Washington, DC -- Today, Congressman McCarthy joined both Republicans and Democrats in voting against H.R. 2956, a bill that sends our troops and commanders the wrong message – a message that they are failing to execute the new Iraq strategy. In response to House passage of the H.R. 2956, Congressman McCarthy issued the following statement:
“Today’s White House report that only 8 of 18 political benchmarks were satisfactorily met by the Iraqi government demonstrates that the Iraqi government must work harder and more urgently to find consensus and get results. However, today’s partisan vote to mandate timelines and withdrawal is premature. Less than a month has passed since resources were fully put in place for our military to execute their portion of the bipartisan backed Iraq strategy. Our men and women in uniform continue to make progress against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq and other terrorist groups. The Associated Press reported on June 29th that our new Iraq strategy is showing a sign of improvement as 50 percent of Baghdad is secure, up from 19 percent in April.
“In September, General Petraeus will deliver to Congress his progress report on the new Iraq Strategy. For the next two months, we should keep our promise by giving General Petraeus and our troops the time and resources they need to fully execute the new strategy. We owe this to them and their mission.”