Chris Van Hollen: “Mr. Speaker, two separate headlines on the front page of today's Washington Post tell the sad story of two of the Bush…”

“Mr. Speaker, 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. First, its disastrous Iraq policy, and second, its failure to complete the mission against al Qaeda and the Taliban along the Afghan/Pakistan border. One headline reads, ``CIA Said Instability Appeared Irreversible.'' The article describes how, on the same day last November, the Baker-Hamilton commission received two starkly different portrayals of what was happening in Iraq. One came from President Bush, who portrayed a rosy picture, and the other came from the man who President Bush put in charge of the CIA, General Hayden, who was responsible for providing a clear-eyed analysis based on cold facts. And what he reportedly told the commission was, and I quote, ``Instability of the Iraqi Government was irreversible.'' Irreversible, he said. These starkly different portrayals of the situation go to the core of our problems in Iraq because the President has been in a state of denial. Happy talk is no substitute for a reality-based policy.”