State of Missouri secondary Archives: on War & Peace
Claire McCaskill:
Need to change course in Iraq
Iraq is a mess. We can either stay the course or we can change course. Obviously, even the leader of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Warner, probably the most respected Republican on the Iraq war in Washington, has now come back from Iraq & said, “You
know what? This is a mess and we need to re-examine what we’re doing here.” This is Truman’s Senate seat. When he was in the Senate, during the war, he asked questions about war profiteering and he was called brave. In this climate right now, they would
war, where we are losing lives every day and innocent Iraqi lives; and then our effort worldwide to begin to be effective against terror. Terrorist cells are popping up. We’re creating more terrorists around the world with this failed policy in Iraq.
Source: 2006 MO Senate Debate on NBC Meet The Press with Tim Russert
Oct 8, 2006
Claire McCaskill:
Redeploy our troops in Iraq to Afghanistan to find bin Laden
As a daughter of rural Missouri, we have a saying, “If you’re in a hole, you need to quit digging.” We have now trained 300,000 Iraqi troops. We have a civil war. This idea that we’re creating a democracy that’s going to be our ally in the war on terror?
We have a government that’s reinstituted Saddam Hussein’s laws to put journalists in prison. We need to listen to our military, and over a two-year framework, give or take, time period that they say, we need to move-Afghanistan, we need troops in
of dependence; we are not breeding a democracy. The elected leaders of Iraq have come out in favor of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that invaded our ally. I know that the NATO command would take our troops in Afghanistan. They need more.
Source: 2006 MO Senate Debate on NBC Meet The Press with Tim Russert
Oct 8, 2006
Jim Talent:
Oppose an artificial timetable for withdrawing from Iraq
McCaskill said to them she's deeply concerned that we haven't granted habeas corpus privileges to captured terrorists, which would allow them to sue us because they're not getting high-speed Internet. She supports an artificial timetable for
withdrawing from Iraq. It's not a question of politics. It's not a question of people's motives. It's a question of what's going to win this war. And positions of weakness are not going to do it.
Source: 2006 MO Senate Debate on NBC Meet The Press with Tim Russert
Oct 8, 2006
Jim Talent:
Need to season the Iraqi army before leaving Iraq
The part of the mission that remains to be done, that requires large numbers of American troops, is finishing the seasoning of the Iraqi army and appropriately sizing it so they can defend themselves alone, or without large numbers of American troops.
We have to finish the mission, then we'll be able to come home. What the national intelligence estimate said was that if we complete the mission in Iraq, it's going to be a huge victory for us, and a huge setback for the terrorists.
Source: 2006 MO Senate Debate on NBC Meet The Press with Tim Russert
Oct 8, 2006
Jim Talent:
Our troops must stay in Iraq until the job is done
Setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal means sending a notice to the terrorists that we're going to quit. The level of sectarian violence can't be sustained. The Maliki government needs to deal with it. What they've got to do is confront the
militia, they've got to use a classic counterinsurgency techniques, the sweep-hold-build techniques. They've got to make political democracy and economic reconstruction real on the ground to the Iraqis, and they got to hook up the sewers and the
require large numbers of American troops. We have to be there until the mission is done. I mean, as the national intelligence estimate said, if we complete this mission, it's going to be a huge victory for us. If we don't, it's going to be a setback.
Source: 2006 MO Senate Debate on NBC Meet The Press with Tim Russert
Oct 8, 2006
Jim Talent:
Would still have invaded Iraq knowing there were no weapons
Q: Knowing what you know today, that Saddam did not have the weapons of destruction that our intelligence agencies thought he had, would you still vote for the war? A: It was the only possible strategic choice. Saddam had been an organic threat in the
region for a long time. He represented a threat to us. That threat is now gone. He wanted them. He was trying to get rid of economic sanctions. We'd have another Iran there. That threat's been removed.
Source: 2006 MO Senate Debate on NBC Meet The Press with Tim Russert
Oct 8, 2006
Kit Bond:
The terrorists would get WMD without the Iraq war
FARMER: Farmer criticized Bush, stating that the invasion of Iraq "we know today was not justified by the premises said by the president at the time" because no weapons of mass destruction or link to al-Qaida were found. "But we are there and while there
were not terrorists when we went in, there are terrorists now," she said. She said more troops are needed to finish the job as soon as possible. Farmer said that she would have voted for the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war based on what was
known then. BOND: Bond said, "We did not have good intelligence" before the war but that a recent report indicated that Saddam had been planning to again manufacture chemical weapons. Bond also said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
who has been blamed for various attacks and beheadings, was "training terrorists... even before we went in." "If we had not disrupted Iraq, then the terrorists... would have been in position to get those weapons," Bond said.
Source: [Xref Farmer] MO Senate Debate, in Post-Dispatch
Oct 21, 2004
Mark McClosky:
Will fight against China from day 1 in the US Senate
Like President Trump, Mark McCloskey understands that China is the greatest threat to America and the world as a whole. Mark will work with our allies to hold China accountable for lying about the pandemic, stealing American intellectual property,
and for their dishonest activity building islands in the South China Sea. Too many politicians talk about holding China accountable, but we haven't seen any action. Mark will change that by fighting against China from day 1 in the US Senate.
Source: 2021 MO Senate campaign website McCloskeyForSenate.com
Aug 12, 2021
Page last updated: Feb 18, 2023