This bill we are being asked to vote upon today is a colossal mistake that gets us no closer to achieving peace and stability in Iraq. For that reason, I will oppose it and urge my colleagues to do the same.