WASHINGTON - February 27 - Peace Action, the nation's largest peace organization, today praised President Obama's Iraq plan as a step towards ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The group claimed that all troops and contractors could be redeployed from Iraq more rapidly and that Iraq needs more resources focused on reconstruction and humanitarian aid to mitigate the refugee crisis.

"Peace Action has consistently called for all troops and contractors to come home within a year and for increased investments in Iraqi-led reconstruction and humanitarian aid," stated Kevin Martin the group's executive director.

Martin hoped that President Obama's phrase "The U.S. pursues no claim on your territory or your resources," definitively meant no permanent U.S. bases in Iraq and perhaps a decrease in the oversized U.S. Embassy. He also applauded the President's plans to increase health care to veterans, to engage with Syria and Iran and to finally put the cost of wars into the budget rather than emergency supplementals.

"The ending of this illegal, immoral war, where we found no weapons of mass destruction, is long overdue. We want to see the troops coming home more quickly from Iraq and not shipped to another quagmire in Afghanistan. There is no need for a residual force or permanent bases in Iraq. There are unmet needs to rebuild the country and to solve the refugee crisis," concluded Martin.