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Dem Rep. McNerney Firmly Committed To Date Certain For Iraq Withdrawal

KagroX points to the pitfalls that the September Petraeus Bush Report creates for Dems. Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) corrects a mistake made in the USA Today article Kagro cites about his position on Iraq:

[A]s we approach this pivotal debate, I want to clearly and unequivocally express to you where I stand on the question of executing a responsible redeployment from Iraq:

I am firmly in favor of withdrawing troops on a timeline that includes both a definite start date and a definite end date ("date certain") and uses clearly-defined benchmarks. I am not in favor of an "open-ended" timeline for withdrawal, as some members of Congress have proposed recently.

As many foreign policy experts agree, setting a date certain for withdrawal is fundamental to forcing George W. Bush to bring our troops home from Iraq and ensuring the Iraqis step up and defend their own country. That's why -- even as I consider all proposals as a matter of due diligence -- I am standing strong on setting a definite redeployment end date (as an example, I recently voted for the "Responsible Redeployment from Iraq Act" to safely draw down our troops over the course of nine months).

Well done Representative McNerney.

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    How about Brian Baird? (none / 0) (#1)
    by cmpnwtr on Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 03:20:48 PM EST
    Is Brian Baird of southern Washington state going to retract also? If not he needs a strong challenger in the coming primary.

    Background (none / 0) (#2)
    by koshembos on Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 04:16:50 PM EST
    It seems the HRC has finally made an unforced mistake. She consented that there is some military progress. In other words, Petraeus is doing fine. There are two assumptions made by many that are not necessarily correct.

    1. There is some military progress: since there is no real evidence for that except to the generals word, this assumption should not be made.

    2. There is a serious Al-Qaida presence in Iraq. This also comes from the military and even more so from the political level, with our experience with both sources, one should not assume that Al-Qaida is anything except a small entity in Iraq.


    Tony Perry of the LA Times, has spent a (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by oculus on Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 04:22:24 PM EST
    great deal of time in Iraq w/Marines from Camp Pendleton.  Perry sees progress in Faluja (sp) compared to the last time he was in Iraq, when it was a burned out city with the residents hiding outside the city limits. He also acknowledges that, once the Marines leave, so will the "progress."  

    Parent
    Can't win fer winnin (none / 0) (#5)
    by Militarytracy on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 07:55:09 AM EST
    Can't lose fer losin.

    Parent
    Good for McNerney (none / 0) (#4)
    by janinsanfran on Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 06:19:16 PM EST
    Since I put a small amount of energy into trying to elect him, I'm glad he has not backslid.