Joe Manchin

It is time to complete the transition of responsibility for Iraq's security now to the Iraq Government.

Iraq will not be able to defend its own air space until 2020, at the earliest.

The aim should be setting in place--over the next year--a strong and enduring foundation for normalized ties under the SFA.

We are completing the drawdown of our forces by the end of this year.

Our forces should withdraw from Iraq, and the President has made the right call in abiding by the agreement signed by his predecessor.

President Obama and Prime Minister Maliki have an opportunity to set a common vision beyond the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Iraq is governing itself. It is a sovereign nation. It is an emerging source of stability in a vital part of the world.

This new chapter in U.S.-Iraqi relations after December is not an abandonment of Iraq.

The authors of that agreement always intended for it to be renegotiated at a later date to allow some U.S. forces to remain in Iraq.

This fulfills the pledge made by President Bush, as well as President Obama.

it is nonetheless good domestic politics.

First, and most importantly, we should leave because we said we would.

Our military withdrawal, as agreed to in the 2008 Security Agreement, sends a clear message to the Iraqi people and the Arab world that the United States keeps its commitments.

U.S. troops should leave because the Iraqis want us to leave.

While my position on the withdrawal of U.S. military forces is not driven by domestic politics, it is nonetheless good domestic politics.

U.S. troops should leave because they are the wrong instrument for the political problems that the Iraqis now face.

I continue to believe that this decision represents a failure of leadership, both Iraqi and American, that it was a sad case of political expediency, supplanting military necessity, both in Baghdad and in Washington, and that it will have…

I believe that that was the right decision.

We've declared energy independence. We don't believe that we should be dependent on a drop of foreign oil.

Currently the Nation is virtually energy independent in the stationary sector. Neither natural gas nor coal--the fossil fuels most important to stationary energy--are currently traded in an integrated global market that sets a global price.

The withdrawal of U.S. forces with Iraqis in charge of their own security and violence at record lows was unimaginable 4 years ago.

I think it's a great idea that at some point in time we need to designate a portion of our severance money to go into a perpetual trust that we use solely for infrastructure in West Virginia in the future.

I think certainty is important to all of the stakeholders involved in natural gas development here.

The feds aren't going to take primacy from us.

The main thing that we have to remember here is this is the beginning. This is not a bill that it's a onetime deal.