FACTBOX-Quotes from U.S. Iraq commander's Senate testimony
(Reuters) - Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress on Tuesday that uneven security gains will prompt him to stop troop withdrawals in July, in a cautious assessment of the war a year after thousands of additional U.S. troops poured into the country.
Following is a sampling of quotes from several participants at Petraeus's appearance:
PETRAEUS:
"We haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and reversible."
U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ RYAN CROCKER:
"I remain convinced that a major departure from our current engagement would bring failure."
SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN CARL LEVIN,
MICHIGAN DEMOCRAT:
"It seems to me that what you've given to your chain of command is a plan which has no end to it."
SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN JOSEPH BIDEN,
DELAWARE DEMOCRAT:
"Fifteen months into the surge, we've gone from drowning to treading water. ... We can't keep treading water without exhausting ourselves. But that's what the president seem to be asking us to do."
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, CONNECTICUT INDEPENDENT:
"It seems to me that there's a kind of 'Hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, and most of all, speak of no progress in Iraq.' The fact is, there has been progress in Iraq."
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN:
To Petraeus: "If I could promote you to five stars, I would."
To Crocker: "I don't know where to send you. You've been to every bad place there is to go, so I'd send you to a good place, Ambassador Crocker."
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRAT
"Whatever the conditions on the ground, the president's arrows always point the same direction -- to an open-ended commitment of our troops. The American people deserve to know when the arrows will finally point to an exit from Iraq."
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, Andrew Gray and Kristin Roberts, editing by Philip Barbara)
