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Today's Must Read
Benchmarks! Get your benchmarks right here!
According to a letter sent yesterday by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, the Iraqi government has something of a problem meeting benchmarks. You can read the letter here.
The letter was a response to repeated requests from Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) to disclose the details of an agreement that had reportedly been made between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government last fall. Bush had made a number of public references to the agreeement, but the full details of the agreement remained unknown.
And it's no wonder. It's quite a little list of unfulfilled promises (you can read the complete list here). From the AP:
Iraq has passed target dates to make laws establishing provincial elections, regulating distribution of the country's oil wealth and reversing measures that have excluded many Sunnis from jobs and government positions because of Baath party membership, according to the list Rice provided.The Iraq government had also agreed to approve a law governing political amnesty and the charged question of sectarian militias by Dec. 31 and to finish a review of the constitution, seen as unfair to minority Sunnis, by Wednesday.
"Although the Iraqi parliament and Cabinet have done intermittent work on some elements of the list, including the symbolic oil law, it appeared that none of the targets have been fully met," the AP reports.
Meanwhile, some Senate Republicans (Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and well, Joe Lieberman (I-CT)) are busy pushing a resolution to counter the nonbinding resolutions against the president's troop increase -- by proposing more benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
Comments (12)
Punchy wrote on January 31, 2007 9:51 AM:A vastly more important and informative letter would be one that demands--in very specific terms--exactly what percentage of these marks must be hit, and most importantly, what we will do if they are not. The level of obfuscaton in Rice's return letter would probably set Guinness Book records.
mohio wrote on January 31, 2007 10:27 AM:I heard an interesting conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski on the BBC this morning positing that the benchmarks are a way for Washington to continue its engagement, and that we will soon see "evidence" of Iran "interfering with the Democratically elected Iraqi Government's ability to meet those benchmarks" as justification for strikes against Iran. essentially, his point was that we don't want the benchmarks to be met because it interferes with our interest in remaining there.
Richard L. Adlof wrote on January 31, 2007 11:04 AM:Benchmarks for Dr. Condi Rice
#1: Collect letters of resignation from the President, Vice President, the Attorney's General and yourself.
#2: Submit the letters to Congress by end of business on Friday . . . Yes. This Friday.
#3: Mr. Bush, Mr. Chenney, Mr. Gonzales and yourself need to report to the Hague by Monday morning at 8:00 AM Vienna time.
Those are bechmarks that the American people can get behind and will have real, lasting, positive effects in Iraq.
Frederick wrote on January 31, 2007 11:29 AM:And were trusting this Iraq government to be the lead in
EH wrote on January 31, 2007 11:36 AM:this surge fiasco, good luck with that.
Not only that, but benchmarks also give rise to endless second chances that can be used to stretch out the engagement.
connski wrote on January 31, 2007 11:47 AM:Benchmarks are just another way for Bush to BS the American people that sometime the Iraqi's will stabilize their government. The surge is just another way to say down the line, 21,500 isn't enough troops. we've raised another 92k so lets send more.
Time to hold Bush accountable and stop the neocon plan for perpetual war. Bush, like his puppet Maliki won't change until forced.
connski
KWM wrote on January 31, 2007 11:52 AM:None of this can be called a surprise....it is essential that we stay in Iraq at least until the petroleum law is effected to essentially privatize the Iraqi oil industry to the benefit of the big oil companies....then, of course, we'll have to maintain a permanent military presence in-country to protect American workers...
Redshift wrote on January 31, 2007 11:58 AM:The question that needs to be asked every time they talk about the puppet government meeting benchmarks is "Or what?" If benchmarks are real (hah!) there are only two possible answers if they fail to meet them -- either we apply some specific pressures that have been made clear in advance, or we pull out. (Leaving aside the question of whether pulling out would be seen as a punishment or a reward.)
Absent either of those two responses, "benchmarks" are a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose PR gimmick -- celebrated as progress if they're met, ignored or extended if they're not.
BTS wrote on January 31, 2007 1:46 PM:I second the notion of KWM. The “surge” strategy is not just smoke and mirrors on the domestic front intended to help George save face, although it is that. It is also something liquid and crude. My read is that Dick Cheney has promised to keep the Maliki government in power through January 20th, 2009, in exchange for passage of a new Petroleum Law. This new Petroleum Law, drawn up with the help of the consulting firm BearingPoint, will provide extremely preferential access to Iraq’s here-to-fore-nationalized oil reserves for US-based oil companies. See the article “Blood and Oil” which appeared in The Independent for a description of the New Petroleum Law. The “surge” is essentially Dick Cheney sending in the Marines, literally and figuratively, to protect the Maliki government long enough so that it can put the new law on the books. Only in this light does the surge strategy make any sense whatsoever.
As for the "benchmarks", they are just more smoke and mirrors designed to fill media space and buy time.
roger wrote on January 31, 2007 2:14 PM:I do wish we could give up the halfway measures that are halfway to nowhere. Benchmarks imposed on a fractionalizing society averaging a hundred some deaths a day doesn't cut it. There is no talk from D.C. about ceasefire talks, but that is precisely what Iraq needs - a ceasefire preceeding peace talks between all parties. Since we know that, under President Decider, the troops are going to be there with or without benchmarks, pressure should be exerted to create conditions that would make withdrawal safe and give a high level of security to the Iraqi people. And the only way forward, there, is to negotiate between all parties. It is rather absurd that we haven't learned at least that from Vietnam.
john wrote on February 17, 2007 5:20 PM:I can't belive the Bush adminstration is going to try the same things for war against Iran that it used to fool the people and congress when it sold the war against Iraq. Wake up America
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