The Nation: The Myopic Iraq Debate

[marmar]

article | posted September 8, 2007 (web only)
The Myopic Iraq Debate
Matthew Blake



It was not quite the coming attraction the Bush Administration wanted. In a prelude to testimony from US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and top Iraq commander David Petraeus on Tuesday, Congress held a week of jam-packed Iraq-related hearings, attempting to measure the progress--or lack thereof--of the Administration's troop surge.

Reports were released, generals testified, politicians of both parties squabbled for the upper hand. Amid a barrage of metrics, benchmarks and press releases, I attended four such hearings in two days. Here is what I learned:

♦ Virtually no progress has been made to reconcile Sunnis and Shias; what military progress there has been in places like Anbar province will be difficult to sustain or transfer to other parts of the country.

♦ There is no reliable data to measure whether sectarian or overall violence is down.

♦ The provincial reconstruction teams designed to repair Iraq lack the capacity and continuity to make much of a difference.

♦ Iraq's military cannot operate independently and their national police should be disbanded.

On day one, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the General Accountability Office, took questions from the House Armed Services Committee about the GAO's assessment that the Iraqi security forces and parliament had only met three of the eighteen benchmarks for progress that were agreed upon by Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.

Republicans tried to turn Walker's testimony away from the the dysfunctional legislature and US-dependent military described in the report, to look at recent gains in Anbar province.

"The benchmarks have turned a blind eye to progress," said Representative Joe Sexton of New Jersey. "To be accurate the surge is working." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070924/blake

[PDJane]

1. Sigh..........

it's more than myopic, it's just plain stupid. There is no way to win an illegal occupation. Period. End point.

Sooner or later, the US should end up in a war crimes tribunal for the things they have done since WWII. It's an ongoing project of destruction, of which Iraq is only a small part.