WH releases Iraq Benchmark Assessment Report

[sabra]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070914.html

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Summary of Achievements and Shortfalls

This report provides, consistent with the Act, an assessment of how the Iraqi Government is performing on 18 specified benchmarks, rather than the effects being generated. Some of the benchmarks may be leading indicators, giving some sense of future trends; but many are more accurately characterized as lagging indicators, and will only be achieved after the strategy is fully underway and generates improved conditions on the ground. Still other benchmarks do not fully measure the political accommodations that actually affect violence in Iraq and the direction that country is headed. For example, local political accommodations have dramatically improved conditions in what had been some of Iraq’s most violent areas, and we are deploying our resources to help ensure that these trends continue and spread. It will take time, however, for improved conditions locally to translate into broader political accommodations at the national level; what is important is the overall trajectory, which, under our present strategy, has begun to stabilize and turn upward, compared to the deteriorating trajectory seen over the course of 2006. Thus, the assessments in this report should be viewed in a larger context: the discussion below provides a snapshot of achievements and shortfalls that can round out the picture given in the detailed assessment section of this report.

[Parkerlane]

1. TBS

TBS - Total Bush &*(%