U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who came to Central Connecticut State University Friday to talk to students about campus security, called for another political truce on the war.
Lieberman said Congress made its point by passing legislation earlier this week that sets deadlines for troop withdrawal. The president will veto it and “we can cool it for awhile,” he said.
He said Congress needs to give the “new general, new strategy, and new troops” a chance to work. He said there are encouraging signs the surge is working, but people are fooling themselves if they think there isn’t an Al-Qaeda counter-insurgency going on.
“Al Qaeda’s own leaders have repeatedly said that one of the ways they intend to achieve victory in Iraq is to provoke civil war. They are trying to kill as many people as possible today, precisely in the hope of igniting sectarian violence, because they know that this is their best way to collapse Iraq’s political center, overthrow Iraq’s elected government, radicalize its population, and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East that they can use as a base,” Lieberman said in a press release before the vote. Click here to continue reading the press release.
Lieberman said the troops should be given until the end of the summer to show progress is being made.
Fox 61 Reporter Shelly Sindland asked Lieberman if he had watched the first 2008 presidential debate Thursday. He said he went out to dinner with his wife instead.
On his way out the door Mark Pazniokas from the Hartford Courant asked Lieberman if he was happy Connecticut’s annual Democratic fundraiser, the Jackson-Jefferson-Bailey dinner, was held on a Friday night this year making it impossible for him to attend?
Lieberman responded, “Praise the Lord.”
Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew and must be home on Fridays to observe the Sabbath, which begins at sunset.
