U.S. Senator Russ Feingold’s patience has run out:
As the president made clear Wednesday night, he has no intention of redeploying our troops from Iraq. Congress cannot continue to accept this. Congress can, by restricting funding for this misguided war, do what the president refuses to do – redeploy from Iraq to refocus on defeating global terrorist networks.
Some will claim that cutting off funding for the war would endanger our brave troops on the ground. Not true. The safety of our service men and women in Iraq is paramount, and we can and should end funding for the war without putting our troops in further danger.
Congress will continue to give our troops the resources and support they need, but by, for example, specifying a time after which funding for the war would end, it can give the president the time needed to redeploy troops safely from Iraq.
Our troops in Iraq have done their job professionally and heroically. But we cannot continue to send our nation’s best into a war that was started – and is still maintained – on false pretenses. An indefinite presence of U.S. military personnel in Iraq will not fix that country’s political problems. And sending more troops will not provide the stability that can only come from a political agreement.
Our country needs a new national security strategy that starts with a redeployment from Iraq so we can focus on the global threats to our national security that have only grown while this administration has been bogged down in that country.
You can read Feingold’s entire op-ed here.
I don’t think that it would be wise for the Democrats to truly pursue this.
Furthermore, I didn’t want to do an entire post on Bush’s plan. My opinion on it hasn’t changed. If anything, I found Bush’s speech to be embarrassing (stay off painkillers before giving a speech please), it contained nothing really new, I still don’t see how this plan might actually accomplish something, the list goes on and on.
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