And today, as President Obama was outlining the thing that so many of us wanted for so many years, I missed most of the announcement to finish a deadline document. If you missed it too, here is the video of the complete address:
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For as much pain and anger this entire piece of our history caused so many of us, you can’t help but be pleased that President Obama struck such a balanced and grateful tone in this. No blame or recitation of the crazyness, just thanks to the people who did the work and how this ends. I’m not all that happy with the 19 month (rather than the campaign 16 month) timeline for drawdown, but was very glad to see a real end date — December 2011. This is going to leave alot of us who wanted these forces home sooner rather than later, but acknowledging the Status of Forces end date I hope makes the Iraqis really believe that we will truly leave, and be confident that work to build their institutions and defense mechanisms will mean that they will finally be their own government.
We are in for some in-fighting amongst Dems who wanted more home and wanted them home more quickly than this. I want the same thing. But today, I am just delighted that we are no longer fighting over ending this thing — but over when.