Political Quotes

“when a nation commits itself to a military effort, it is a very significant, august decision. I was here when we voted to utilize military force in Iraq and Afghanistan. A majority of the Democrats in this body supported that. The American people supported that. Through tough times, success was achieved in the sense that Iraq had elections, they had a functioning government, the U.S. military was drawing down its personnel, the country had a reconciliation with the Sunni and the Shia and the Kurds, and we were on a path that gave us some prospect, I believe it is fair to say--critics can have different opinions--but it is pretty clear to me we had prospects for a successful conclusion of that effort which would allow a relatively stable, relatively democratic nation to be established that did not threaten its neighbors or the United States. So we should have not done that. Well, we did that. That is what has happened. That was the situation when President Obama took office. He failed, in my opinion, in negotiating the kind of drawdown in the status of forces agreement that needed to be established to be able to create credibility in this new and fragile regime and help hold their military together, keep them trained, while we reduced dramatically our presence and military activities. We would be there as support, supplying equipment, intelligence, aircraft lift capability. That would have given them confidence.…”