October 21, 2011

Manchin Statement on Troop Withdrawal from Iraq

“This is a great, happy day and I am so pleased that we will soon welcome home the brave men and women who have been serving this country in Iraq. While we celebrate this milestone as a country, we should never forget the servicemembers who are not returning home, the families who mourn them and all those who have sacrificed and have been injured in the line the duty.

“While we can all be pleased that the military mission is over, I also urge the President to stop pouring billions of American taxpayer dollars into civilian and contracting projects in Iraq. Not only that, I continue to urge the President to shift to a mission of counterterrorism in Afghanistan, where we’re still spending billions of dollars rebuilding their country at the expense of our own. As I have repeatedly said, it’s time to rebuild America, and not Iraq and not Afghanistan.” 

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