Political Quotes

“I disagree with it, inasmuch as it ties the hands of the military. I have had the opportunity to go to Iraq and Afghanistan several times, and I can say war is complicated. War does not always go your way. The enemy does not always cooperate with the best of our plans. And yet we here in the safety of the U.S. Congress can dictate to the commanders in the field what direction the war should go in and the timeframe and what should happen next, according to a political guideline and a political deadline as opposed to military guidelines and military deadlines. When the Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations visited General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry and the rest of our leadership in March in Afghanistan, one of the things that they told us is that there had been a difference, some significant differences, in the war. Part of it was that the Afghan army was stepping up in a completely different way, a new culture, if you will. They were taking ownership in the war.”