Iraq falls short of key US guidelines: report

[cato2]

Iraq falls short of key US guidelines: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iraq fails to meet key US political and security benchmarks in an upcoming report to Congress that seems certain to increase calls from lawmakers and the restive public to withdraw US troops, a US newspaper reported said Sunday.

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals and timelines set for it by President George W. Bush when he announced a major shift in US Iraq policy last January, the daily reported.

The US Congress earlier this year passed a law containing 18 goals as part of a war-funding measure, setting a September deadline for a thorough assessment of the situation on the ground and calling for a July interim report.

The president deployed additional troops to buy time for Iraqi political reconciliation, but the Post said that the report, due next week, concludes that US combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread beyond Baghdad and sectarianism has further polarized Iraq.

"The security progress we're making in Iraq is real," a senior intelligence official in Baghdad told the newspaper, "but it's only in part of the country and there's not enough political progress to get us over the line in September."

Nevertheless, the newspaper reported that the top coalition commander, General David Petraeus, and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker will emphasize the positive when they provide their assessment to Congress in September.

The US administration's interim report says that Sunni tribal leaders in Al-Anbar province are turning against Al-Qaeda; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders last month agreed on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine.

Still, officials told the Post that those achievements pale in comparison to the numerous setbacks in America's efforts to make Iraq stand on its own and provide for its own security.

Speaking on CNN, Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie took issue with the negative forecast, which he decried as "totally untrue."
Meanwhile, an editorial in the influential New York Times called for US troops to leave Iraq, saying that Bush's plan to stabilize the country through military means is a lost cause.

"It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush's plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost," the daily opined.

US Senator Chuck Hagel, one of the earliest critics of the Iraq war from within Bush's Republican party, expressed the country's growing desperation about the course of events.

"We have a mess now," Hagel told NBC.

"If we do not see this administration take some initiatives to make some changes -- significant strategic policy changes over the next 90 days -- then it will be forced on him," Hagel said.

Senator Richard Lugar, whose defection last month led to a hemorrhaging of Republican support for Bush on Iraq, renewed his call for US troops to get out.

"I would think the majority of our forces could redeploy by the midpoint of next year ... rather than going door-to-door in the present surge," he told CNN.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, another vocal critic, said: "I think the dam is about to burst."

"Republican senators who have been holding up a reasonable change in policy on this war are going home and getting hammered by their constituents, and they're beginning to change," he told CBS.

"If not this July, by September there will be real change forced upon the president by a bipartisan Senate," Schumer predicted.

The revelations about the report's findings come as Congress prepares to resume debate on Iraq as it takes up funding this week.

Some stalwart Bush supporters in the US legislature said it might be possible to simply scale back expectations, rather than pulling out of Iraq altogether.

"We need to go back and reevaluate ... establishing Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq," said Pete Hoekstra, top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, speaking on Fox News.

"We need to have this national debate about 'Do we believe that radical jihadists are a threat to US security in the long term?' And I'm not sure that we've come to a consensus on that," Hoekstra said.

Iraq falls short of key US guidelines: report - Yahoo! News

How ever the Iraqi National Security Adviser claims they will meet these goals in time.

Iraqi official: Lawmakers cutting short summer recess
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq is on target to meet by September key political benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said Sunday.

Iraqi lawmakers have cut their planned two-month recess in half and will be working six-day weeks for the rest of this month to try to pass the provisions by September, he said.

Al-Rubaie disputed a report in Sunday's Washington Post that cited senior U.S. officials as saying 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."
Iraqi official: Lawmakers cutting short summer recess - CNN.com