Democratic Response to Bush
13 September 2007 6:28 pm by Taylor Marsh
Democratic Response to Bush updated
VIDEO: Senator Jack Reed
VIDEO: Senator Joe Biden
As they come in…
Barack
Obama’s response to Bush’s speech (just received via email):
“It is long past time to end a war that never should have started. President
Bush was wrong when he took us to war, he was wrong when he escalated this
war in January, and he is wrong to stay the course now. I opposed this war
from the beginning, I introduced legislation in January that would have already
started to bring our troops home, and I will continue to lead the fight in
the Senate for a fixed timeline with a deadline for the removal of all of
our combat troops. The American people are not going to be fooled by the same
false promises of success that got us into Iraq. Iraq¹s leaders are not
making the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge, but
the President wants us to keep giving him a blank check. We must not continue
the enormous sacrifice of our troops, our military readiness, our treasury,
and our standing in the world just to keep the violence at the same unacceptable
levels it was at in 2005 and 2006. That is why I have proposed an immediate
and sustained removal of 1 to 2 combat brigades each month to conclude by
the end of next year. We have to come together  not as Republicans and
Democrats  but as Americans to turn the page in Iraq so that we can recapture
our unity of purpose at home and our leadership around the world.”
“Regrettably, the President did not seize the opportunity tonight to offer the American people a candid assessment of the challenges that we continue to face in Iraq, or offer a change in course to his failing strategy. Instead, he portrayed an unavoidable reduction in U.S. troops to pre-surge levels as a marker of progress. Redeploying over the next year five of the twenty combat brigades currently deployed in Iraq will merely bring our total number of troops back to the same level that existed before the President announced his escalation in January of this year. As was discussed during General Petraeus’s testimony this week, troop levels in Iraq must decrease by this amount regardless, in order to avoid extending Army deployments beyond 15 months and straining our military even further than it already is.
What the President told the American people tonight is that one year from now, there will be the same number of troops in Iraq as there were one year ago. That is simply too little too late, and unacceptable to this Congress and the American people who have made clear their strong desire to bring our brave troops home.
The Commander-in-Chief has the authority to issue the order to greatly accelerate the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq, and to bring so many more of our troops home so much faster. They have done everything we have asked of them and more, but are now stuck in the middle of a civil war. I continue to implore the President to change course, bring our troops home faster, and end this war responsibly as soon as possible.”
