Watson Coleman: “I note that if we adopt the Levin-Reed amendment, we would be doing what the Senator from New York said we should not…”

“I note that if we adopt the Levin-Reed amendment, we would be doing what the Senator from New York said we should not do. We must not redeploy out of Iraq with the same failure of planning there was going in. This amendment before us today is a directive from the Senate to redeploy out of Iraq without any planning. Simply sitting here in this air-conditioned Chamber, making a statement that this is what we are going to do, without talking to the commanders on the ground would be a tragic mistake. Earlier this year, when the President talked about the surge, I raised an objection. In my travels to Iraq, it was clear to me that we were facing a battle in Anbar Province against al-Qaida in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency; and that battle, by the way, we were winning, and we see the results of that today. But in Baghdad we faced sectarian violence and faced American soldiers being in the midst of a civil war, and that troubled me. I raised concerns. But then 54 days ago we had a discussion in this Chamber. We took a rollcall vote on a bill, and the bill passed 80 to 14, with over four-fifths of the Senate agreeing that day, with rare bipartisanship that we achieved in this Chamber. That wasn't about naming a post office or a courthouse. We got an agreement to address the future of our involvement in Iraq.”