Bill Bennett: “last week a group of us, both Senators and Members of the House, Republicans and Democrats, had the opportunity to sit…”

“last week a group of us, both Senators and Members of the House, Republicans and Democrats, had the opportunity to sit down with Frederick Kagan, who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and listen to his comments about where we are with respect to Iraq. At the end of that very illuminating session, he gave us each a copy of a new report that he has authored called ``No Middle Way, The Challenge of Exit Strategies from Iraq.'' The report is too long for me to ask consent that it be printed in the Record, but I recommend it to all my colleagues. It is one of the most thorough and thoughtful examinations of where we are in Iraq I have seen. I will be quoting from it, but I wish to make a few observations about the situation in Iraq before I do. The Iraq debate seems to be mired down in arguments about past decisions and whether they were right. These kinds of arguments are useful, and they are particularly useful in the hands of historians who are reviewing an entire situation from a vantage point of years afterward, but they are not necessarily that valuable as we are addressing the question of what do we do now.”