Tim Ryan: “As we've gone through this debate for years and years and years, as you said, we've been on the floor talking about this…”

“As we've gone through this debate for years and years and years, as you said, we've been on the floor talking about this for a long time; and you start to hear these arguments, the same ones over and over and over regardless of what the facts are on the ground. And the issue, I think, that has become most apparent, and some say the surge was a success. Some say, well, maybe it wasn't. Some say there hasn't been any political success. Some say there has been some. I think this has kind of gotten boiled down to one point. Some people are saying we need to stay. And you know what? Maybe, maybe if we accept that argument, maybe they're right. Maybe we should stay. But they're only going to stay at the expense of the future of this country. We will bankrupt this country if we continue to stay in Iraq. And when you look at all of the great powers over time, they get too extended, too far out, too far out ahead of themselves; and what we are saying here is there is a reality on the ground that we need to deal with in order to address the issues that are facing the United States of America. This is about making sure that we are a strong country. If we are not a strong country, we are of no good to anybody else. And the point that we are trying to make and that the Speaker is trying to make and the Democrats in the Senate are trying to make and like-minded Republicans are trying to make is that we can't sacrifice the United States of America for Iraq.”