John McCain

So you disagree with the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Fallon that we had a failed policy?

I am grateful for your extraordinary service and personal sacrifice throughout your career.

You will work with your commanders to get the violence down.

A loss of this situation will implode that region into such strife.

I wish General Petraeus the very best.

I do hope that you've had an opportunity to look through this.

On the one hand, the increase of our troop levels, in the short term, is going to put additional strain on the Army and the Marine Corps force structure; in the mid-term, particularly, it is going to place a hardship on the rotational…

Clearly, this is not going to be something that we would like to continue for an extended period of time.

If these benchmarks are not received by the end of today, Senator McCain and I will be consulting on what will be the next step to obtain these benchmarks.

Mr. President, look at all options by which you may not need that full complement, and, Mr. President, look carefully at the rules of engagement, such that we minimize the injection of the U.S. GI right into the crossfire of sectarian…

I hope that you will take our suggestions in the spirit of not trying to embolden the enemy, but to conscientiously point out where we can take actions to save lives, and particularly those of our American GIs.

I think that Iranian activity, particularly regarding Iraq, has not been helpful, to date.

It seems to me that, again, from my glancing visit through that country last month, there is a lack of confidence among the other sects--other than the Shia--within this country, of the desire of the government to actually address issues…

Again, we would like a realistic assessment of the situation.

I believe, Admiral, that it will be difficult, in the short-term, to determine the progress of the military side of this equation.

I think that we could know fairly soon whether we are going to have an Iraqi government that is truly committed to this overall process.

What is your degree of confidence that the Iraqi Government and military are up to the task that we are now embarking on in this new strategy?

We owe them more and better leadership and a better strategy than we have provided them with in the past, Admiral.

I hope you know, and will tell this committee, how difficult and arduous this task will be because of the hole that we have dug for ourselves, to a very large degree.

I view that with deep regret, because I think the American people and their representatives deserved better.

This war has been mishandled. No one doubts that mistakes have been made in Iraq.

It's going to be a violent spring, and we're going to have violence into this summer.

The consequences of failure really I believe will be, some would say could be, disastrous for the United States, for Iraq, for the Middle East, for the war on terrorism, and for the world economy.

I worry that we are both going to confirm you and yet we are going to pass a resolution that says we are not in favor of what you need to succeed.

It is terribly unfair what you are being asked to do and what our military is being asked to do...