(Washington, D.C.) -- Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) today released the following statement after the President’s address to the nation on Iraq:
“President Bush’s address tonight on his Iraq policy was a severe, but not unexpected, disappointment. The success he is claiming is a mirage. Iraqi political leaders have not taken any meaningful steps toward political reconciliation, the stated purpose of the military surge that began last January. And in the assessment of our intelligence community, the Iraqi government is likely to become more precarious, not less, in the next six to twelve months. Moreover, the so-called “bottom-up” approach on political reconciliation that the President is touting is furthering the process of fragmentation.
“The city of Baghdad has become more divided than ever along sectarian lines, as once-mixed neighborhoods have now been “cleansed” of one group or another. Our brave men and women in the armed services are sacrificing their lives daily in a civil war that has no end in sight. Yet the President wants us to believe that his policy is working. The plan to draw down our forces to “pre-surge” levels by the summer of 2008 is merely a policy of “more of the same” and shows that the President is sadly bereft of strategic vision.
“The President’s ongoing policy in Iraq is stretching our military to the breaking point, draining our resources, and precluding us from having the flexibility to respond to present and future threats to our national security. We need to change course and begin a responsible redeployment of our combat forces from Iraq. At the same time, we must rededicate ourselves to defeating those who did attack us on September 11, 2001 -- Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda -- who are rebuilding their infrastructure and capabilities along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”