In yet another example of Bush's brilliant skills in prediction and his unwarranted optimism, five months after he promised to hold the al-Maliki government to the November benchmark, he moved that date to March '08. Now he is moving that date to July '08, in spite of claims of remarkable 'progress' in the September report.
If things looked good enough in Iraq back in January to expect Iraq to take over security by November, and we've had so much "progress" from the surge since then, why does the date keep moving further away? Before all of the surge troops were even in place, he had already added four months to the handover date. And this was all while Bush was talking up the immense "success".
Bush's real plan and strategy in Iraq has been essentially to cross his fingers and hope for a miracle, while passing on the disaster to his successor. He keeps creating new scapegoats for his failure: Al-Qaeda, Iran, the "traitorous" American public, Syria, and now the corpse of Saddam Hussein.
Bush sold his surge to the American public with 18 benchmarks that he himself created. He succeeded in 3 of them. He promised to hold the Iraqi government to those benchmarks. Then he said that was unrealistic, and that nobody could possibly have seriously expected the benchmarks to be met. He said that the Iraqi military would lead the surge, with U.S. in merely a support role. Then he said it was silly to think that the Iraqi forces would ever have been able to do something like that, since there are now fewer Iraqi troops ready to operate independently than there were before the surge.
Bush keeps on making promises and then basically saying that we were stupid to actually believe that last promise, but his new promises are really, truly sincere. And every failure of his policies is really only further proof that we need to continue them.
full story
More Delays in Shift to Iraqi Control
WASHINGTON (AP) — In another sign of U.S. struggles in Iraq, the target date for putting Iraqi authorities in charge of security in all 18 provinces has slipped yet again, to at least July.
The delay, noted in a Pentagon report to Congress on progress and problems in Iraq, highlights the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in some areas.
It is the second time this year the target date for completing what is known as "Provincial Iraqi Control" has been pushed back. The Pentagon report submitted to Congress on Monday hinted at the possibility of further delays.
....
The intent is to give the provincial governments control over security in their area as a step toward lessening — and eventually ending — the U.S. security role.
Thus far seven of the 18 provinces have reverted to Iraqi control.
The process has gained relatively little attention in the broader debate in Washington about when and how to get the Iraqis ready to provide their own security so that U.S. forces can begin to leave. That may be in part because some details of the provincial transition process are classified secret.
...
An independent commission that examined the issue of provincial Iraqi control this summer concluded in a report to Congress on Sept. 4 that the process is too convoluted and an impediment to the overall U.S. goals of speeding the transition to Iraqi control and supporting sovereignty.
"Our current policy of determining when a province may or may not be controlled by its own government reinforces the popular perception of the (U.S.-led) coalition as an occupation force," according to the commission, headed by retired Marine Gen. James Jones. "This may contribute to increased violence and instability."
The commission recommended that all 18 provinces return to Iraqi control immediately. U.S. forces would continue to operate in the areas they are now, in coordination with Iraqi authorities; Iraqi control would mean U.S. troops could transition to less combat-intense roles.
In an interview Wednesday, Jones said he and the other commissioners got the strong impression from Iraqi officials they met in Baghdad this summer that they want full provincial control without further delay.
"The whole process seems to be acting as more of a brake on progress than a help," Jones said. "If the Iraqi government is willing, I think we should be putting as much on them as possible. To have a sovereign government that doesn't control all of its provinces doesn't make a lot of sense to me."
In an Associated Press interview last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, defended the transition process. It involves a series of detailed reviews and assessments by U.S. and Iraqi officials, culminating with input by Petraeus and the most senior Iraqi government leaders.
Though slow, it is helpful in sorting out problems that stand in the way of a smooth transition, he said.
"It forces people to come to grips with those issues," Petraeus said.
In January, Bush announced his new strategy for stabilizing Iraq and his decision to send an additional 21,500 U.S. combat troops to Baghdad and to Anbar province. He, said, at the time, that the Iraqi government "plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
In June the Pentagon informed Congress that the target had slipped to "no later than" next March.
In this month's report, the Pentagon said its "current projection" was that all 18 provinces would move to Iraqi control "as early as" July; that would be eight months later than Bush's original projection.
...
The Pentagon report cited a litany of problems with the police. For example, it said as few as 40 percent of those trained by coalition troops in recent years are still on the job. Also, due to combat loss, theft, attrition and poor maintenance, a "significant portion" of U.S.-issued equipment is now unusable.
Or, as Juan Cole summarised it:
Just to underline what is said here, 60 percent of the policemen who got even the very minimal training on offer to them have disappeared from the force; and not much is left of the weaponry ("equipment") that the US gave the Iraqi police.
The report is here (pdf).
No comments:
Post a Comment