Reposted from Hillary's website is her official statement addressing the President's September 13, 2007, speech. The statement has not been edited. Her point--too little, too late. Duh. The statement is well written and provides a lot of ammunition for small talk with your Republican friends at tonight's dinner party.
"Regrettably, the President did not seize the opportunity tonight to offer the American people a candid assessment of the challenges that we continue to face in Iraq, or offer a change in course to his failing strategy. Instead, he portrayed an unavoidable reduction in U.S. troops to pre-surge levels as a marker of progress. Redeploying over the next year five of the twenty combat brigades currently deployed in Iraq will merely bring our total number of troops back to the same level that existed before the President announced his escalation in January of this year. As was discussed during General Petraeus's testimony this week, troop levels in Iraq must decrease by this amount regardless, in order to avoid extending Army deployments beyond 15 months and straining our military even further than it already is.
What the President told the American people tonight is that one year from now, there will be the same number of troops in Iraq as there were one year ago. That is simply too little too late, and unacceptable to this Congress and the American people who have made clear their strong desire to bring our brave troops home.
The Commander-in-Chief has the authority to issue the order to greatly accelerate the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq, and to bring so many more of our troops home so much faster. They have done everything we have asked of them and more, but are now stuck in the middle of a civil war. I continue to implore the President to change course, bring our troops home faster, and end this war responsibly as soon as possible."
