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Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson released the following statement on General Petraeus’ testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
“The stated purpose of the surge was to give the Iraqi government more time, but the Maliki government hasn’t yet made nearly enough political, economic or diplomatic progress. Both the GAO report and the Jones Report have given the Iraqi government failing grades on the benchmarks. My concern is that if we continue giving them more ‘breathing room,’ that we will lose more troops in the process and spend far more money. The necessary question that General Petraeus can’t answer is what level of success can be expected on our current course.
“Senator Collins and I have come up with a way to transition our troops out of Baghdad through the next six months while turning over internal security to the Iraqi troops. We would then take our troops and secure the borders, protect the infrastructure, and continue to search for al-Qaeda forces. This is an issue I advocated to General Petraeus today and I hope it is one he seriously considers for the future.”
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