Tom Carper: “10 days ago, I returned home from a bipartisan, bicameral congressional factfinding mission that took a number of…”

“10 days ago, I returned home from a bipartisan, bicameral congressional factfinding mission that took a number of Members, including Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, myself, and Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher from California, to a number of Middle Eastern countries. There we met with, among others, the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, as well as with our own civilian and military leaders. For me, our visit was informative, highly informative, even illuminating, and provided me with a number of insights that I wish to share today with my colleagues and with the American people. For the past several months, Americans have become increasingly skeptical about our ongoing military presence in Iraq, leading to a fierce debate on how to succeed in Iraq and when to begin to redeploy American troops. With so much discord at home, I was surprised and, frankly, heartened to learn during our mission that there is a growing consensus among both U.S. and Iraqi civilian and military officials on a reasonable path forward that I believe many Americans can embrace. As our President acknowledged somewhat belatedly today, a number of grievous mistakes were made during his administration following the ouster of Saddam Hussein--for example, literally telling the Iraqi army to go home, you are disbanded, not needed anymore. Having said that, there is a whole lot at stake, too much at stake, for us to just cut and run.…”