(Washington, DC): Based upon the White House announcement that the President plans to reduce troop levels in Iraq to "pre-surge" levels, but keep about 130,000 troops there indefinitely, Representative Michael McNulty issued the following statement:

The President's "new" plan amounts to little more than a reiteration of his failed "stay the course" policy in Iraq.

Six years after September 11th 2001, the person who planned and executed that attack -- Osama bin Laden -- is alive, free, and planning another attack on our nation and it's people. And the President rarely even mentions his name.

Instead we're in the fifth year of a war in Iraq -- a nation which did NOT attack us -- and tens of thousands of American military personnel are dead or wounded. This is the policy the American taxpayers are being asked to continue spending ten billion dollars a month to support.

Compounding the peril our soldiers face on a daily basis is the fact that the Iraqis are not volunteering for military service. If the Iraqi people won't stand up and defend their new government, we should not, in my opinion, sacrifice one more American life.

I believe it is still possible to have a stable government in Iraq, but that can only happen if Iraqis are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to defend it. And the only way to get them to do that is to announce an American troop withdrawal plan and make it clear that their fate lies in their own hands.

The sooner we do that, the better.

# # #