Iraqis tell Washington to monitor its own progress

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Iraqi lawmakers said on Saturday Washington was covering up for its own mistakes in Iraq by setting them artificial benchmarks to meet and then ticking them off like scorecards.

Frustrated by criticism from the United States over their slow progress towards political goals meant to foster national reconciliation, Iraqi leaders said Washington would be better served by dxamining its own progress in the unpopular war.

"The Americans always try to pretend the responsibility for cleaning up this mess isn't theirs and tend to shift blame onto Iraq, Iran and Syria for everything that goes wrong," said veteran Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.

"But they should stop this nonsense and admit that most of the accountability rests on their shoulders," he told Reuters.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15246353.htm

[babylonsister]

1. And the Iraqis would be correct. Finger-pointing works both ways. nt

[Raven]

2. I thought our CiC said that the benchmarks were created by

the Iraqis...could he have lied to us about that???

[rodeodance]

3. This article says:"Iraq's leaders had not met half of their key goals." But I

read WH goals, congress goals. It is confusing who actually wrote them up.
d

......In a report ordered by Congress, the White House said on Friday that Iraq's leaders had not met half of their key goals.

The U.S. administration's admission of shortfalls in the performance of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's fractured government came a day after President George W. Bush had said enough progress had been made to justify troop withdrawals.

The White House report concluded Iraq's leaders had made satisfactory progress on nine out of 18 political and security benchmarks and unsatisfactory progress in seven. It said it could not rate two other targets.

The benchmarks, which include a crucial revenue-sharing oil law, are designed to promote reconciliation between Iraq's warring majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs.