“I respect General Petraeus, and he is right that long term progress can only be achieved through political reconciliation. Today, he confirmed that progress in that regard has been nominal to nonexistent. 

“Iraq has met just three of 18 benchmarks for success, the national police force operates as a uniformed Shiite militia, and with 254 American casualties, this has been the deadliest summer for our troops in the history of this conflict.

“Meanwhile, as our forces are bogged down in Iraq, al Qaeda terrorists are, right now, plotting in other countries— just as we saw last week, with the attempted attacks in Germany, which were planned and trained for in Pakistan. 

“Therefore, I must again conclude that the escalation of this war, which has cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, has brought us no closer to attaining a lasting peace and true national security.  I will continue, as I have since day one, to call for and work toward a prompt and responsible redeployment of our troops that will save lives, enable our forces to combat global terror around the world, and end America’s role as the crutch upon which the Iraqi government continues to hobble.”