Al Franken on War & Peace

Convince the Iraqi government that we're leaving by leaving

There is no reason to believe that the Maliki government is able, or even willing, to meet the political benchmarks necessary to make progress in Iraq: devising a fair plan to share oil revenues among ethnic groups; reversing the disastrous de-Baathification and putting Sunnis back to work; engaging and eliminating sectarian death squads; and starting a reconciliation process to defuse sectarian tensions. Conversely, there is every reason to believe that the Maliki government just wants us to stay there so that they can consolidate their power. Our troops should not be there to make that happen. The best way to convince the Iraqi government that we're leaving is to actually start leaving. I support immediately beginning the process of bringing our troops home. Our withdrawal should not be precipitous, and we should have a national conversation about the best way to disengage--we should put more thought into how we get out than we did into how we got in. But we should start now. Source: Campaign website, www.AlFranken.com, "Issues" May 14, 2008

The litany of mistakes in Iraq is endless

After leading us into war under false pretenses, the Bush administration has dug us a deep hole in Iraq. The litany of mistakes is endless: the failure to send enough troops, the botched de-Baathification, the refusal to stop looting in the aftermath of the invasion, the firing of the Iraqi army (essentially telling hundreds of thousands of young Iraqi men, "You're fired, get out of here, we're not going to pay you, and take your weapons with you!"). Source: Campaign website, www.AlFranken.com, "Issues" May 14, 2008

Start bringing our troops home from Iraq

It's time to start bringing our troops home from Iraq. After leading us into war under false pretenses, the Bush administration has dug us a deep hole in Iraq. The litany of mistakes is endless: the failure to send enough troops, the botched de-Baathification, the refusal to stop looting in the aftermath of the invasion, the firing of the Iraqi army, and especially the Republican Congress's refusal to do any oversight of the war. Source: Campaign website, www.alfranken.com, "Issues" Mar 9, 2008

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Page last updated: 3/31/2008