Iraq

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the President’s decision to go into Iraq, we are now there and it would be a greater threat to our country’s interests, security, and safety to simply adopt the policies of surrender and withdraw. Surrender and withdraw would be the policies that the Islamic militants would most like to see us adopt and would represent their victory and continued use of extreme violence and terrorism in destabilizing the world.

Washington let us down in the war in Iraq. The most optimistic scenarios of victory were put forward as fact and our citizens were not prepared for the long and difficult war that was ahead for our troops. John McCain was right, we needed more troops in Iraq to clear and hold the advances of our military. Civilian American leaders in Iraq put forward policies that accomplished nothing more than egotistical talking points but amounted to nothing.

If we simply pack up and come home as many Democrats suggest, we will be facing chilling repercussions. Our enemy will be emboldened, declare victory, and continue to target American and allied assets and interests across the world. All enemies of the United States will begin to utilize terrorism as a tactic to weaken the spirit of our armed forces.

• We must ensure that our troops have the resources and intelligence on the ground and in the air to successfully continue to prosecute the war in Iraq
• We must have a clear path to continued progress that allows for our troops to come home safely
• We must hold onto the progress we have made against the insurgents
• We must provide security for rebuilding local institutions
• We must put a halt to the sectarian violence and disarm Sunni and Shia militias
• We must continue to train and build up the Iraqi Army so that Iraqi’s are in a position to govern and defend their country
• We must work with our allies in the Middle East and Europe to address the future of Iraq
• We must support our troops in this ongoing conflict