I was heartened to hear the President say that as we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Of course, it's imperative that we stabilize Iraq and quickly reduce our armed role there.
It's very unlikely that we're going to send more troops to Iraq. We are going to have to train the Iraqis faster and harder.
The longer we go without strong leadership from the Administration and until we see significant progress in the day-to-day lives of the Iraqi people, the more difficult it will become to sustain the support of the American people and Congress for the current course.
There's been an increase in the number of Iraqis in training, but more Americans are dying and violence is increasing.
And we need to maintain our foothold in the fight against terrorism and terrorist groups and respond to any degradation of Iraqi security or stability.
We need to continue our full support of the nascent Iraqi government by helping to rebuild their economic infrastructure and maintain security while training the Iraqi security forces.
We need to significantly increase the number of bombing runs we're conducting in Iraq and Syria.
As I have been saying for more than a year now, turning this vital mission over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible should remain a topic of debate for Congress while relying on our military commanders to set up the timetable.
We must either reduce the number of our engagements or increase the number of our troops.
Yes, we need a force to continue to train, assist, advise the Iraqi army.