Two separate headlines on the front page of today’s Washington Post tell the sad story of two of the Bush Administration’s biggest national security failures – its disastrous Iraq policy and its failure to complete the mission against al Qaeda and the Taliban along the Afghan-Pakistani border. One headline on Iraq reads: “CIA Said Instability Appeared Irreversible.” The article describes how on the same day last November the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission received two radically different accounts of the situation in Iraq. One came from President Bush, who painted a rosy picture. The other came from the man that President Bush appointed to head the CIA, General Michael Hayden, who is responsible for providing a clear-eyed analysis based on the cold facts. General Hayden reportedly told the Commission that the “instability of the Iraqi government was irreversible.” These starkly different assessments reveal the core problem with our policy. The President has been in a state of denial with respect to Iraq. Happy talk is no substitute for a reality-based policy. Indeed, the President’s assessments based on wishful thinking have led to bad decisions that have weakened our national security.
Yesterday, U.S. intelligence experts reportedly confirmed the gloomy assessment that General Hayden made last November, conceding that the Iraqi forces will remain incapable of taking charge of security for years to come and that deepening sectarian political divides remain the largest impediment to progress. And today’s Report to Congress confirms that the Iraqi government has failed to make sufficient progress in key areas of national reconciliation.
Another headline in today’s Post reads “U.S. Warns of Stronger Al-Qaeda,” and describes al Qaeda growing stronger in safe havens inside Pakistan and reveals the consequences of this Administration’s failure to complete the job against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Mr. Speaker, we must insist that the Iraqis assume greater responsibility for their own future, extract ourselves from the Iraqi civil war, and redouble our efforts against those who were actually responsible for the vicious attacks against our nation on September 11, 2001. That is what this bill is all about. It is time for those in this House who know the President’s policies in Iraq are wrong, and who have called for a change in direction, to actually vote to change direction. Our national security demands a new approach. This bill is a critical step in that direction.