On the recordJune 17, 2010
General Petraeus was in Washington this week to testify before the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. And while his intent was to endorse the July 2011 Afghanistan redeployment date set by the Commander in Chief, it was not the kind of clear, unambiguous statement that inspires very much confidence. According to an editorial in today's Washington Post, the General describes next July as 'the point at which a process begins to transition security tasks to Afghan forces at a rate to be determined by conditions at the time.' With all due respect, Madam Speaker, could there be any more qualifiers and escape hatches in that sentence? The American people, who have 1,000 fewer fellow citizens and 278 billion fewer dollars than they did when this war began, aren't looking for the beginning of a process. They're looking for an end to this, an end to this miserable war. Shouldn't we be at the end or at least in the middle of the process of transitioning security tasks to Afghanistan forces? Shouldn't the beginning of the process have come at some point over the last 8½ years that we've been fighting this war? My concern, Madam Speaker, is that statements like this one are laying the predicate for an extension of President Obama's deadline, which is exactly the wrong lesson and the wrong approach.
