Politics

It was a mistake to assume the president would use the authority we gave him properly...We gave the president the authority to unite the world to isolate Saddam. And the fact of the matter is, we went too soon. We went without sufficient force. And we went without a plan.

I believe the president's strategy is not a solution...I believe it's a tragic mistake...We've tried that kind of escalation twice before in Baghdad, and it's failed twice in Baghdad, and I fear it will fail a third time.

The idea is to maintain a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis their own regions...It would allow us to responsibly withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2007.

If I had been President in October of 2002, I would have never asked for authority to divert our attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, and I certainly would never have started this war.

I will be introducing legislation that I think offers a better alternative. First, my legislation will cap the number of troops in Iraq as of January 1, and will require the Administration to seek Congressional authorization for any additional troops.

I've been in favor of phased redeployment of our troops, bringing them home as quickly as possible, but based on a comprehensive strategy that looked at the diplomatic, political, and economic challenges and, frankly, exerted some leverage on the Iraqis who have to take these actions if any possible salvage can be made of this situation.

Had we known before the war what we know today - that there were no weapons of mass destruction; that there were no links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda; that there was no imminent threat from Iraq to America's security or vital interests - Congress would never have considered, let alone voted to authorize, the use of force in Iraq.

I do not believe that the authorization provided by the Congress in 2002 gives the President the unlimited authority to send additional troops to Iraq.

We must begin immediately to reposition our troops from Baghdad, Fallujah, and other large urban centers to Kurdistan, where there is relative law and order, and where they would be more accepted; to other, less populated areas of Iraq, where their training of Iraqi forces can continue; and to border areas, where they can protect the territorial integrity of Iraq until Iraqi forces can do so themselves.

I was wrong...The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

I believe it is a betrayal not to speak out against the escalation of the war our nation is engaged in today, in Iraq. It is a betrayal for this President to send more troops into harm's way when we know it will not succeed in bringing stability to the region.

We have to take the next step and cap funding to mandate a withdrawal. We don't need debate; we don't need non-binding resolutions; we need to end this war, and Congress has the power to do it.

Given the extreme importance of any decision to go to war, and I am anguished to say this, it's my opinion that anyone who voted for the war on October 11 - based on what President Bush represented - is not qualified to hold the office of President.

It is not enough for congress to merely voice opposition to the 'surge' of over 20,000 new troops, nor is it enough to threaten to withhold funding or pass non binding, symbolic resolutions. We must demand an end to this war now - not 6 or 12 or 24 months from now.

If we don't bring our soldiers home now, what do we tell the families of those killed and maimed between now and some future arbitrary date? The sooner we get our military out of Iraq, the sooner we can turn to the international community to help with a diplomatic solution to bring an end to the sectarian civil war we caused.

This attempt to foment a war is really against the best interests of America, it is against the spirit of the country, it is against the economic interests of the people.

This escalation means a continuation of the occupation, more troop and civilian casualties, more anger toward the US, more support for the insurgency, more instability in Iraq and in the region, and prolonged civil war at a time when there is a general agreement in the world community that the solution in Iraq must be political not military. What is needed is a comprehensive political process. And the decision is not President Bush's alone to make.

It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war and yet continues to fund it. This contradiction runs as a deep fault line through our politics, undermining public trust in the political process and in those elected to represent the people. If you oppose the war, then do not vote to fund it.

I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars.

Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried and failed policy opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and even the Iraqis themselves. It is time for us to fundamentally change our policy.

I'm introducing the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007. This plan would not only place a cap on the number of troops in Iraq and stop the escalation, more importantly, it would begin a phased redeployment of U.S. forces with the goal of removing of all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by March 31st, 2008 - consistent with the expectations of the bipartisan Iraq study group that the President has so assiduously ignored.

I have struggled for a long time over Iraq. Like most Americans, I am saddened by the horrific violence that takes dozens, scores of innocent lives every day. And like most Americans, I believe that our country has a moral obligation to do what we can to help the Iraqis end that violence. And because of that belief, it has not been easy for me to come to this conclusion: that the best thing we can do-for them as well as for ourselves-is to leave.

Like every American, I want to give the president a chance. I want him to succeed. But what he's proposing is just not going to work. Twenty-thousand additional troops, it's a quagmire. Our military, our bipartisan Iraq Study Group says that we have got to reverse course and he is not listening.

The best thing we can do - for them as well as for ourselves - is to leave. Carefully and strategically. But we must leave. And soon. Because our military has done all it can do there... We should harbor no illusions. This withdrawal will not be pretty. People will die. But fewer will die than if we stay. There are no guarantees that our departure will end the civil war. But it is sure to continue so long as we stay.

I support that mission...[our troops] are crucial to denying radical Islamic extremists a safe haven from which they can launch further attacks. They are essential to providing the training necessary for the Iraqi Security Forces to take charge of their country's security. We cannot afford to lose this fight. Iraq is the key front in the war on terrorism.

I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution.

While we cannot make a precipitous withdrawal, we can transfer more security responsibility to the Iraqis and reduce the threat to American troops.

We hadn't been in there (Iraq). We didn't know what the hell was in there. And the president wouldn't do it! So to answer your question--Do I regret that vote? Yes, I do regret that vote.

This is a dangerously wrong-headed strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost. It is wrong to place American troops into the middle of Iraq's civil war.

A new American strategy for Iraq should include moving our troops out of the cities to Iraq's border areas, allowing us to help secure the territorial integrity of Iraq which will be seriously threatened and is critical for the future of Iraq.

I agreed with the President's difficult decision to go to war in Iraq. I remain fully supportive of his determination not to leave Iraq until the freely elected government of that country and its armed forces are able to defend their country from foreign and domestic enemies intent on thwarting the will of the Iraqi people to create a civil society in which the rights and security of all Iraqis are protected.

A substantial and sustained increase in U.S. forces in Baghdad and Anbar province is necessary to bring down the toxic levels of violence there. The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own - impose its rule throughout the country.

If we walk away from Iraq, we will be back - possibly in the context of a wider war in the world's most volatile region. I believe that those who disagree with this new policy should indicate what they would propose to do if we withdraw and Iraq descends into chaos.

I think it's quite appropriate to go back and explain, 'Well, I might have done it this way, or I might have done it with more troops, or I might have done it some other way.' But here's the reality of it: We're at war. And we're at war because they're at war with us. They want to come here and kill us....so we've got to put Iraq in the context of a much broader picture than just Iraq.

I support what the president asked for support to do and what General Petraeus has asked for support to do, not because there's any guarantee it's going to work. There's never any guarantee at war. But if we can come out with a correct solution or a better solution in Iraq, it's going to make the whole war on terror go better.

I always believed, during the 2004 election, that John Kerry really wanted to pull out of Iraq, and he just didn't say it. And I think a lot of the Democratic party is in that mindset, that we have to pull out of Iraq. And I think that would be a terrible mistake, to cut and run.

The mission of bringing Saddam Hussein down didn't fail - our military didn't fail. Our policies may have been shortsighted and that they did not take into account the complexity of trying to build a democracy in a people who'd never experienced it.

We need to understand that this is, in fact, World War III. Unlike any other world war we've ever fought, this one is one we cannot afford to lose.

I'm going to have to trust the people over there sucking that sand into their lungs and putting their boots on the ground every day, that they may know a little more about it than those of us who don't have the stack full of intelligence reports to look at.

It's like a baseball game, not a football game. You can't put on a specific clock...We have to tell them, look, we're not going to be here indefinitely. What we're going to expect of you is you're going to have to get control of the sectarian violence, the civil war that is just ripping this whole thing apart because the American people are not going to stay indefinitely. It all depends on how things go over the next year.

The greatest protection of human rights in this decade has been the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The number of troops that we've got...is still less troops than we had last December, a year ago December. So the so-called big surge actually takes us up to fewer folks than we had one year and two months ago in Iraq.

There is a right way to leave Iraq and that is to continue to rotate Iraqi battalions that we've trained and equipped into the fight.

I supported the president at the time that he entered into Iraq and believed that he had the kind of information he needed to have to make that decision.

Following the collapse of the Hussein government, we found that the planning level and the troop strength level were not adequate for the need.

I believe that so long as there is a reasonable prospect of success, our wisest course is to seek stability in Iraq, with additional troops endeavoring to secure the civilian population.

Our desire to bring our troops home, safely and soon, is met with our recognition that if Iraq descends into all-out civil war, millions could die...the possible implications for America and for American interests from such developments could be devastating.

Given the fact that [weapons of mass destruction] have not been found and perhaps were not there, we all wonder what we would have done in those circumstances had we known that. If I knew that was not the threat that had been posed to us . . . I think I would have voted no. I do not know right now that that (no vote) would have been the right vote because this thing hasn't played out.

The bigger question raised by the President is whether an increased American military presence in Iraq will aid us in winning the global war against radical Islam and I am not convinced that it will.

In his speech to the nation on the war in Iraq, the President said he was establishing a 'November benchmark' for the Iraqis to complete the task of controlling all provinces of the country. This should be more than a benchmark. I believe it should be used as the time frame for our disengagement from Iraq.

People got lulled into believing that we moved so rapidly in Iraq that the Iraqi people were just going to stand up and embrace us. They didn't do that...We went in with a slimmed-down force because we thought we were so good and so able to defeat the enemy so quick that we didn't need a big army anymore. That was the mistake.

[President Bush has] come up with a program that was really brought to the forefront by General [David] Petraeus, who is the commanding general in Iraq. And General Petraeus sincerely believes that the surge capacity will stabilize Baghdad and will allow the government to work. We should give this opportunity a chance to work.

A vote should be conducted to ask the Iraqi people whether they want the United States' presence in their country. The government should support a course that divides Iraq into separate nations or states, and then divide money from Iraq oil reserves between the government, separate states and individuals.