Congressman Dingell, himself a veteran, understands the importance of taking care of our troops, both when they are in harms way, and when they get home.  He fights every day to ensure that our troops have the resources they need when fighting so that they are safe and he fights to ensure that when our troops return home, they get all the benefits they were promised when they volunteered to serve our nation.  Since Democrats took control of Congress, Congressman Dingell has helped lead the way to increase the VA medical funding by 55 percent and added $18.7 billion to the VA budget.  Congressman Dingell believes that more still needs to be done, but is proud of the commitment that Democrats have made to our veterans.

The Congressman is supportive of the Administration’s goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  He supports the Obama Administration’s plan to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by 30,000, bringing the total to near 100,000, and to begin a responsible drawdown in 2011.

Congressman Dingell supports the Administration’s plans to responsibly withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by withdrawing combat troops from Iraq while continuing our diplomatic efforts to help Iraq’s fledgling democracy.   In 2002, Congressman Dingell opposed resolution the House voted on to authorize the war in Iraq.  He believed that the case for war had not been adequately made and we would were not ready to deal with a post-Saddam Iraq and the nation-building that would be required.  Unfortunately, he was correct.  Additionally, Congressman Dingell did not believe that Saddam Hussein was truly hiding WMDs or coordinating with terrorists, and we now know that the Congressman was correct to mistrust the Bush Administration’s claims.  Further, Dingell wanted to focus efforts on Afghanistan, which was and remains the central front of Islamic extremism.