Here is Senator Patrick Leahy's October 17 statement explaining why he voted against the Iraq-Afghanistan Supplemental Appropriations Bill. [link via Buzzflash.]

I know that I will be among a small minority. But for me, this is a matter of principle, and after a great deal of thought I have concluded that I can not support this proposal. I did not support the policy that got us into war alone. I do not support the tactics the White House has used to get this Supplemental passed. And I do not support appropriating so much money, at one time, for an oil rich nation when the responsible thing would be to approve a portion of the money today and to revisit this again next year.

... If...I thought the Administration was being honest with the American people about its motives and its policy in Iraq and the Middle East; if this Supplemental were designed to implement a credible plan to internationalize our policy rather than to continue a unilateral approach; and if this had not been a one-time only, take-it-or-leave-it, partisan approach in which almost every amendment offered by Democrats was defeated along party lines, my vote today might be different.

Don't miss Sen. Robert Byrd's comments on his opposition to the bill in The Emporer Has No Clothes.