Political Quotes

“I certainly agree it would be a mistake to send any message that we are not in support of our troops and, indeed, that is what voting on one message would do. Certainly, there are different views in the Senate and legitimately so. We recognize that. That is the way it is in Congress. I resist a little bit the idea that has come up on the other side of the aisle that we have not talked about this, we have not debated it. I say we have talked about it, we have talked about it for several months. We have debated it. There is clearly a difference of view. Most everyone has the same idea that the situation must be changed and must be improved there. No one argues with that. The issue is that we can back off and deny the support we have for what we have accomplished or we can move forward with the President, who has a change in plan. That is something we need to remember. We are not talking about simply continuing to do the same thing. We have new leadership there, we have some new strategies there, we have some ideas as to what might be done. Our troops continue to do an incredible job, but it has not gone as well as we would like. Therefore, it is appropriate that we make some changes. In order to make some changes, it is probably necessary to change the arrangement we have, change the numbers so we can do something and to begin again to devise a movement that will get us out of there in a relatively short time.”