Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

Four years ago I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan and in 2014 our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead.

As the daughter of a 25-year veteran of the armed forces I am incredibly thankful for the sacrifices our women and men have made in Iraq and continue to make in Afghanistan.

Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States.

I think we need to just be very clear about what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. Frankly we're not trying to create the perfect democracy. We're never going to create some ideal society. We are simply there for our own national security.

There are tens of thousands of interactions every single day across Afghanistan between the Afghan troops and International Security Assistance Force. On most of those every single day we continue to deepen and broaden the relationship we seek.

And across Afghanistan every single day Afghan soldiers Afghan police and ISAF troops are serving shoulder-to-shoulder in some very difficult situations. And our engagement with them our shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with them our conduct of operations with them every single day defines the real relationship.

There is a direct line relationship between what happened in Afghanistan in the work up to 11 September 2001 and what we're doing in Afghanistan today.

Afghanistan is going to be here a long time and what's critical is that Afghanistan's relationship with its neighbors are to the maximum extent they can be constructive and operationally useful.

I believe in the transformational power of liberty. I believe that the free Iraq is in this nation's interests. I believe a free Afghanistan is in this nation's interest.