Senator Barack Obama |
Senator John McCain |
Summary • We need to begin a phased withdrawal on May 1 |
Summary • We must prepare for perhaps decades in Iraq |
"Since January, I have put forward a very specific plan that is designed to create the last best hope to pressure the Sunni and the Shia to reach political accommodation. That's to let the Iraqi government know that America is not going to be there indefinitely. So, what my plan says is that on May 1st of this year, we need to begin a phased withdrawal from Iraq, with the goal of removing all combat troops by March 31st of next year. And we've got 54 sponsors so far on the bill. We're gonna keep on pushing that agenda." "The withdrawal has to begin soon. It's time to end this war. It's time to refocus our efforts on the wider struggle against terror, and it's time for us to work much more aggressively diplomatically both inside Iraq and regionally if we're gonna see the kind of stability in Iraq that all of us hope for." |
"We are going to be there for some period of time, but it's American casualties, not American presence. We've got troops right next door in Kuwait. We'll probably have them there for a long time. We have troops in Bosnia. We've had troops in South Korea for some 50 years. We need to protect America's national security interest. We are succeeding. We're going to support this surge. We're not going to talk about timetables or anything else; we're going to talk about winning and what's necessary to win. I'm the only one that said that Rumsfeld had to go and the Petraeus strategy is the one that can succeed. That's because I have the experience, the knowledge, and the judgment. It's not American presence, because America, as the world's superpower, is going to have to be a lot of places in the world. It's how they come home. As president, I will follow in this tradition of sticking to my principles no matter what and bring our troops home with honor." |
April 10, 2007 |
January 30, 2008 |
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