"Congress exercised its constitutional responsibility this week by appropriating more than $100 billion to fully support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the President chose not to cash that check. It is up to him to explain to the American people why.

"We won this war four years ago. The question is when we end the occupation. This bill called for a much-needed shift in our approach to Iraq. The United States military is not going to change the societal makeup of Iraq. And the Malaki government is not going to bring peace among Iraq's competing factions without the strong, overt, diplomatic cooperation of other countries in this region. And this bill called for just an approach.

"I have always said that we need to support the troops through leadership that is equal to the sacrifices we are asking them to make. It is time for a new approach in Iraq, one that displays smart diplomatic leadership in the region. We must bring this occupation to a proper conclusion that will increase our ability to focus on international terrorism, increase the stability in the region and allow us to focus on our strategic interests elsewhere in the world."

Webb is showing the way with his framing of the Iraq Conflict as no longer a war but instead as an occupation. Democrats have been inconsistent in hammering this point home but it is the utter truth of the matter. What we are engaged in now is a indeed a military conflict but continuing to refer to it as a war obscures the central point that we no longer are fighting an organized state but are instead trying to subdue and control a population. Unfortunately, a majority of that population is firmly against our continued presence.

Democrats now recognize that with the will of the Iraqi people firmly against our presence in their country we won't be able to impose our political will in Iraq. Our military certainly cannot achieve the political goal of establishing an Iraqi government of a form chosen by the United States. That's beyond our capabilities given the reality that the Sunni and Shiite Iraqi factions are powerful and are determined to fight a guerilla effort as long as we stay in Iraq, their home.

Especially in a city the size of Baghdad, but also in other cities in Iraq what we are facing isn't jungle warfare and it's not desert warfare. It's urban warfare that requires cooperation from the populace to have any hope of progess. Rooting out combatants in a city of millions cannot possibly be accomplished by the forces we have in the region. We have few friends and few of our forces even speak the language. Yet Bush "soldiers" on. He stays the course while our troops continue to die by 5s, 10s, and 20s, and while Iraqi combatants and civiilans continue to die by the hundreds and by the thousands.

Jim Webb has laid it out for America. It's time for the Congress to make the President listen. President Bush must change course and take the steps that Webb has laid out so succinctly. It's time for the diplomats and the negotiators to do their work so that our troops can stand down.