FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Isakson on Iraq: ‘I Choose an Opportunity for Success Over a Recipe for Failure’
Opposes Resolutions Condemning the President’s Strategy to Send Additional Troops

WASHINGTON – Warning that our troops and our enemies are closely watching the Senate debate over proposed resolutions condemning the President’s strategy in Iraq, U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) today urged his colleagues to choose success over failure by sending a clear message of support.

“I choose an opportunity for success over a recipe for failure,” Isakson said on the Senate floor today.

“Our men and women in the military watch what we say, and what we say on this floor is important. Those resolutions – binding or not – should not send mixed signals,” Isakson said. “And there’s another audience that’s listening and that’s our enemies. Those (television) networks are their intelligence agencies. The messages we send should not be a message that sends a lack of confidence to our troops or to our Commander in Chief.”

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, Isakson voted against a nonbinding resolution that condemned the President’s strategy of sending additional troops to Iraq. Isakson supports the President’s strategy as the best hope of giving the Iraqi government an opportunity to secure the country and achieve political reconciliation.

A similar version of the resolution is being debated on the Senate floor this week. A vote on the resolution has not been set.

Isakson noted that during more than 20 hours of Foreign Relations hearings on Iraq over the past few weeks, every witness – even those who opposed the President’s strategy – testified that withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would result in thousands of lives lost and an increase in the sectarian violence across the region.

“I will support the President. Not out of partisanship. Not out of blind loyalty. I will support the President because the evidence submitted in all of the hearings in Foreign Relations told me we had two choices. We could choose an opportunity to succeed or we could subscribe to a recipe for failure. I choose success and I pray God’s blessings on our men and women in the Armed Forces of the United States,” Isakson said. 

###