Political Quotes

“Mr. President, that shows you how bipartisan it is going to be--Graham and Schumer. That shows you the depth and breadth of Leon Panetta--the way people view him here. One of the first decisions he will have to make is what to tell the President about Afghanistan. I know we are war weary and have been there for 10 years. We didn't just throw a dart at the map when we decided to go there. That is the place the Taliban was controlling, they invited al-Qaida to be their honored guests, and bin Laden had a welcome home in Afghanistan. The rest is history. President Bush understood that the Taliban was a force for evil. They allowed bin Laden to come to Afghanistan and plan the 9/11 attacks. They had a choice to make, and they chose poorly. We went in there to take the Taliban down. We have a war in Iraq--and we can debate whether we should have done that. One of the reasons we are still not where we would like to be 10 years later is because a lot of the resources we had in Afghanistan went to Iraq. Now we finally got it right. For the last 17 months, we have had enough troops in Afghanistan to make a difference. To President Obama, that was a hard decision for you to make--to add 30,000 additional troops at a time when most people said: Why are we still there? Can't we come home? But the President chose wisely, and 2014 is the transition goal--to transition to Afghan control. I think we are well on track. Tomorrow night, the President will tell us about withdrawing troops.…”