WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today issued the following statement regarding the signing of a Bilateral Security Agreement and NATO Status of Forces Agreement in Afghanistan:

“The arrangement worked out by the Administration and the Afghan government reaffirms our mutual commitment to maintaining a stabilizing force in an unpredictable part of the world. I applaud the Administration’s efforts to close the deal.

“I am also hopeful that our commanders on the ground will continue to speak truth to power. We have learned a painful lesson about the shortcomings of the Administration’s misguided policies in Iraq. I believe that the disaster playing out there could have been avoided if the President had followed the advice of his military commanders and Congress had been given a more realistic assessment. We should not make the same mistakes in Afghanistan.”