“The President is working overtime to change his rhetoric on Iraq when we need him to change his policy. Our heroes are paying the price for the President’s pride and stubbornness.

Today’s performance was another attempt two weeks before an election to convince the American people he has a plan for Iraq. But the President can’t sell what he doesn’t have. One day President Bush invites comparisons to Vietnam, the next day Vice President Cheney says Iraq is going remarkably well, and every day the civil war intensifies and young Americans continue to die.

Iraq is in the middle of a civil war because there has been too little pressure on Iraqi politicians, not too much. Today, the President expressed confidence in the Prime Minister, even as Maliki rejected the toothless timelines the Administration was selling yesterday. All the President’s guarantees that he’ll ‘stay as long as it takes’ have given Iraqi politicians permission to take as long as they want. President Bush needs to change course and tell the Iraqis that no American soldier will be sacrificed because Iraqis refuse to settle their political differences. President Bush now acknowledges we need a political solution in Iraq even as he prepares to continue the failed course of trapping more troops in a civil war.

The President who has had a stand still and lose policy in Iraq and a cut and run policy in Afghanistan has no credibility raising the specter of Iraq becoming a terrorist haven when it’s the war in Iraq that our own intelligence agencies say has weakened us in the fight against terror.

“We have to get tough on Iraq with deadlines to get Iraq and its neighbors to do the diplomacy necessary to achieve a political solution. And we need to make clear that American troops will be leaving within a year to force Iraqis to make the tough compromises. Only then do we have a chance to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home.”