[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18705-18707]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       SENATOR KERRY'S IRAQ PLAN

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, yesterday, Senator Kerry laid out his 
plan for Iraq and for enlisting international support to ease the 
burden on our troops, restoring stability to Iraq, and bringing our 
troops home in honor. It is a clear warning that conditions are 
worsening in Iraq and changes are urgently needed. His speeches have 
been praised for his thoughtfulness and realistic vision for advancing 
America's interests in that troubled region.
  I ask unanimous consent to have Senator Kerry's speech printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the materials was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 20, 2004]

                        Kerry Lays Out Iraq Plan

       Following is the text of Democratic presidential candidate 
     John Kerry's speech delivered in New York.
       (Joined in progress) KERRY: I am really honored to be here 
     at New York University, at NYU Wagner, one of the great urban 
     universities in America. Not just in New York, but in the 
     world. You've set a high standard, you always set a high 
     standard for global dialogue, as Ellen (ph) mentioned a 
     moment ago. And I intend to live up to that tradition here 
     today. This election is about choices. The most important 
     choices a president makes are about protecting America, at 
     home and around the world. A president's first obligation is 
     to make America safer, stronger and truer to our ideals.
       Only a few blocks from here, three years ago, the events of 
     September 11th remind every American of that obligation. That 
     day brought to our shores the defining struggle of our times: 
     the struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism. And 
     it made clear that our most important task is to fight and to 
     win the war on terrorism.
       With us today is a remarkable group of women who lost loved 
     ones on September 11th, and whose support I am honored to 
     have. Not only did they suffer unbearable loss, but they 
     helped us as a nation to learn the lessons of that terrible 
     time by insisting on the creation of the 9/11 Commission.
       I ask them to stand, and I thank them on behalf of our 
     country, and I pledge to them, and to you, that I will 
     implement the 9/11 recommendations. Thank you.
       In fighting the war on terrorism my principles are 
     straightforward. The terrorists are beyond reason. We must 
     destroy them. As president I will do whatever it takes, as 
     long as it takes, to defeat our enemies.
       But billions of people around the world, yearning for a 
     better life, are open to America's ideals. We must reach 
     them.
       To win, America must be strong and America must be smart.
       The greatest threat that we face is the possibility of Al 
     Qaida or other terrorists getting their hands on nuclear 
     weapons. To prevent that from happening we have to call on 
     the totality of America's strength: strong alliances to help 
     us stop the world's most lethal weapons from falling into the 
     most dangerous hands; a powerful military, transformed to 
     meet the threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of 
     mass destruction; and all of America's power--our diplomacy, 
     our intelligence system, our economic power, our appeal to 
     the values, the values of Americans, and to connect them to 
     the values of other people around the world--each of which is 
     critical to making America more secure and to preventing a 
     new generation of terrorists from emerging.
       We owe it to the American people to have a real debate 
     about the choices President Bush has made, and the choices I 
     would make and have made, to fight and win the war on terror.
       That means that we must have a great and honest debate on 
     Iraq.
       The president claims it is the centerpiece of his war on 
     terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war 
     and the battle against our greatest enemy.
       Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and from our 
     greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.
       Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions 
     and if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a 
     war with no end in sight.
       This month, we passed a cruel milestone: more than 1,000 
     Americans lost in Iraq. Their sacrifice reminds us that Iraq 
     remains overwhelmingly an American burden. Nearly 90 percent 
     of the troops and nearly 90 percent of the casualties are 
     American.
       Despite the president's claims, this is not a grand 
     coalition.
       Our troops have served with extraordinary bravery and skill 
     and resolve. Their service humbles all of us. I visited with 
     some of them in the hospitals and I am stunned by their 
     commitment, by their sense of duty, their patriotism. When I 
     speak to them, when I look into the eyes of their families, I 
     know this: We owe them the truth about what we have asked 
     them to do and what is still to be done.
       Would you all join me? My wife Teresa has made it through 
     the traffic, and I'm delighted that she is here. Thank you.
       In June, the president declared, The Iraqi people have 
     their country back. And just last week he told us, This 
     country is headed toward democracy; freedom is on the march. 
     But the administration's own official intelligence estimate, 
     given to the president last July, tells a very different 
     story.
       According to press reports, the intelligence estimate 
     totally contradicts what the president is saying to the 
     American people and so do the facts on the ground.
       Security is deteriorating for us and for the Iraqis. Forty-
     two Americans died in Iraq in June, the month before the 
     handover. But 54 died in July, 66 in August and already 54 
     halfway through September. And more than 1,100 Americans were 
     wounded in August; more than in any other month since the 
     invasion.
       We are fighting a growing insurgency in an ever-widening 
     war zone. In March, insurgents attacked our forces 700 times. 
     In August, they attacked 2,700 times; a 400 percent increase.
       Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra and parts of Iraq are now no-go 
     zones, breeding grounds for terrorists, who are free to plot 
     and to launch attacks against our soldiers.
       The radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is accused of 
     complicity in the murder of Americans, holds more sway in 
     suburbs of Baghdad than the prime minister.
       Violence against Iraqis, from bombings to kidnappings to 
     intimidation, is on the rise.
       Basic living conditions are also deteriorating.
       Yes, there has been some progress. Thanks to the 
     extraordinary efforts of our soldiers and civilians in Iraq, 
     schools, shops and hospitals have been opened in certain 
     places. In parts of Iraq, normalcy actually prevails.
       But most Iraqis have lost faith in our ability to be able 
     to deliver meaningful improvements to their lives. So they're 
     sitting on the fence, instead of siding with us against the 
     insurgents.
       That is the truth, the truth that the commander in chief 
     owes to our troops and to the American people.
       Now, I will say to you, it is never easy to discuss what 
     has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But 
     it is essential if you want to correct the course and do 
     what's right for those troops, instead of repeating the same 
     old mistakes over and over again.
       I know this dilemma firsthand. I saw firsthand what happens 
     when pride or arrogance take over from rational decision-
     making. And after serving in a war, I returned home to offer 
     my own personal views of dissent. I did so because I believed 
     strongly that we owed it to those risking their lives to 
     speak truth to power. And we still do.
       Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own 
     special place in Hell. But that was not--that was not, in and 
     of itself, a reason to go to war.
       The satisfaction that we take in his downfall does not hide 
     this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has 
     left America less secure.
       Now, the president has said that he miscalculated in Iraq, 
     and that it was a catastrophic success.
       The first and most fundamental mistake was the president's 
     failure to tell the truth to the American people.
       He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going 
     to war, and he failed to tell the truth about the burden this 
     war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens.
       By one count, the president offered 23 different rationales 
     for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the 
     American people, he succeeded.
       His two main rationales, weapons of mass destruction and 
     the Al Qaida-September 11th connection, have both been proved 
     false by the president's own weapons inspectors and by the 9/
     11 Commission.
       And just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged 
     those facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that 
     the Earth is flat.
       The president also failed to level with the American people 
     about what it would take to prevail in Iraq. He didn't tell 
     us that well over 100,000 troops would be needed for years, 
     not months. He didn't tell us that he wouldn't take the time 
     to assemble a genuine, broad, strong coalition of allies. He 
     didn't tell us that the cost would exceed $200 billion. He 
     didn't tell us that even after paying such a heavy price, 
     success was far from assured.
       And America will pay an even heavier price for the 
     president's lack of candor.
       At home, the American people are less likely to trust this 
     administration if it needs to summon their support to meet 
     real and pressing threats to our security.
       In the dark days of the Cuban missile crisis, President 
     Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe 
     to build support. Acheson explained the situation to French 
     President de Gaulle. Then he offered to show him highly 
     classified satellite photos as proof. De Gaulle waved him 
     away, saying, The word of the president of the United States 
     is good enough for me.

[[Page 18706]]

       How many world leaders have that same trust in America's 
     president today? This president's failure to tell the truth 
     to us and to the world before the war has been exceeded by 
     fundamental errors of judgment during and after the war.
       The president now admits to miscalculations in Iraq. 
     Miscalculations: This is one of the greatest underestimates 
     in recent American history.
       His miscalculations were not the equivalent of accounting 
     errors. They were colossal failures of judgment, and judgment 
     is what we look for in a president.
       And this is all the more stunning, because we're not 
     talking about 20/20 hindsight, we're not talking about Monday 
     morning quarterbacking. Before the war, before he chose to go 
     to war, bipartisan congressional hearings, major outside 
     studies and even some in his own administration, predicted 
     virtually every problem that we face in Iraq today.
       The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible 
     and real consequences.
       The administration told us we would be greeted as 
     liberators; they were wrong. They told us not to worry about 
     the looting or the sorry state of Iraq's infrastructure; they 
     were wrong. They told us we had enough troops to provide 
     security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the 
     borders and secure the arms depots; they were tragically 
     wrong.
       They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to 
     build political legitimacy; they were wrong. They told us we 
     would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the 
     country, and a police force and an army to secure it; they 
     were wrong.
       In Iraq, this administration has consistently overpromised 
     and underperformed. And this policy has been plagued by a 
     lack of planning, by an absence of candor, arrogance and 
     outright incompetence.
       And the president has held no one accountable, including 
     himself.
       In fact, the only officials--the only officials who've lost 
     their jobs over Iraq were the ones who told the truth.
       Economic adviser Larry Lindsey said it would cost as much 
     as $200 billion. Pretty good calculation. He was fired.
       After the successful entry into Baghdad, George Bush was 
     offered help from the U.N., and he rejected it, stiff-armed 
     them, decided to go it alone. He even prohibited nations from 
     participating in reconstruction efforts because they weren't 
     part of the original coalition, pushing reluctant countries 
     even further away. And as we continue to fight this war 
     almost alone, it is hard to estimate how costly that arrogant 
     decision really was.
       Can anyone seriously say this president has handled Iraq in 
     a way that makes America stronger in the war on terrorism?
       AUDIENCE: No!
       KERRY: By any measure, by any measure, the answer is no.
       Nuclear dangers have mounted across the globe. The 
     international terrorist club has expanded. Radicalism in the 
     Middle East is on the rise. We have divided our friends and 
     united our enemies. And our standing in the world is at an 
     all-time low.
       Think about it for a minute. Consider where we were and 
     where we are.
       After the events of September 11th, we had an opportunity 
     to bring our country and the world together in a legitimate 
     struggle against terrorists. On September 12th, headlines and 
     newspapers abroad declared that, We are all Americans now.
       But through his policy in Iraq, the president squandered 
     that moment and, rather than isolating the terrorists, left 
     America isolated from the world.
       We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, 
     and posed no imminent threat to our security.
       The president's policy in Iraq took our attention and our 
     resources away from other more serious threats to America, 
     threats like North Korea, which actually has weapons of mass 
     destruction, including a nuclear arsenal, and is building 
     more right now under this president's watch; the emerging 
     nuclear danger of Iran; the tons and kilotons of unsecured 
     chemical and nuclear weapons in Russia; and the increasing 
     instability in Afghanistan.
       Today, warlords again control much of that country, the 
     Taliban is regrouping, opium production is at an all-time 
     high and the Al Qaida leadership still plots and plans, not 
     only there, but in 60 other nations.
       Instead of using U.S. forces, we relied on warlords, who 
     one week earlier had been fighting on the other side, to go 
     up in the mountains to capture Osama bin Laden when he was 
     cornered. He slipped away.
       We then diverted our focus and our forces from the hunt for 
     those who were responsible for September 11th in order to 
     invade Iraq.
       We know now that Iraq played no part. We knew then on 
     September 11th. And it had no operational ties to Al Qaida.
       The president's policy in Iraq precipitated the very 
     problem that he said he was trying to prevent.
       Secretary of State Powell admits that Iraq was not a magnet 
     for international terrorists before their war; now it is, and 
     they are operating against our troops.
       Iraq is becoming a sanctuary for a new generation of 
     terrorists who could someday hit the United States of 
     America.
       And we know that while Iraq was a source of friction, it 
     was not previously a source of serious disagreement with our 
     allies in Europe and countries in the Muslim world.
       The president's policy in Iraq divided our oldest alliance 
     and sent our standing in the Muslim world into freefall.
       Three years after 9/11, even in many moderate Muslim 
     countries, like Jordan, Morocco and Turkey, Osama bin Laden 
     is more popular than the United States of America.
       Two years ago, Congress was right to give the president the 
     authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. 
     This president, any president, would have needed that threat 
     of force to act effectively. This president misused that 
     authority.
       The power entrusted to the president purposefully gave him 
     a strong hand to play in the international community. The 
     idea was simple: We would get the weapons inspectors back in 
     to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction 
     and we would convince the world to speak with one voice to 
     Saddam, disarm or be disarmed.
       A month before the war, President Bush told the nation, If 
     we have to act, we will take every precaution that is 
     possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full 
     power of the United States military. We will act with allies 
     at our side and we will prevail.
       Instead, the president rushed to war, without letting the 
     weapons inspectors finish their work. He went purposefully, 
     by choice, without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He 
     acted by choice, without making sure that our troops even had 
     enough body armor. And he plunged ahead by choice, without 
     understanding or preparing for the consequences of postwar. 
     None of which I would have done.
       Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do 
     everything all over again the same way.
       How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying to 
     America that if we know there was no imminent threat, no 
     weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaida, the United 
     States should have invaded Iraq?
       My answer: resoundingly, no, because a commander in chief's 
     first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible 
     decision to keep America safe.
       Now the president is looking for a reason, a new reason to 
     hang his hat on--it's the capability to acquire weapons.
       Well, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow Americans, that was 
     not the reason given to the nation, that was not the reason 
     the Congress voted on. That is not a reason today; it is an 
     excuse.
       Thirty-five to 40 countries have greater capability to 
     build a nuclear bomb than Iraq did in 2003. Is President Bush 
     saying we should invade all of them?
       I would have personally concentrated our power and 
     resources on defeating global terrorism and capturing Osama 
     bin Laden.
       I would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure 
     and isolate Saddam Hussein--who was weak and getting weaker--
     so that he would pose no threat to the region or to America.
       The president's insistence that he would do the same thing 
     all over again in Iraq is a clear warning for the future. And 
     it makes the choice in this election clear: more of the same 
     with President Bush or a new, smarter direction with John 
     Kerry that makes our troops and America safer. That's the 
     choice.
       It is time, at long last, to ask the questions and insist 
     on the answers from the commander in chief about his serious 
     misjudgments and what they tell us about his administration 
     and the president himself.
       In Iraq, we have a mess on our hands. But we cannot just 
     throw up our hands, we cannot afford to see Iraq become a 
     permanent source of terror that will endanger America's 
     security for years to come.
       All across this country, people ask me and others, what we 
     should do now every stop of the way. From the first time I 
     spoke about this in the Senate, I have set out a specific set 
     of recommendations from day one, from the first debate until 
     this moment. I have set out specific steps of how we should 
     not and how we should proceed.
       But over and over, when this administration has been 
     presented with a reasonable alternative, they have rejected 
     it and gone their own way. This is stubborn incompetence.
       Five months ago in Fulton, Missouri, I said that the 
     president was close to his last chance to get it right. Every 
     day this president makes it more difficult to deal with Iraq, 
     harder than it was five months ago, harder than it was a year 
     ago, a year and a half ago.
       It's time to recognize what is and what is not happening in 
     Iraq today and we must act with urgency.
       Just this weekend, a leading Republican, Chuck Hagel, said 
     that, we're in deep trouble in Iraq. It doesn't add up to a 
     pretty picture, he said, and we're going to have to look at a 
     recalibration of our policy.
       Republican leaders like Dick Lugar and John McCain have 
     offered similar assessments.
       We need to turn the page and make a fresh start in Iraq.
       First, the president has to get the promised international 
     support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it 
     alone.

[[Page 18707]]

       Last spring, after too many months of delay, after 
     reluctance to take the advice of so many of us, the president 
     finally went back to the U.N., and it passed Resolution 1546. 
     It was the right thing to do, but it was late.
       That resolution calls on U.N. members to help in Iraq by 
     providing troops, trainers for Iraq's security forces and a 
     special brigade to protect the U.N. mission, and more 
     financial assistance and real debt relief.
       But guess what? Three months later, not a single country 
     has answered that call, and the president acts as if it 
     doesn't matter.
       And of the 13 billion that was previously pledged to Iraq 
     by other countries, only $1.2 billion has been delivered.
       The president should convene a summit meeting of the 
     world's major powers and of Iraq's neighbors, this week, in 
     New York, where many leaders will attend the U.N. General 
     Assembly, and he should insist that they make good on the 
     U.N. resolution. He should offer potential troop contributors 
     specific but critical roles in training Iraqi security 
     personnel and in securing Iraqi borders. He should give other 
     countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to 
     help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on 
     contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction 
     process.
       Now, is this more difficult today? You bet it is. It's more 
     difficult today because the president hasn't been doing it 
     from the beginning. And I and others have repeatedly 
     recommended this from the very beginning.
       Delay has only made it harder. After insulting allies and 
     shredding alliances, this president may not have the trust 
     and the confidence to bring others to our side in Iraq.
       But I'll tell you, we cannot hope to succeed unless we 
     rebuild and lead strong alliances so that other nations share 
     the burden with us. That is the only way to be successful in 
     the end.
       Second, the president must get serious about training Iraqi 
     security forces.
       Last February, Secretary Rumsfeld claimed that--claimed 
     that more than 210,000 Iraqis were in uniform. This is the 
     public statement to America.
       Well, guess what, America? Neither number bears any 
     relationship to the truth.
       For example, just 5,000 Iraqi soldiers have been fully 
     trained by the administration's own minimal standards. And of 
     the 35,000 police now in uniform, not one--not one has 
     completed a 24-week field training program.
       Is it any wonder that Iraqi security forces can't stop the 
     insurgency or provide basic law and order?
       The president should urgently expand the security forces' 
     training program inside and outside of Iraq. He should 
     strengthen the vetting of recruits, double the classroom 
     training time, require the follow-on field training. He 
     should recruit thousands of qualified trainers from our 
     allies, especially those who have no troops in Iraq. He 
     should press our NATO allies to open training centers in 
     their countries.
       And he should stop misleading the American people with 
     phony, inflated numbers and start behaving like we really are 
     at war.
       Third, the president must carry out a reconstruction plan 
     that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people, 
     all of which, may I say, should have been in the plan and 
     immediately launched with such a ferocity that there was no 
     doubt about America's commitment or capacity in the very 
     first moments afterwards. But they didn't plan.
       He ignored his own State Department's plan, he discarded 
     it.
       Last week, the administration admitted that its plan was a 
     failure when it asked Congress for permission to radically 
     revise the spending priorities in Iraq. It took them 17 
     months for them to understand that security is a priority, 17 
     months to figure out that boosting oil production is 
     critical, 17 months to conclude that an Iraqi with a job is 
     less likely to shoot at our soldiers.
       One year ago, this administration asked for and received 
     $18 billion to help the Iraqis and relieve the conditions 
     that contribute to the insurgency. Today, less than $1 
     billion of those funds have actually been spent. I said at 
     the time that we have to rethink our policies and set 
     standards of accountability, and now we're paying the price 
     for not doing that.
       He should use more Iraqi contractors and workers instead of 
     big corporations like Halliburton.
       In fact, he should stop paying companies under fraud 
     investigation or corruption investigation. And he should fire 
     the civilians in the Pentagon who are responsible for 
     mismanaging the reconstruction effort.
       Fourth, the president must take immediate, urgent, 
     essential steps to guarantee that the promised election can 
     be held next year. Credible elections are key to producing an 
     Iraqi government that enjoys the support of the Iraqi people 
     and an assembly that could write a constitution and yields a 
     viable power-sharing agreement.
       Because Iraqis have no experience in holding free and fair 
     elections, the president agreed six months ago that the U.N. 
     must play a central role, yet today, just four months before 
     Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls, the U.N. Secretary 
     General and administration officials say elections are in 
     grave doubt, because the security situation is so bad, and 
     because not a single country has yet offered troops to 
     protect the U.N. elections mission.
       The president needs to tell the truth. The president needs 
     to deal with reality, and he should recruit troops from our 
     friends and allies for a U.N. protection force.
       Now, this is not going to be easy. I understand that.
       Again, I repeat, every month that's gone by, every offer of 
     help spurned, every alternative not taken for these past 
     months has made this more difficult and those were this 
     president's choices. But even countries that refused to put 
     boots on the ground in Iraq ought to still be prepared to 
     help the United Nations hold an election.
       We should also intensify the training of Iraqis to manage 
     and guard the polling places that need to be opened. 
     Otherwise, U.S. forces will end up bearing that burden alone.
       If the president would move in this direction, if he would 
     bring in more help from other countries to provide resources 
     and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to 
     develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to 
     the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold 
     elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin 
     to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and 
     realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next 
     four years.
       That can achieved.
       This is what has to be done. This is what I would do if I 
     were president today. But we can't afford to wait until 
     January and I can't tell you what I will find in Iraq on 
     January 20th.
       President Bush owes it to the American people to tell the 
     truth and put Iraq on the right track. Even more, he owes it 
     to our troops and their families whose sacrifice is a 
     testament to the best of America.
       The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq 
     now and in the future are clear. We must make Iraq the 
     world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the 
     outcome and others should have always been bearing the 
     burden.
       That's the right way to get the job done. It always was the 
     right way to get the job done to minimize the risk to 
     American troops and the cost to American taxpayers. And it is 
     the right way to get our troops home.
       On May 1st of last year, President Bush stood in front of a 
     now-infamous banner that read Mission accomplished. He 
     declared to the American people that, In the battle of Iraq, 
     the United States and our allies have prevailed.
       In fact, the worst part of the war was just beginning, with 
     the greatest number of American casualties still to come.
       The president misled, miscalculated and mismanaged every 
     aspect of this undertaking and he has made the achievement of 
     our objective--a stable Iraq, secure within its borders, with 
     a representative government--far harder to achieve than it 
     ever should have been.
       In Iraq, this administration's record is filled with bad 
     predictions, inaccurate cost estimates, deceptive statements 
     and errors of judgment, presidential judgment, of historic 
     proportions.
       At every critical juncture in Iraq and in the war on 
     terrorism, the president has made the wrong choice.
       I have a plan to make America stronger.
       The president often says that in a post-9/11 world we can't 
     hesitate to act. I agree. But we should not act just for the 
     sake of acting.
       George Bush has no strategy for Iraq. I do and I have all 
     along.
       George Bush has not told the truth to the American people 
     about why we went to war and how the war is going. I have and 
     I will continue to do so.
       I believe the invasion of Iraq has made us less secure and 
     weaker in the war on terrorism. I have a plan to fight a 
     smarter, more effective war on terror that actually makes 
     America safer.
       Today, because of George Bush's policy in Iraq, the world 
     is a more dangerous place for America and Americans; just ask 
     anyone who travels.
       If you share my conviction that we cannot go on as we are, 
     that we can make America stronger and safer than it is, then 
     November 2nd is your chance to speak and to be heard.
       It is not a question of staying the course, but of changing 
     the course.
       I am convinced that with the right leadership, we can 
     create a fresh start, move more effectively to accomplish our 
     goals.
       Our troops have served with extraordinary courage and 
     commitment. For their sake, for America's sake, we have to 
     get this right. We have to do everything in our power to 
     complete the mission and make America stronger at home and 
     respected again in the world.
       Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of 
     America.
       Thank you.

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