J
Joe S.
Guest
Well, well -- looks as though the Bush White House has figured out how to
lie without getting caught. They realize that not a single goal they have
set for Iraq will be met by September -- or by any other time, for that
matter -- so -- to make it appear that "progress" is occurring in Iraq, the
Bushitters are moving the goal posts closer, changing the rules in the
middle of the game -- what else would we expect from an administration that
lives by the lie???
And watch the rightwingers lap it up -- like dogs eating ****.
QUOTE
The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security
goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a
major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials
closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next
week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade
Congress to continue supporting the war.
In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the
administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are
turning against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that
sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders
managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major
religious shrine, officials said.
Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when
he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to
Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed with
provincial elections this year and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation.
In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to
"take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
Congress expanded on Bush's benchmarks, writing 18 goals into law as part of
the war-funding measure it passed in the spring.
In addition to the elections, legislation and security measures Bush
outlined in January, Congress added demands that the Iraqi government
complete a revision of its constitution and pass a law on de-Baathification
and additional laws on militia disarmament, regional boundaries and other
issues.
Lawmakers asked for an interim report in July and set a Sept. 15 deadline
for a comprehensive assessment by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S.
commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Now, as U.S.
combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad, and
sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade
lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards.
But anything short of progress on the original benchmarks is unlikely to
appease the growing ranks of disaffected Republican lawmakers who are urging
Bush to develop a new strategy. Although Republicans held the line this year
against Democratic efforts to set a timeline for withdrawing troops, several
influential GOP senators have broken with Bush in recent days, charging that
his plan is failing and calling for troop redeployments starting as early as
the spring.
According to several senior officials who agreed to discuss the situation in
Iraq only on the condition of anonymity, the political goals that seemed
achievable earlier this year remain hostage to the security situation. If
the extreme violence were to decline, Iraq's political paralysis might
eventually subside. "If they are arguing, accusing, gridlocking," one
official said, "none of that would mean the country is falling apart if it
was against the backdrop of a stabilizing security situation."
From a military perspective, however, the political stalemate is hampering
security. "The security progress we're making is real," said a senior
military intelligence official in Baghdad. "But it's only in part of the
country, and there's not enough political progress to get us over the line
in September."
In their September report, sources said, Petraeus and Crocker intend to
emphasize how security and politics are intertwined, and how progress in
either will be incremental. In that context, the administration will offer
new measures of progress to justify continuing the war effort.
"There are things going on that we never could have foreseen," said one
official, who noted that the original benchmarks set by Bush six months
ago -- and endorsed by the Maliki government -- are not only unachievable in
the short term but also irrelevant to changing the conditions in Iraq.
As they work to put together the reports due to Congress next week and in
September, these officials and others close to Iraq policy recognize that
the administration is boxed in by measurements that were enshrined in U.S.
law in May.
"That is a problem," the official said. "These are congressionally mandated
benchmarks now." They require Bush to certify movement in areas ranging from
the passage of specific legislation by the Iraqi parliament to the numbers
of Iraqi military units able to operate independently. If he cannot make a
convincing case, the legislation requires the president to explain how he
will change his strategy.
Top administration officials are aware that the strategy's stated goal --
using U.S. forces to create breathing space for Iraqi political
reconciliation -- will not be met by September, said one person fresh from a
White House meeting. But though some, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, have indicated flexibility toward other options, including
early troop redeployments, Bush has made no decisions on a possible new
course.
"The heart of darkness is the president," the person said. "Nobody knows
what he thinks, even the people who work for him."
Mixed Security Results
Military commanders say that their offensive is improving security in
Baghdad. "Everything takes time, and everything takes longer than you think
it's going to take," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army's 3rd
Infantry Division, which is fighting south of Baghdad, said Friday. He
added: "There is indeed room for optimism. I see progress, but there needs
to be more."
Yet the month of May, which came before the Phantom Thunder offensive began,
was the most violent in Iraq since November 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi forces
fought a fierce battle to retake Fallujah. That intensity promises to
continue through the summer. "I see these aggressive offensive operations .
.. . taking us through July, August and into September," Lynch said.
Not even the most optimistic commanders contend that the offensive is
allowing for political reconciliation. At best, Petraeus is likely to report
in September, security will have improved in the capital, perhaps returning
to the level of 2005, when the city was violent but not racked by low-level
civil war.
More significant is whether that slight improvement in security can be built
upon. Regardless of what decisions are made in Washington and Baghdad, the
U.S. military cannot sustain the current force levels beyond March 2008
because of force rotations. Long-term holding of cleared areas will fall to
Iraqi soldiers and police officers.
Because of corruption and mixed loyalties, a Pentagon official said about
the Iraqi police, "half of them are part of the problem, not the solution."
The portrait officials paint of the Iraqi military is somewhat brighter.
"These guys have now been through some pretty hard combat," said a senior
administration official. "They're in the fight, not running from it.
"But can they do it without us there? Almost certainly not," the official
said.
Even if U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies are able to hold Baghdad and the
surrounding provinces, noted the intelligence official, there is a good
chance that security will deteriorate elsewhere because there are not enough
U.S. troops to spread around. As U.S. troop numbers decrease, he said, it is
possible that by sometime next year "we control the middle, the Kurds
control the north, and the Iranians control the south."
A Hurdle to Progress
Last month, Iraq's largest Sunni political grouping announced that its four
cabinet ministers were boycotting the government and that it was withdrawing
its 44 members from parliament. The immediate cause was the arrest of a
Sunni minister on murder charges and a vote by the Shiite-dominated
legislature to fire the Sunni Arab speaker.
The withdrawal poses a serious problem for short-term U.S. goals. A new law
to distribute oil revenue among Iraq's sectarian groups -- seen by U.S.
officials as the best hope for a legislative achievement before September --
reached parliament last week after months of delay. Although the Shiite and
Kurdish blocs could pass it, the absence of the Sunnis would make any
victory meaningless.
U.S. officials despair of any timely progress on the oil law. "I suppose
they'll pass it when they damn well want to," one official said.
Plans to hold provincial elections, envisioned to provide more power to
Sunnis who boycotted a 2005 vote, have grown more complicated. As Anbar
tribal chieftains have emerged to help fight al-Qaeda, they have also
demanded more political power from traditional Sunni leaders. In southern
Shiite areas, Maliki's Dawa organization continues to vie with the Supreme
Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest bloc in the Shiite alliance that
dominates Iraq's parliament, while both fear the rising power of forces
controlled by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"In mixed areas such as Baghdad," a U.S. official said, "the Sunnis are
worried that the Shiites will just clean up again even if [Sunnis]
participate this time, because so many Sunnis" have fled sectarian violence
in the capital.
Late last year, amid strong doubts about Maliki's leadership capabilities,
senior White House officials considered trying to engineer the Iraqi
president's replacement. But most have now concluded that there are no
viable alternatives and that any attempt to force a change would only worsen
matters.
Instead, U.S. officials in Baghdad are engaged in a complicated hand-holding
exercise with Iraqi leaders, and are striving for small gains rather than
major advancement. The main example of success they cite is agreement
reached by the top Shiite, Sunni and Kurd officials in the government to
appeal for calm after last month's bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra.
Officials are encouraged by the growing numbers of local Sunni officials and
tribal leaders in Anbar striving to wrest political and security control
from al Qaeda in Iraq. Bush has also highlighted the importance of such
local efforts. "This is where political reconciliation matters most," he
said in a speech last month, "because it is where ordinary Iraqis are
deciding whether to support new Iraq."
But officials caution that this transformation is no substitute for a
national Iraqi identity, with unified leadership in Baghdad. Maliki's
Shiite-dominated government must continue to reach out to Anbar "and give
these emerging tribal forces status, adopting them," a U.S. official said.
"Trying to do the local initiative stuff and having that be the whole story
does not advance the process," he said.
Warnings on Withdrawal
Facing increased public disapproval and eroding Republican support, Bush has
stepped up his warnings that a sudden U.S. withdrawal would allow al-Qaeda
or Iran -- or both -- to take over Iraq. What is more likely, several
officials said, is a deeper split between competing Shiite groups supported
in varying degrees by Iran, and greater involvement by neighboring Arab
states in Sunni areas battling al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Kurdish region,
officials said, would become further estranged from the rest of Iraq, and
its tensions with Turkey would increase.
"I can't say that al-Qaeda is going to take over, or that Iran is going to
take over," an official said. "I don't think either are true. But I do think
that a lot of very, very bad things would happen." If the administration
decided to have troops retreat to bases inside Iraq and not intervene in
sectarian warfare, he said, the U.S. military could find itself in a
position that "would make the Dutch at Srebrenica look like heroes."
For its part, the military has calculated that a veto-proof congressional
majority is unlikely to demand a full, immediate withdrawal. But however
long the troops remain, and in whatever number, the military intelligence
official said, they see a clear mission ahead. "We're going to get it as
stable as we can, with the troops we have, and in the time available. And
then, we'll back out as carefully as we can," the official said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701274.html?hpid=topnews
END QUOTE
lie without getting caught. They realize that not a single goal they have
set for Iraq will be met by September -- or by any other time, for that
matter -- so -- to make it appear that "progress" is occurring in Iraq, the
Bushitters are moving the goal posts closer, changing the rules in the
middle of the game -- what else would we expect from an administration that
lives by the lie???
And watch the rightwingers lap it up -- like dogs eating ****.
QUOTE
The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security
goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a
major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials
closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next
week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade
Congress to continue supporting the war.
In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the
administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are
turning against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that
sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders
managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major
religious shrine, officials said.
Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when
he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to
Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed with
provincial elections this year and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation.
In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to
"take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
Congress expanded on Bush's benchmarks, writing 18 goals into law as part of
the war-funding measure it passed in the spring.
In addition to the elections, legislation and security measures Bush
outlined in January, Congress added demands that the Iraqi government
complete a revision of its constitution and pass a law on de-Baathification
and additional laws on militia disarmament, regional boundaries and other
issues.
Lawmakers asked for an interim report in July and set a Sept. 15 deadline
for a comprehensive assessment by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S.
commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Now, as U.S.
combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad, and
sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade
lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards.
But anything short of progress on the original benchmarks is unlikely to
appease the growing ranks of disaffected Republican lawmakers who are urging
Bush to develop a new strategy. Although Republicans held the line this year
against Democratic efforts to set a timeline for withdrawing troops, several
influential GOP senators have broken with Bush in recent days, charging that
his plan is failing and calling for troop redeployments starting as early as
the spring.
According to several senior officials who agreed to discuss the situation in
Iraq only on the condition of anonymity, the political goals that seemed
achievable earlier this year remain hostage to the security situation. If
the extreme violence were to decline, Iraq's political paralysis might
eventually subside. "If they are arguing, accusing, gridlocking," one
official said, "none of that would mean the country is falling apart if it
was against the backdrop of a stabilizing security situation."
From a military perspective, however, the political stalemate is hampering
security. "The security progress we're making is real," said a senior
military intelligence official in Baghdad. "But it's only in part of the
country, and there's not enough political progress to get us over the line
in September."
In their September report, sources said, Petraeus and Crocker intend to
emphasize how security and politics are intertwined, and how progress in
either will be incremental. In that context, the administration will offer
new measures of progress to justify continuing the war effort.
"There are things going on that we never could have foreseen," said one
official, who noted that the original benchmarks set by Bush six months
ago -- and endorsed by the Maliki government -- are not only unachievable in
the short term but also irrelevant to changing the conditions in Iraq.
As they work to put together the reports due to Congress next week and in
September, these officials and others close to Iraq policy recognize that
the administration is boxed in by measurements that were enshrined in U.S.
law in May.
"That is a problem," the official said. "These are congressionally mandated
benchmarks now." They require Bush to certify movement in areas ranging from
the passage of specific legislation by the Iraqi parliament to the numbers
of Iraqi military units able to operate independently. If he cannot make a
convincing case, the legislation requires the president to explain how he
will change his strategy.
Top administration officials are aware that the strategy's stated goal --
using U.S. forces to create breathing space for Iraqi political
reconciliation -- will not be met by September, said one person fresh from a
White House meeting. But though some, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, have indicated flexibility toward other options, including
early troop redeployments, Bush has made no decisions on a possible new
course.
"The heart of darkness is the president," the person said. "Nobody knows
what he thinks, even the people who work for him."
Mixed Security Results
Military commanders say that their offensive is improving security in
Baghdad. "Everything takes time, and everything takes longer than you think
it's going to take," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army's 3rd
Infantry Division, which is fighting south of Baghdad, said Friday. He
added: "There is indeed room for optimism. I see progress, but there needs
to be more."
Yet the month of May, which came before the Phantom Thunder offensive began,
was the most violent in Iraq since November 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi forces
fought a fierce battle to retake Fallujah. That intensity promises to
continue through the summer. "I see these aggressive offensive operations .
.. . taking us through July, August and into September," Lynch said.
Not even the most optimistic commanders contend that the offensive is
allowing for political reconciliation. At best, Petraeus is likely to report
in September, security will have improved in the capital, perhaps returning
to the level of 2005, when the city was violent but not racked by low-level
civil war.
More significant is whether that slight improvement in security can be built
upon. Regardless of what decisions are made in Washington and Baghdad, the
U.S. military cannot sustain the current force levels beyond March 2008
because of force rotations. Long-term holding of cleared areas will fall to
Iraqi soldiers and police officers.
Because of corruption and mixed loyalties, a Pentagon official said about
the Iraqi police, "half of them are part of the problem, not the solution."
The portrait officials paint of the Iraqi military is somewhat brighter.
"These guys have now been through some pretty hard combat," said a senior
administration official. "They're in the fight, not running from it.
"But can they do it without us there? Almost certainly not," the official
said.
Even if U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies are able to hold Baghdad and the
surrounding provinces, noted the intelligence official, there is a good
chance that security will deteriorate elsewhere because there are not enough
U.S. troops to spread around. As U.S. troop numbers decrease, he said, it is
possible that by sometime next year "we control the middle, the Kurds
control the north, and the Iranians control the south."
A Hurdle to Progress
Last month, Iraq's largest Sunni political grouping announced that its four
cabinet ministers were boycotting the government and that it was withdrawing
its 44 members from parliament. The immediate cause was the arrest of a
Sunni minister on murder charges and a vote by the Shiite-dominated
legislature to fire the Sunni Arab speaker.
The withdrawal poses a serious problem for short-term U.S. goals. A new law
to distribute oil revenue among Iraq's sectarian groups -- seen by U.S.
officials as the best hope for a legislative achievement before September --
reached parliament last week after months of delay. Although the Shiite and
Kurdish blocs could pass it, the absence of the Sunnis would make any
victory meaningless.
U.S. officials despair of any timely progress on the oil law. "I suppose
they'll pass it when they damn well want to," one official said.
Plans to hold provincial elections, envisioned to provide more power to
Sunnis who boycotted a 2005 vote, have grown more complicated. As Anbar
tribal chieftains have emerged to help fight al-Qaeda, they have also
demanded more political power from traditional Sunni leaders. In southern
Shiite areas, Maliki's Dawa organization continues to vie with the Supreme
Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest bloc in the Shiite alliance that
dominates Iraq's parliament, while both fear the rising power of forces
controlled by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"In mixed areas such as Baghdad," a U.S. official said, "the Sunnis are
worried that the Shiites will just clean up again even if [Sunnis]
participate this time, because so many Sunnis" have fled sectarian violence
in the capital.
Late last year, amid strong doubts about Maliki's leadership capabilities,
senior White House officials considered trying to engineer the Iraqi
president's replacement. But most have now concluded that there are no
viable alternatives and that any attempt to force a change would only worsen
matters.
Instead, U.S. officials in Baghdad are engaged in a complicated hand-holding
exercise with Iraqi leaders, and are striving for small gains rather than
major advancement. The main example of success they cite is agreement
reached by the top Shiite, Sunni and Kurd officials in the government to
appeal for calm after last month's bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra.
Officials are encouraged by the growing numbers of local Sunni officials and
tribal leaders in Anbar striving to wrest political and security control
from al Qaeda in Iraq. Bush has also highlighted the importance of such
local efforts. "This is where political reconciliation matters most," he
said in a speech last month, "because it is where ordinary Iraqis are
deciding whether to support new Iraq."
But officials caution that this transformation is no substitute for a
national Iraqi identity, with unified leadership in Baghdad. Maliki's
Shiite-dominated government must continue to reach out to Anbar "and give
these emerging tribal forces status, adopting them," a U.S. official said.
"Trying to do the local initiative stuff and having that be the whole story
does not advance the process," he said.
Warnings on Withdrawal
Facing increased public disapproval and eroding Republican support, Bush has
stepped up his warnings that a sudden U.S. withdrawal would allow al-Qaeda
or Iran -- or both -- to take over Iraq. What is more likely, several
officials said, is a deeper split between competing Shiite groups supported
in varying degrees by Iran, and greater involvement by neighboring Arab
states in Sunni areas battling al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Kurdish region,
officials said, would become further estranged from the rest of Iraq, and
its tensions with Turkey would increase.
"I can't say that al-Qaeda is going to take over, or that Iran is going to
take over," an official said. "I don't think either are true. But I do think
that a lot of very, very bad things would happen." If the administration
decided to have troops retreat to bases inside Iraq and not intervene in
sectarian warfare, he said, the U.S. military could find itself in a
position that "would make the Dutch at Srebrenica look like heroes."
For its part, the military has calculated that a veto-proof congressional
majority is unlikely to demand a full, immediate withdrawal. But however
long the troops remain, and in whatever number, the military intelligence
official said, they see a clear mission ahead. "We're going to get it as
stable as we can, with the troops we have, and in the time available. And
then, we'll back out as carefully as we can," the official said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701274.html?hpid=topnews
END QUOTE
