The President’s New Iraq Plan Is a Bad Idea

On Wednesday night, President Bush told the American people that he bore the responsibility for the many mistakes made in the prosecution of the war in Iraq. Then he announced that he planned to make yet another one — he plans to escalate and extend the Iraq war. The President says he intends to send more than twenty thousand U.S. servicemen and women into Iraq, indefinitely. As has been the case with so many military, strategic and diplomatic decisions made by this President regarding Iraq, this too would be a terrible error.

This open-ended commitment of more U.S troops will result in the death and wounding of thousands more American soldiers, cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more, and do nothing to help the Iraqi people resolve their civil war. In fact, this escalation will “turn up the heat” on the already boiling anti-American fanaticism in Iraq and the region. The President’s plan also weakens our severely overstretched and depleted military and limits our ability to face the current and future threats to our country. In summary, President Bush’s escalation of the Iraq war will hurt America’s national security and I will do everything in my power to stop it.