NYT editorial calls for "explicit benchmarks and timetables" backed by "veto-proof majority"

[ProSense]

Editorial

The Soft Bigotry of Iraq

Published: May 7, 2007

Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush’s veto of the Iraq spending bill. It is now essential that the revised version not back away from demanding that Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, finally deliver on the crucial national reconciliation measures he has spent the last year dodging. And it must make clear that American support for his failures — and Mr. Bush’s — is fast waning.

<...>

Consider the Baghdad security drive. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Maliki’s office had helped instigate the firing of senior Iraqi security officers who moved aggressively against a powerful Shiite militia. After betting so many American lives, the combat readiness of the United States Army and his own remaining credibility on this bloody push to secure the capital, it is a mystery why Mr. Bush would allow the Iraqi leader to undermine it.

Then there is the endless soap opera that is one day supposed to produce a fair share-out of Iraqi oil revenues. The Bush administration prematurely popped champagne corks in February when Mr. Maliki’s cabinet agreed on a preliminary draft. Now, in May, there is no share-out, no legislation and even the preliminary agreement is starting to unravel. The leading Sunni Arab party in Mr. Maliki’s cabinet is now threatening to withdraw its ministers, declaring that it has “lost hope” that the Iraqi leader will deal seriously with Sunni concerns.

Mr. Bush, by contrast, sees “signs of hope” in the Baghdad security situation, urges Americans to give his failed policies more time and seems offended that Congress wants to impose accountability on Baghdad and the White House.

The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won’t let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America’s withdrawal. If Mr. Maliki and Mr. Bush still don’t get it, Congress will have to enact new means of enforcement, and back that up with a veto-proof majority.

link

[annabanana]

1. I am glad to see the NYT finally calling

out the Repubs in Congress to do their duty.

[pinto]

2. Good to see. And...the LA Times had this:

EDITORIAL

Bring them home

Iraqis need political reconciliation, not occupation; and U.S. troops shouldn't referee a civil war.

May 6, 2007

WHATEVER THE future holds, the United States has not "lost" and cannot "lose" Iraq. It was never ours in the first place. And however history will judge the war, some key U.S. goals have been accomplished: Saddam Hussein has been ousted, tried and executed; Iraqis have held three elections, adopted a constitution and established a rudimentary democracy.

But what now? After four years of war, more than $350 billion spent and 3,363 U.S. soldiers killed and 24,310 wounded, it seems increasingly obvious that an Iraqi political settlement cannot be achieved in the shadow of an indefinite foreign occupation. The U.S. military presence — opposed by more than three-quarters of Iraqis — inflames terrorism and delays what should be the primary and most pressing goal: meaningful reconciliation among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

This newspaper reluctantly endorsed the U.S. troop surge as the last, best hope for stabilizing conditions so that the elected Iraqi government could assume full responsibility for its affairs. But we also warned that the troops should not be used to referee a civil war. That, regrettably, is what has happened.

The mire deepens against a backdrop of domestic U.S. politics in which support for the ill-defined mission wanes by the week. Better to begin planning a careful, strategic withdrawal from Iraq now, based on the strategies laid out by the Iraq Study Group, than allow for the 2008 campaign season to create a precipitous pullout.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-iraq6may06,0,3257310.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail

[dave_p]

3. To hell with benchmarks & timetables

Timetables means three US soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis dead per day. Benchmarks means more stalling by the WH over who's accomplished what. Stopping the war funding means an immediate end to a bloody aggression that's going nowhere.

[liberal N proud]

4. The republicon are not blindly backing bu$h out of loyalty

It is either sheer stupidity or they have been coerced into supporting without question what the regime is doing at the other end of the street.

There is no other reason they would commit political suicide.

[Dhalgren]

5. Watching the republicans in congress and watching their presidential

candidates gives me the unsettling feeling that they know something we don't. Why would they "commit political suicide"? They are not behaving as democratic politicians aught to behave. Why? What do they think will be the outcome of all this madness? Even the presidential candidates are acting like this is 2004 and not 2007 - what gives?