President Bush Continues to Defend an Iraqi Government Unable or Unwilling to Make Political Sacrifices

Today, in our fifth year of war in Iraq, the President should not be asking the American people for more time on behalf of the Iraqi government, but he should be asking the Iraqi leaders why they will not meet key political benchmarks by September 15. While saying that not enough progress has been made, the President continues to support a war without end, stand behind a policy that is clearly failing, and defend an Iraqi government that is unable or unwilling to make the political sacrifices necessary for national reconciliation.

The President stubbornly refuses to develop a redeployment plan or devise a redeployment schedule, preferring to hope, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary, that the report by General Petraeus in September will paint a different picture of political progress in Iraq. It is long past time to set a New Direction for our policies in Iraq.