Patrick Leahy: “The President's Iraq strategy has been a disaster. It was born of deception, fueled by incompetence, and pursued through…”

“The President's Iraq strategy has been a disaster. It was born of deception, fueled by incompetence, and pursued through arrogance and stubbornness. This strategy has not made us safer. It has undermined the international credibility that took generations of Americans' sacrifice to build; it has squandered billions of hard-earned tax dollars that would have been better used in directly countering terrorists; it has skewed our priorities here at home; it has weakened our military readiness; and it has created an open sore in an already volatile Middle East. It is time to extricate our troops from Iraq's civil war and let the Iraqis and their regional neighbors forge their own political settlement. As many predicted, the security situation in Iraq has not appreciably improved despite the President's surge strategy. The ongoing violence comes from a deadly brew of suicide bombings, intra-ethnic conflict, and out-of-control militias--all unleashed by the President's poorly planned invasion and occupation of the country.”