Political Quotes

“I remember getting a phone call from then-Secretary Clinton asking me and Senator McCain and Senator Levin to go to Iraq and see if we could intervene and help the Iraqis make a decision about a residual force because we thought it was in our interest. President Obama has always looked at this issue as fulfilling a campaign promise. He got the answer he wanted, which was zero. The military told him we needed some people, but he really was intent on ending the war in Iraq. Here is the problem: Without a residual force, we have lost everything we fought for. When we met with Barzani, Allawi, and Malaki, I was convinced they were willing to accept an American follow- on force; we just had to put it on the table in a way that it mattered. When we were talking to Malaki, they said: Senator Graham, how many troops are we talking about? I turned to General Austin and our then-Ambassador Jeffrey and said: How many? He said: We are still working on that. We went from 18,000 recommended by General Austin--the last time I got a number from the White House, it was below 3,000. This cascading downward from 18,000 to below 3,000 was not because the Iraqis said it was too many; it was because the White House couldn't pick a number because they didn't want to stay. It is about as accurate to say the Iraqis didn't want us to stay as it is to say the President never called ISIS a JV team. The President did, but he is trying to rewrite that statement because it looks pretty naive.…”