Wayne Allard: “Simply put, we need to avoid micromanaging the war from the floor of the Senate. We need to let our military leaders…”

“Simply put, we need to avoid micromanaging the war from the floor of the Senate. We need to let our military leaders perform their duties and give them time for our new way forward in Iraq to be successful. We now have before us the Levin-Reed amendment, which sets a timeline for us to begin withdrawal from Iraq. We cannot afford to set a hard deadline to begin to walk away from Iraq. The cost of failure is too great to our future long-term national security. It is in America's security interest to have an Iraq that can sustain, govern, and defend itself. Too much is at stake to simply abandon Iraq at this point. The price of failure is simply too great. I will continue to vote against any legislation that sets arbitrary deadlines and thresholds in Iraq, and I plead with my colleagues to do the same. Let me remind our colleagues that we have seen terrible results from political motives being placed above military necessities: the attempt at rescuing the American Embassy hostages from Tehran, and Beirut, in the 1980s, and Somalia in the 1990s. Leaving Iraq in the current situation would only result in emboldening terrorists around the world. Bin Laden himself is on record, after these previous withdrawals, criticizing our lack of will and questioning our commitment to fight these zealots. We have to learn from our mistakes in the past.”