Russ Feingold: “I feel very strongly that my amendment has to be properly characterized. This is not a specific timetable. It merely…”

“I feel very strongly that my amendment has to be properly characterized. This is not a specific timetable. It merely asks the President to give us a vision of a timetable of when he intends for this to be over. The Senator from Michigan tries to reassure us that the President has announced a start date for us to get out of Afghanistan. Well, that doesn't work because how do we think the people of that area of the world will be reassured if we are going to only start to withdraw the troops in 2011? You take one troop out, that starts it. That is not a vision of when we intend to complete it. The Senator suggests that somehow this sends the wrong message in the region. Well, actually, the wrong message is that we intend to be there forever. We don't intend to be there forever. But you know what. After 9 years, people start wondering--9 years; 9 years with no vision of when we might depart. In fact, I think the absolute worst message in the region is an open-ended commitment. The worst thing we can do is not give some sense to the people of that region and to the American people and to our troops that there is some end to this thing. All we ask for in this amendment is some vision from the President about when he thinks we might complete this task.”