HAGEL GETS IT...

(Via The Raw Story)

From CNN's The Situation Room, 3/27/08:

BLITZER: Some of his critics, the president's critics, saying he's basically ignoring reality on the ground in Iraq right now, and some of his severe critics say he's living in a dream world. What do you say, as someone who has criticized him over these years?

HAGEL: Well, I think this is another episode of "Alice in Wonderland." What's up is down. What's down is up. What do you mean stability and security, Baghdad for example has been over the last year essentially ethnically divided. You've separated the Sunnis and the Shias and to somehow make some assertion that things are looking much, much better in Baghdad, and it's calm again, and it's back to where it used to be, is just -- is not -- not the case. And, when you look at the casualties the United States has taken since the so-called military surge, over 900 deaths, you look at almost 30,000 wounded, and the money we have put in there, and then the other point of this is, too, if, in fact, the surge has calmed things to a point where the president and others are saying, well, they have done a -- done a great service, and they have achieved some terrific things, why, then, is the administration talking about keeping more American troops in Iraq for the remainder of this year than we had before the surge? So, no, this is still a very unstable, serious, dangerous situation in Iraq.