we need to get back to the goal of a 2-to-1 rotational cycle for our troops.

I would like the opportunity to pursue that at the subcommittee level.

the question has been, how we recuperate, as a Nation, for what many of us believe was an enormous strategic blunder.

I think that he is the right individual for this job.

Right, and I think that the thing that we often miss in this debate, because it's become like the Battle of the Psalm, politically, in terms of the way people have dug in up here on trying to resolve this issue, but there are instabilities that have been created, simply because we're there, and there are instabilities that could result if we leave in the wrong way. But we do need, in my view, to be moving toward that.

A lot of people who wanted to move us into Iraq were openly saying that we should be on the ground in Iraq for the next 50 years.

I personally cannot see any element of a strategy of a commitment that's been going on for more than 4 years that can justify doing this to the soldiers and the Army.

I would submit that somebody needs to go in to the big boss and close the door and talk about what this is doing to the United States military.

the issue of regional instability, what you've alluded to a number of times in your testimony, is the key.

strategic dispersion of the fleet may have made sense during the Cold War, but there is no sound national-security reason for doing so today

But as a guiding principle, I think we should all agree that there should be no political input in the promotion process other than through the forms of fitness reports.