Iraq Government Missed All Goals
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, Money, The World, WarThat’s what a preliminary report is said to reveal when it’s published sometime this week.
Would you like to know why? Because why should the Iraqi government officials care about our goals? You have warring factions in the government and they’re going to protect what’s theirs…which is the normal: money, power and access. And they really can’t do that until, well, we leave. Simply put, they want us out, and it’s now pretty apparent by this massive foot dragging.
The “pivot point” for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush’s so-called “surge” plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said.“The facts are not in question,” the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. “The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report.”
The report, required by law, is expected to be delivered to Capitol Hill by Thursday or Friday, as the Senate takes up a $649 billion defense policy bill and votes on a Democratic amendment ordering troop withdrawals to begin in 120 days.
Also being drafted are several Republican-backed proposals that would force a new course in Iraq, including one by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., that would require U.S. troops to abandon combat missions. Collins and Nelson say their binding amendment would order the U.S. mission to focus on training the Iraqi security forces, targeting al-Qaida members and protecting Iraq’s borders.
Perhaps the biggest concern to us should be the following…
The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, with the overall tally for Iraq alone nearing a half-trillion dollars, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.The figures call into question the Pentagon’s estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost $5.6 billion through the end of September.
I certainly don’t want to keep throwing money down a hole in hopes that the Iraqi government will suddenly get with it and make with the progress.
Enough is enough. Time to quit wasting our troops, money and time.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 and is filed under Foreign Policy, Money, The World, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:16 am
[...] On to matters of more weight, Justin Gardner chimes in on the recruiting woes of the DHS and the “interim mid-July assessment” of “progress” in Iraq. [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 11:27 am
[...] I wrote about this yesterday, but in the interest of fairness, take a look and see if you think he has any valid points. [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Since you’re done wasting your time with the Iraqis, you might also want to stop supporting our OWN Democrat-controlled Congress, which so far has missed most of its benchmarks as well, depsite throwing TRILLIONS of dollars their way.
A political situation in Iraq will NOT rectify itself until the situation on the ground changes, and that can only be accomplished by waging war on the enemies. Any failure to do that, or capitualation on our part, will cripple the Iraqi government and make it moot. Your exultation that a solution can only be accomplished WHEN WE LEAVE flies in the face of what the Iraqi Foreign Minister said just yesterday, in which he warned an American pull-out would be disastrous for his country.
A new course IS underway in Iraq, and is showing some signs of progress. We owe our troops and the Iraqis a chance to let it work and achieve some kind of victory out of this.
July 11th, 2007 at 5:30 am
Democrat Congress better than Iraqi govermnent – get one measure pased in six months. Mind you the Iraqis are working an extremely hazardous environmen.
July 11th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Well, if I was an Iraqi PM and I kept hearing that the American Senate was getting ready to bug out, I doubt that I’d be to interested in working on any kind of deal to share anything since it’s going to be a winner take all in the region.
It’s really more than a shame that this war has had to be fought against AQ, Iran, Sunni Insurgency, Sadr’s Goons, MSM, Sheehan/CodePinkos/et al, Liberal Loons, Self-Serving Democrats, and now Poll-Hugging Republicans.
I’d say Bush has held up pretty damn good based on all the opponents!
July 11th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
lol, good points by Scott and davod about our Congress. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
July 12th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
The report also says that most of the security benchamarks were satisfactory, including the most important – the turnaround in Anbar.
Also, consider this intel obtained from AQ in Iraq. I know you hate gateway pundit, Justin, but these findings are significant. He says this:
If this is true, then it is imperitive that we continue to support the Iraqi military forces on the ground. Areas of Iraq are being handed over, slowly but surely, and Al Qaeda itself admits this is a defeat for them. The Iraqi security forces won’t be able to continue this progress on their own, or else they would have done it themselves by now.