Chris Van Hollen: “Mr. Speaker, next month we will mark the fourth anniversary of the President's decision to launch a war of choice…”

“Mr. Speaker, next month we will mark the fourth anniversary of the President's decision to launch a war of choice against Iraq. Many of us came to the floor of this House in the weeks before the invasion to urge the President to take a different course. The White House ignored those appeals for restraint. The President's mantra was, and these are his words, ``Bring it on.'' For almost 4 years after the invasion, the President had a rubber-stamp Congress right here that never seriously questioned his misguided policies in Iraq. It was the ``see no problems, hear no problems, conduct no oversight'' Congress. When the President stood below the banner ``Mission Accomplished'' aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003, the rubber-stamp Congress believed the slogan, rather than the facts on the ground. When Vice President Cheney declared that the insurgency was in ``its final throes'' back in May 2005, the Republican Congress accepted that verdict without question. When the President unveiled his so-called ``Plan For Victory'' at the Naval Academy in November 2005, the old Congress dutifully parroted the talking points sent down from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The days of the rubber-stamp Congress are now over. This Congress will no longer serve as the mouthpiece for the White House. This Congress is finally standing up to do its job as a separate and coequal branch of government.”