Liz Cheney joins calls for Steele to step down as leader of the RNC

Liz Cheney joined conservative calls for Michael Steele to resign his post as Republican National Committee chairman because his remarks about the Afghanistan war.

Steele's comments "were deeply disappointing and wrong," said Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, in a statement Saturday.

"The chairman of the Republican Party must be unwavering in his support for American victory in the war on terror — a victory that cannot be accomplished if we do not prevail in Afghanistan," said Liz Cheney, who serves as chairwoman of Keep America Safe, a conservative foreign policy group.

Cheney said she fully endorsed a letter by Bill Kristol, another Keeping America Safe board member, that called on Steele to resign.

"It is time for Chairman Steele to step down,” she said.

Steele was caught on camera this week questioning the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, calling it "a war of [President] Obama's choosing" and saying that it was "not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."

“If he's such a student of history,” Steele said at a fundraiser in Connecticut, “has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”

While Obama has taken heat from the right over his war strategy, it has largely been because he didn't immediately accept the recommendations of top generals last year to further increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. Obama later announced a troop buildup, and conservatives more recently have supported the president's decisions, particularly his move to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus.

In addition to Kristol and Cheney, RedState founder Erick Erickson has called for Steele's resignation.

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