Jack Reed: “we have come to a critical crossroads with respect to our operations in Iraq. After the Iraq Study Group spent months…”

“we have come to a critical crossroads with respect to our operations in Iraq. After the Iraq Study Group spent months considering the issue of the best policy going forward, suggesting a phased redeployment along with other measures, diplomatic measures that would enhance the security of the United States and protect our soldiers there in Iraq, the President had the opportunity to accept those recommendations. It was a bipartisan panel of eminent Americans--James Baker and Lee Hamilton and so many others. The President specifically rejected them, not just in substance but in tone. In his speech a few weeks ago, he declared that he had learned very little from the Iraq Study Group, that he was not committed to a phased redeployment, he was committed to an escalation of approximately 20,000 troops and a change in tactics in Baghdad. I think he had the opportunity at that moment to do several things. First, he could have accepted the wisdom of the Iraq Study Group. But, more important, he could have communicated to the American public that his policy was based on the reality in Iraq, that he had learned from a series of mistakes he and his administration had made, and that he could have sustained a way forward in Iraq.”