During the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner President Bush had this to say regarding a timetable on Iraq: "Today, the United States Senate wisely rejected a resolution that would have placed an artificial timetable on our mission in Iraq. And I thank the Republicans and Democrats who voted down that resolution. Many of those members know what I know: that if American forces were to step back from Baghdad now, before the capital city is more secure, the scale and scope of attacks would increase and intensify; a contagion of violence could spill out across the entire country, and, in time, the entire region. The enemy would emerge from the chaos emboldened, with new safe havens and new recruits and new resources and an even greater determination to harm the United States of America."
– Transcript, “Remarks by the President at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner,” George W. Bush – White House Archives online, March 15, 2007,