Sean Patrick Maloney: “for almost 4 years the administration has been saying, just give us more time, just give us more money, our plan will…”

“for almost 4 years the administration has been saying, just give us more time, just give us more money, our plan will bring peace. And now they are saying, we need more troops, 48,000 of them. But we have already had four troop increases since we went into Iraq and none of them have brought stability. Tragically, this war has cost more than 3,100 American lives, 143 from my home State of New York, and thousands of Iraqi lives, as well as more than 20,000 injured American soldiers who will carry their wounds for the rest of their lives. The bipartisan Hamilton-Baker Commission called for a different approach. They said: "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." As Mr. Hamilton said: "The current approach is not working. And the ability of the U.S. to influence events is diminishing." The commission called for greater use of diplomacy. And the commission's report stated clearly that we must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops in Iraq. They warned that doing so would continue to stretch our troops too thin, hampering our abilities to simultaneously face other threats in the world. It would severely affect America's army readiness, and it would not give the Iraqi Government the incentive needed to help bring security. If this assessment is so clearly in opposition to a long-term deployment in Iraq, why is the administration doing the exact opposite?”