Dianne Feinstein: “In 1999, when George Bush was a candidate for the Presidency and President Clinton was Commander in Chief, George Bush…”

“In 1999, when George Bush was a candidate for the Presidency and President Clinton was Commander in Chief, George Bush had this to say about American troops in Bosnia: Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain what the exit strategy is. Well, the Congress has been asking for an exit strategy year after year for 4 years now. In fact, President Bush has no exit strategy. So the United States is bogged down in an impossible situation: ``Shock and awe,'' followed by ineffective follow-on efforts. Today, in the fifth year of this war, the United States is enmeshed in what has become a vicious and terrifying civil war. It cannot be won through the use of American military force. This war can only be won through political accommodation between Sunni and Shia, which means only the Iraqis can settle it, which means only the Iraqi Government can settle it. To this date, they appear to be unable to do what needs to be done to stop this conflict. So without an exit strategy, the war goes on, the killings continue, and the casualties rise. Nearly 25,000 Americans injured, with tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and injured, and hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes by this war. Estimates put Iraqi civilian deaths in the first 3 months of this year at more than 5,500 in the Baghdad area alone. On Monday, two truck bombs killed nine members of the 82nd Airborne Division and wounded 20 more.”