President Obama and lawmakers in Washington D.C. had largely positive things to say about the election in Iraq this past weekend.\u00a0 Senators Evan Bayh, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham stopped by stake out cameras after Sunday show appearances to share their thoughts about the milestone election and troop withdrawal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The president spoke about how the elections show stability for Iraqis and the timetable for withdrawing American troops from the region saying, \u201cWe will continue with the responsible removal of United States forces from Iraq\u2026By the end of August the combat mission will end\u2026And by the end of next year, all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) agreed with the president that a successful election will only help in removing U.S. troops from the area, \u201cUltimately in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s up to them.\u00a0 There has to be a functioning government, based on the consensus of the Iraqi people, if they are going to have a stable country, that will allow us to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if Iraq is moving closer to being a democratic country, Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, took a small swipe at the Obama administration saying, \u201cAs the vice president, an earlier supporter of the Iraq war indicated, it could well be one of the big accomplishments of this current administration.\u201d\u00a0 McConnell was referring to Vice President Biden\u2019s comments made on February 10th<\/sup> on CNN\u2019s Larry King Live.<\/p>\n Republican Senator Lindsey Graham commended on the Americans and Iraqi\u2019s who made it possible, \u201cThe Iraq elections are a result of a lot of blood and sacrifice on part of the American people and Iraqi people.\u00a0 The fact that we’re having this election today is a great testament to the Iraqi people who have paid a heavy price to fight the insurgency to reject Al Qaeda.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Graham said looking back and looking ahead, \u201cTo the men and women who have served in Iraq, this is a testament to your service.\u00a0 To the Iraqi people, well done.\u00a0 Keep trying, democracy is hard, but there is a better way for your children if you continue the course that you’re on.\u00a0 It will be a moderating force in the Mideast at a time when we desperately need it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Obama and lawmakers in Washington D.C. had largely positive things to say about the election in Iraq this past weekend.\u00a0 Senators Evan Bayh, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham stopped by stake out cameras after Sunday show appearances to share their thoughts about the milestone election and troop withdrawal.\u00a0 The president spoke about how the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6097,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}