Pelosi: redeployment is a step toward "stability in the region"

Three days in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan have made House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even more certain of her view that moving troops out of Iraq is the best way to bring stability to the region, she told The Chronicle on Sunday.

Speaking from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, Pelosi said the nation owes its troops a better policy than the one now being pursued by President Bush, and emphasized the importance of reconstructing the war-torn region. <skip>

The high-level meetings highlighted Pelosi's determination to place Iraq near the top of the agenda for the new Democratic Congress. It also emphasized on a world stage the enormous differences between Congress and the White House over the way forward.

"We owe them (i.e. the troops) better policy. We owe them better initiatives,'' Pelosi said after meeting the past three days with scores of U.S. troops and military commanders, as well as the top political leader in each of the three countries. "I believe redeployment of our troops is a step toward stability in the region." <skip>