WASHINGTON - December 19 - "The President said we must not pull out of Iraq "before our work is done." He needs to understand that our brave servicemen and women won a resounding victory in the initial military operation, and their task is now largely over. What we need is a flexible timeline for redeploying our troops from Iraq so that we can focus on what should be our top priority – winning the global fight against terrorist networks that threaten that threaten the United States.

Al Qaeda is active in 60 countries around the world and continues to recruit, train, and develop new strategies to inflict harm on the United States. Extremist organizations are present in another 20 countries and are developing new threats to the United States and our allies. The President needs to realize that his misguided, Iraq-centric policies are draining our military and intelligence capabilities and are undermining our efforts to combat al Qaeda and its allies."

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