Political Quotes

“the reason I rise to take the floor is this afternoon--I think the Presiding Officer was present in the Armed Services Committee hearing when General Petraeus testified about the new strategy in Iraq. I hope that over time more Americans will be familiar with him and his view of what we can do to go forward. In his testimony, General Petraeus clearly indicated we have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. We never had enough troops to secure the country, and the debaathification program basically was a mistake. Other agencies involved in nationbuilding have not done their part. Militias have grown. The biggest event in the sectarian violence was the bombing of the Shia Golden Dome Mosque, and since that event, which was al-Qaida-inspired, we have been going backward instead of forward and the sectarian violence in Baghdad has gotten worse. But General Petraeus believes this new strategy is not more people doing the same thing. It is a fundamentally different shift in policy. I agree with him and hope the country will listen closely to what he says. I have a lot of confidence in General Petraeus. I intend to support him. I will not vote for any resolution that declares a strategy of failure before he has a chance to implement it because if we do that, it is going to be a very bad sendoff for our troops going into battle. It will embolden the enemy and weaken the moderates we eventually have to rely on in the Mideast to help us in the war on terror.”