"Wait Till September" Is Open and Transparent BS

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"Wait Till September" Is Open and Transparent BS
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2007-06-18 12:13. Media

Petraeus: Iraq 'Challenges' to Last for Years
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post

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A growing number of prominent Republicans who last month rejected any mention of withdrawal now say they view the September report as a crossroads.

"I think everybody anticipates that there's going to be a new strategy in the fall," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I don't think we'll have the same level of troops, in all likelihood, that we have now," totaling more than 150,000. "The time to properly evaluate that, it strikes me, is in September."

On the Iraqi political front, McConnell said, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been "a big disappointment. They have not done the things that they know they need to do to hold their country together -- things like the new oil law, things like local elections, things like finishing the de-Baathification process."

In announcing his new strategy in January, Bush said the troop increase would diminish sectarian violence in Baghdad and break Sunni insurgent control in Anbar province, a stronghold of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq. The ensuing calm, the administration said, would give the Shiite-dominated Maliki government time and space to reconcile with the minority Sunni and Kurdish communities, and build a unified administration that Iraqis -- including many now involved in violence -- would support.

But since the deployment of five additional U.S. combat brigades began in early spring, the overall level of violence has not abated and in some respects has increased, according to a Pentagon report issued last week. Little progress has been reported in achieving the political benchmarks spelled out in the funding legislation as well as a revision of the Iraqi constitution to provide a better balance of regional and sectarian factions in the government.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in Baghdad on Saturday that he had told the Iraqi government "that our troops are buying them time to pursue reconciliation, that frankly we are disappointed by the progress so far." The same message, he said, had been conveyed by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and Adm. William J. Fallon, head of the U.S. military's Central Command, during Iraq visits last week.

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