"The report was submitted at a time when the Bush administration was trying to rebut building criticism of the war in Iraq by stressing the progress Mr. Bush said was being made. The approach culminated in his announcement in November 2005 of his "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."
"One serious problem the study described was the Bush administration's assumption that the reconstruction requirements would be minimal. There was also little
incentive to challenge that assumption."
They fired all of the people who could do a job and these people were thus unemployed, armed and angry at the US.
"The poor planning had "the inadvertent effort of strengthening the insurgency," as Iraqis experienced a lack of security and essential services and focused on
"negative effects of the U.S. security presence."
They were afraid of Rummy. That is so typical of a bureaucracy to blame the person who has been forced out as "The Army leaders who were involved did not want to take the chance of increasing the friction with Secretary Rumsfeld," said the official, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to alienate senior military officials.
The Army has asked that the entire RAND series be resubmitted and has said it will decide on its status thereafter."
They'll re-write it, and change the name to "Mission Accomplished"!
W's boys in blue are ecstatic about the events in Iraq. The article "Ending Impasse, Iraq Parliament Backs Measures" at click here states "Iraq's parliamentary leaders on Wednesday pushed through three far-reaching measures that had been delayed for weeks by bitter political maneuvering that became so acrimonious that some lawmakers threatened to try to dissolve the legislative body."
Doesn't seem like a functioning government to me. The way that the Iraq government is planning to hold elections will hurt the Awakening group as "One
example is growing concern over the commission that has been set up to organize provincial elections. There are allegations that the political parties have divided up the seats on the commission by party, but that not all parties ended up with a place at the table, raising questions about whether a vote will be viewed as fair or will merely deepen divisions.
And, still left out of the political bargain are the newly formed Awakening Councils, which are predominantly Sunni and in many cases represent powerful tribes. They have taken the lead in fighting extremist Sunni groups, and now their leaders are clamoring for a place at the table. They are outraged that the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is Sunni but has limited grass-roots support,
dominates the provincial council in Anbar Province.
"In Anbar Province we want the provincial council disbanded and another one formed, we want elections to be held in March or April and we want the Iraqi Islamic Party to leave the province in 30 days," said Sheik Ali Hatem, one of the leaders of the Anbar Awakening, who survived a suicide bomb attack this week."
The other parts of this legislation-- the 2008 budget and the amnesty law are in equal disrepair.
Do the non-fuzzy math. Only 2 of 18 benchmarks are met!
The article "Iraqis Pass 3 Key Bills, Pleasing All Parties" at click here Looks at the bottom line as "The measures need to be approved by the three-member presidential council, but are likely to be accepted. Approval of the law on provincial elections marked the passage of only the second of 18 legislative benchmarks that the Bush administration sees as vital to political reconciliation in Iraq."
In dealing with the most bottom of lines it states "The Kurds were pleased with the budget because it allocated 17 percent of the nation's revenue to their regional government. Sunni and Shiite lawmakers had sought to lower the Kurds' share to 14 percent, in their belief that Kurds make up as little as 13 percent of the country's population. But the Kurds reacted furiously to the proposal.
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