Leadership Quote by Jack Reed

The line is built like a marching order, then breaks into an indictment. Reed opens by accepting the war’s premise - “Having committed ourselves to Iraq” - not because he’s endorsing it, but because that concession disarms the usual partisan dodge: you can’t accuse him of undermining the troops if he’s explicitly arguing for “prevail[ing].” He’s stepping onto the moral high ground Washington reserves for wartime, then using it to prosecute managerial failure.

The repetition of “must” is doing double duty. It sounds like resolve, but it also reveals the trap Reed is pointing at: once you accept the logic of commitment, every next step becomes compulsory, including the expensive, politically inconvenient parts. “Fund all of the requirements” is intentionally expansive; it’s a warning against fighting a modern counterinsurgency on the cheap, with stopgap appropriations, strained deployments, and equipment shortfalls that show up as body armor controversies and readiness gaps back home.

Then the pivot: “adequately and promptly,” followed by “neither.” That last word lands like a gavel. Reed’s subtext is that the administration wants the symbolism of toughness without paying the bill - financially, logistically, and implicitly in accountability. The context is mid-2000s Iraq: mounting costs, growing skepticism about strategy, and repeated fights over supplemental war funding. Reed’s move is strategic: if you’re going to own the war, you also own the receipts.