NEW YORK, July 23 (UPI) -- An anti-war activist group has urged President Bush to stop "moving the goalposts on Iraq."
"It never ends with the incompetent leadership we have in the White House and the minority in Congress," Jon Soltz, Iraq War veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, said in a statement Friday. "It's simply cruel and demoralizing to troops for the White House to keep moving the goal posts."
"First the surge was going to yield results in a couple of months. Then when we got to that point, they said, no, we'd need another five months. And, now that we're coming up on that deadline, they're changing the message again that they'll need another two months," Soltz said.
"Not only does this place additional stress on an Army and Marine Corps at the breaking point, but it breeds distrust in the commander in chief, which can grow like a cancer in the military," he said.
"President Bush cannot keep doing this to our men and women in uniform without doing severe and permanent damage to our military," Soltz said. "He needs to choose whether he wants to refit and rearm our military to go after Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, or wants to continue with his charade regarding the war in Iraq."
The president and his supporters contend that the U.S. armed forces are making effective progress against al-Qaida in Iraq's Anbar province. But others counter that violence has been rising in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.
