Senators Respond to Warner Bombshell

Aug. 26, 2007 — -- As the Senate gets ready for a showdown on the war, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Tex., and James Webb, D-Va., responded this morning to senior Republican Sen. John Warner's call to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.

"Sen. Warner is a great patriot and a student of history, and he's clearly sending a signal to the Iraqis that our patience is not unlimited, and that's correct," Cornyn told ABC News' Terry Moran on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "But I don't think it's in our best interest to put so much pressure on the new Iraqi government that it absolutely collapses."

"No one in a responsible position in government is saying that we should pull the plug in Iraq and have a precipitous withdrawal," Webb countered. "What we're trying to do is to say, 'Eventually we have to withdraw from Iraq, we have to draw down our troops.'"

When asked if withdrawal would mean relinquishing progress, Webb responded, "I don't think it's a question of giving anything up. It's a question of how you fight a guerrilla war and how you use your troops. The more the American troops do, the less incentive there is for the Iraqis to step forward and to do what they are supposed to do."

Cornyn conceded that progress in Iraq has been disappointing.

"I'm frustrated by the slow pace, but I don't think the solution is to pull the plug, [which may] result in that failed state which will make America less safe," he said.

The senators also disagreed on whether the war in Iraq can be linked to the lessons of Vietnam. Webb dismissed President Bush's recent comparison of the two conflicts.

"They simply are not comparable," said Webb, a Vietnam veteran. "We have an overall strategic objective that was not directly related to what we were attempting to do in the war against international terrorism. We have good people implementing a bad strategy. It's just not the same situation."

Cornyn backed the president, saying, "It is an appropriate analogy. ... The part of the analogy that is not apt is that when we left Vietnam, the enemy did not follow us here."