Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Remember Those Iraqi Benchmarks? Well, Guess What…

Imagine that. Mention to the Democrats that they haven’t talked about the “Benchmarks” they were so adamant about pushing - and low & behold…..

WASHINGTON - No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with one of the most frustrating realities in Iraq: the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates.

ME: Yeh - thats right. When you build a new country from the ground up - it should be as easy as driving through a McDonald’s in the AM grabbing your cup of Joe. Fucking Idiots in the media.

Iraq’s political and military success is considered vital to U.S. interests, whether troops stay or go. And while the Iraqi government has made measurable progress in recent months, the pace at which it’s done so has been achingly slow.

The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq’s efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are “satisfactory” — almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. The May 2008 report card, obtained by the Associated Press, determines that only two of the benchmarks — enacting and implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenues — are unsatisfactory.

In the past 12 months, since the White House released its first formal assessment of Iraq’s military and political progress, Baghdad politicians have reached several new agreements seen as critical to easing sectarian tensions.

They have passed, for example, legislation that grants amnesty for some prisoners and allows former members of Saddam Hussein’s political party to recover lost jobs or pensions. They also determined that provincial elections would be held by Oct. 1.

But for every small step forward, Iraq has several more giant steps to take before victory can be declared on any one issue.

Amnesty requests are backlogged, and in question is whether the new law will speed the release of those in U.S. custody. It also remains unclear just how many former Baath members will be able to return to their jobs. And while Oct. 1 had been identified as an election day, Baghdad hasn’t been able to agree on the rules, possibly delaying the event by several weeks.

Likewise, militias and sectarian interests among Iraq’s leaders still play a central role in the conflict. And U.S. military officials say they are unsure violence levels will stay down as troop levels return to 142,000 after a major buildup last year.

In the May progress report, one benchmark was deemed to have brought mixed results. The Iraqi army has made satisfactory progress on the goal of fairly enforcing the law, while the nation’s police force remains plagued by sectarianism, according to the administration assessment.

Overall, militia control has declined and Baghdad’s security forces have “demonstrated its willingness and effectiveness to use these authorities to pursue extremists in all provinces, regardless of population or extremist demographics,” as illustrated by recent operations, the White House concludes.

Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., who requested the administration’s updated assessment, scoffed at the May report, which he says uses the false standard of determining whether progress on a goal is “satisfactory” versus whether the benchmark has been met. He estimates that only a few of the 18 benchmarks have been fully achieved.

Democrats also say more solid progress could have been made had the administration starting pulling troops out sooner.

ME: Progress for who? AQI? Iran?

“We’ve tried repeatedly to get the administration to shift responsibility to the Iraqi leaders for their own future, since there is broad consensus that there is no military solution and only a political settlement among the Iraqis can end the conflict,” said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The administration, however, has repeatedly missed opportunities to shift this burden to the Iraqis and appears willing to do so again,” Levin said.

But whether the next president will be much more successful in forcing the Iraqi government to reach a lasting political settlement remains to be seen.

Whether the new administration starts pulling troops out of Iraq right away, as Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama has promised, or refuses to set a timetable, per Republican John McCain’s suggestion, most agree that a functional democracy in Iraq could still be years away because of the complexities of the issues involved and the deeply rooted distrust among the nation’s sectarian groups.

“Iraq has the potential to develop into a stable, secure multiethnic, multi-sectarian democracy under the rule of law,” Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq said in April when he last testified before Congress. “Whether it realizes that potential is ultimately up to the Iraqi people.”

This propaganda piece brought to you by the AP

The same group that as this story was being released also released this

Iraq By The Numbers: Key Figures In The War

U.S. TROOP LEVELS: (AP)
_October 2007: 170,000 at peak of troop buildup.

_June 2008: 145,000.

CASUALTIES:

_Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of June 30, 2008: At least 4,113.

_Confirmed U.S. military wounded (hostile) as of June 30, 2008: 30,314.

_Confirmed U.S. military wounded (non-hostile, using medical air transport) as of May 31, 2008: 32,637.

_U.S. military deaths for June 2008: 29.

_Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors as of March 31, 2008: 1,181.

_Iraqi deaths in May from war-related violence:

At least 554 Iraqis were killed or found dead in June in war-related violence, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. That was a slight increase over the May figure of 515, according to the AP tally.

_Assassinated Iraqi academics: 374.

_Journalists killed on assignment as of June 30, 2008: 129.

COST:

_Over $533 billion so far, according to the National Priorities Project.

OIL PRODUCTION:

_Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day.

_June 22, 2008: 2.50 million barrels per day.

ELECTRICITY:

_Prewar nationwide: 3,958 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 4-8.

_June 23, 2008 nationwide: 4,470 megawatts. Hours per day: 10.9.

_Prewar Baghdad: 2,500 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 16-24.

_June 23, 2008 Baghdad: Megawatts not available. Hours per day: 9.7.

_Note: Current Baghdad megawatt figures are no longer reported by the U.S. State Department’s Iraq Weekly Status Report.

TELEPHONES:

_Prewar land lines: 833,000.

_April 4, 2008: 1,360,000.

_Prewar cell phones: 80,000.

_April 30, 2008: More than 12 million.

WATER:

_Prewar: 12.9 million people had potable water.

_April 30, 2008: 20.9 million people have potable water.

SEWERAGE:

_Prewar: 6.2 million people served.

_April 30, 2008: 11.3 million people served.

(Note: The number for sewerage has not changed in the newest SIGIR report.)

INTERNAL REFUGEES:

_July 1, 2008: At least 2.8 million people are currently displaced inside Iraq.

EMIGRANTS:

_Prewar: 500,000 Iraqis living abroad.

_June 1, 2008: At least 2,155,600—mainly in Syria and Jordan.

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All figures are the most recent available.