Washington, D.C. - Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) released the following statement today in response to President Bush’s speech at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis on the war in Iraq:
“I welcome the President’s decision to finally talk at length about the situation in Iraq. However, I am disappointed that the President’s speech was primarily a repackaging of things he has already said and contained little that is new. It was essentially a defense of actions taken to date in Iraq, rather than a concrete plan for moving us forward. We know that the actions taken to date have not been adequate. When things are not going well, just doing “more of the same” is not a strategy for success.
“While the President spoke at length about the importance of training Iraqi military and police forces, he said nothing about the growing threat from militias and paramilitary forces. In order to bring stability to Iraq, the training of Iraqi forces must be coupled with a durable political settlement among the different groups competing for power in Iraq – the Shia, the Sunni, the Kurds and the various sub-groups among them. Currently, the Iraqi battalions are organized primarily along sectarian lines and there is growing evidence that the allegiance of many in the military and security forces is not to the central government, but to different factions competing for power. It will do us no good to train more forces whose loyalty belongs to particular sectarian groups or individual militia leaders rather than to a central government. Otherwise, we will simply be training people to be more efficient at killing one another rather than building an effective force to protect a representative democratic government from internal and external threats.
“The President said nothing in his speech that demonstrates that he understands this critical and growing problem -- let alone present any ideas to confront this dangerous challenge. What the American people need and deserve is a plan that sets forth concrete benchmarks and milestones for defining progress and success. That would allow the American people to measure progress toward meeting specific goals. It would also give the American people a means of holding the Bush Administration accountable – something the Administration has tried to avoid. Indeed, a review of the history of the Administration’s Iraq policy will show that those officials whose predictions were wildly wrong have been retained and rewarded while those whose predictions were accurate have been punished or ignored. It is, therefore, no wonder that the President does not want to adopt specific benchmarks that we can use to hold him and other officials responsible. But that is what is sorely needed.”