"You know, every candidate in this race is asking for the biggest job promotion of his or her life. The voters ought to look at what we've done.

"What has the Senate done in the last 12 months? Since my colleagues took over leadership of Congress, have they gotten us out of Iraq? No. Did they scrap No Child Left Behind and reform education? No. Did they stop an Attorney General who wouldn't say that waterboarding is torture? No. Have they done something to create the next generation of great paying jobs? No.

"I know that we can do better. And I have done better.

"In the last twelve months, I helped shut down North Korea's nuclear reactor. We brought back the remains of 6 American soldiers from that country that had been missing since the Korean War. I extended health coverage to every child under 12 in my state. I raised teacher salaries. I cracked down on unscrupulous lenders. I passed a landmark clean energy bill to create clean air and thousands of jobs that cannot be outsourced.

This was first posted at the Huffington Post on Friday, December 7. It's being cross posted here for the Richardson community.

Earlier this week, I was unable to attend NPR's Democratic forum in Iowa because I was attending a funeral. When I read the transcript, however, I was shocked that there was almost no real discussion of the single most important issue facing our county: Iraq.

No other single problem is as crippling to this country right now as the war in Iraq. Our ongoing troop presence is preventing a real Iraqi reconciliation. Maintaining 170,000 troops in Iraq not only stretches our military to the breaking point, it keeps us from having the troops available to deal with other emerging crises -- whether it is peace keeping or disaster response.

We are spending upwards of $10 billion dollars a month in Iraq.

It is folly to believe we can continue on this path and conduct the necessary overhauls to children's insurance, health care, and our schools. It will be almost impossible to deal with global warming and lead the world in a new energy revolution while weighed down by the financial and diplomatic costs of the on-going war in Iraq.

We can't let ending the war become the "forgotten issue" in this campaign, and we can't let it continue. The costs are just too high.

Unfortunately, my fellow candidates seem content with leaving the issue behind. Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards still mention ending the war - but will not unequivocally commit to getting all troops out quickly (and lets be clear - all troops includes non-combat troops, combat strike teams, or any other spin-variation of "troops" falling under our military command in Iraq).

And they will not commit to getting all of the troops out by 2013. 2013 is six more years of war. Six more years of having our hands tied economically and our foreign policy crippled by a war that should have been ended THIS year.

Six more years is too long to wait. Our new website www.2013istoolate.com lays it out clearly: waiting for 2013 is unacceptable - the cost is just too high.

We cannot let cynicism get the best of us - even though the Congressional leadership have not done what we elected them to do and ended this war. We cannot give up. And we cannot give in to misleading media and White House spin that trumpets "the surge is working."

It isn't. The conventional wisdom, that after just a few months of declining casualty rates, victory is around the corner is rosy-eyed nonsense. If you listen to Washington insiders, we've turned that corner again and again - so many times we may just be walking in circles.

Casualties have fallen three months in a row on nine previous occasions during the 5 years we've been in Iraq - nine times. Each time we've been fed the same lines: "Mission Accomplished," "Dead Ender," "Last Throes." On each of those nine occasions, however, casualties have risen back to newer more tragic levels.

I'm not sure who decided what number of American troop deaths is an "acceptable" cost to buy a declaration of "victory," but last month 37 American troops died. After nearly five years of war, the only "acceptable" number of deaths is zero.

I hope Senators Clinton, Edwards, and Obama have not forgotten what we all know: there is no military solution in Iraq, and as long as our troops are there we will have no political solution either. If they remembered this, they could not in good conscience duck a commitment to get our troops out by 2013.

2013 is too long to wait to do the ONE thing that will work in Iraq: getting all of our troops out quickly, leaving no residual troops behind.

Only one thing will bring long-term stability in Iraq: political progress. The stated purpose of the surge was to give Iraqi politicians the breathing room to take the necessary steps towards real reconciliation. That has not happened - and those on the ground know it. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, last month flatly declared "There will be no reconciliation . . .this is a struggle about power," and Iraq's Vice President (and most important Sunni politician) recently echoed that with "there has been no significant progress in months."

Political progress is impossible as long as our troops are on the ground, making the status-quo possible for Iraqi politicians and leading Iraqi citizens to doubt whether we'll ever leave. There is no military solution to this problem, so our military should not be there.

In fact, the only real progress we've seen in Iraq in the recent months happened in Basra, where the removal of the British garrison has brought about a 90% decrease in violence. No occupying forces equaled less violence, and zero coalition casualties. This is the kind of change we need to see across Iraq to create the landscape for real political progress.

There is a clear answer -- to truly reduce violence and to force Iraqis to find their own political solution, we must begin immediately to withdraw all of our forces - all of them, without any residual troops left behind. There is no military solution in Iraq, and there will be no political solution while our military remains there.

Leaving troops in Iraq until 2013 is not an option - not if we want to end this war, not if we want to move forward and begin addressing problems here at home.

Ignoring this issue won't change those facts.

Also posted at the Huffington Post 

Yesterday, twelve former Army captains wrote that short of reinstating the draft, "our best option is to leave Iraq immediately." In an extraordinary editorial in the Washington Post, these captains--all of whom served in Iraq--made it clear that we need to end this war and we need to end it now. They wrote that a " scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition."

I strongly urge every American to read this important report from those who served in the failed conflict in Iraq. Army captains are the staff officers who plan operations against insurgent strongholds. They are the company commanders who lead our soldiers through the streets of Baghdad. And they are the soldiers who will direct our withdrawal from Iraq.

These men and women know the score. They know that we must leave Iraq. As they put it, "It's time to make a choice." Americans are fed up with the President's stalling and Congressional failure to act. Frankly, it is well past time we make a choice. And the only responsible choice left to us is to get all of our troops out of Iraq, with no residual forces left behind--no combat forces, no non-combat forces. As President, I will do it. I will get all of our troops out within a year after I take office - sooner if we can get it done safely.

The other major candidates in this race have said--again and again--that they will not. Senators Edwards, Obama, and Clinton have all refused to commit to getting all of our troops out of Iraq by 2013. None of them are willing to be clear about removing all troops - combat and non-combat. It's unbelievable. Are they looking at the same war the rest of us are? Furthermore, they are all advocating precisely the sort of scaled withdrawal that these twelve captains are warning against. It doesn't make any sense. Real leadership is about making the tough choices, and knowing when it is time to make bold moves. Now is the time for action, not hesitation. Ending this war requires real change, not more incrementalism.

Ending this war is the most important issue of our time. And it is the fundamental difference between me and Senators Edwards, Obama, and Clinton. I will end the war; they will not. I will get all of our troops out; they will leave troops behind indefinitely. I will order a safe and rapid withdrawal and have our troops out within a year. They have proposed a long, protracted withdrawal that will only increase the danger to our fighting men and women and drag out the war.

2013 is six years from now - six years. In six years, will we have lost 6,000 men and women in Iraq? 10,000? More? In six years will this be a $2 trillion mistake? Or $3 trillion? The war has been going on for four and half years already. Six years from now, we will have been there for more than a decade. Are you okay with that? I'm not.

The choice in Iraq is clear. We need to get all our troops out quickly. We need to end this war for real. Go to getourtroopsout.com to join Americans across the country in calling for a quick, clear, responsible end to the war in Iraq.