Political Quotes

“some years ago I heard someone say that the secret to life is how you handle plan B. That resonated with me because so few things in this world go exactly as planned. Tragically, for the 3,300 American soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq, there will never be a plan B. And for more than 20,000 other soldiers, plan B, sadly, will include a wheelchair, a prosthetic limb, a serious brain injury, or a lifetime of posttraumatic stress disorder. And the even greater tragedy is that the sacrifices of many of those courageous men and women could have been avoided had President Bush had a plan B in Iraq. Many of us saw this coming back in 2002. It was evident that the President's team was either so brazenly self-confident or so badly misinformed that they never saw the need for an alternative strategy, and certainly not for an exit strategy. And now, 4 years after 'mission accomplished,' there is still no plan B coming from the White House, only a transparent appeal to the national pride that we must win, without regard to cost or duration, and without the slightest understanding of what a victory might look like. Last night, this body took an important step in the Iraq tragedy. We set a new direction for our effort because the President has refused to do so.”