Rep. Andrews Responds to the President's Remarks about Iraq 

The President's position to stay stuck in Iraq weakens us in our war against the jihadists who attacked us on September 11th and who lust after the chance to attack us again. These terrorists are, for the most part, camped out in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, not fighting us in Iraq.  We have sent the best people in the world-the men and women of the US military--to execute the worst policy--refereeing a civil war between Shiite and Sunni factions in Iraq.

We should commence to bring these troops out of Iraq, and the Iraqis should commence serious negotiations to effectuate an end to their civil war. Until we stop spilling our blood to protect their government, I believe the Iraqis will never settle this civil war. As long as we are mired in Iraq and losing an American life every twelve hours, we are weakening--not strengthening--our efforts to defeat the jihadists who crave the next September 11th.

Below is a recent Article regarding the President's remarks:

Iraqi prime minister endorsed by Bush Thursday, August 23, 2007

By Bill Cahir
Bill.Cahir@Newhouse.com

President Bush on Wednesday stuck to a script that the White House released a day in advance and warned that an American withdrawal from Iraq would produce a humanitarian crisis similar to the chaos that wracked Southeast Asia in the years following the U.S. pullout from Vietnam.

"In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea," Bush said.

The American defeat in Vietnam, Bush claimed, produced a legacy for American
enemies: It had encouraged Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, to conclude that the American public would relent rather than provide the political support needed for the United States to win a long-term war, Bush argued.

"We must listen to the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say ... And to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating," Bush said.

The president, speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Kansas City, Mo., additionally likened the U.S. cause in Iraq to the principles that motivated U.S. servicemen during World War II and the Korean War as well.

The president's presentation, touted by the White House as a major foreign policy address, provoked a protest from U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews, a New Jersey Democrat who voted in October 2002 for the plan to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

"The president's position to stay stuck in Iraq weakens us in our war against the jihadists who attacked us on Sept. 11 and who lust after the chance to attack us again," Andrews claimed in a statement provided by his chief of staff, Bill Caruso. "These terrorists are, for the most part, camped out in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, not fighting us in Iraq."

U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez on Wednesday noted the fact Bush had offered a vote of confidence for embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al Maliki, a Shiite who had not come up with a plan to effectively reconcile Iraq's Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions under one political umbrella.

The key issues confronting Maliki include fairly distributing Iraq's oil revenue, providing regional autonomy sought by Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni leaders in cities distant from Baghdad, allowing former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party back into government jobs, ensuring Sunni regions receive money to support public services, and providing competent security forces to all regions on a non-sectarian basis.

Bush called Maliki "a good guy, good man with a difficult job."
"President Bush's history lesson this morning does little to help us bring our troops home safely," Menendez said in a statement. "The key to getting ahead is taking whatever task you are given and doing it well. While the United States military is doing its job well and I've supported giving them the resources they need to do the job they've been given Iraqi officials don't seem to have the same level of commitment to getting the job done."

"It's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position," Bush said in his speech. "It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship."
U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo fresh from his sixth trip to Iraq this week gave a mixed report card to the president's surge of troops into Iraq.
LoBiondo praised the security gains that the Marine Corps had achieved in al Anbar Province. However, he criticized the Maliki government for failing to make progress on key issues that might help heal sectarian rifts.

Wayne White, head of the U.S. State Department's intelligence and research section on Iraq between 2003 and 2005, now works as a scholar associated with a think tank called the Middle East Institute. White notes that the Maliki government has been distressed to see U.S. Marines forge a strengthening alliance with Sunni tribes willing to fight al Qaeda in the al Anbar Province.

"Fearing, with good reason, a future civil war is likely, they do not wish to see Sunni Arabs being allowed to organize, arm themselves or join government security forces in large numbers because Sunni Arabs would then be far better positioned to resist inevitable Shi'a and Kurdish efforts to seize additional mixed areas of the country," White said in an e-mail.

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